“Our lives are frittered away by detail. Simplify. Simplify.” Thoreau, channelled by Vin. Worth remembering, especially because ‘frittered’ is so fun to say.

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I always want to listen to This American Life on NPR, but I never do. Maybe something like this is the answer? $150.00 for the basic model, via pre-ordering. Have to see if there is a service fee, too. [via E-Media Tidbits, Steve Outing] Oooh! Oooh! I’ve been waiting for this: A portable device that…

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Yesterday afternoon, Ben took his nap in his bed instead of his crib. First time for everything. Later that evening, he started the night in his bed… but for the second night, after about an hour, he asked to be put in his crib. We’re not going to push too hard, but interesting to watch…

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Getting a company’s name right shouldn’t be that hard, but my employer, CNET Networks, seems to have some extra challenges there. The logo of CNET (one of the brands, not the company) is a lower-case c|net embedded in a bright red ball. Early on (1995 or so), CNET would write out the company name in…

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I was interested to see Tim Bray criticize a CNET News.com article: Passport to get Web services stamp. I don’t actually know the reporter, as he works in a separate bureau. In a quick read (it’s not a long article), I found that (a) the headline oversells and (b) this is a report of an…

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A joke Brooke shared with me. Larry wakes up at home with a huge hangover. He forces himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins and a glass of water on the side table. He sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean…

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I went to the library last weekend to (finally) return my three overdue books, and I was able to pick up one more, quickly. It’s Katharine Graham’s Personal History, her Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography written in 1998. Since I read Halberstam’s The Powers That Be earlier this year, I’m interested in another perspective on the rise…

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Fun for Benjamin, fun for Brooke, fun for me, and fun for Isabel (I hope). For Ben, Aunt Isabel is another active member of his audience. What’s he going to do when he has to share the stage with the new arrival in a few months? Anyway, she’s got him down in the yard weeding.

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I want to read this quick Emerging Technology post later, especially because it has a link to the conference presentations.

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Since reading the O’Brian biography, I’ve been of a mind to get back to the Aubrey-Maturin series. I had stopped with the fourth one, The Mauritius Command, a few years ago, simply because I didn’t have the next one in the series, Desolation Island. I’ve rectified that mistake, and I finished it on Wednesday. I…

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