IntenseDebate - Micah Elliott

14 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Customizing the GNOME ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks for mentioning htop, Jeff! I wasn't familiar with it but love colorful consoles. Will definitely start using getting to know it. The commands look a little different from top. At one point I had my top nicely colored and customized but I seem to have lost that config (actually forgot about it). BTW, since writing this I've gotten rid of the Swap window (never lit up) and added Harddisk with yellow for reads and red for writes. So almost identical to Network coloring. It turns out to be slightly different from IOWait on Processor view.

I agree that System Monitor is a bit of a hog in full mode. Often nice to quickly pull up though and sort everything with one click by %CPU or Memory to see who's the culprit. Sometimes it takes me a sec with top to remember "O-n-<enter>-<space>-<space>-<space>".

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - The Web Startup Surgeons · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks Darius. Nice to hear from you! I agree about both Sales and Mathematician. I've definitely been realizing those needs just recently.

I might even specialize that geek to be a Statistician. I've got the math background, but wish I had done more with stats, and now that's where I spend a lot of my time. We've even gone to the local university to recruit a stat grad student for some of our recent work. I was thinking that was a need pretty specific to my epidemiological project, but I can see how many others might need similar skills. Sounds like your geek would be a big part of the business planning too. Good thoughts.

And adding someone that can do sales is critical. Not sure I've met a hacker who fits that personality type. Probably a big part of the reason you have so many startup failures -- hackers who don't sell. Yes, this is probably one of the most important hats.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Make a PC Keyboard UNI... · 0 replies · +1 points

Oh, I see. Your palm?! Cool idea. Makes sense. I use Ctrl-[everything] in terminals. I don't see many other people doing it though, and I'm not sure why. Enter is just way too far away. Adopted those many years ago. I actually use vi-mode in bash/zsh/ipython/whatever, wherever readline goes I'm happy. I find myself hitting Ctrl-J in Firefox all the time and really messing up my flow.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Make a PC Keyboard UNI... · 2 replies · +1 points

That's really impressive! I suppose quite a few people must be able to use Ctrl in that crazy spot. I actually get a little wrist-sore during a heavy vim hacking session even with Ctrl right next to 'a' (the most convenient spot I can imagine). So maybe I'm a bit sensitive. I've even considered getting one of those assignable foot pedals and using it for Ctrl (not sure what the other pedal would work best for). But who actually keeps their feet in a consistent enough spot for a foot pedal?! And yes, CAPS LOCK IS A HUGE WART AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT EXISTS. That's what what '[Esc]gU[movement]' is for, right?

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Make a PC Keyboard UNI... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi Alan -- I just ordered a PS/2-to-USB converter in hopes of bringing my ancient OmniKey back to life. Thanks for the suggestion. I already have the AT-to-PS/2 converter (they just seem to be wire-crossers). Anxious to see if the double conversion will work. If not, I've got a PS/2 HHK lying around that I'll put back to work. Your ergo looks pretty nice. I haven't spent enough time with one to decide if I like the feel or not. Sure glad to see some hardware of antiquity sticking with us.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - How to Choose and Lear... · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks for noting that. How to choose is somewhat implicit in the article. As you run down the list of "actually learning" you'll find that a good number of languages get bumped off. Expanding on how to choose could be a long (and controversial) article on its own. One could start with a language from The Golden Age; whichever your age turns out to be. In short, pick a language that works for the learning list, but most importantly make sure it's the right tool for the job, or at least versatile enough to do the job well.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - How to Choose and Lear... · 0 replies · +1 points

There's a thread over at Hacker News discussing this post. Thanks to an anonymous submitter for bringing it up there. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=538157 Comments welcome here, but HN is also a welcome place to continue any discussion, and I'll be listening there.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Python Web Development... · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks for the tutorial link, Bernhard. That's a pretty short tut, but it makes me wonder how many people are trying to use web frameworks without first knowing the language. Seems backwards to me, but maybe lots of folks are trying that. Surely RoR (and its hype) have had many Ruby newbies messing around before really know what's going on. Maybe the same is true in Django. I guess you could get a ways on a small project without necessarily being very proficient in the underlying language.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Considering R as a Pyt... · 0 replies · +1 points

@Michael: Thanks for sharing those insights. Yes, I'm finding the "after" features to be really impressive. And having a lot of fun with some of the free literature and tutorials now. I'm looking forward to more of your illuminating posts (on your blog). I'd be really interested in making it to one of your Bay Area R group meetings if I can time a trip right. We were getting our own R study group into the works here in PDX, but recently switched it to the more general PDX-data-viz. We'll be covering R quite a bit there, first meeting Monday.

15 years ago @ Micah Elliott - Considering R as a Pyt... · 0 replies · +1 points

@Parand: Wonder how many of us are in that boat. I still think it will be worth broadening the horizon to see what's out there. I don't expect to hear from a lot of people who have done both. I'll plan to report on how compelling it turns out to be over the various Python facilities (which are obviously many).

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