Me, on the news that Intel has hired will.i.am as some kind of creative powerhouse:

For the finale of last month’s Paper Clips and Metal Fastenings 2011 show, they wheeled out the pint-sized popstress Pixie Lott.

“All the paper clips, they’ve got it going on,” she sang to a crowd of chubby middle-aged men, tears visible in the corners of her eyes.

“And when you clip that paper the feeling in your bones,” she added, dancing awkwardly, looking for all the world like someone praying for an early death.

No, not really. But it’s not that far from the truth. Like a rubbish Rutger Hauer, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.

Me, at Techradar:

Social media Chinese Whispers and thoughtless retweets tend to be more innocuous than tales of crazed gunmen, but they can still be annoying: a few days ago otherwise sensible people were retweeting “an actual letter that was sent to a bank by a 96-year-old woman”, a newspaper humour column that has been floating around the Internet for the last 12 years.

Still, it made a change from hoaxes claiming that X person had died in a hangliding/gardening/snowboarding accident: this year’s crop already includes Justin Bieber and Nelson Mandela, both of whom are very much alive.

If you haven’t heard, communications minister Ed Vaizey is asking ISPs to consider adopting an opt-in system for online porn. Essentially ISPs will filter unless you specifically ask them not to.

Me, over at Techradar:

There’s some awful stuff out there, and I don’t think kids should see it any more than I think The Human Centipede should be shown on cBeebies.

I think I’m pretty consistent on this. I don’t think seven-year-olds should play Call of Duty: Black Ops, and I don’t think Frankie Boyle is the best choice of entertainer for your four-year-old’s birthday party.

The problem, I think, is that attempting to filter out porn isn’t going to work. Any attempt to create a national firewall is both doomed and dangerous.

And of course, there’s the biggest problem of all, the hole in the digital dyke nobody can plug.

Other parents.

As a parent, I’m well aware that it’s my responsibility to keep my kids away from filth. The problem is that I can’t ensure that you keep your kids away from it.

I can’t help thinking that the first couple of commenters are missing my point.

I’m writing about unlimited mobile phone data plans today.

This is not, it’s safe to say, an industry famed for putting customers first.

If the other operators decide to follow Three’s lead and get rid of their monthly data caps without small print or weasel words, I’ll eat my iPhone.

I hope I don’t end up regretting that last sentence.

When I write columns I often find I can’t quite articulate what I’m trying to say, but I think I got pretty close with this one for .net.

For most of us, there’s a difference between the person we really are and the person we play on the internet. I don’t mean in a mild-mannered janitor/ Hong Kong Phooey way (or in a mild-mannered janitor/Dennis Nilsen way either). I mean that unless you’re ridiculously honest, American, or 14, then you practise a certain amount of self-censorship. What people see is still you, but it’s a toned-down, smartened up, edited highlights version of you.

Sometimes that censorship is a temporary thing, so you’re posting hilarious things online when in the real world you want to hurl yourself off a bridge, or hurl somebody else off a bridge. Sometimes it’s a self-preservation thing, where you know that telling the truth about your boss will change nothing other than your employment status. And sometimes it’s because the whole point of your online identity is that it lets you leave behind the bits you don’t like.

I think that last one is why I loathe the popular social networks so much… slowly but surely they’re filling up with the very people I, and perhaps you, went online to get away from in the first place.

Have you been following the launch of Google’s Chrome OS? I’m finding the whole thing a bit underwhelming:

Most questions to which the answer could be “Chrome notebook” can also be answered “iPad” or “Android tablet”.

What boots faster than a traditional PC (the answer to that one also includes “MacBook Air” and “Anything with solid state storage”)? What runs web apps from an App Store? What sleeps and wakes instantly? What’s very secure and very unlikely to get viruses? What’s really portable? What has great battery life? What can access the enterprise systems from a secure yet friendly interface? Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

What I don’t get is, why limit your options? If the kit costs roughly the same as any other notebook, which I assume it will, why go for a Chrome-only system when you can get a Windows or Linux system and run the Chrome browser on it?

Reviews of the various so-called iPad killers have been disappointing. I think I know why.

manufacturers appear to be looking at the wrong things. They’re like musicians who think buying a Gibson Les Paul will turn them into Jimmy Page, or that being a big gobby pain in the arse makes them Bono.

What makes the iPad special isn’t the hardware. It’s the software.

My esteemed colleague Craig Grannell agrees with me and adds something I really wish I’d thought of:

It’s telling that most of the top-selling apps on Android are admin tools, whereas on iOS they’re games, entertainment apps and productivity tools.