Month: July 2004

Another one gone.

The first book I picked up in late June on returning to San Francisco was The Wine-Dark Sea, number 16 in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series. I can see the end of the line, and that’s not a happy forecast. I should have written my senior thesis comparing the Hornblower novels to the Aubrey-Maturin novels. Not that I want to go back and do it again after all this time. Anyway, just a few more sea voyages with these old friends left.

Perhaps I’m the last man over the age of 20 never to have seen The Godfather. At least now I can say I’ve read the book. A good read… the story really moves along.

I keep meaning to see the movies but find that I’m not ready to sit down for several hours at a time to do so. DVDs and TiVo offer the possibility of stop/start, but I still prefer to see a movie in one sitting. Uninterrupted hours are a luxury, even during a week with the kids away. But now that I know the story, and not just the anecdotes that popular culture has passed along, I’ll have to add at least the first film to the Netflix queue.

Note: It’s just a coincidence that Brando passed away shortly after I read the book in June, right?

This housecleaning is endless.

• abecedarian was the Word of the Day on May 20. The boy fit the bill at the time, but he’s got it nailed by now.
• Jakob’s book list contains few I haven’t read, but I want to get to those few.
• Bad Hair? As Mice Attest, It’s Probably Not Your Shampoo is a NYT article which explains the whorl in my hair. The boy got it, too. We’ll see about the girl.
• Seth Godin on The Curse of Great Expectations includes “Who wants to know that they will never again be able to beat their personal best rowing time?” (Answer = not me.)
• Another tale of moving from MT to WP.
• A commencement address that appears to be real.

Bundles of links I’ve been collecting… but they’re not doing me much good in Safari, so here they are for all to peruse.

• ACM Queue on Enterprise Search, from April 2004. Collection of articles on the topic.
• Why 1998 Was The Turning Point For Newspapers is Vin Crosbie’s selection of the disintegration of New Century Network as the pivotal moment when newspapers started to diminish in importance.
• Jeffrey Zelmand on Production for Use, a reminder that function should drive form.
• Sad Adieu to College, and to Good Old .edu is a June 17 article from NYT about giving up your e-mail address when you leave school. With two teachers in the family leaving their schools this spring, I thought this article missed talking about more than students. Opportunity for GMail to break ground, even if Hotmail and Yahoo are way, way ahead.
• Putting e-mail in its place is a reminder that unplugging can help you get things done. True enough, but what if you keep your email as your To Do list and information archive? And putting everything in your blog doesn’t solve the problem, either.
• Website usability quiz, and I can’t believe I got only 8 out of 10 right. I blame Canada. 😉
• 101 ways to improve your news site should be turned into a quiz, and then used to grade current news sites. Of course, not every idea is applicable, but a feast of possibilities.
• maproom.org lives up to the name. Fas connection required beyond the home page.
• Rick Shaut works for the MacBU within Microsoft. ‘Nuff said.
• The History of San Francisco Bay Area Freeway Development includes plans from the 1940s and 1950s. Fortunately, many were not built. I guess SF didn’t have its own Robert Moses.
• Round 2 of Gurus vs. Bloggersover at Design By Fire.
• Jay Small posts his e-mail exchange with Staci Kramer concerning RSS: Values and limitations of RSS. I was quoted in the same article, but it was a mix of email and phone conversation, and while I might have emphasized different things, I’m fine with the end result.
• Blog software breakdown (chart), and here’s the explanation by the creator of the chart.
• . Or you can review Barry Parr’s choice of Top 10 free and cheap content management systems. Both were done in May, although unclear if they are still actively updated.
• A BlackBerry Throbs, and a Wonk Has a Date from the NYT in late May 2004. I have one, and I still believe it fits the initial description in the article: “an accessory with all the sex appeal of a pocket protector.” But I’m married with two kids, so what do I know?
• Separation: The Web Designer’s Dilemma on A List Apart. A bit abstract-like, but ALA is usually worth a read.
• In-depth blog review of the architecture of the new Seattle library. With the title“Brutal” Architecture, you might guess that it’s not complimentary.
• Transcript of the Syndication Nation panel at Supernova, courtesy of Heath Row of Fast Company.
• Anil Dash’s proposal on learning from experience. As someone who once tried to create a site called iventing.com as a ‘business,’ I’m all for constructive methods for criticizing and then improving the world. Note: site is all gone but for a few lingering T-shirts. True dot-bomb, but at least it was never more than an evening hobby, pre-kids.
• Tim O’Reilly on The Open Source Paradigm Shift. I think I’ve read previous versions of this, since he notes he’s given this talk maybe 20 times in the last year or so. But good to have an ‘authorative’ copy.
• Engadgeter = a fan application. Better than fan e-mail, even!
• More reports of bloggers switching to Word Press.
• Google “proof” for the hypothesis that “men have baggage, women have issues.”
• Inside SSH, Part 2 would probably be more helpful if I read Part 1 first.
• Nothing like aiming high. Dan Bricklin on Software The Lasts 200 Years. We can only hope.

Note: I can’t imagine setting up a separate linkblog, even as much as I love the idea of everything in a database.

Nearly a month ago, I took advantage of a train commute to read The Rule of Four.

There have been plenty of references in describing (read: hyping) this book to Umberto Eco’s novels, but those are only true in genre. While this tale is also a present-day mystery centered around a historical document/investigation, The Rule of Four has none of the enticing (and maddening) depth of Eco’s The Name of the Rose or Foucault’s Pendulum.

I found Pendulum to be one of the best and most frustrating books I’ve ever read. It builds in richness through the first half of the book, mixing story-telling and inventive use of history… but then the rest of the book drove me nuts, because the story dribbled out. The Rule of Four is much more about the story, which is why it’s a quick read. The historical sleuthing that goes on is inventive, but at times it seems too easy, despite the backstory of years of work that is sketched in. I liked the book, but pick it up as a fun mystery read, not an Eco-like exercise of the mind.

I did love one line, though.

The delicious futility of impossible tasks is the catnip of overachievers.

Almost too epigrammatic, but still a fun phrasing and idea.

Note that the website has more than the usual material… they’ve created a game centered on historical sleuthing, via the web, intended to mimic some of the brainteasers and linguistic code-breaking described in the book. I haven’t tried it, but I’m intrigued.

Mike Ditka is considering running for the Senate, as noted by Dick. Guess Illinois wants to make California’s choice of Arnold look intelligent. Sports Illustrated recently did a photo spread of sports figures turned politicians. Of course, their website doesn’t turn it up, but from memory the two-page spread included Jack Kemp, Bill Bradley, Steve Largent, Tom Osborne, and a few others. I’m not a Chicagoan, but… Ditka? Once you’ve done hair ads aren’t you disqualified? Aren’t you supposed to do the erectile dysfunction ads after your time in public office? (cf. Bob Dole)

I caught Spider-man 2 this evening. With this movie, I couldn’t escape the reviews and the hype, but I still enjoyed it. Most of all, it felt like the comic book. The movie even is paced like the comic book, with pulsing action, and then some backstory/development, then more pulsing action, in an almost predictable pattern. The ending, especially, was very comic-like, in setting up the next villian. Since we all know there will be a 3 and a 4 (and more?!) in this series, the comic serial method of foreshadowing so you’ll buy the next “issue” didn’t even feel out of place.

I actually saw this brilliant stop-motion Lego summary of the film before seeing the movie, but I just watched it again. If it cost $200 million to make and market the actual film, I wonder what it cost to make this film… marketing has been practically free, since everyone is spreading the link (like this).

So I followed Mark’s advice and tried Mobissimo to launch me into this evening’s travel agent duties. Maybe 90 minutes later… I still have no tickets. Not Mobissimo’s fault, but it didn’t get me much further along the path.

For three “adults” and an “infant with seat,” I finally found a multi-city package (SFO to BOS to SLK then ALB to PIT to SFO on the return) which was relatively reasonable in mid-August via Orbitz (where Mobissimo led me). But every time I tried to select a package — the Book It! button — I got a frustrating message reading:

Because flight availability can change rapidly based on traveler demand, the flight you selected is no longer available. Please make another selection. (Message 100)

While I’m pleased they shared the number of the message with me, I was floored when this happened for every single flight I tried to buy. Finally, I broke down and, at the suggestion of my wife, I called Orbitz. Toll-free call, and I got to a real person quite quickly. That was good. The person on the phone suggested that I try again tomorrow, as he’d heard a few similar complaints today. Well, wouldn’t it be nice if message 100 made that issue a bit clearer? I asked the person to run the times/flights on his end, and he seemed to try, but ended up telling me to try again tomorrow. Which, as I have no other choice, I’ll do. But I don’t have to like it. This “internet expert” wants a travel agent, although I guess I’d have spent a lot of time on the phone with someone as they typed through the same screens.

At least I was able to rent a car for this weekend with little fuss.

So Mark gets some nice press from USA Today for HotelChatter.com. Very nice, and likely deserved… I’ll admit I have not been keeping up, since I travel so very little, and then only to places (usually) where I’m staying with family. But what bugs me here in 2004 is that USAToday doesn’t use a link that will remain constant… no permalink. The URL above will continue to work, but next week (or whenever this regular column publishes), the URL will point to a new column. Sure, the HotelChatter.com piece will appear on this index page… but it’s not there yet. It’s 2004, people. I understand the beautiful simplicity of your URLs, but no one can link to you with any confidence. Is that what you want?

News.com Extra launched earlier today. The public explanation spells out what we’re doing. I would add only that the end goal is to save readers’ time. News.com reporters and editors do their damndest to get you the best story as fast as possible on every tech story that matters. But no one is as big as everyone, so News.com has always pointed out to other stories of interest. Extra amplifies that, applying the concept to individual stories, in addition to “unattached” stories, as you find in More news around the Web. Also, Extra includes some general news (yes, aggregated via RSS) and a group blog for the editorial staff called Missing Links. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe it’s not enough.

But if it saves the reader time, we’re doing something right. Send feedback; I’m not the only one eager to read it.