- Blog
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What should Bush & Blair do for an encore?
Invest in Gaza. I mean really invest in Gaza. Invest like nobody else has ever done. Reopen the airport, build a university, build two hundred schools, build a proper public transport system, a hospital. Better yet, build a health service. A modern harbour and freight handling facility, a solar power grid and a hydrogen distribution…
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The eBay effect
As I keep saying, eBay makes a previously illiquid asset (the contents of your loft) marvellously, improbably liquid. According to a report from a consultancy called The Centre for Economic & Business Research written up by the FT, in fact, the average household could easily free up three grand by unloading all that old junk…
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A choice of viewing
If you’ve been glued to your PC lately, you’ve probably been watching the thrilling and moving live coverage of Discovery’s return to flight or you might have been watching miserable old git Ayman al-Zawahri justifying the unjustifiable in one of those horrible backroom video nasties that the jihadists specialise in. So that’s hope and curiosity…
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Greening eBay
So I’m unloading a few bits of old junk on eBay. One item is a spare battery for a defunct Powerbook and I get an enquiry from an Australian buyer: how much to ship the thing to Oz? I guess this illustrates the bizarre, nicely Gibsonian nature of the eBay economy. How can it possibly…
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Cold terror
I won’t be the first person to link to this terrifying interview with a British jihadist. I promise, this interview will leave you open-mouthed with dread and amazement. This young man, from his comfortable home in Manchester, summarily revokes the right (or the expectation) of a British citizen to walk the streets (ride the trains…
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Space Brother
Switching between Big Brother Live (this has to be the best ever, right?) and NASA TV is entertaining. NASA’s 24/7 output is mind-blowing – a sort of hyper-purposeful parody of reality confinement shows like BB. I can’t wait for week 10’s Big Brother Task, which is called ‘Crew Swap’. For 48 hours, Anthony, Craig, Makosi,…
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Do yourself a favour – get a new phone
You’ve probably been looking for a nice new phone with a decent camera, bluetooth and all the other stuff. Here’s the kiddie: a brand new, boxed and sealed, unlocked Sony Ericsson K700i. What are you waiting for? Go on. Click.
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Photographs of London and Birmingham
Sorry to bang on about this but how come BBC Birmingham editors were able to find over 80 camphone pics of the tornado good enough for use on the web site in 24 hours and Helen Boaden’s crack team in London found only 16 (of ‘thousands‘ apparently submitted) from the 7/7 bombings in three weeks?…
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Broadband viewing habits
Trying not to gender-type my kids, tonight we watched the following videos on the Powerbook at bedtime (when we really should have been reading The Twits): Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boy and Losing Grip; NASA’s amazing, speeded-up video of Discovery spinning in orbit to provide astronauts aboard the space station with a good view of its…
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It’s a Digital Rights Barbershop Quartet
Danny O’Brien thinks we might need a ‘digital rights’ organisation here in Britain. Something like the American EFF. He’s put his money where his mouth is and started a pledge that requires 1,000 signups by Xmas (and is about halfway there). I don’t disagree. Liberty, as hazily defined by Britain’s unwritten, common-law masterpiece of a…