Category: Hell in a handcart

  • Whenever you hear “stakeholder”, somebody’s doing something awful

    Glasgow’s famous George Square is going to get a £15 million makeover. On the one hand that’s great, because it’s not as nice as it used to be. On the other hand it’s terrible, and not just because the council’s spending 15 million quid during a recession in a city well known for its terrible…

  • Don’t buy an HP wireless printer for your Mac

    I recently wrote a thing about tech annoyances, the sheer frustration of trying to make something simple work. The example I used was configuring a Samsung wireless printer, but it turns out there’s an even worse culprit: installing an HP wireless printer. If you’re considering buying an HP 3050A wireless printer and you’re (a) using…

  • “I’d always assumed that my mobile operator’s filter was there to block donkey porn and midget wrestling, but it’s wider than that”

    Me, on Techradar: There is a big difference between blocking pornography and blocking speech, no matter how odious it may be, but filters brought in to block the former inevitably end up blocking the latter. Today it’s the BNP, and extremism, and The Pirate Bay. What will we have to protect our children from tomorrow?…

  • Confirmed: a plausible rumour isn’t actually a fact

    It’s an Apple scoop! From Forbes.com, on Saturday: Confirmed: New iPhone Will Be Longer and Thinner and Have Smaller Dock Connector Confirmed? Not so fast. iLounge editor Jeremy Horowitz posted some rumours, and… These details match up with and expand upon his earlier reports, so this is seeming pretty credible. That isn’t confirmation, and the…

  • ViaGoGo, now with added evil. And cuckoo clocks

    Controversial bunch of bastards – sorry, secondary ticketing agency – ViaGoGo has decided that it needs to make some changes to its operation. Changes such as, er, shutting the whole thing down and restarting as a Swiss company, far away from UK consumer protection laws and legislation against reselling Olympic tickets. As the consistently wonderful…

  • “Gun hats? What a brilliant idea!”

    Another week, another faintly frightening bit of proposed state surveillance. Me, on Techradar: What’s happening here is a classic bit of political manoeuvring. What’s supposed to happen is this: the security services ask for the power to do anything they like, plus some satellites with giant lasers and hats that can be used as guns,…

  • “One, we are not doing the right things. And two, the things we are doing are wrong”

    Bruce Schneier talks about post-9/11 airport security. Airports are effectively rights-free zones. Security officers have enormous power over you as a passenger. You have limited rights to refuse a search. Your possessions can be confiscated. You cannot make jokes, or wear clothing, that airport security does not approve of. You cannot travel anonymously. (Remember when…

  • “If a few drunken tweets merit prison but harassment doesn’t, something’s going wrong here”

    I’ve been thinking about Twitter racists and other unpleasantness. Techradar: I’m no friend of racists, but the sentencing of Liam Stacyworries me. Stacy, as I’m sure you know, trolled Twitter users over Fabrice Muamba, posting vile racist crap when they responded, and as a result he’s been sentenced to two months in prison. I’m not suggesting…

  • Can you trust Kindle reviews?

    Someone I follow on Twitter posted this earlier (sorry, I can’t remember who it was): a big list of people offering to post reviews of Kindle books for money. I don’t recall hiring this guy: For only 5 bucks I will buy your .99 Kindle ebook, provide a 1 star rating and write a negative…

  • 10,000 dangerous drivers

    My brother David told me about this and I didn’t believe him: thousands of dangerous drivers should have been banned from driving, but haven’t. According to road safety pressure group Brake: Brake and Direct Line analysed data provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) [1] and found that 10,072 drivers whose risky driving totted up…