Year: 2005
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Every home should have a globe
Few things more useful in the world of general knowledge than an accurate representation of the world: a globe. Of course, every map is out of date shortly after it’s printed, but the physical form of a globe certainly helps reinforce the reality, even if the labels and colors and lines move over time. I…
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Books that shape how you think
Found this older post by Tim O’Reilly on Books That Have Shaped How I Think. Several quotes in there which resonate, especially: Wilson also shaped my relationship to books. So many critics write about literature and philosophy as a dead thing, an artifact. Wilson writes about it as a conversation with another mind about what…
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Front end matters
If you’re into web development, check Anil Dash’s predictions for Web Development in 2006. I’m not playing with the sharp end of the programming stick, so I don’t have the skills required to jump in here. The list is compelling (even if I’d quibble about some of it, in my uninformed way) since I agree…
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LazyWeb request: best way to handle listing hundreds of RSS feeds?
I haven’t turned to the LazyWeb often because I don’t have many readers, but maybe there’s just enough with the right bent. The question: What’s the best example on the web today of listing several hundred (or thousand) RSS feeds in a useful way, so readers can find the feed(s) they might be interested in…
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Perverse pleasure in coining a new term
I suspect Jakob Nielsen enjoyed tweaking Chris Anderson (or just grabbing attention) by titling his latest Alertbox “The Slow Tail.” Useful research brought to light, demonstrating that some things take time, even purchases from buy-focused links on search results pages. But the name was even better. Long Tail, eat your heart out.
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Book: To the Indies
C.S. Forester wrote other seafaring historical novels besides the Hornblower books. To the Indies is a retelling of Christopher Columbus’s third journey to America by a Catalan lawyer who accompanies the (now) Admiral on a fact-finding mission for the crown. Published in July 1940, this one hasn’t stood the test of time quite so well.…
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San Francisco Grand Prix 2005
Fun morning spent watching part of the San Francisco Grand Prix bike race. I checked the final results and saw that, as expected, the lone racer out in front of the pack for several laps was gobbled up. In fact, the lone race – Michael Creed of the Discovery Channel team – didn’t even finish.…
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Book: The Command of the Ocean
When you’re in the mood for definitive history, pick up N. A. M. Rodger’s The Command of the Ocean, subtitled “A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815.” Like most of the non-historian audience for this book, my entrypoint to the “wooden world” was Horatio Hornblower and, more recently, Jack Aubrey. (The Wooden World is the title…
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A graphic answer to the question why live in New Orleans
I haven’t wondered, as some apparently have, why people choose to live in New Orleans where hurricanes were such a known threat. Here’s one funny/angry response. I’m sitting in the heart of the “big f***ing earthquakes” section. I’ve never been to New Orleans, but I do wonder just what the nation will pay to rebuild…
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You’ve got (postal) mail
Jim Fallows in the NYTimes explains why postal mail has not gone away, and won’t, even in the internet age. “Two-thirds of all consumers do not expect to receive personal mail, but when they do, it makes their day,” it concluded. “This ‘hope’ keeps them coming back each day.” Even in this age of technology,…