Jim Willis

  • The Serious Need for Play: Scientific American

    The Serious Need for Play: Scientific American

    Parents should let children be children—not just because it should be fun to be a child but because denying youth’s unfettered joys keeps kids from developing into inquisitive, creative…

  • psyched I showed some restraint at the Apple Store and didn’t buy the Mac Mini I was looking at. New ones today: http://tinyurl.com/6krpr

  • Donated to WNYC. Feeling less guilty now and am looking forward to the Bittman book, too: http://tinyurl.com/7dsosc

  • Oranges with Olives

    I made this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/dining/25mini.html last night for something to snack on while I made dinner. It was amazing. Highly recommended. I chilled the orange slices while I cut/pitted/ crushed the olives (which were at room temp) the temperature contrast, along with the sweet/salt contrast is awesome.

  • Looking for suggestions on media center setups for Man Room 2.0, details here: http://tinyurl.com/bxl6mx

  • Modus Operandi – It’s the little things

    Modus Operandi – It’s the little things

    Alex explains why I like the RSS requirement: “For example the Stimulus package requires that government agencies report how they spend the money in an Atom/RSS feed. By itself this is not a big…

  • Quicksilver has stopped working for me over the past few days giving me an excuse to try LaunchBar (which is up to version 5.0 now)

  • In Newark representing open software and neighborhood technology in NJ DoT’s discussions on car sharing programs.

  • Chef Colicchio and Feeding the Kids

    I read Tom Colicchio’s think like a chef a few years ago. I thought it was a great book and it really helped me understand some fundamental techniques. I don’t recognize too many chefs’ names so when I saw his in this piece: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/even-top-chefs-have-picky-kids/ I was excited to see what he had to say about how he feeds his kids. The other day when we were complaining about how little we actually get accomplished on a day-to-day basis around the house it occurred to me to think about giving some credit to the things we actually do get done. One of those things is sitting down to eat well-prepared meals together. Not only do we eat most meals as a family, our diet has very little processed food in it since we make most stuff from scratch. I go back and forth in my thinking about whether or not our kids eat enough healthy food but when I look at it relative to kids who eat chicken fingers and hot dogs for every meal I think we’re doing OK. I mean, one kid will eat anything you put in front of him as long as it didn’t come from the ground but the other demands curry and pad thai (as well as fruit loops and oreos) but at least he tries good stuff and eats some broccoli every once in a while. Anyway, interesting piece and worth a read: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/even-top-chefs-have-picky-kids/

  • Hulu’s Superbowl Ad and the Boxee Fight – O’Reilly Radar

    Hulu’s Superbowl Ad and the Boxee Fight – O’Reilly Radar

    The technology people want always wins in the end – no duh – and usually benefits the businesses who fought that technology to the death. Here’s hoping the technology people want – Boxee –…

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Reading Notes

  • Read: Manufactured Anxiety: How Self-Improvement Became a Self Destruct Sequence
    Who profits from our constant state of dissatisfaction? The answer, of course, is painfully obvious. Every industry that sells a solution to a problem you […]
  • Read: My Friends Aren’t Reading
    the shifts have been in place for awhile. A certain kind of book—say those reviewed in the NYRB—will become like opera, or theater, or ballet, […]
  • Read: Pema Chödrön’s Three Methods for Working with Chaos
    • No more struggle: “Whatever arises, train again and again in seeing it for what it is. The innermost essence of mind is without bias. […]
  • Read: Why Not Bluesky
    The real problem, in my mind, isn’t in the nature of this particular Venture-Capital operation. Because the whole raison-d’etre of Venture Capital is to make […]
  • Read: The Tech Coup
    . The EU invokes a mechanism called the precautionary principle in cases where an innovation, such as GMOs, has not yet been sufficiently researched for […]

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