Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

At this point, there is no question in my mind that we’ve entered into a global financial crisis of epic proportions such that you will (hopefully) tell your grandchildren about the “Global Meltdown of 2008”. I kid you not . Although over the years I have been a very diligent student of economic cycles and trends, I do not purport to hold some sort of “crystal ball” that makes me the Edward Cayce of global economic trends. But one thing is sure: long term economic cycles of boom-and-bust have turned decidedly negative, and this has broad, long-term implications for you and me as software developers. This is not a “US phenomenon” – this is truly global and touches every economy on the face of the earth. WHAT IS HAPPENING IN 2008 WILL REWRITE HISTORY . I’m not going to bore you with economic theories and say who is to blame or claim to have a solution to the problems that face us. Rather, I want to take a few paragraphs to give my read on what is happening and how you can protect yo...

"Oops! Wrong hat..." -- Bullwinkle It's interesting to observe the global warming debate and how easy it seems to be for various proponents on one side or the other to replace science with emotion - to the point of virtual hysteria in some cases (see my post on Al Gore ). I remember when I was doing research for my Ph.D. thesis, my faculty mentor and professor, Dr. James Gould, would exhort me "not to give up, finish the job" -- mostly because the data collection process was so time consuming and lengthy, and consequently I would occasionally get discouraged at how much work it can be to put together a first rate dissertation. I was collecting daily solar radio output data from NOAA, and developing programs to do all kinds of mathematical calculations on same (FFT, autocorrelation, various filters such as stochastic and Kalman, etc.). In this collection and research process I became acutely aware of the effect of the Sun on earth's climate, weather, and eve...