clock … watching time, the only true currency

My high school coaches impressed upon me very clearly the importance of getting a good night’s sleep the night before the night before a race or competition. The theory — which I subscribe to — is that nerves and anticipation may disrupt your sleep on the eve of the event. Accept that, and don’t worry [...]

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With the title The Secret Pulse of Time: Making Sense of Life’s Scarcest Commodity, Stefan Klein echoes my own thoughts about the years/months/weeks/days/hours/minutes/seconds skipping or struggling by. Klein is a science journalist who’s found success in taking on big topics with catchy titles. I haven’t read The Science of Happiness or All by Chance, but [...]

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This neglected blog (damn you, Twitter!) reached its sixth birthday today. This is the 1,435th post, but the pace has definitely slowed. I’m glad to say that my birthday mile has not. Yet. 5:22 for the 4 loops (1:20 / 1:22 / 1:21 / 1:18) around Kezar is a second faster than 2008 and 2007. [...]

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I enjoyed The Guardian’s coverage of the chronophage. “Beware the time-eater: Cambridge University’s monstrous new clock includes a marvelous video. The official University of Cambridge video from the inventor and maker, Dr. John C. Taylor, provides more of the history and details. Neal Stephenson must be pleased that a new mechanical clock was introduced 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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Clock (this blog) is now 5, and I’m (cough) older than that. Still, I matched last year’s mile time of 5:23 (1:19/1:20/1:22/1:21 splits), which brightened the already-beautiful day a bit more. Only hiccup was Kezar was closed for pesticide application, which I found out after running over this morning. So I had to drive over [...]

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Confirmation of the rumors started with typical Dick Costolo panache: “Unlike the rumor that FeedBurner is nearly code-complete on a multiplayer Wii edition, the blog posts, phone calls and conjecture about our future as part of the Google family tree are now officially true.” What a great team and a great product. I first met [...]

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Chances Are…Adventures in Probability was my other pickup at Cody’s a few weeks ago. Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan jointly authored this exploration of statistics, but the voice is consistent. Chances Are… picks through history with an eye on the odds. Skills with numbers, and misconceptions about numbers, affect far more than simply the roulette [...]

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I’ve made ginger beer three times now, with the most recent time being earlier this week. I’ve made two adjustments to my process, and the results are slightly improved. First, I use nine cups of water instead of ten. The resulting brew is a tad bit sharper, which I like, and I don’t lose any [...]

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And another year has passed. Kids happily re-gifted some of their presents to me, and cupcakes were enjoyed by all. I started the day in darkness with a mile run on the Kezar track, as I’ve done occasionally in past years. 5:23 left me convinced that I haven’t slowed down too much, although I can’t [...]

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