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A thoroughly thought out strategy guide to Othello from a master of the game.
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I like the concept of an RT API, and I think the user experience sketches illustrated here are spot on. I also think that this is a great example of crowdsourced features–Twitter is slowly evolving from a generic messaging system to a highly evolved conversation system with the help of its users, who pioneer new features with social conventions and 140 characters.
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Astonishing set of photos of the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s collection. I particularly liked Vladimir Nabokov’s butterfly collection, and the collection of tanagers which looks for all the world like Joseph Cornell put them together.
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Clinton sounds a note of caution to net progressives: “Trying to hold the president’s feet to the fire is fine, but first we have to win the big argument. It’s ok with me if you want to keep everybody honest. But try to keep this thing in the lane of getting something done. We need to pass a bill.”
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Another good reason to get an iPhone 3GS — the camera is just faster.
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#blogpostfriday is a great idea. For me, the rest of the week is linkblogging. I try to actually write on Friday. The good news is, sometimes it spills over to the rest of the week.
Day: August 14, 2009
Postcard from Madison County
Today’s post is a delayed peek at where I was the first week of August. We took a week’s vacation and spent it with my parents at their house in Buncombe County, as well as getting in a lot of good time with my aunt and uncle, cousins, and a rare visit with my Aunt Jewell. The photo above was taken at what I still think of as my grandmother’s farm (now my Aunt Jewell’s) in Madison County, as are a number of the other photos in the Flickr set I just posted. (Folks who are marked as friends and family in Flickr will find some new family photos in this set and in my photostream.)
Every time I go down there to visit, time slows a little bit. Part of this is because of the infrastructure in western North Carolina; though growth has accelerated in Buncombe County around Asheville, Madison remains the same deeply rural, underdeveloped county that maddened me as a bored child and entrances me and saddens me now. Part of it is the land and the quiet. Part of it used to be the isolation from technology, but my parents have had high speed for a while and before this visit they installed a wireless access point. I still managed to spend most of my time outside.
I sometimes think: so much of my job is virtual. What if I had to live in Asheville? I could probably do some of what I do, but sadly product management still requires a lot of face to face time with the various constituencies that we support. The refrain of “Free Man In Paris” goes through my mind every time I leave: “If I could I’d go back there tomorrow, but for the work I’ve taken on…”
(Of course, I’d miss other things about where we are, like being able to sing in the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. But our work is the main thing.)