Archive for November, 2004
Happy anniversaries: .net, the web and me
The current issue of .net celebrates the magazine’s tenth anniversary, together with the tenth anniversary of the World Wide Web as we know it. It’s also an anniversary for me: the sixth anniversary of my first ever article for .net, which was also my first ever bit of published journalism. Amusingly, the article was a look at the world of online diaries (the ancestors of blogs); six years on, I’m writing an online diary about it. How very post-modern.
I’ve got a real soft spot for .net, and not just because it gave me my break into journalism, or because many of the people who’ve worked on the magazine over the years have become firm friends. I can honestly say that .net changed my life: as a shy, bored twentysomething stuck in a small town, .net opened my eyes to the new-fangled super electric internet - something that eventually led to my leaving a job I hated and finding a career that I genuinely love. And without fail, it made me laugh like a drain every month - an effect it still has. On the downside, it’s also contributed to my RSI and resulted in a few scary run-ins with some of the net’s more dangerous inhabitants. But that’s been interesting too.
So, happy birthday to .net and best wishes to everyone who works on it, writes for it, puts it together and most importantly of all, reads it.
Terrible name. Awful lyrics. Cheesy nonsense. Great band.
I was dragged along to a new bands thing in Glasgow the other night and while four of the five acts were utterly awful - bad Oasis, bad Megadeth, bad Courtney Love, bad band about whom I can’t remember a single thing despite being sober - one act stood out, despite giving me every possible reason to hate them.
First of all, the band name: Big Love Machine. Speaking to the band post-gig, even they realise that their band name is illegal under International Law.
Secondly, the lyrics. The word “funky” is used. The words “soul sister” appear in one title. They are clearly familiar with the concept of “a jam”.
And yet, they were great. That’s partly because they played 80s MOR metal without irony and with considerable musical talent, partly because they covered Prince’s U Got The Look and clearly loved it (no “look how funny we are, and how talented!” nonsense here), and partly because they finished with a note-perfect (and hugely entertaining) version of Queen’s Somebody To Love. Their own stuff - bad lyrics and dodgy titles aside - fitted in fine and didn’t seem trite or tedious by comparison, and while the vaguely credible part of me screamed in horror throughout, I had a fantastic time.
As far as I know they don’t have a web site let alone MP3s, but they’re gigging around Glasgow over the next few months and should be good, clean, cheesy fun.
Why credit card cash is often a con
I’m writing about personal finance at the moment, and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that you should never, ever use a credit card to obtain cash. The devil is in the details, specifically the bit that says “allocation of payments” in your card’s terms and conditions.
Most people assume that when you make a payment to your credit card, it goes to whatever transaction happened first. That’s rarely the case. Payments are more likely to be allocated in this order:
First: interest and other charges
Second: purchases at lower interest rates, eg discounted purchases in an introductory periods, balance transfers
Third: purchases at normal interest rates from previous months
Fourth: new purchases
Fifth: cash advances
What that means in practice is that unless you clear your entire balance each month, any cash you take out will continue to accumulate interest. So if you spent £200 this month, £100 of which was a cash advance, and then every month from then on you run up £100 in spending and put £100 into your account, every single payment you make will have gone on interest and purchases, without going anywhere near the cash advance. As interest on cash advances can be as high as 29.9% APR and starts from the day you take the money, that’s a nice little earner for the card issuer. If you’re flat broke then by all means pay for stuff with plastic, but avoid ATMs like the plague.