Day: July 6, 2006
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The web, a decade ago, when it was still measurable
Tim Bray resurrects a presentation he gave in May, 1996 entitled “Measuring the Web.” A worthy part of history, and now it will be preserved in various caches for… well, a long time. Some of the sites named are long gone, and no longer well known. Infoseek, for example, where I interviewed in December, 1996,…
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Movie: Superman Returns
With a bunch from the office, I saw Superman Returns the night after it opened last week. Normally, I wouldn’t brave the crowds to see an anticipated film this early in its cycle, but always more fun with a group. The movie worked, but certainly didn’t feel new in any ways. Brandon Routh, playing Superman,…
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Book: Sprawl
Robert Bruegmann gives book Sprawl a dry subtitle, “A compact history.” To his credit, it’s appropriate. In 225 pages or so, not counting the extensive endnotes and bibliography (which I skipped), the professor (for that’s what he is) does a thorough job of trying to define sprawl and then politely demolish the demonization and negative…
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Book: The Paperboy
Pete Dexter’s The Paperboy was a step in a different direction from my recent reading. A novel about investigative reporting and family dynamics in Florida, The Paperboy mostly smolders, and almost catches fire. You feel the humidity of Florida in Dexter’s writing. The characters feel complete, with the deliberate exception of the narrator, the younger…