I got two emails on Tuesday from Google. Seems like Jeff Barr, whom I know a little bit got similar recruiting emails. Coincidence that all of this happened on Tuesday? Unlike Jeff, now at Amazon, I’ve never spoken to Google about working there, so there was less dissonance, just surprise. Although I have several good…

Read on →

The Lives of Others is the best movie I’ve seen since Amadeus. I won’t attempt to summarize, but I will share my comment regarding a story that starts in 1984: “It wasn’t that long ago.” See the film, and you’ll understand. Wow. Metacritic score of 89, 54th on the all-time list. Admittedly, all-time doesn’t go…

Read on →

Unbelievably, it’s been two weeks since this event. But so it goes. A fortnight ago, the wife brought me to see Will Shortz over at Berkeley, as part of the Cal Performances series. The NYTimes crossword puzzle editor and enigmatologist extraordinaire just walked on stage, talked about the history of crossword puzzles, answered questions, and…

Read on →

Spider Robinson wrote a very solid Robert Heinlein book in Variable Star. I didn’t realize it was so new (Sept, 2006) when I picked it up at the library a few weeks ago. I’m rarely so up to date. 😉 Variable Star weaves in some faithful sci-fi themes: space colonies, not-so-friendly aliens, faster-than-light travel, and…

Read on →

The Chronicles of Prydain were one of my favorite series of books growing up. I just re-read all five because the boy dove in a couple of weeks ago. He’s now read them all and is re-reading them. The books sit in a stack on the floor, and he returns to Taran and Eilonwy and…

Read on →

I’ve known about NextBus, but today we took advantage of the service. We made the call to head down to the Ferry Building for a visit to the Farmers’ Market, and NextBus correctly said that the 5 Fulton was 4 minutes away. We made it, which saved 25 minutes of waiting. On the way back,…

Read on →

You know how it’s hard to write something brief sometimes? We’ve worked hard to make shortcuts come alive. The power of DNS just got a lot easier to explain. Sure, you don’t need to care about DNS itself, but shortcuts are something you can see, something you can use…almost something you can touch. After improving…

Read on →

What a nice surprise to linger in the public library on Saturday morning and find a Dick Francis novel I had not read: Under Orders. According to Wikipedia, this was the first novel since the death of his wife, Mary. Like all of the Francis books, a fun read that didn’t take much more than…

Read on →

I read the graphic novel over a year ago. The film version of A History of Violence has been on the list ever since. The film was solid. Different, though, in its patience and willingness to linger even further on the small town scenes instead of the Philadelphia backstory and finale. Unlike a horror movie…

Read on →

Chances Are…Adventures in Probability was my other pickup at Cody’s a few weeks ago. Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan jointly authored this exploration of statistics, but the voice is consistent. Chances Are… picks through history with an eye on the odds. Skills with numbers, and misconceptions about numbers, affect far more than simply the roulette…

Read on →