clock … watching time, the only true currency

And a half-step back OK, it’s not that bad, but just spent five hours at work, fixing some known issues, and uncovered two big problems, one of which should never have happened and the other never should have passed through even the limited testing we did (and I am part of that we). Too late [...]

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Another step forward First redesign of News.com since January 2001. Bigger project than intended, although less included in this initial release than expected/hoped for. Always the same story, probably. Anyway, big step. And now I can come home at normal hours again!

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Pie rats, indeed Like Scott Rosenberg, my son is a big fan of Richard Scarry and his pie rats. I’m sure my daughter will be, too.

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Conference will be a break from a busy day Normally, speaking on a panel would be the highlight of the work day. It probably will be, but it’s been a busy, busy, busy week… so today I’m just looking forward to learning from the discussion and taking a short break from this work project. Helps [...]

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Seybold On Thursday, I’m part of a panel discussing “The Effects of Blogs on Publishing“. I’m looking forward to joining Scott Rosenberg of Salon and Matt May, of the W3C, among other things. My bio mentions this blog… which is probably not why Lauren Wood (an actual nuclear physicist at one point, though clearly not [...]

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Mental transaction costs Shirky extends his argument against micropayments with “Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content“. A quote: This strategy doesn’t work, because the act of buying anything, even if the price is very small, creates what Nick Szabo calls mental transaction costs, the energy required to decide whether something is worth buying or [...]

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Slugfest Jennifer Capriati and Justine Henin-Hardenne just played a dynamite match, wth every point of their US Open semifinal a battle. Henin-Hardenne wins, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-4). Wow.

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BOOK: The Far Side of the World Patrick O’Brian’s The Far Side of the World enjoys a great title. The author knows it, and various characters use the phrase several times. Where is the ‘far side of the world’ — it’s the South Pacific, off the coast of Chile, where Surprise, Aubrey’s ship, is sent [...]

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BOOK: Treason’s Harbour I’m glad to see that W.W. Norton did not Americanize the spelling of Treason’s Harbour, the ninth in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. Stuck ashore in Malta during a ship refit, Aubrey awkwardly makes a pass at a fellow officer’s wife (and fails), but accidentally befriends her massive dog, which leads [...]

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BOOK: Salt: A World History I started Salt: A World History a while ago, even before I started and finished a few of the other books this summer. I finally finished this non-fiction scan of the centuries through a prism of salt while flying to New York a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fun [...]

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