Archives for July 2004

The New Musical Functionality: Portability and access (July 26, 2004) The other day I started this run of posts on the New Musical Functionality by arguing that the behaviour of an until-recently small group of digital music fans seemed to be now spreading into the mainstream. I also listed four...

The New Musical Functionality... (July 17, 2004) Over the last few months webloggia has been full of discussions about the new musical functionality that's starting to emerge around the web. I wasn't immune from this trend - I wrote about MediaUnbound (On MediaUnbound and Recommendations Engines) and...

On scientific truth and Christian truth... (July 16, 2004) In the middle of an article about the way that the religious right have interfered with scientific work in the US, I find a troubling paragraph: At a time when biology is poised to undergo a fundamental revolution, the US...

On IMwatching.net... (July 16, 2004) I don't even know how to describe IMwatching.net except that it's imaginative and awesomely creepy. The concept in a nutshell - it's a way of keeping track of when someone was online in IM and when they were not and...

I have no opinion about this whatsoever... (July 13, 2004) I have no opinion about this whatsoever. Here are just four links in a row, presented in a reverse-chronological (most recent first) fashion with no attempt whatsoever to make a point, which nonetheless are prefaced with a proviso that any...

A proposal for Wifi-hubs to be built into landlines... (July 11, 2004) Brief summary for people with too little time: slap an ADSL modem and wifi hub into every landline phone and allow them to network automatically with each other and you suddenly have a simple way to bathe an entire home...

Naming and shaming Apple UK... (July 11, 2004) Random consumer-action week on plasticbag.org continues today with a shout-out to my colleague Matt Webb, who has been having considerable trouble with his no-longer quite so new Powerbook 12". More specifically he's having considerable trouble with Apple's replacement and repair...

What I'm reading... (July 10, 2004) I linked to this the other day in the linklog, but it occurred to me that maybe I should do a kottke and pull out my contribution to Phil's What Webloggers are reading post and stick it up here just...

Why I won't be buying any Muller products... (July 10, 2004) I sent this letter to consumers@muller.co.uk today because I finally had enough of the stupid bloody adverts in which mincing gay men flounce around the place looking at straight men's cocks. I'm sorry to be crass, but it pisses me...

Ben and Mena come to London... (July 8, 2004) So Ben and Mena and Loic have been in London for meetings and a few of us managed to get together and hang out with them for a bit. We've got Ben drinking warm flavoursome beer, Mena puffing away on...

Phil Gyford's in the Guardian... (July 8, 2004) Much-loved weblogger, ex-colleague, dim-sum consuming, ultra-tall super-geek Phil Gyford got a well-deserved high-five today from the Guardian today in the online supplement (Man of the Moment). Much deserved, old chap! You are the r0X0r! "It hadn't really bothered me until...

Graf report published... (July 5, 2004) The Graf report - the independent review of BBC Online - has just been published. Despite the fact that I'm basically on holiday today, I am now going to start reading it in earnest. I'll probably knock out a summary...

Some dumb stuff I bought off iTunes... (July 5, 2004) Over the last two weeks I have bought 53 songs from the iTunes Music Store. I didn't expect to buy any. I just get bored easily and then I'm there, mucking around, roaming around, desperately looking for some new exciting...

London on a Saturday = Hell on bloody earth... (July 3, 2004) You go away for two days and all hell breaks loose. But then again, who cares - it's someone else's hell, right? Completely randomly and spontaneously on Wednesday I decided that I'd go up and visit my family for a...

What you should know before starting a doctorate... (July 3, 2004) A few days ago an interesting article on Graduate schools circulated around the web. The article suggested that Graduate school has many of the features of a cult and that some people staying on to undertake postgraduate studies almost needed...