Mike Loukides

We've all heard it: according to Hal Varian, statistics is the next sexy job. Five years ago, in What is Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly said that "data is the next Intel Inside." But what does that statement mean? Why do we suddenly care about statistics and about data? This report examines the many sides of data science -- the technologies, the companies and the unique skill sets.The web is full of "data-driven apps." Almost any e-commerce application is a data-driven application. There's a database behind a web front end, and middleware that talks to a number of other databases and data services (credit card processing companies, banks, and so on). But merely using data isn't really what we mean by "data science." A data application acquires its value from the data itself, and creates more data as a result. It's not just an application with data; it's a data product. Data science enables the creation of data products.

What Is Data Science?

Tim O'Reilly

Jerry Peek

UNIX Power Tools

Julie Steele

Colin Hill

In the early days of the 20th century, department store magnate JohnWanamaker famously said, "I know that half of my advertising doesn'twork. The problem is that I don't know which half." That remainedbasically true until Google transformed advertising with AdSense basedon new uses of data and analysis. The same might be said about healthcare and it's poised to go through a similar transformation as newtools, techniques, and data sources come on line. Soon we'll makepolicy and resource decisions based on much better understanding ofwhat leads to the best outcomes, and we'll make medical decisionsbased on a patient's specific biology. The result will be betterhealth at less cost. This paper explores how data analysis will help us structure thebusiness of health care more effectively around outcomes, and how itwill transform the practice of medicine by personalizing for eachspecific patient.

How Data Science Is Transforming Health Care

Have we entered the age of NoOps infrastructures? Hardly. Old-style system administrators may be disappearing in the face of automation and cloud computing, but operations have become more significant than ever. As this O’Reilly Radar Report explains, we’re moving into a more complex arrangement known as "DevOps." Mike Loukides, O’Reilly’s VP of Content Strategy, provides an incisive look into this new world of operations, where IT specialists are becoming part of the development team. In an environment with thousands of servers, these specialists now write the code that maintains the infrastructure. Even applications that run in the cloud have to be resilient and fault tolerant, need to be monitored, and must adjust to huge swings in load. That was underscored by Amazon’s EBS outage last year. From the discussions at O’Reilly’s Velocity Conference, it’s evident that many operations specialists are quickly adapting to the DevOps reality. But as a whole, the industry has just scratched the surface. This report tells you why.

What is DevOps?

Dj Patil

Hilary Mason

As the impact of data science continues to grow on society there is an increased need to discuss how data is appropriately used and how to address misuse. Yet, ethical principles for working with data have been available for decades. The real issue today is how to put those principles into action. With this report, authors Mike Loukides, Hilary Mason, and DJ Patil examine practical ways for making ethical data standards part of your work every day. To help you consider all of possible ramifications of your work on data projects, this report includes: A sample checklist that you can adapt for your own procedures Five framing guidelines (the Five C's) for building data products: consent, clarity, consistency, control, and consequences Suggestions for building ethics into your data-driven culture Now is the time to invest in a deliberate practice of data ethics, for better products, better teams, and better outcomes. Get a copy of this report and learn what it takes to do good data science today.

Ethics and Data Science

Andy Oram

Programming With GNU Software

Michael Kosta Loukides

Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci

"System Performance Tuning" covers two distinct areas: performance tuning, or the art of increasing performance for a specific application, and capacity planning, or deciding what hardware best fulfills a given role. This book focuses on the operating system, the underlying hardware, and their interactions.

System Performance Tuning

Introduction to system performance; Monitoring system activity; Managing the workload; Memory performance; Disk performance issues; Network performance; Terminal performance; Kernel configuration.

System Performance Tuning answers one of the most fundamental questions you can ask about your computer: How can I get it to do more work without buying more hardware? In the current economic downturn, performance tuning takes on a new importance. It allows system administrators to make the best use of existing systems and minimize the purchase of new equipment. Well-tuned systems save money and time that would otherwise be wasted dealing with slowdowns and errors. Performance tuning always involves compromises; unless system administrators know what the compromises are, they can't make intelligent decisions.Tuning is an essential skill for system administrators who face the problem of adapting the speed of a computer system to the speed requirements imposed by the real world. It requires a detailed understanding of the inner workings of the computer and its architecture. System Performance Tuning covers two distinct areas: performance tuning, or the art of increasing performance for a specific application, and capacity planning, or deciding what hardware best fulfills a given role. Underpinning both subjects is the science of computer architecture. This book focuses on the operating system, the underlying hardware, and their interactions. Topics covered include: Real and perceived performance problems, introducing capacity planning and performance monitoring (highlighting their strengths and weaknesses). An integrated description of all the major tools at a system administrator's disposal for tracking down system performance problems. Background on modern memory handling techniques, including the memory-caching filesystem implementations in Solaris and AIX. Updated sections on memory conservation and computing memory requirements. In depth discussion of disk interfaces, bandwidth capacity considerations, and RAID systems. Comprehensive discussion of NFS and greatly expanded discussion of networking. Workload management and code tuning. Special topics such as tuning Web servers for various types of content delivery and developments in cross-machine parallel computing For system administrators who want a hands-on introduction to system performance, this is the book to recommend.

Help for Unix Administrators

Shelley Powers

By its very nature, Unix is a " power tools " environment. Even beginning Unix users quickly grasp that immense power exists in shell programming, aliases and history mechanisms, and various editing tools. Nonetheless, few users ever really master the power available to them with Unix. There is just too much to learn! Unix Power Tools, Third Edition, literally contains thousands of tips, scripts, and techniques that make using Unix easier, more effective, and even more fun. This book is organized into hundreds of short articles with plenty of references to other sections that keep you flipping from new article to new article. You'll find the book hard to put down as you uncover one interesting tip after another. With the growing popularity of Linux and the advent of Mac OS X, Unix has metamorphosed into something new and exciting. With Unix no longer perceived as a difficult operating system, more and more users are discovering its advantages for the first time. The latest edition of this best-selling favorite is loaded with advice about almost every aspect of Unix, covering all the new technologies that users need to know. In addition to vital information on Linux, Mac OS X, and BSD, Unix Power Tools, Third Edition, now offers more coverage of bcash, zsh, and new shells, along with discussions about modern utilities and applications. Several sections focus on security and Internet access, and there is a new chapter on access to Unix from Windows, addressing the heterogeneous nature of systems today. You'll also find expanded coverage of software installation and packaging, as well as basic information on Perl and Python. The book's accompanying web site provides some of the best software available to Unix users, which you can download and add to your own set of power tools. Whether you are a newcomer or a Unix power user, you'll find yourself thumbing through the gold mine of information in this new edition of Unix Power Tools to add to your store of knowledge. Want to try something new? Check this book first, and you're sure to find a tip or trick that will prevent you from learning things the hard way.

Unix Power Tools

Jerry D. Peek

Linda Mui

Loaded with even more practical advice about almost every aspect of UNIX, an updated best-seller addresses POSIX utilities, bash and tcsh shells, Perl, and much more. Original. (Advanced).

With the growing popularity of Linux and the advent of Darwin, Unix has metamorphosed into something new and exciting. No longer perceived as a difficult operating system, more and more users are discovering the advantages of Unix for the first time. But whether you are a newcomer or a Unix power user, you'll find yourself thumbing through the goldmine of information in the new edition of Unix Power Tools to add to your store of knowledge. Want to try something new? Check this book first, and you're sure to find a tip or trick that will prevent you from learning things the hard way.The latest edition of this best-selling favorite is loaded with advice about almost every aspect of Unix, covering all the new technologies that users need to know. In addition to vital information on Linux, Darwin, and BSD, Unix Power Tools 3rd Edition now offers more coverage of bash, zsh, and other new shells, along with discussions about modern utilities and applications. Several sections focus on security and Internet access. And there is a new chapter on access to Unix from Windows, addressing the heterogeneous nature of systems today. You'll also find expanded coverage of software installation and packaging, as well as basic information on Perl and Python.Unix Power Tools 3rd Edition is a browser's book...like a magazine that you don't read from start to finish, but leaf through repeatedly until you realize that you've read it all. Bursting with cross-references, interesting sidebars explore syntax or point out other directions for exploration, including relevant technical details that might not be immediately apparent. The book includes articles abstracted from other O'Reilly books, new information that highlights program tricks and gotchas, tips posted to the Net over the years, and other accumulated wisdom.Affectionately referred to by readers as "the" Unix book, UNIX Power Tools provides access to information every Unix user is going to need to know. It will help you think creatively about UNIX, and will help you get to the point where you can analyze your own problems. Your own solutions won't be far behind.

Jeremy Howard

Margit Zwemer

In the past few years, we’ve seen many data products based on predictive modeling. These products range from weather forecasting to recommendation engines like Amazon's. Prediction technology can be interesting and mathematically elegant, but we need to take the next step: going from recommendations to products that can produce optimal strategies for meeting concrete business objectives. We already know how to build these products: they've been in use for the past decade or so, but they're not as common as they should be. This report shows how to take the next step: to go from simple predictions and recommendations to a new generation of data products with the potential to revolutionize entire industries.

Mike Loukides

Books

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