Day: December 18, 2005

I’ve saved page D1 of the December 7, 2005 Wall Street Journal for two reasons. The professional reason was the review of mobile web sites, which includes on the D4 jump a reference and “pseudo-screenshot” of CNET Mobile (http://m.cnet.com/). The personal reason was more important.

In an article “Many Colleges Ignore New SAT Writing Test,” documenting the acceptance (and lack thereof) by admissions departments of the new essay portion of the SAT, this howler leads off the fourth paragraph.

But some admissions officers say the essay’s predictive value hasn’t been established, that it tests a narrow skill–writing quickly–that isn’t core to a college education.

I tend to believe that writing quickly was the sine qua non of a college education. It may be a narrow skill, but so is breathing! 🙂

Syriana left me deeply mixed. That review feels like a cop-out, but it’s all I can do a few days later. The story stretched, badly. The movie didn’t drag, but its efforts were too blatant somehow. Yet some of the characters were compelling, and I am glad I saw the movie simply to get visuals of the oil infrastructure and some snapshots of the Middle East. The combination of desert and modern infrastructure pictured made Las Vegas seem environmentally sound by comparison.

A Metacritic score of 76 means I’m on the lower side of the interest curve on this one.

Side note: I find it very difficult to watch films where young children die as part of the plot. I don’t think I was callous before becoming a parent, but now I can’t face such scenes with any dispassion.

Simple means launching something… it certainly does. Del.icio.us wasn’t working at this second, but a useful kick-in-the-ass post worth recording here instead.

I didn’t know Mike, my friend and colleague from CNET Networks was blogging over at 37Signals until I read it on Matt’s post. Sigh… can’t ever keep up.