Monthly Archives: September 2005

Bloody Michael Crichton

Posted on September 29, 2005 by acb

Owing to a tragic scheduling error, his testimony before the senate came in time for the Gdn’s front page, which meant that my carefully crafted thumbsucking was thrown away in favour of a report from someone who had the vulgarity … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 4 Comments

de mortuis

Posted on September 28, 2005 by acb

a [“memorable obit”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2005/09/28/db2801.xml] in the _Daily Telegraph_ today of M Scott Peck, the self-help guru, which closes with two paragraphs that could hardly be improved: bq. Latterly he suffered from impotence and Parkinson’s Disease and devoted himself to Christian songwriting, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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The most disgusting story

Posted on September 28, 2005 by acb

I have done for years is “in G2 today.”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1579651,00.html One snag I hadn’t foreseen — the copy was delayed by an hour when it got caught in the company’s spam filter. UPDATE What I originally filed is below the fold … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in War | 8 Comments

Petrol prices, again.

Posted on September 26, 2005 by acb

James Surowiecki “reports”:http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/050926ta_talk_surowiecki that there is a serious movement in some American states to suspend all “gas” taxes until — well, I don’t know, because things are never going to go back to what was normal in 1999. There used … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

Administrivia

Posted on September 22, 2005 by acb

I have [“a sort of review”:http://thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=2] of John “Battelle’s Google book”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857883616/andrewbrownssite up at “the First Post,”:http://thefirstpost.co.uk/ which is an interesting shot at a commercial site run by two real journalists (and old colleagues) Mark Law and David Jenkins. I’ve also … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 5 Comments

small smugness

Posted on September 20, 2005 by acb

There may not be many readers of the wrap, but at least one of them is the editor, which is why “yesterday’s worm’s eye column”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1573892,00.html pitched up on the front of today’s _Guardian._ Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 3 Comments

Serious ethnographic note

Posted on September 19, 2005 by acb

The “festival of diversity”:http://www.thewormbook.com/helmintholog/archives/001571.html#001571 took place on a day when Trevor Phillips, who seems a very sharp cookie, was warning that there is a real danger of the emergence of a ghetto-ised and segregated underclass in this country, however much … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in British politics | 3 Comments

Silly Ethnographic note

Posted on September 19, 2005 by acb

Yesterday was Uttlesford Council’s “diversity day,”:http://www.uttlesford.gov.uk/news/leisure+and+tourism/uttlesford+diversity+festival+18+september+2005.htm with a fete in the grounds of Audley End house. There was a fair cord and I did see one black person there. Though there are four or five whom one sometimes sees shopping … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Another end of privacy

Posted on September 13, 2005 by acb

An astonishing piece of research, “found through Bruce Schneier”:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_tex.html which shows that a sound recording of a typist at work for fifteen minutes can be analysed to reveal almost every word they typed. The trick is that the keys on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | Comments Off on Another end of privacy

Redesign thoughts

Posted on September 12, 2005 by acb

The “new Guardian”:http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2005/09/12/ gets better as you go into it. Perhaps that’s another way of saying that it works better with fewer stories on the page. I hate the front. Making allowances for the fact that all readers hate all … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 5 Comments