Always a good Sunday when I can get through most of the NYTimes. When I first started blogging 2 years ago I had the luxury of a 30 minute bus ride to downtown SF where I was able to sit in the back and read the Times every day. At night I would pick out a few of the interesting articles or talk about how frustrating it was to see an important article buried in the A section. We moved, though, and my commute changed and I no longer had as much time to read in the morning. This blog was created as a new iteration of that first one, but I always sorta missed the format of that first attempt.

Now, with a new life and new schedule here in New Haven, I'm going to bring back a bit of that first blog for a weekly Sunday post about the Saturday and Sunday New York Times. Even better, now the Times has permalinks so these posts won't break after a week or two.

My aim is not simply to rehash the news on the front page, but instead to delve a little deeper into the thick weekend tome and highlight those articles that I found especially interesting that might have been overlooked.

So check out this article about NeuStar. I never even considered how it is the telecoms manage the billions of phone numbers our nation requires, but this quick interview reveals the very interesting answer.

Next up is some local flavor. Yale is spending lots of money to refurbish its facilities, and in the process really investing in and improving New Haven. Unfortunately, the city doesn't have the funds or the flexibility to be as effective.

It was nice to read this article about a company doing right by its customers. So often I have been in the opposite situation, where it seemed like some hideous corporation was doing their utmost to drive me away. And next time I shop online, I will definitely remember this.

I'm intrigued by this device, the Neuros OSD. You can use to record video from essentially any source, including cable or satellite TV. All you need to do is hook it up to a hard drive and everything is stored as an mpeg-4, ready for viewing on anything from an iPod to your TV to a computer. Even cooler, everything about it is open source, including the hardware, so brilliant hacks are sure to come.

Lastly is a fascinating article about sound design and scoring for films in general, and "No Country for Old Men" in particular. There's only 16 minutes of music in the film and the minimalist soundtrack is used to powerful effect in ratcheting up the tension.

Still got a section or two to get through before bed, and I'm confident of success.

Labels: nytimes