Rough Drafts

Note: I started writing this post last Fall. Then, all this house construction happened, we got rained out of our home and had to move, and I kind of lost track of the post. It’s been sitting around in my “Drafts” folder since then. Rather than delete it, I decided to finish and publish it […]

Not much. She is the author/screenwriter of Bewitched and Sleepless in Seattle, after all, not an Internet expert. But for some reason, being a popular screenwriter of romantic comedies is enough to get you invited to internet conferences, and so there she was, looking around at a bunch of geeks las

If you’re trying to find me today, you’ll have to wait. I’ve been called for jury duty and I’m spending the day in the cell- and wifi-free basement of the San Mateo County Hall of Justice. There is a wifi network in the jury room, but it won’t give anyone an IP address. I’m going […]

Five hot science and technology stories this week. 1. User-created content. Brush aside the Web 2.0 an “attention economy” hype from ETech and SXSW. What really gets new media companies excited is the idea of user-created content–text, audio, and especially video that ordinary Janes and Joes create

Here’s a great, world-changing idea: Give people camcorders. Let them make movies of human rights violations. Show the videos to the world. Founded in 1992 by Peter Gabriel, this organization is already making waves–for instance, videos showing abuses in the juvenile justice system in California wer

The Kansas City Barbecue joint right across from the San Diego Manchester Hyatt, on Harbor Blvd., is a regular dive. The Hyatt concierge steers guests away from the place with a frown and a hesitating reply that suggests it’s less than respectable. Ignore her. “Welcome to the last dump in San Diego,

I’ve been moblogging ETech like mad for the past two days, but you might not know it unless you stop by Wired News’ Monkey Bites blog, where I am a guest blogger. You might not know it even then, since the posts are appearing under the regular blogger’s name, Michael Calore. Regular readers of that

You’ve Got PayMail AOL has announced plans to charge for sending some e-mail, in hopes of curtailing spam. But skeptics aren’t buying it. By Dylan Tweney, for Technology Review

I’ll be covering/moblogging O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference in San Diego next week, for Wired News. If you’ll be at the conference, drop me a line and let me know how to get in touch with you during the show. My email address is on my contact page. UPDATE 3/6: You’ll find my blog entries o

From our seats at the very top of the balcony the dancers, in their brightly-colored pants and tank tops, looked as small and unreal as fairies. “Can I pick them up?” Clara whispered to me. We went to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform in Berkeley last night. It was an amazing dance

Career columnist Penelope Trunk has a great idea in her column this week: The caffeine nap. Drink a cup of coffee, then immediately take a short 15-minute nap. By the time you’re done napping, the caffeine is kicking in and you can wake up quickly, alert and refreshed.

Aerogel is the world’s lightest solid — and also the most porous. I’ve got a story on Wired News this morning that explains all about this really cool material, how it was used in NASA/JPL’s recent Stardust mission, and how some companies are commercializing the stuff. This story was really fun to w