Year: 2006
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Movie: The Departed
The Departed is a worthy big-screen drama. Utterly violent, very funny, certainly Boston, The Departed is mostly set in the present, but a few early scenes play in the era just after Bag Men (nice coincidence for me). The almost parallel characters played by Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio draw you in, and the usual…
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Saturday links
These aren’t new, but it is Saturday, and I’m sick of staring at them in my inbox. +++ I thought all The Economist content was invisible on the web, but not this September 7, 2006 opinion piece, “Welcome aboard,” which asks “In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?” An…
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Book: Flux
Flux is book two of Maps in a Mirror, the collected volume of short stories by Orson Scott Card. Of the seven stories, I found the last one, “The Originist,” the most compelling. Set in the Isaac Asimov’s Foundation world of Trantor, “The Originist” imagines some of the hinted-at creation of the Second Foundation. More…
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Book: Gold Mine
I bought Gold Mine for a bus ride home last week, and it barely lasted longer than that. Yes, another Wilbur Smith book (my previous mention), although this one is (for him) practically a short story, at only 263 pages. Only now am I noticing that this one was originally written in 1970, making it…
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Book: Bag Men
I thoroughly enjoyed Bag Men, by Mark Costello. I finished this novel a few weeks ago, after picking it up this summer from a family bookshelf. I’m not sure whom I have to thank for putting it on that shelf, but I’m grateful. At its core, the story is framed by a murder investigation, but…
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PhishTank’s first week
On Monday, OpenDNS launched PhishTank, a community anti-phishing site with a free, open API for getting the data everywhere it might help. The response was gratifying. Skim the 51 mentions (and counting) so far. Thanks to the still-impressive distribution of the Associated Press, a single article made it to many, many more outlets than I…
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One (more) reason to live in a city
While out a few weeks ago, we noticed a restaurant in the neighborhood we had never seen before. Last night, we ate at Abacus, a small “California Chinese cuisine” place. Probably seats just over 30 when full, but with kids you eat early, so no problems getting a table even on Saturday night. Not a…
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Looking for someone to play with a REST API
David posts the details on the OpenDNS blog, and I want to call attention to the opportunity. We’re looking to pay someone to work quickly to create a Thunderbird extension using the REST API for the anti-phishing website launching shortly. If you’re interested, or know folks who might be, please hurry… need testable code by…
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Great service at Kiantis Pizza & Pasta Bar in Santa Cruz
I can’t find a restaurant website, so the Yahoo! Local entry will have to do: Kiantis Pizza & Pasta Bar turned out to be an inspired (if totally fortunate) choice for dinner on Saturday night. Our walkable choices were not so inspiring, so we risked children’s fatigue levels and drove to downtown Santa Cruz —…
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2006 Santa Cruz Sentinel leaves me sore, but satisfied
I was sore yesterday, and I’m sore now, and we’ll see about tomorrow, but yesterday morning’s triathlon went well. The Santa Cruz Sentinel Triathlon is an Olympic distance race, which means it’s officially a 1.5K swim, 40K bike, and 10K run. Update: The organizers sent an apologetic email after the fact letting all racers know…