The Completist

As I get older, it only becomes more and more clear I will never read all the books I want to read before I die. There’s just no getting around it. There’s too many books! Even my Amazon Wish List, aka my Amazon “Don’t Want To Read That Much So I Will Put You On This Pointless List” List is swelling at over 300.

This is tough …

More Profound Thoughts About My — Our? — PvP Obsession

I don’t know how many of you out there in the land of the living read PvP. I do. There was a time when I did not ‘get’ why PvP was popular, but now that I’m down with the full continuity I find it consistently funny. I don’t even really mind that it has basically nothing to do with gaming anymore. Kurtz’s deep fluency in the code of pop …

There Is No E-mail in My In-Box

I haven’t kept careful records or anything, but I am willing to stake my journalistic integrity on the claim that at no point in the past 10 years have I had an empty in-box. A few weeks ago, when I came back from a leave of absence, I had a four or five hundred e-mails in there. I’ve been winnowing ever since.

Last week the scroll bar …

Now in Paper-Vision: Stealing Wi-Fi

This week in Time I wrote a column (which started out as a blog post) about stealing Wi-Fi. It’s here.

The main thing that I don’t think I properly conveyed in the piece is the incredible, psychotic obsessiveness that you develop when chasing a distant Wi-Fi signal. It always begins so well — whenever you join a network on a Mac, it …

Nerd Archives — 1983

The following is an unedited transcription of one of Matt Selman’s actual seventh grade homework assignments.

I would like to meet…

I would like to meet Zaphod Beeblebrox from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams for three reasons.

Zaphod has three arms and two heads. I think it would be interesting to meet someone …

Miracleman: Anthem for a Forgotten Superhero

OK, forgotten’s probably putting it too strongly. But listen: when I was growing up in the 1980s (cue Grandpa Simpson voice) we didn’t have the Interweb. So when I started reading Alan Moore I read him in almost total isolation — it was my brother who hooked me up, but apart from him I didn’t really have any perspective on Moore’s …

News Flash: The iPhone Gets Slightly Better

The non-surprise is, obviously, 3G. Everbody wanted 3G, everybody knew they were putting in 3G, then they put in 3G. Yay!

I think the push-style syncing of mail, contacts and calendar, while not all that sexy, will make a huge difference to users. Though boo that you have to pay for it. And ditto the GPS, better audio, better price, …

A Cool Grant Morrison Moment

I’ve never really been one to follow comics writers and artists too closely. It’s a pure laziness thing. When all the smart, informed comics fans were like, Chris Claremont’s scripting on the Dark Phoenix saga is so being outstripped by Byrne’s powerful linework, I was all like, when I grow up I’m going to be Kitty Pryde’s boyfriend. …

I Am the Last Man on Earth…to See Indy 4

Saw it last night, and man, what a snooze. I almost would have preferred a Temple of Doom-style catastrophe — this wasn’t even bad, it was just dull. Since not a single other person on the Internet has blogged about Indy 4, I will now enrich world culture by posting my whining complaints (spoilers follow):

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