clock … watching time, the only true currency

I succumbed to the re-re-read for 10 Lb. Penalty, by Dick Francis. Now I’m going to put this very tasty book in the bag to leave the house and give it a new home. Never a problem to return to old favorites, especially for such bon-bons, but I won’t need a fourth reading.

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After this summer’s revelation, I picked up another Alan Furst novel, Kingdom of Shadows. The story almost matches the cover for noir. Paris again serves as the hub, but most of the action takes place in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. Nice page-turner in dangerous pre-World War II Europe, where the inevitability of war made fatalism [...]

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Perhaps you can’t judge a book by its cover. But the title of this demure black hardcover distinguished itself enough that I plucked it off the shelf and kept it in the pile of things I might read someday. That was several years ago. Last month, I finally read You Can’t Do Business With Hitler [...]

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Just deleted the several dozen rogue posts from Twitter Tools, one of Alex King’s projects. I’m a fan of the plugin and have been using it for several months now without incident. During an upgrade yesterday, I turned on the daily digest feature for the first time. This setting assembles your “tweets” into a blog [...]

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Quick note: when setting usability test cash payments, pick a number divisible by $20, so the ATM is enough. In summer sessions, we offered $125. Rounding up that $5 triggered minor pain for every session. Lesson learned. This week, we scaled back to $120, and the money flowed like credit in 2005. If the economy’s [...]

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In my favorite iPhone app (when connected), NetNewsWire, I clipped John Gruber’s recommendation for Wurdle. About three weeks ago, I finally spent $2 and added the app to my phone. Excellent decision. Wurdle is Boggle, but the finger-on-the-touchscreen gameplay works brilliantly. And you don’t have to be connected, which even in San Francisco isn’t guaranteed. [...]

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Bike Racing 101 details about what the title promises. I’m foolish enough to read this near the end of my first season of bicycle racing. (I finished the book maybe a fortnight ago.) If I’d read it at the beginning, I might have saved Ken a few questions during the year. Still, even though the [...]

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Scott Adams does more than just Dilbert. I don’t read his blog regularly, but someone pointed to “Existing” and it’s worth sharing. An excerpt: It’s nice to think that you can be your own person, true and accountable to no one but yourself, but I don’t think life works that way. We are what other [...]

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Eating has been a more conscious act for me since seeing Super Size Me. No claims to remarkable health or true moderation, but I do pay attention. Left over from the wife’s book group, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan lived up to (most of) the hype. My favorite portions (ahem) included the exposition of [...]

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I’ve shared my respect for Paul Graham’s work before (more). I’ve pondered learning how to program many times. So this Slashdot thread last week, “AppJet Offers Browser-Based Coding How-To, Hosting,” pointing to AppJet as a Graham-recommended way to learn how to program caught my attention. When you follow the link, you see the reference to [...]

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