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User: MarkWatson

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Comments · 498

  1. Re:No LaTeX, R, etc. on Tom's Hardware On the Current Stable of Office Apps For Linux · · Score: 1

    I do a lot of writing. When I use LateX instead of OO.org or Pages, I save a lot of time and effort. Lots of time and effort, actually. There is a learning curve for LateX but IMO it is well worth it.

  2. Re:Public vs private on Google Buzz — First Reactions · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have to disagree with you:

    Google performs statistical NLP on your data, and automatically finds good ads, etc.

    As per Google turning over your data to the government: we are probably close to total government access to everything we do, so I would chill out about stuff that we are helpless to do anything about (unless you are going to stop using the Internet).

  3. I have introduced a lot of people to OO.org on OpenOffice Tops 21% Market Share In Germany · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have used OO.org to write several books, and it is what I recommend to people.

    That said, I prefer Latex :-)

  4. Good article, and IMHO good predictions on Asus Says Netbook Is Dead, Hello Wearable Computers · · Score: 1

    I think that the prediction that there needs to be more content before mass market success of tablets is right on.

    At breakfast this morning, one of my non-tech friends was talking about the TED talk on wearable computers where spacial glasses would create virtual keyboards and displays on walls, tables, etc. That is what I would to see available soon :-)

    For now, the Android platform is looking good: easy to develop apps for, mobile devices support voice commands, etc.

  5. I am a happy customer on Amazon EC2 May Be Experiencing Growing Pains · · Score: 1

    I keep a small reserve instance running 24x7 and the cost is very low. I also have a EBS bootable large instance that I run for a few hours at a time as needed. It has been a while since I used it, but Elastic MapReduce also works well and is fairly inexpensive for what you get.

    About half of my customers also use EC2s.

    (Note: Amazon gave me a large grant to use EC2 for free for work on my last book, but my comments are my honest opinions.)

  6. Re:Missed Opportunity on Amazon EC2 May Be Experiencing Growing Pains · · Score: 1

    I think that what you are seeing with AppEngine (and same effect with Heroku, which is EC2 based) is this: if your web application has not processed any requests for several seconds (or longer?), then it needs to be rolled back online.

    Try an experiment: assuming that you have a private (non-advertised) AppEngine app, time the first request with ab (Apache benchmark tool). Then time requests that are sent every second. I bet that you see the 20 second page load time vanish if you are making frequent requests.

  7. I'm mostly using it to learn from on Google Open Sources Etherpad, Piratepad Launches · · Score: 1

    After building and running it locally yesterday morning, I started studying the code. I am not to interested in deploying it right now, but I might set it up in the future for use by family, friends, and customers.

    I've had a Wave account for about 6 months (sandbox and beta) and I am more interested in building applications on top of Wave rather than hacking on the EtherPad code base. I am interested in learnng from the codebase however :-)

  8. Re:Not for me on Is Console Gaming Dying? · · Score: 1

    I was just saying that I enjoy target shooting, but not hunting.

  9. Re:Not being snarky, genuinely curious on Is Console Gaming Dying? · · Score: 1

    I thought the same thing. Nintendo products have long lasting value.

    I still on occasion use my U64 and I bet I am still playing at least a few Wii games 5 or 10 years from now. The US market is saturated with Wii consoles but I expect Nintendo still gets fairly good revenue from new game sales.

    Gaming is about having *fun*, not technology. Nintendo's chief game designer came to Angel Studios (where I worked) and I think that I can paraphrase his philosophy as fun first, technology second.

  10. Re:Not for me on Is Console Gaming Dying? · · Score: 1, Funny

    I used to be a Nintendo U64 developer (mostly game AI, a bit of graphics). The U64 was a good platform, but I stand by my statement: the Wii is awesome because the games are *fun*.

    BTW, even the Wii Fit "games" are cool: Yoga, balance exercises, etc. Lots of fun, and it is a good break during the day (I work at home as a software developer and author). I live 150 feet from a National Park trail head, but going on a hike takes hours, and the Wii games provide some fun and gets me away from my laptop - good for 10 minute breaks.

    On the other hand, some of the games I have seen on (for example) the XBox are fairly much psychotic. What kind of people like to play games here they shoot people. If I want to shoot a gun I go my local the shooting range (I only shoot aluminum cans that don't have mothers :-)

    Seriously, I don't intend to insult anyone, but I look at some of the violent video games and it makes me think of the fall of western civilization.

  11. Not for me on Is Console Gaming Dying? · · Score: 1

    After playing video games on my grandson's XBox 360 over Thanksgiving, I signed up with GameFly so I can try a lot of Wii games at home. It is so much better playing video games standing up :-)

  12. Re:Use multiple browsers on How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google? · · Score: 1

    BTW, the "if you do nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" argument is very bogus:

    Personal information is valuable!

    My wife and I use supermarket discount cards, allowing our supermarket chain to sell information. In return, we save quite a bit of money.

    If Google and other web tracking companies offered a little "cash back" on using my private information, then I would be more agreeable with making it easy for them to collect data on me.

  13. Use multiple browsers on How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For years, I have used one browser (Safari) for nothing but online banking. I now use Chrome for all google related browsing (GMail+Google Apps, Blogger, Reader).

    I do all other browsing on Firefox, blocking Google and most other cookies.

    This is slightly inconvenient because if someone emails me a link, I need to copy and paste it into Firefox - probably copy/paste links between Chrome and Firefox about 5 to 10 times a day so this is a small overhead.

    I usually use Google Search (on Firefox), but I also use Clusty and Bing.

  14. Privacy and Security in the Internet Age on Personalized Search From Google Now Opt-Out · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just some advice that I give friends and family:

            * Delete all cookies in your browser every week - it is easy enough to sign in again to web sites that require authentication. People who do not delete their cookies never see what sites are tracking them. It is easiest to do a 'delete all cookies' operation and not to try to save the 5 or 10 cookies out of thousands that are stored in your local browser data.
            * Keep a text file with all passwords in encrypted form - and, do not use the same password for different purposes.
            * Every time you use your super market's discount card (or possibly pay with a credit card), your purchases are permanently associated with you - do you care? maybe or maybe not.

    I do use a lot of web services that track what I do (GMail, for example) but I make the decision to give up privacy vs. benefits on a service by service basis.

  15. Re:So far, I like it on Chrome OS, Present and Future · · Score: 1

    AnyTerm looks like a solution, but I would rather just have a term app included in Chrome OS. Thanks for the link.

  16. So far, I like it on Chrome OS, Present and Future · · Score: 1

    I have Chrome OS running on VirtualBox - works as advertised, and when it is solid I'll probably buy a low cost device running it for travel, web browsing around the house and yard, etc.

    I am hoping that it will eventually include a *great* xterm app with SSH support so it can also be used to monitor servers, and light weight admin work.

  17. I enjoyed the screen shots on GNOME 3 Delayed Until September 2010 · · Score: 1

    I dual boot my MacBook between Ubuntu and OS X, so the screen shots were interesting to me. I liked the multi-desktop preview with window drag and drop but OS X already has that - very convenient when arranging work flows. I thought that the central date display with drop down calendar was good also.

    OTR: love to see innovation: I think that software engineering and computer science are the premier creative avocations because what we do is both 'self interesting' and enables most other fields.

  18. Slashdot needs a voting mecahnism for this on Google Under Fire For Calling Their Language "Go" · · Score: 1

    A poll would be interesting.

    Personally, I think that "Go and "Go! are two different names, so there is no problem.

  19. Re:Build-in function library on Go, Google's New Open Source Programming Language · · Score: 1

    Actually, generational (or ephemeral) garbage collectors can often perform better at runtime than coding it yourself. I think this is because larger blocks of storage can be freed at one time for very short-lived objects.

  20. Re:Let's keep score and try to assign a letter gra on Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil · · Score: 1

    Yikes! I forgot to add:

    * Transparency on the amount of oil that it is economically feasible to produce

  21. Let's keep score and try to assign a letter grade on Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil · · Score: 1

    Let's grade our (USA) government on:

    * Transparency on real unemployment rates
    * Transparency on getting into the Iraq war
    * Transparency on getting into the Vietnam war
    * Transparency on (not) publishing the M3 figures

    I could go on, but I'll subjectively assign a grade of "D-"

    It may be a cliche, but people are good and governments are usually mediocre at best.

  22. Re:bad design on The NoSQL Ecosystem · · Score: 1

    I would mod you up as "mucho interesting" if I had the points...

    I also appreciate how open Facebook is on their techniques to solve problems, open sourcing things like Cassandra, etc.

  23. I keep MongoDB, Sesame, and CouchDB always running on The NoSQL Ecosystem · · Score: 1

    MongoDB starts as a service on my MacBook and on my local network I always keep services for Sesame (RDF data store, SPARQL endpoint), MongoDB, and CouchDB running.

    It is easier to use NoSQL datastores (when they are appropriate) if you always have them running, have client libraries in place, etc.

    If you want to use a relational database, you don't have to stop to install it, get client libraires, etc. I think the same 'ready at hand-ness' shoud apply to whatever NoSQL datastores that meet your needs.

  24. Re:Strikers Vow on Landmark Health Insurance Bill Passes House · · Score: 1

    Great point! I would mod you up if I had any points.

  25. Re:Strikers Vow on Landmark Health Insurance Bill Passes House · · Score: 0, Troll

    "Look up how much campaign money they gave to Hillary and Obama."

    Wow, are you a shill, or what.

    How about the truth? Try it sometime.

    The truth is: both the democrats and republicans take obscene amounts of money from the health industry.