While at Intel, I discovered that I was often overwhelmed by e-mail. Many were useless, some were amusing, and a few were important and useful to my job or my life. Unfortunately, these few often disguised themselves as the useless variety (or a long winded variant). So, I started telling everyone that if they wanted to make sure I read (at least part of) their e-mail then they should start with the e-mailer's equivalent of an executive summary. The first line (or the subject) should contain the reason for the e-mail. If the heart of the e-mail is buried in the second paragraph, there's no guarantee that I (or someone else) will read that far before binning the e-mail.

Several years ago, I told my friend Harold to make sure he writes whatever it is he wants me to do or respond to in the first line too ensure that I'll pay attention to his e-mail and he's since employed it, with great success, as a way to write e-mail to everyone. Three days ago, he even wrote up an article on it dubbing it "Michael's Rule".

Click here to read the rest of
Michael's Rule

This week I watched Black Snake Moan (2.5/5) and The Notorious Betty Page (3.25/5).
Click here to read the rest of
Movies This Week (7/27)

This seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series has been one of the most anticipated novels in recent years. You can't help but feel sorry for any storyteller who is under this much pressure to please her audience and yet tell a rich story. As a reader of Harry Potter books, I've invested the last nine years in the world and approached the final novel with some anxiety. Would Rowling's vision of how the story should end match my ideas? It turns out, I got lucky. Every major plot point that I predicted (it was actually more like I longed for) played itself out in the story. At times the progression irked me, was there nothing new? But the details are a pleasure to discover, for I hadn't thought at all about the details or logistics of how the events would come about and clearly Rowling did. She did an amazing job at providing believable motivation for the characters as well as tying details from previous books (and, yes, I looked up the relevant sections of the previous novels while reading this one) together into a cohesive seven part story that has been building up to this point. After the first pass (which is where I am now, having just finished the book), I can't think of anything that doesn't work - it fits perfectly.

The final book is not without its blemishes and the series is not the best series ever written (although its fan-base seems to suggest otherwise), but it is a strong story with strong themes of honor and duty dosed with a touch of melancholy. The familiar characters have all grown another year and you can't help but fell like they are close friends or misguided youths who hopefully can be redeemed. A veil of doubt hovers over the entire story, which like the others is told from a third person limited omniscient point of view following Harry, as the most one sided characters (ones that are entirely good or entirely bad) begin to reveal more human complexities to Harry. This book, unlike the first five (the sixth was quite excellent as well), really makes the main characters into living, thinking, and feeling people. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a wonderful read and, as the final book the Harry Potter series, really makes the whole series worth it. I can now recommend without reservation that you pick up a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone and read it (as well as the others) if you haven't done so already.

The spoiler-free review ends here. Everything after the jump is going to probably have spoilers.
Click here to read the rest of
Books - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, a pizza chain in Northern California, sticks out in my mind as one of the few pizza joints that I know of that regularly serves clam as a topping. They have two clam pizzas, the Manhattan Red Clam Pizza (clams and garlic with tomato sauce) and the New Haven White Clam Pizza (clams with garlic and bacon without tomato sauce). I had both pizzas a few years before and found them really disappointing. They had a sparsity of clams and and flavor - more like a plain cheese pizza with light sprinkling of clam. Yesterday, I had the New Haven White Clam Pizza for the second time. I felt it was time to give it another try and this time it was really good! The minced clams and crumbled bacon were perfectly distributed on the pizza and the flavor was just right. It was nothing like the first time and I'm guess that I just had some bad luck the first time around. The only problem I had with the pizza (and this is a general problem with Amici's pizza) is that the thin crust pizza get brunt in some places (I mean really burnt - black and bitter).

Natalie MacLean, author of Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass and four time James Beard award winning writer, wrote to me to tell me about the food and wine pairing tool on her website, Nat Decants. The tool is pretty easy to use, just select the type of dish (appetizer, egg-based, red meat, etc.) or the type of wine and then refine your selection to have recommended pairings show up. Pretty nifty.

Natalie's website is also a wealth of information — biweekly wine picks, a wine glossary, and even audio of Natalie reading from her book (including a picture of her so you don't get bored while listening) — that's definitely worth checking out.

This week I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (3.5/5) and rewatched Shaun of the Dead (4.25/5), Dark City (4/5), and Dracula 2000 (1.5/5).
Click here to read the rest of
Movies This Week (7/20)

It's actually been over a month since I finished this book, but I had some major issues with it and couldn't bear to finish the review until now. Spoilers follow the jump, so don't click more if you don't want to read some of them.

In this conclusion to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy, Will and Lyra continue their travels between the worlds. Lyra, who is prophesied to be the faciliatator of a new era (Eve reincarnated), unknowingly begins to fulfill her destiny with the help of most of the characters from the first two books.
Click here to read the rest of
Books - His Dark Materials 3: The Amber Spyglass

The Tufte one day class was pretty interesting, but I'm not sure it was worth the money. With a bunch of people that use Mosuki, we managed to get enough people to sign up to get the 25% off discount so I ended up paying $285 for the course. Along with the course, you receive all four of Edward Tufte's books - a $185 value if you buy them from his online store (or $133 from Amazon.com). That means I paid about $100 - $152 (not counting parking and lunch) for the privilege of seeing Edward Tufte in person, chatting with him about the CFE Tabular Recipe Notation for about three minutes, and hearing him teach out of his books. At these prices, it's not too bad for about six hours of lecture, but since almsot all the material is available in his amazingly well written and beautifully designed books, I'd have to recommend others to pick up his books first and read them.
Click here to read the rest of
Tufte

Well, not really the Wizard (of Oz) but the Wizard of Data Visualization. Tomorrow I get to attend a full day course taught by Edward Tufte. The first time I heard of Tufte was three years ago when someone posted on Cooking For Engineers that the recipe summary tables were Tuftian. I was a bit confused by that remark until I read a little about Edward Tufte - it was a compliment! Tufte teaches about information design, clarifying complexity, interface design, and more. I've heard that people who have taken classes from him have found themselves looking at the world differently - I'm not even hoping for that much of an impact, but that would be cool.
Click here to read the rest of
I'm off to see the Wizard!

Another week where I have to write two weeks worth since I didn't get a chance to write last week. In this edition I cover Ratatouille (5/5), Live Free or Die Hard (4/5), Final Destination 3 (2.5/5), Transformers (4/5), The Sentinel (3.5/5), Ordinary People (3/5).
Click here to read the rest of
Movies This Week (7/13)