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Join the CTSOIABTAGS
CTSOIABTAGS? I hear you cry. Yes, I reply. CTSOIABTAGS: the Campaign To Stamp Out Idiotic Acronyms Because Things Are Getting Silly. Organisations do tend to play fast and loose with acronyms, skipping words or combining them so that the result is a recognisable word rather than an Eastern European surname, but this one – a…
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File sharing: the opera
On the face of it, Jerry Springer: The Opera and Kazaa don’t have much in common. But according to The Inquirer, religious groups are on another “let’s ban stuff” crusade, and this time they want to crack down on file sharing networks. The Christian Coalition, the Concerned Women for America, and Morality in Media have…
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A bright idea?
David emails me with a link to The Virtual Laser Keyboard, a nifty little device that projects a keyboard onto any surface so you can type data into your phone or PDA. As he puts it in his usual eloquent style: Lasers are, by definition, cool. He’s got a point: the virtual keyboard is a…
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How many iTunes songs has Apple sold?
The Unofficial Apple Weblog notes that the number of iTunes downloads has reached 250 million. However, the weblog makes its most interesting point in a throwaway comment: I feel that I should point out that Apple hasn’t broken out paid tracks vs. free tracks (i.e. those from the Pepsi promotion or the weekly download) If…
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I’m going slightly mad
I’m making pizza for dinner – proper, home-made pizza rather than a ready-made one – and my subconscious seems to find the prospect very exciting. Presumably that’s why it invented the most annoying advertising jingle of all time and made me wake up with it on a constant loop in my head: Pizza base! Pizza…
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Who owns your record collection?
The current issue of PC Plus includes a feature by yours truly on the subject of Digital Rights Management technology; the basic argument of the feature is that DRM isn’t evil in itself, but rights owners – record companies, film studios and so on – find it hard to resist the temptation to abuse DRM.…
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Vote for the world’s best blogs
Public voting for the 2005 Bloggies is now open. There are some great weblogs among the finalists, so even if your favourites aren’t listed it’s worth a visit to the site so that you can see what you’re missing.
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Should CDs come with age limits?
After any high-profile murder case there are the predictable calls for the banning of something or other, and the murder of Jodi Jones is no exception: The Sunday Times reports that politicians are calling for a ban on sales of some CDs to under-18s. After all, most other media such as games, DVDs, movies and…
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Giblets’ inauguration speech
Over at Fafblog, Giblets has posted his inauguration speech: Can you doubt the freedom-spreadery of Giblets? Giblets has decreed Iraq to be free and now it is! Oh sure, not in the petty “liberal democracy with equal protection under the law” sense. But in the “infested with terrorists” sense it’s as free as they come!…
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Mauled by the Mail
There’s a fascinating article in today’s Media Guardian (free registration required) about Indymedia journalist Mark Covell and the Daily Mail newspaper. Covell, a journalist, was so savagely beaten by the Italian police that he lost consciousness, suffering serious injuries which included multiple broken ribs, a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. He was taken to hospital…