The next episode in my “Erlang in Practice” series was published this afternoon. The episode covers OTP’s supervisors and application modules and finishes off with a brief review of the entire series.

This final episode marks the end of the “Erlang In Practice” series. I’ll absolutely continue to support the screencasts and answer viewer questions whenever I can.

I’ve found screencasting to be immensely satisfying. Sharing knowledge with others and helping fellow developers acquire a new language has been a real thrill. (Hmm. Maybe I should’ve been a trainer…) Working with the PragProg guys, especially Mike Clark, has been a real treat. I’m definitely looking forward to producing more screencasts with Mike in the future — just after I’ve had a chance to recover
The final version of the code developed over the course of the series will be checked into my personal GitHub repo later this weekend so it’s not lost to the sands of time or the vagaries of bit rot on my laptop.

What’s next? I’ve got several projects brewing in addition to my day job:

• An Erlang port of merb and haml
• Porting my blog to Erlang
• Spending much, much, much more time on my book project
• Speaking more (hopefully) about Erlang and its benefits in 2009

In an effort to outdo other software developers in nerdiness, I read a blog called Accrued Interest, subtitle "Come for the analysis and research on the U.S. Bond market. Stay for the geeky Star Wars references."

Accrued Interest has a nice explanation of how the credit crisis affects everyone.

Here's another good one from the New York Times.

I've been wondering for a while why nobody contrasts Obama's health care proposal with some of the past Democratic proposals. It's a market-based, incremental proposal, that makes use of existing programs and existing insurance companies.

Today Obama's campaign has a new ad making this point, so I guess I'm on their wavelength. After my What happened to John McCain? post, the next day Obama ripped that off, too, for a negative ad.

Finally fixing health care would make a huge difference for quite a few people I know. It may be the single most consequential thing the government could do.

If you watched the debates, see factcheck.org's coverage. They ding both candidates on multiple claims.

Worst stock plunge in 20 years.

Here's a relevant post from last year, when the stock plunge was much less dramatic.

Lessons for the next bull market (yes there will be one eventually):

• Low interest rates and high liquidity do not mean stock prices will stay up. Those things are indicators of insufficient risk premiums, not indicators of permanent demand for assets.
• If companies have 2x their long-run average profit margins, something unsustainable is going on. Abnormal profits don't last forever in (more or less) free market systems, due to competition and the business cycle. Anytime you read an article that mentions a P/E ratio, without discussing normalized margins, run away in fear. (The inverse goes as we most likely head into recession. P/E ratios will become misleadingly high, while in the bull market they were misleadingly low.)