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Microsoft makes Yahoo an offer it might refuse
Microsoft to Yahoo!: Here’s 44.6 billion dollars. Let’s hook up! Update: a good piece in the Guardian covering the problems such a merger might cause.
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The Times: spamming sites and social networks
Part one. Yesterday, I discovered that The Times (UK), a well-respected newspaper owned by News Corp., is involved in an extensive campaign to spam social media websites with links to Timesonline.co.uk articles. Part two. A post by Tom Whitwell, Times Online Communities Editor: Â I was banned from Metafilter, quite correctly. I was posting under false…
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How bloody stupid do you need to be to name a kids’ bed Lolita?
Yet more proof that it’s time for humans to quit the planet and let the insects take over: Woolworths has withdrawn bedroom furniture for young girls bearing the sexually charged name Lolita after a campaign waged by a mothers’ online chat room. The Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard…
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Fake Steve Jobs on U2
FSJ responds to U2 manager Paul McGuinness’s rant about tech firms stealing Bono’s money in typically amusing style: Well, I’ve got an idea. Maybe U2 could just make their own Internet, with their own routers and operating system, and they could code up their own store, and build their own iPods, and keep all the…
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Eels book in “brilliant” shocker
Things The Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett (E from Eels) is one of the best things I’ve read in ages. Some of it’s very, very sad. And some of it is like this: During the ‘with strings’ tour one night in Germany, a concertgoer calls out “YOU ARE BORING!” between songs. He’s German…
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ID cards: Scots screwed again
A superb post by Mr Eugenides on the ever-entertaining ID cards scheme: if you’re in Scotland but don’t live near one of just 11 processing centres, you’re stuffed. The true insanity of the scheme is demonstrated most starkly by the fate that awaits the good people of Orkney and Shetland – some 40,000 souls in…
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Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to fly this plane… INTO THE SUN!
I bet this was a hoot for anybody scared of flying: The co-pilot of a Heathrow-bound plane had to be dragged screaming from the cockpit while suffering a mental breakdown. Horrified passengers watched as he was pinned down by crew members and a passenger who was a member of the Canadian armed forces during a…
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The Audi A4 ain’t no Apple
I’m fascinated by cars, and while I barely have enough cash to put petrol in my own one (an increasingly knackered Saab) it doesn’t stop me from daydreaming. Hmmm, a BMW M5 or an Audi RS4? That kind of thing. So there’s nothing I like more than being able to help someone who really isn’t…
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Do I like the writing because of the words, or because of the writer?
One of my great ambitions is to meet PJ O’Rourke (although I’m sensible enough to know that it’s an ambition that must remain unfulfilled. It’s not because I’m scared he won’t live up to my expectations; it’s that I have the amazing ability to make a complete and utter tit of myself at the slightest…
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Dog hair. It’s a mystery!
Things I think about when I should probably be doing more sensible things instead: how is it an average-sized dog can shed about 400Kg of hair in a 24-hour period, yet remain exactly the same size? It’s a mystery!