- Blog
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A suburban urge
The 14 year-old in me (so that’s about 1977) really wants one of these instead of one of these (nice cutaway here). I am so suburban (or maybe one of these or one of these).
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Bismarck’s legacy
Europe’s pension ‘pyramid scheme’ is in terminal crisis. In Italy, public pension payments already account for 15% of GDP annually. Everyone knows that pensions are broken (and Britain’s are rather less broken than most other European countries ? public?pensions soak up only 6% of GDP) but no one wants to tackle it ??certainly not the…
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Media overthrow still imminent
Over in Medialand it’s business as usual. The Telegraph has a new editor (yawn!), Carlton and Granada are to be allowed to merge (did you hear Allen and Green’s surprisingly plausible double act on the Today programme?). David Liddiment in The Guardian is worried – implausibly – about ignorant Americans with no understanding of public service…
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The caffeine economy
Friday, schlepped around town with Stuart, talking wi-fi with Mike Nutley, veteran New Media Age editor (He’s pleased to point out that his tenure spans the magazine’s fattest ever issue ? swollen with boom-era dot.com ads ? and its thinnest ? 32 pages) and Nigel Shardlow, Head of Something Exciting and Mysterious at Orange, alumnus…
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A handy colour scheme generator
This is very groovy, although, since ‘pixy‘, who created it, apparently retains copyright in schemes generated, I wonder what the status of a site (or anything else) created using one would be (thanks Ant for the link).
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Nectar Card rejection rejected
I’ve been playing with Google’s AdWords to advertise my stupid No. I do not have a Nectar Card t-shirts and Google have rejected all of my ads. To summarise: you’re not allowed to dis anyone in your ads. Not even dumb loyalty card schemes. Not even the idea of loyalty card schemes. The best bit…
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Public wi-fi growing up
The Register with two related wi-fi developments. BT will wholesale its Openzone public wi-fi service and Vodafone will allow business customers to pay for wi-fi access via their phone bills. Public wi-fi will remain a geeky novelty until network density and accessibility improves and that requires some real business economics. With all due respect to…
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Ofcom FAQ
A handy primer for Ofcom’s review of public service broadcasting in Q&A form from Maggie Brown in Media Guardian.
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Blair, Brown, Bartlet and Blaine
Tonight we watched The West Wing (the Xmas episode in which Toby is reunited with his convicted felon dad) and Tony Blair’s speech at the Bournemouth conference. We’re about 90% convinced that Blair’s speech writers are watching The West Wing too. His speech was honest, gutsy, rhetorically sophisticated and beautifully timed ? a piece or…