General

I’ve been receiving strange emails the last few weeks, talking of a mystery and sending me to www.TheMuckleMan.com. The site is an online puzzle, with a grid of squares that link to various news reports across the web and the MySpace blog of Gilbert, a marine biologist researching giant squid in Newfoundland. (Incidentally, Gilbert seems […]

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I had a grand, nostalgic time visiting old haunts in Boston and Cambridge last week, including riding the T, Boston’s subway (officially the MBTA). Fares are higher than when I was in college there — up from $0.60 to $1.25 — but it’s still the easiest and cheapest way to get around the metropolitan area. […]

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The Pittsburgh Opera has been working to appeal to a broader audience — and working hard. Most of the advertising and marketing this season features a cartoon image of a funky-looking gray-haired lady named Beth Parker, “The Opera Lady.” Ms. Parker turns out to be a real person — before and after opera performances she […]

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Today marks the fifth anniversary of the introduction of the most memorable brand of the last decade: Apple’s iPod. You’ll find articles in the San Jose Mercury News, CNet, Los Angeles Times, a whole section in the Washington Post, and more. But if you’re looking for clear, cogent analysis of why the iPod brand has […]

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The regional blog directory Pittsburgh Bloggers has been a success thus far: It’s a great resource for finding and staying up to date with bloggers in the Pittsburgh area. One of my main goals in helping to found it was discovering how many bloggers there are in the area, what they’re blogging about, how the […]

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In the Bits & Bytes column of today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, way at the bottom, there’s a little item about my “sideline” as mixologist-for-hire. This service is my experiment with the web service Ether, which is an intermediary between experts and people looking for advice, conducted via telephone. (Their tagline: “Sell what you say.”) I wanted […]

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