Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Category: Media

Journalism, radio and stuff like that

  • Arena closes, men’s magazines still suck

    mar_09_coverI wrote this four years ago:

    Arena’s confused – it can’t make its mind up whether it’s going after GQ readers or Loaded readers, and falls flat between the two

    Today’s Guardian reports that Arena is to cease publication after 22 years.

    In the same post, I wrote this:

    Perhaps the problem is that there’s no real need for a men’s magazine, because most other magazines are for men. Computer magazines are largely read by men. Car magazines are almost exclusively read by men. Music, film… men men men men men.

    I think that’s still the case. Any sign of this?

    A magazine that isn’t aimed at sniggering schoolboys, that doesn’t write ten-page features on the correct way to wear cufflinks, that doesn’t tell me that I need to spend 18 hours a day in the gym to get the perfect body, that doesn’t cover a single subject (cars, gadgets, books, music) and that doesn’t hate, fear or envy women. A magazine that doesn’t make me skip 90% of its pages. A magazine that I wouldn’t be embarrased to have in my house.

  • Belated Techradar Tuesday: seven reasons why Apple should make a netbook, and why laptops are just handbags

    First up, a feature: seven reasons why Apple should make a netbook (and a few reasons why it shouldn’t). Here’s one of the reasons why it shouldn’t:

    An HD Touch would be more compelling

    Take one iPod Touch, make it twice the size, give it some desktop-style apps and you’ve got something that no other computer firm can deliver (or, we suspect, even imagine). You’d have all the things you expect from an iPhone, plus decent e-book reading and document editing. How great would that be? Bluetooth support for an external keyboard, 3G modem as an option, best computer ever.

    Then, a column: if Confessions of a Shopaholic was about tech instead of handbags, we’d think it was great. Tech Firms! You’re doing it wrong!

    …the tech industry is just like the fashion industry. It sells you stuff and tells you you’ll look like Audrey Hepburn or Brad Pitt; six weeks later it’s shouting “You look like your gran!” and telling you to buy something else or kill yourself. An overpowered laptop is no different to a £1,000 It Bag: it’s just more crap that helps fuel credit crunches and contributes to climate change. When we’re eating each other for food and having fist-fights with polar bears in the High Street, we’re going to regret it.

    The column isn’t up yet. I’ll post the link when it is.

    Update

    Here’s the link: why netbooks prove that the tech industry’s gone nuts.

  • Techradar Thursday: cool things in the labs, clown computing and 3D gaming

    Two by me, one by Neil Mohr that I thought was really interesting. First up, Cloud Computing – or Clown Computing?

    So much for the cloud.

    Can we really rely on web-based services and software? If you’re expecting us to say no, surprise!

    Then a look at some of the interesting things Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Mozilla have got cooking in their labs including:

    4. Google Mars
    Fancy looking for Martians or discovering whether The Watchmen really do have a base on the Red Planet? Google Mars brings the power of Google Maps to nearby planets. Sadly Street View and Local Search aren’t yet available, so if you’re trying to find a kebab shop you’re out of luck.

    This piece by Neil Mohr caught my attention: 3D gaming. Is it ace, or is it arse?

    At its best with Left 4 Dead, some primal instinctive part of the brain lights up as you realise you now have depth perception. Zombies flailing towards you suddenly have a natural order and a beauty as they spiral in space with a well-placed shotgun to the head. Blood spurts in awesome Jackson Pollock-esque fashion onto your virtual camera lens that views this apocalyptic world. This is the 3D at its best; it works straight out of the box complimenting the gameplay, even enhancing it.

    Yay! But it’s a qualified yay:

    At its worst, though, it’s a frustrating mess. A crosshair that makes you feel you’ve drunk five pints, constant ghosting from lights and effects, while struggling to make the stereo effect work at all without inducing eye-strain. Somewhat akin to magic-eye pictures, it’s an effect that you gradually get more and more used to or not at all.

  • Is the Safari 4 beta any good?

    Yes. Yes, it is. Guess where the link goes? That’s right! Techradar!

    Overall, we like Safari 4 a lot. We’re not convinced we’ll actually use Top Sites or the visual History Search, but flashy gimmicks aside it’s a fast and pleasant way to do stuff online.

  • Techradar Tuesday: don’t be a dumbass

    Last.fm isn’t telling the RIAA that you’ve pirated the new U2 album. But you might be.

    Why go to the hassle of trying to get data from websites when the users will hand it to you on a plate?

    We’re sure that some of the people listening to the leaked album simply forgot that Last.fm tells other people what you’re listening to, but we’re also sure that a fair number of them were boasting. Look at me! I’ve got something I shouldn’t have! I am cool!

  • Techradar Tuesday: Half-Life 2 The Movie, and a shopping list for Microsoft

    The days run away like horses over the hill…

    Is Half-Life 2 the future of indie movie-making?

    The potential is mind-boggling, but let’s be honest: we’re not quite there yet. The constant fast-cutting in Escape from City 17 can’t disguise the fact that some of the in-game footage doesn’t quite gel with the real footage, the Combine Citadel looks like it’s been glued into the background with Pritt Stick and we’re pretty sure that none of the $500 budget was spent on the script.

    Overall, though, it works – and to our eyes it’s no worse than the CGI in the most recent Hulk movie, which cost $150 million to make and still looked like it had been thrown together on a ZX Spectrum by an angry toddler.

    Six companies Microsoft should buy:

    Microsoft isn’t short of cash, and it recently – and unsuccessfully – offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.

    The idea was to catch up with Google, but the big G isn’t the only firm doing well in areas where Microsoft isn’t. So perhaps Microsoft should widen its net.

    From video and music to shopping and social networks, we think these six firms should be on Microsoft’s shopping list.

  • Kindle 2: meh

    Me, on Techradar:

    Leaving aside the fact that the paperback book is pretty much perfect, Amazon’s device doesn’t do colour and you’re not going to use a $359 gadget to kill wasps, there are three big problems with it.

    The first is that despite the redesign, it still looks like something Noddy and Big Ears would use. The second is that Amazon has removed some key features, making it less flexible than before. And the third is that it simply isn’t good enough when you compare it to other gadgets.

    I thought using the full product name as per Amazon’s own listing – “Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)” – throughout the piece would be funny, but it seems I’m the only person who does.

    I’m still really excited about e-books, but I don’t have any gadget lust towards this one at all.

  • Blabbing on about journalism, writing for free and, er, Britney Spears

    The other week, designer/developer Jamie Rumbelow interviewed me for his podcast. It’s online now, and provides a startling insight into just how many times a Scotsman can say “um” during an interview. I was on to talk about journalism – how to get into online journalism, what scams to watch out for, why books don’t usually make money and how to motivate yourself to write when the creative juices aren’t flowing. So it’s basically me blabbing on about bugger-all through a heavy head cold.

  • Techradar Tuesday: Woz’s wind-ups and blogging for bucks

    Is it Tuesday already? To celebrate the news that Woz is doing the US equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing, here’s a cheery look at some of the other daft things he’s done. Sadly there wasn’t enough time to Photoshop a pic to make him look like The Joker.

    When we discovered that Steve Wozniak would be competing in Dancing With The Stars, we had two thoughts: one, could we get Steve Ballmer to go on, too? And two, is there anything Woz won’t do for a laugh?

    The answer to both questions, it seems, is no. For the tech industry’s very own Joker, tomfoolery is never far away.

    And here’s one about blogging for money.

    Is there an alternative to ads? Not really. Citizen journalism photo agency Scoopt shut its doors last week because it couldn’t persuade papers to pay a decent whack for images – it seems that major media outlets would rather get you to send in your snaps for free – and the wages offered by firms via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk are pathetic. Write a review? Five cents. Do some digging into historical figures? Three cents. Build a space rocket, fly to Mars, discover intelligent life and bring it back in a cage? Seven cents.

  • Make money from blogging? Spamming’s easier and more lucrative

    Dan Lyons on – spit! – monetising blogs.

    My first epiphany occurred in August 2007, when The New York Times ran a story revealing my identity, which until then I’d kept secret. On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I’d ever had—and through Google’s AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks. Over the course of that entire month, in which my site was visited by 1.5 million people, I earned a whopping total of $1,039.81. Soon after this I struck an advertising deal that paid better wages. But I never made enough to quit my day job.

    The full article’s worth reading and includes some interesting numbers.