clock … watching time, the only true currency

So 37signals reminds us that we could all use some editors to give our words a diet with “The positive side effect of big text: less text.” I’ll stop now. Even if I didn’t make the font bigger. I know some sites (cough) which could take some of this to heart.

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell dripped through my reading time over the last two weeks. This one has been on my list since October 2004, so it’s about time. Time, that is, for more fiction set in the early 1800s, during the Napoleonic wars. The two magicians of the title help fight the war, too, [...]

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(Updated a few times… see end of entry.) At the tail end of last week, I found 45 minutes to wander around at Macworld. My one goal — beyond seeing the show — was to find a solid external hard drive, with at least a FireWire400 interface. So I picked up a ROCPRO 400 AV [...]

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First time in a long time I’ve watched two movies back-to-back… following The Constant Gardener, we put on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This pun-filled animated amusement was spot on. Couldn’t have stayed awake for anything deeper, either. Metacritic score of 87 seems high, but this is excellent for its type. The [...]

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The Constant Gardener moves too slowly. The story is interesting (if a bit shallow in points), but I wanted a conspiracy thriller to move more quickly. Also, the key husband and wife relationship felt impossible to me. Maybe the book gave the depth which is hinted at, but skipped, in the movie. John Le Carré [...]

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Brokeback Mountain is a good movie, though tough to live up to the hype. The Metacritic 87 is the highest score I’ve seen in my short experience with Metacritic. On the all-time scores Brokeback Mountain ties for 64th… note, however, that Metacritic has only been around for ~5 years, and while they are working backwards [...]

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I’m inspired by my colleagues at Metacritic to try a composite review. Instead of a movie or DVD, I’m going to try it with a product, the Palm Treo 700w. Background I own and enjoy (most of the time) a Palm Treo 650, via Cingular (no love lost on the carrier, but not sure it [...]

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There are three calendars in my life. First, there is my Outlook calendar, which I view on my Treo most often. Second, there is my wife’s calendar, which lives on paper. Third, there is a kitchen whiteboard, for the month, with the highlights of items which affect us both. I’m investigating calendar solutions for a [...]

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Newsvine is in private beta. Like many others, I expect, I’ve added my name to the waiting list. In the meantime, I’ve read a few reviews from those who have seen it. Hypergene MediaBlog » Heard it on the Newsvine: First impressions, which comes from the Amazoning the News team (which gives it a lot [...]

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Much the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) hype and coverage this week focused on the marriage of video content and online distribution, as Yahoo and Google and others offered up more experimental combinations. In a nod to how technology has become more mainstream, you can read about a few of the highlights in most major newspapers… [...]

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