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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
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"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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My TIME articles
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Daily Blah for... Thursday, February 27, 2003
The Spirit of TED
TED is what you wish every conference could be: a delightful and well-produced mixture of lectures, videos, toys and music, where some of the finest minds on the planet are asked to speak or perform. It's great brain food, succour for the spirit. Right now I'm watching Thomas Dolby and Eddi Reader perform on an HDTV feed from the lecture theater upstairs. I'd be there myself, but it's much more fun down here: we get large comfortable chairs, an 18-ft. high inflatable globe, all the computers and Wi-Fi we can eat. There's an interactive projection screen where you can use your shadow to deflect butterflies, bat around colored bubbles or catch streams of sand, and a tilting screen like a table where you get to roll a virtual pinball over markers that, when struck, display the word "peace" in languages like Cherokee and Esperanto.
It is, in short, this wonderful bubble of pure intellectual optimism. One of those rare places, like Google and Amazon and -- dare I mention it in the same breath -- Burning Man, where you can still hang out and watch the white-hot collision of technology and dreams. A carefully-tended flame in the middle of a very dark age.
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