• Another "Cloud" Service from Amazon: SimpleDB

    Here’s another simple, still very interesting, service from Amazon, with an interesting payment model. It’s called SimpleDB and it allows queries over structured data. It’s great to see Amazon delivering such services. I do hope that others, including my company, will follow. “Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in…

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  • Job opportunity in my team

    Are you excited about scholarly communications, libraries, open access, repositories for research output, semantics, ontologies, academic tools for research? Do you want to interact with clever people around the world and inside Microsoft? Would you like to work with Lee Dirks*? Do you want to be part of Tony Hey‘s vision for research? (Job description)…

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  • I love trains

    Trains are my preferred way of traveling, while buses are my worst because I get motion sickness when I try to read. I am on a National Express (ex-GNER… I didn’t know about this) train from London to Newcastle. I knew that these trains offered WiFi access but just realized that it’s now free! This…

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  • In Qatar

    I am in Qatar for work-related meetings. This is my second day and still no luggage. I had to go cloth shopping. Traveled half way around the world to go to a mall 🙁 Tony Hey and I went swimming to the sea today, just outside the Sheraton Doha hotel. It was fantastic. Swimming in…

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  • Woo hoo… the ski season is here!

    I heard on the radio that the local ski resorts were going to be open from today. Unfortunately, I can’t go this weekend. If I am not in Qatar next weekend for a work-related meeting, I am definitely going. Today, it started snowing in Seattle! I am at cafe Fiore at the top of the…

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  • Seattle Half-Marathon 🙁

    I didn’t do the same mistakes as the last Seattle Half-Marathon but I did do the same as the Vanvouver one. I was prepared for the cold, proper runner’s t-shirt and long-sleeved top, gloves, hat, etc. The weather turned out to be beautiful, blue sky. Still, I did worse than those last two half-marathons 🙁…

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  • /. and misreporting

    We all know and love Slashdot for its anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux commentary. I follow it almost every day and I always smile with the Microsoft-related posts. It’s ok, it’s fun. I still haven’t digested the blue pill I was given when I joined the Borg collective, so I can still appreciate the justified critique against my…

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  • New toy

    Just bought the new 8GB Zune (the black one). I’ve finally moved away from the iPod (not that I don’t like them… it’s just that my old 60GB iPod was failing on me). Can’t wait to get the 80GB Zune one as well, when it becomes available at the Microsoft company store (mid-Dec). The new…

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  • "The Web as the Platform for Research"

    I am at SuperComputing 07 and just gave an invited talk on “The Web as the Platform for Research” at the Grid Computing Environments (GCE) workshop. I don’t think I did the best job possible at the presentation but I am in the process of evolving the ideas and how they get glued together. As…

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  • Students and learning

    Great video of how students see education today. Krishna Madhavan showed this as part of a presentation at the Grid Computing Environments (GCE) workshop, part of SuperComputing07. Krishna‘s talk was great and his blog seems very interesting. Subscribed.(Update: trying to subscribe since Internet Explorer and Outlook don’t like the feed 🙁

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