clock … watching time, the only true currency

There are two more books I read in 2009, but I’m not going to record them tonight. Soldiers of Reason, a history of the RAND Corporation, and The Contractor, a spy novel, were both library pickups, and interesting in different ways, but I’ll give them their own posts soon. The many movies I saw but [...]

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State of Play makes a journalist (Russell Crowe) the hero in a corporate/political thriller that tries very hard. Sometimes, the movie succeeds. But with its reconciliation of the hard-core newspaperman and the young blogger and the final credits rolling over whirring presses as the newspaper prints the damning truth…State of Play felt like the modern [...]

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Via Khoi Vinh, I saw the ASME’s best magazine covers of 2008. The cover of the year says it all with one word, and an arrow. Take a look.

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After the original announcement on June 23rd, and some revisions tested starting July 14th, CNET’s redesign is open to all as of yesterday, August 27th. See for yourself at CNET.com, CNET News, and CNET Download.com. Congrats to all who worked on it. I’ve had my say kibitzing from the outside; I also know how much [...]

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Dan Farber previewed the next phase of CNET’s rolling redesign in today’s blog post. See the full image of CNET News here. My previous comments hold. The body of the home page looks fine, with no complaints. However, I find the reflection in the sub-brands of “News” and “Download.com” quite distracting, and hard to read. [...]

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I’m a bit late here, but the new design hasn’t rolled out yet. CNET’s decision to announce a coming redesign ahead of time is admirable. It shows a new respect for how disruptive change can be to an existing audience. Current CNET logo, in context New CNET logo, in context (proposed) I have a few [...]

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People wonder whether social network advertising will prove as lucrative as the search ads which have driven Google to its current throne. I don’t have the answer. But this morning I saw an ad on Facebook that was relevant and interesting to me, and I clicked on it. It was a text ad, “Core Perform [...]

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Khoi Vinh watches another generation fall under Tintin’s spell. Been there, and also waiting for the movie. Some of the language in these comic albums isn’t PC anymore (e.g., “dirty gypsies”), but Tintin is never one to stand for injustice. Google News finally answers some of publishers’ questions, and promises more information in the future. [...]

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In my feed-reading this morning, I stopped my blitz on this short blurb in the NYTimes: “A Venerable Magazine Energizes Its Web Site” The nut graph? Readership will get another boost starting Tuesday, when TheAtlantic.com will abolish the fire wall that has allowed only subscribers to the print magazine to see most of its articles [...]

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I choose to spend less time posting my wit and wisdom (?) here at clock. But some themes of interest remain constant. For instance… I had a lot to say about TimesSelect when it was introduced in September 2005. Two years later, when the wall came down, my first inkling came from this blog post. [...]

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