clock … watching time, the only true currency

A journal from John B. Roberts

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Entries from March 2005

“One possible blueprint”

March 13th, 2005 · Comments Off

Susan Mernit interviewed me back in early February about RSS, for an article published in the Digital Edge. A publication of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), The Digital Edge is for the New Media Federation, a group of folks from the newspaper biz focused on their digital businesses. (Sidenote: how much longer will we [...]

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Tags: Newsburst · Tech

You need walls to build a tower

March 13th, 2005 · Comments Off

Reading Anil Dash’s post on Rules to the Game brought back similar conversations with coworkers. If you don’t have constraints, you’re just messing around. So it’s useful to know what the boundaries are, even if they are self-imposed? Is the limit time? Is the limit money? Is the limit the competition? Is the limit the [...]

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Tags: Everything

My parents never smiled because I had brain damage

March 12th, 2005 · Comments Off

You can’t write down every funny line in Bill Cosby: Himself. And, out of context, I don’t know if the title of this post stands out as the funniest line of the show. But it stuck for me. The entire show is familiar, in a comfortable, old slipper kind of way. I’ve seen the show [...]

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Tags: Movies

Movie: A.I. Artificial Intelligence

March 11th, 2005 · Comments Off

After girding ourselves, we put in A.I. Artificial Intelligence this evening. I wanted to see it, but it’s always hard to start a movie that’s nearly two and a half hours long, especially when it’s a movie you figured was worth waiting to see at home. I should have kept waiting. The movie is too [...]

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Tags: Movies

Screencasting RSS

March 7th, 2005 · Comments Off

Alex Barnett demonstrates RSS 101 with a nifty screencast (via Steve Rubel). Anything that makes this process easier is good. If both Udell and Barnett are using Camtasia Studio ($299.00), it’s clearly a solid tool for the job. Mild concern for me is that it’s Windows-only. I’m a satisfied user of SnagIt (also from TechSmith) [...]

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Tags: Newsburst

XML is supposed to make this easy, right?

March 6th, 2005 · Comments Off

I didn’t think I would get too far tonight on the task of converting my old blog entries to an importable form for WordPress, but it was time to start. I’ve been boring all dozen of you with my intentions for several months now, and the Radio Userland exipiration date is three weeks away. So, [...]

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Tags: Tech

Movie: Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy

March 5th, 2005 · Comments Off

You know with Will Ferrell you’re going to get silliness, and I mean that in the best way. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy delivered… but I wish there was something in between the 5 minutes of a Saturday Night Live skit and the 90 minutes of a throwaway movie like this one. (I write [...]

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Tags: Movies

Watching Giant Steps

March 4th, 2005 · Comments Off

Thanks to Anil Dash, I got to enjoy Michal Levy’s visual imagination of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps (high bandwidth, Flash). You should, too.

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Tags: Everything

Book: Sharpe’s Havoc

March 4th, 2005 · Comments Off

The last of my trio of recuperation reads two weekends ago was Sharpe’s Havoc, set in the spring of 1809. I loved the calm before the storm of battle. Sharpe’s band of Rifles, about a score of men, are left on the wrong side of a river in Portugal as the British are retreating, and [...]

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Tags: Books

Book: Sharpe’s Eagle

March 4th, 2005 · Comments Off

Despite my intent, I read Sharpe’s Eagle out of chronological order. To keep the months and year marching along, I should have read Sharpe’s Havoc first. Oops. Eagle was the first Sharpe book written, back in 1981, though it’s set in July, 1809. With this rip-roaring start, I understand why Cornwell kept writing about his [...]

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Tags: Books