chrisnull.com

Have you checked out Film Racket yet? You should, because it’s awesome. Everything I learned from 20 years of talking about the movies is distilled into this new website, which just launched this week.

Have you read Five Stars! How to Become a Film Critic, the World’s Greatest Job? Oh, you have? Well maybe you should check it out again. The 2005 book is updated and reissued with new material in this revamped 2013 Second Edition. Check it out now in paperback or ebook format.

(in rough order)

My job.
My children.
The Comcast rep’s children.
Where I live.
Texting.
Children having cell phones.
Laptops.
Wireless routers.
Google Glass.
Whether mobile technology is causing us to disassociate from society.
Windows 8.
My Comcast service request.

I spent 20 minutes trying to figure this out today. Nothing online is very complete.

Outlook 2007 (other versions act similarly), by default when you install it, auto-archives your email every 14 days. This includes deleting many calendar entries older than 6 months, which makes using Outlook for archival purposes almost impossible.

If you forgot to turn auto-archive off, here’s what to do to get that stuff back.

In the left hand “Mail Folders” pane, find the Archive Folders text. Right-click and select “Close Archive Folders.”

Now, go to Tools > Options > Other > AutoArchive. If it’s not on, turn it on for a moment. You’ll see a button next to “Move old items to:” and below that a location string, such as: C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst. COPY this string with CTRL-C. Close this window after turning AutoArchive back off.

Next, back in the main screen, click File > Import and Export. Select “Import from another program or file.” Click Next. Select Personal Folder File (.pst), click Next. Now paste the string from the previous step into the “File to import” box. Click Next and use defaults for the remaining prompts. After a few minutes of work, all your mail and calendar items will be back where you expect them to be.

I hit on this idea after watching our iPads fall over on the kitchen counter for the thousandth time, where we (attempt) to store them vertically against the wall, but which I have always had to prop up with a bottle of wine lest the slide across the counter. My brainstorm: A paper napkin holder. This $12 job from Amazon is solid metal (so heavy enough to not tip over), compact (to take up minimal space), and looks pretty stylish. Two iPads (both with cases) fit in it side by side perfectly.

Lifehacker has a similar idea using an ugly Ikea napkin holder and a MacBook.

By popular demand, here are my picks for the year.

1. Argo
2. Promised Land
3. Compliance
4. Safety Not Guaranteed
5. Flight
6. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
7. This Is 40
8. The Queen of Versailles
9. Cloud Atlas
10. Arbitrage

Best question from Cub Scout visit to Presidio Park Police Station today: “Do you have a morning star?”

Also popular were questions about swords, machine guns, bazookas, and flamethrowers.

I work pretty much all day in Firefox and big text fields in WordPress. Some strange bug between the two causes performance to bog down, especially when (oddly) deleting text.

Finally I’ve found what looks like a solution.

In Firefox, click Tools > Options.

Under the Advanced section, click the General tab. Uncheck the box next to “Use hardware acceleration when available.”

Reboot and be happy.

Yes, if it’s a tough problem…

Previous research has shown that performance on problem solving improves over a period of sleep, as compared with wakefulness. However, these studies have not determined whether sleep is beneficial for problem solving or whether sleep merely mitigates against interference due to an interruption to solution attempts … We conclude that sleep facilitates problem solving, most likely via spreading activation, but this has its primary effect for harder problems.

If none of that makes sense, try reading the research tomorrow.