December 23rd, 2007
Wow.
If you’ve ever lived in Manhattan, if you’ve ever visited Manhattan, if you’ve ever seen pictures of Manhattan, or even if you’ve only heard of Manhattan, you’ve got to see this movie. Whether or not you’re a Will Smith fan, whether or not you like science fiction movies, whether or not you read the 1954 […]
December 22nd, 2007
… next thing I remember, I am walkin’ down the street
I’m feeling all right, I’m with my boys, I’m with my troops, yeah …
Paul Simon, “Late in the Evening“
Every time I think of my Twitter network, I can’t help recalling the phrase “with my troops, yeah” from the Paul Simon song, Late in the Evening […]
December 21st, 2007
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about an initiative that I was just beginning to carry out: uploading and archiving my collection of photographs onto Flickr. I’ve now finished the first “pass” of that project: roughly 13,277 photos are now online, organized into roughly 425 albums that record the activities of five generations of my […]
December 16th, 2007
Bottom line: the XO machine built by the OLPC organization is miniscule; it’s slow; its keyboard is built for tiny hands; the trackpad sucks; and its user interface did not seem quite as intuitive as I had expected. But it’s rugged, it’s got some wonderful UI innovations, and you can’t help but feel like you’re […]
December 14th, 2007
Bottom line: Google is going to begin hosting a hosting a collection of author-expert postings on various topics, in the hopes that it will represent an alternative to the collection of 2+ million anonymous community-homogenized articles on Wikipedia. My prediction: yes, it will probably succeed (regardless of whether it’s a good thing or a bad […]
December 11th, 2007
From time to time, we hear brief, frustrated comments from politicians, pundits, and ordinary citizens along the lines of, “If we had a draft in this country, you can bet the Iraq War would be over in 30 days.” But the comments are always made in a resigned, despairing tone of voice — much like […]
December 5th, 2007
Fair warning: if you’re thoroughly uninterested in photographs, or archiving large collections of photographs of your family life, do yourself a favor and skip this blog posting.
Have you noticed that when victims of floods, fires, hurricanes and other disasters are interviewed about what they managed to take with them when they fled from their houses, […]
December 4th, 2007
It didn’t really come as a surprise when I saw the story that ATT had announced it would withdraw from the pay-phone marketplace within the next year; if anything, it’s a surprise that there are any pay phones any more, at least in urban centers around the world. But the Wikipedia article on pay phones […]
December 3rd, 2007
A couple days ago, I wrote about implementing some techniques for reducing e-mail distractions and interruptions, based on suggestions that I had found in Tim Ferriss‘ book, The 4-hour Workweek. I’m pleased to report that — at least so far — the techniques work. Significantly, none of the people who interact with me by email […]
December 2nd, 2007
There are times when I think the best thing we could do is return all the land to the Native Americans, assemble en masse at Plymouth Rock, and paddle back across the pond to England. Maybe they would take us back, especially if we promised to keep our mouths shut.
And especially if this young woman […]
