Category Archives: nördig

A simple thought on the management of software

Posted on June 29, 2008 by acb

I just wrote a column for Charles Arthur about how I had celebrated Firefox day by switching back to Opera and this thought didn’t quite make it in. The organisational division between the users and producers of software should follow … Continue reading →

Posted in nördig, OOo, Software | 6 Comments

Windows 3.1 lies athwart my future

Posted on June 22, 2008 by acb

I have two CD roms on my desk right now which retailed for about £500 each in the early Nineties. Each one holds a year’s run of the Independent; so far as I know they are my only way of … Continue reading →

Posted in nördig, Software | 11 Comments

Nerdly weekend note

Posted on June 15, 2008 by acb

Opera 9.5 is out and I am back too using it instead of Thunderbird/Firefox. This is mostly because it is very much faster, especially at mail. But it comes with most of the essential Firefox add-ins built in—Ad-blocking, Javascript blocking, … Continue reading →

Posted in nördig, Software | Comments Off

In the long run, even the dead don’t stay grateful

Posted on June 10, 2008 by acb

via John Naughton, I see that Paul Krugman has resuscitated the argument that the Dead were pioneers of the new economy by allowing taping of their concerts and making their money as much from merchandising and touring as from record/CD … Continue reading →

Posted in Blather, Net stories, nördig | Comments Off

code and prose

Posted on May 23, 2008 by acb

I’d be interested to know from any of the developers who read this whether my piece in yesterday’s Guardian made sense.

Posted in Journalism, nördig | 9 Comments

Metafictional diary note

Posted on May 23, 2008 by acb

I was drinking last night with the Archbishop of Canterbury and he didn’t have any interesting gadgets in his cassock but later that evening I bumped into Sean who showed me the first worthwhile use of an iPhone: fishporn. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Blather, God, nördig | 1 Comment

More Weizenbaum

Posted on May 21, 2008 by acb

The prescience of Joe Weizenbaum continues. After long detours, I have returned to the end of his book, where he is asking whether the world has any understanding of what computers will do. He saw very clearly how a “system” … Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories, nördig | 2 Comments

Your data is safer than you think

Posted on May 9, 2008 by acb

In a story at once grotesque and astonishing, it turns out that one of the hard drives on the Columbia shuttle which blew up with the loss of the whole crew in 2003 has been treated by a data recovery … Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories, nördig | 2 Comments

more feedback needed

Posted on May 7, 2008 by acb

I think I have changed the feed links over. If you get this in an rss reader, then your transfer to the new blogging system has worked. Please drop something in the comments to say so: obviously I can’t ask … Continue reading →

Posted in Housekeeping, nördig | 12 Comments

A farewell to MT

Posted on May 6, 2008 by acb

This is the first post written into the new live wordpress version of the blog. I started getting mysterious errors on the MT installation and it was all just too much. I think I have mostly reproduced the old layout, … Continue reading →

Posted in Housekeeping, nördig | Comments Off