Month: June 2005

OK, if you’re of a certain age and have seen all the other Star Wars movies, you have to watch Revenge of the Sith, aka Episode III (terrible, memory-sucking Flash website there, by the way). But…

• You don’t have to like it.
• You don’t need to rush to the theater.

It’s more than acceptable to wait for the DVD. If the audience weren’t invested in tying up a few loose ends before the “real” first movie, Episode IV, no one would see this movie. I’d love to hear from an adult who saw this movie first and hear their thoughts. Among many less than stellar moments, I’d have to say that the scenes with Anakin Skywalker and Padme, illicit lovers and soon-to-be-parents are about the most excruciating film moments ever witnessed. I believe Natalie Portman may be able to act, though she provides much evidence to the contrary here. I don’t know the actor who plays Anakin, and can’t find his name on the Star Wars site (!), but maybe that’s all for the best.

After hearing reasonably good things about this film — mostly in relation to Episode I and II, to be honest — I was mildly disappointed. Of course, I also saw it last night, after getting up at 4am for the race, so it’s a wee bit possible that my exhaustion played a part in my reaction. But it’s not a good movie.

The weather was perfect, and the race — especially after the swim — went well. Official time of 2:52:45, so faster than I hoped, putting me in 181st place (among the amateurs).

Accenture was the title sponsor of Escape from Alcatraz for 2005. As a result, the Accenture website has some extra features. First, a map showing split times. Second, statistics which measure your different legs against others in the race (professionals not included, fortunately). Third, the site has finish line video, which worked only in Internet Explorer on Windows, at least for me (not in Safari or Firefox on the Mac, nor in Firefox on Windows). Pretty nifty feature, actually… and this 30 second snippet does catch my finish (wearing a white hat, and a green-and-yellow shirt).

The splits and the comparative measurements confirm what I already knew. My swim was mediocre, but I didn’t expend much energy on it, so I did well on both the bike and the run. I wonder what’s it like to just race on the bike… it was fun to pour on the pedals with the streets closed to cars. In retrospect, my best split was the sand ladder (sand steps up from Baker Beach). I ran the whole thing, with one slip, and I guess that was enough to make me the 14th fastest amateur in that tiny part of the race. Who knew?

Glad it’s over and I can rest for a while!

Escape from Alcatraz is less than 48 hours away. Glad the race is nearly here… all I can do now is stretch and look forward to leaving the water. Figuring I can finish the swim in ~50 minutes, do the “warm-up” run to the bike in 5-7 minutes (1/2 mile? 1 mile?), bike the 18 hilly miles in a bit over an hour, and then run the 8 hilly miles, including the sand steps (that’s some pro from 2004… only pic I could find), also in a bit over an hour. Including transitions, I’m hoping for 3:10 to 3:20 total. I’ll report back on Sunday afternoon, or you can check results yourself at the site.

Three minutes of your life will be well spent with the following trio of links.

• Vin Crosbie reports a great one-liner from New Orleans.
• David Pogue reminds readers that you must spend time to save time. Life’s a b***ch that way.
• Tim Bray dances to the same tune as this blog’s slogan… but reminds us “you gotta slack off sometimes or you’ll go nuts.” Amen. For RSS readers everywhere, who never see the (boring) header here at clock, the slogan here is “Watching time, the only true currency.”

Via Jeremy, I found Chris DiBona’s post about why WiFi should be turned off at conferences. Maybe it should be taken one step further on an every day basis, and all communal workplaces (read: conference rooms) should have a bin at the door where everyone can turn in their Treos, Blackberries, and other mobile devices of choice so that while at the meeting, attendees are at the meeting. If your attention is divided, then you’re not contributing. If you’re not contributing, why are you attending?

I throw the stone knowing that I live in a glass house: I’ve been known to glance at my email during a meeting. That’s not a good thing, and I’m going to make a conscious effort to change my habits.

I’m wondering if the most connected employees and companies are going to need to learn (even before everyone else) that if your employees can’t concentrate on solving problems with each other when they are together in person, then why are you going to the expense (commute time, office space, etc.) of bringing them together in person at all? I write these words believing that some remarkable things can be accomplished by smart people working together in physical proximity. There are plenty of examples where the proximity is not necessary (name your favorite open-source project), but there’s still a spark that can in the right circumstances bring a project up another notch. Sparks take friction, good and bad.

Treo-free Friday, anyone?

I’ll carry my 650 around the office tomorrow (it’s also my phone, after all), but I’ll see if I can go the entire day (at least 5 meetings) without once looking at email or News.com Mobile.

Obviously, I hoped that News.com would bring home the Eppy for Best Internet News Service over 1 million, but that went to Slate Magazine this year. CNET News.com and Boston.com were the other finalists in that category. Overall, the folks at NYT Digital must be pleased, with Martin Nisenholtz honored as Outstanding Individual Achievement and NYTimes.com winning “Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Internet Service over 1 million” (with Boston.com a finalist there, too). Congrats to Eliot and his colleagues. Pssttt… Eliot, you need to blog more.

I’ve been quiet for a few days, even if news in the Mac world has not. Since Sunday morning, I’ve been stretching my brain with a class on accounting and finance. One week, Sunday to Thursday, cramming in lots of information about the language of business. Coming in, I knew the vocabulary of accounting and finance, but not the grammar. At the end, I won’t be writing any novels in this language but I can certainly read with increased comprehension.

This Wharton executive training is fascinating, and excellent, and I’m grateful my company helped make it happen. Back to the day job tomorrow afternoon, with a whole new perspective.

The rumors flew around a short while ago (link to WSJ, behind pay-wall), but my editorial colleagues at CNET News.com got the story this afternoon: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips. I can see from the burgeoning TalkBack thread (50 comments and counting) that people still aren’t sure whether to believe the news. We’ll see, won’t we?

I certainly appreciate the logic Jon Gruber demonstrated in dissecting the WSJ article last week, but I have faith in the edit team at News.com. This isn’t the kind of report you run without review by various parties. Gruber saw the article already, and wonders about the sources.

There are too many reactions to keep up with, so follow the Technorati thread with me. Note: that link won’t get them all because some of the tracking tags make Technorati think that different URLs are different stories. Not their fault, really, but here’s another link to track people who are linking to the story via the URL that went out in RSS. Confusing, isn’t it?

Nice to have another site that requires little explanation: TV.com. Went live officially this morning, and WSJ used the launch as a reason to survey what’s going on at CNET Networks. I like getting outside perspectives. You might enjoy a bit of history… the domain cost, well, not a lot, relatively when it was purchased back in 1996. And TV.com was a runner-up domain, because the guy who had television.com wanted $50,000, and that was too much at the time. Oops.

Here’s a quick note from TVSquad noting the launch, and AdJab mentions the WSJ article in passing. Jesse Chenard finds it interesting. PaidContent has a bit more Follow along via Technorati if you want.

Congrats to all involved in the launch. Check out Deadliest Catch.