Shameless plug
Posted by Nick Johnson | Filed under travel, blogging
Just a quick reminder that I've started my tour of NZ, and I'll be blogging about it at http://laidbacktouring.blogspot.co.nz/ - so check it out and subscribe, if you're so inclined.
This is the last time I plug the blog here, I promise*.
* I reserve the right to renege on this promise. It _is_ my blog, after all.
Hiatus
Posted by Nick Johnson | Filed under travel, blogging, app-engine
I've been blogging regularly or semi-regularly about App Engine on this blog since mid 2008, and I've been on the App Engine team for even longer, and I've decided it's time for a well-earned break.
With that in mind, starting January 30th, I'm taking eight weeks' leave from my job at Google, during which I'll be cycling the length of New Zealand! Not just on a regular bike, either, but one one of these. With any luck, I'll come back from my break revitalised and ready to bring more new and interesting things to the App Engine community.
As a result, I won't be updating this blog during my vacation. Nor am I likely to answer (m)any questions on Stack Overflow or respond promptly to email directed my way. My most capable and excellent colleagues, Amy Unruh, Ikai Lan and Johan Euphrosine will continue to take good care of the community in my absence.
I'll be blogging and vlogging my experiences riding around New Zealand while I'm gone on my new blog, Laid Back Touring, so for anyone interested in following my exploits, that is the place to look ...
There's nothing quite like...
Posted by Nick Johnson | Filed under python, app-engine, theresnothingquitelike
Witness the product of an idle hour or two at work, and time spent pondering the meaninglessness of the cliche "There's nothing quite like...":
Powered by App Engine. Naturally.
Damn Cool Algorithms: Fountain Codes
Posted by Nick Johnson | Filed under bittorrent, lt-codes, damn-cool-algorithms, fountain-codes
That's right, it's time for another episode of the frustratingly infrequent Damn Cool Algorithms series! If you're not familiar with it, you might want to check out some of the previous posts.
Today's subject is Fountain Codes, otherwise known as "rateless codes". A fountain code is a way to take some data - a file, for example - and transform it into an effectively unlimited number of encoded chunks, such that you can reassemble the original file given any subset of those chunks, as long as you have a little more than the size of the original file. In other words, it lets you create a 'fountain' of encoded data; a receiver can reassemble the file by catching enough 'droplets', regardless of which ones they get and which ones they miss.
What makes this so remarkable is that it allows you to send a file over a lossy connection - such as, say, the internet - in a way that doesn't rely on you knowing the rate of packet loss, and doesn't require the receivers to communicate anything back to you about which packets they missed. You can see how this would be useful in a number of ...