April 15, 2008
As many of my friends and relatives know, I spent the first half of 2007 writing a book with my friend Jonathan Chaffer. The book turned into two books, and they were both published last summer. Since a couple people have recently asked me about how it all turned out in the end, I thought I'd post a quick progress …
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October 25, 2007
This week I'm at a conference in Boston called The Ajax Experience. No, it's not four days of learning how to use cleaning products. It's all about technologies that allow for cool user interactions with content on web pages (see more on Wikipedia, if you're interested). I'm here as part of the fairly large jQuery contingent. So far it has …
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January 17, 2007
I've lost track of how long the English Rules website has been running, but its transformation from a simple online reference for my students to a multifaceted weblog occurred in August 2003, when I installed the Movable Type Publishing Platform and posted my very first entry, The Economist Steven Levitt and Other Heroes, which was based on a New York …
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November 16, 2005
When it comes to food, my main concern is almost always efficiency. Efficiency and convenience. Don't get me wrong—I think flavor is important, too, and I appreciate good-tasting foods as much as the next guy (though apparently not as much as my wife and her friends, who geek out on recipes and related culinary matters as much as I do …
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August 18, 2005
A few months ago I received a large manila envelope in the mail. It came from my mother, and it contained an award certificate that I had apparently received. In the 7th grade. My mother, bless her heart, is somewhat of a packrat. And I mean that in the best, most positive sense of the word. In a way, I'm …
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August 6, 2005
The entire day yesterday consisted of long, fitful sleep punctuated by bleary wakefulness. The culprit: strep throat. For some strange reason that nobody can figure out yet, our family has been especially susceptible to the bacteria, especially this year. Since February all four of us have been bitten by the bug four times. This time, my fifth, I'm so far …
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June 24, 2005
I've read a few books in my life, and I hope to read a few more. But there are many that I'll never be able to get through, even if I'd really like to. The big irony of recent years is that while book sales are going up, reading is going down. At least, that's what I've read. So, here …
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June 1, 2005
The time seemed right to change the site, so that is what I'm doing. I'm taking it slow, though, beginning with the home page and adapting other pages to the new design as I find the time. So let's just call this a work in progress. In keeping with my "process" attitude, I'd love to hear from anyone who has …
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March 15, 2005
Grand Rapids, MI In what is widely considered a stunning fulfillment of expectations, the English Rules blog—along with its companion blogs Photography, Word of the Day, and Writing Guide—did not win any of 2005's prestigious Bloggies™. In fact, the collection of blogs at englishrules.com was not even nominated for an award. Early this morning, site owner and editor Karl Swedberg …
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February 20, 2005
Since nothing else has worked, I've decided to publicly shame myself into doing a litany of things that I have put off for too long. So here is my list, in no particular order, of things left undone. Next to each item is the approximate time that it has been on my "to do" list. Print a few photos in …
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February 19, 2005
Sometimes I feel as if these lines from T.S. Eliot's 1934 poem "Choruses from The Rock," while pretty much summing up the 21st century, are an especially apt description of my situation: The endless cycle of idea and action, Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of …
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January 30, 2005
In a speech she gave last summer in Vienna, Mena Trott, co-founder of the Movable Type Publishing Platform (which powers this blog), divided bloggers into three distinct groups: the pundits, the diarists and the egoists.… I'd venture to guess that unless you password protect your weblog or publish a weblog local to your own hard drive, you will most likely …
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January 10, 2005
This morning I went to the oral surgeon to have my four wisdom teeth pulled. The procedure was painless because they knocked me out with some general anaesthesia. The last time I had general anaesthesia, 15 years ago for a knee injury, I woke up crying and mumbling, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die." I felt …
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December 18, 2004
Technology is not my friend today. While taking pictures of a friend's baby, the battery in my Nikon digital camera ran out. No problem, I thought, I'll just switch to my 35mm camera while I recharge the digital camera's battery. But when I tried to turn on the Nikon N80, its batteries were dead, too. I ran to the closet …
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November 28, 2004
For the past six months or so I've been roasting my own coffee in earnest, using green coffee beans that I buy from sweetmarias.com and a popcorn popper that I bought from eBay for $15. There are small, personal machines on the market for genuiune home coffee roasting, but they're mostly in the triple-digit range, and I wasn't sure if …
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November 21, 2004
A friend of mine recently challenged me to limit my time on the computer, outside of work, to one hour or less each day. He didn't think I could do it for a month. So I've accepted the challenge, which means that I'll probably be posting fewer entries on this site and I'll definitely be reading fewer online magazines and …
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April 5, 2004
After much consideration and biting of nails, I've decided to decline the generous offer to attend the University of Michigan MSI program in Human Computer Interaction. It's a top-rate program at a fantastic school in a hip locale. So why not go? With a three-year-old and a one-year-old, I'm afraid the transition would be too traumatic, not just for the …
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March 1, 2004
The School of Information at the University of Michigan has accepted my application for their Human-Computer Interaction program this fall. They are very kind. …
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