clock — watching time, the only true currency

Clearing out the inbox of various links, as part of a Saturday night cleanup. No promised connection beyond the simple fact these caught my eye and were “worth” more than a del.icio.us link.

• British history timeline, via Infosthetics.
• There are so many things I want to improve about this blog. First and foremost would be actually posting to it! But other cleanup items might include stats via a simple plug-in, or applying a new theme.
• Netflix guilt was sent by the wife. Northfork is only the most recent example of the problem.
• When I read that “Only Five Percent of Innovative Web Users Access Internet on Mobile Device” (study reported on back in late March), I feel so…innovative. Actually, I just am reminded that I’m a geek. My internet use on my Treo 650 is still mostly just filling time.
  

  Users perform an average of 3.3 online activities on their mobile device versus 13.4 activities on their laptop/desktop, reinforcing the fact that online activities have yet to migrate into the pockets of broadband users.

  Also, I pay a flat fee for Internet access, but I pay extra for SMS, so I lean towards email and the web for economic reasons, too.

• A more recent report tells us that “Americans Spend Half of Their Spare Time Online.” That calculation is based on this sad fact: “broadband users spend an hour and 40 minutes (48% of their spare time) online in a typical weekday.” Yes, there are just over 3 hours of spare time per weekday. (Is that with or without kids?) I wonder how much sleep is allowed for in that typical weekday? Here’s the source, but the report is not a free product, so no more details.
• I’m not really convinced here, but I enjoyed reading Platform Architect as a Network-centric Strategy all the same.
• Via Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, I learned about Sheldon Brown’s Online Cycling Encyclopedia. I don’t do much of my own real work on my bicycles, but if I found time and inclination, good to have the resource. Do I need a computer in the garage, though?
• Jeff Jarvis throws some ideas about the web “after the page,” where he really means home page. Maybe the Guardian column, edited down, was more cohesive. Otherwise, I didn’t hear anything new here. But I suppose it takes repetition for the message to sink in.
• A Washington Post article about How the Pentagon Got Its Shape is an excerpt from a book coming soon. I found the article on Slashdot; I don’t think I need the book. But the article outlines the way things moved quickly in a Washington on the edge of a formal commitment to World War II. (Nice Jungle Book allusion, too.)
• Via Virtual Economics, a reminder that demographics are destiny, in Herb Meyer’s speech “A Global Intelligence Briefing For CEOs,” given in February, 2006. Meyer is unknown to me, but the speech transcript credits him thusly: “Herb Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.” Regardless, short statements like this remind me of an Atlantic article.
  

  In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year.

  300 per year!
  While the general tenor of the article leans towards ominous, there is this tidbit near the end.
  

  There is no better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The U. S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put it into the marketplace. We take it for granted, but it isn’t as available in other countries of the world.

  Hmmm…life is pretty good here, despite the anxiety over how fast change occurs, and how little we seem able to predict. The whole speech is worth reading. The themes aren’t new, but the joint impact causes thinking. And that’s not bad.

• Paul Vixie on DNS Complexity leaves me wondering…what’s the point? We’re told it’s a problem, but not a problem. There are no prescriptions, just descriptions, at different levels of granularity. I’m interested in DNS now, even if I’m not an engineer… and I just didn’t understand what I was supposed to learn or think after reading this. Frustrating.
• Scott Karp shares that “CNN and Wall Street Journal Embrace Aggregation Of Third-Party Content” and I say… so? It’s not playing offense, it’s playing defense. I have experience leading these efforts at CNET in the past: July, 2004 or February, 2005. They were well-intentioned efforts, but never broke through for lack of commitment. Media organizations which operate on the (admirable) principle that their own content (thinking/reporting/writing/opinion) is worth other people’s time and money are not committed (business-wise or personally) to other people’s content. Yes, technology has made complementing your own content with other sources even easier (read: cheaper) in the last year or two. But it’s not a sea-change; it’s a few more fingers in the dike.