It’s my rather pompous term for the way that email, SMS and, in particular, the SlackBerry [sic] reduce the quality of our replies. Nowadays, it seems, a prompt one-line answer to an email is considered somehow more productive, efficient, effective and “smart” than actually contemplating for a moment the subject and the best response. However … Read more
Does anyone know how to skip the trailers on DVDs? I’ve just sat through nearly 10 minutes of promotions — ‘For the first time ever on DVD’ — for six shows from MacGyver to Happy Days on a DVD of Frasier. What makes the folks at Paramount think they can force me to sit through … Read more
If you like wikis, you might like to know that one of the best self-contained wiki Windows programs, wikidPad, is now open source at SourceForge.net: wikidPad is a wiki-like notebook for storing your thoughts, ideas, todo lists, contacts, or anything else you can think of to write down. Its author, Jason Horman, released the code … Read more
I’m a journalist. You probably knew that. But since focusing on being a columnist (rather than a reporter) I’ve tried to avoid the journalist crowd. Not because they’re not interesting, dedicated, very smart people, many of whom I count my friends. It’s just that journalists have a certain way of thinking, and I’m not convinced, … Read more