Month: July 2006

  • Noel Edmonds

    I note that the Daily Mail serialised Noel Edmonds’ new book “Positively Happy” last week, having first apologised for something they said about it. Edmonds talks about this in an interview with The Guardian today. All very lovely, but I had a bit of a flick through the book yesterday in a shop. OK –…

  • YouTube Bigger Than MySpace – But Both Full Of Copyright Material?

    Today’s Media Guardian reports how Alexa is now showing YouTube as having overtaken MySpace (note to self: when you create your Web 2.0, or even 3.0, company, ensure that it’s two words with no space and two capitals – it’s the law). I’m sure it’s fantastic news for YouTube, a bit like the way that…

  • BBC Vodcasts

    The BBC has released some news “vodcasts” of things like Newsnight and the News at Ten. Except that these are weekly highlights packages rather than full nightly editions. Still better than nothing. But I wish I could get them to work on my PSP. I don’t have a video iPod (or a normal one for…

  • Cycling Licence Plates

    You just know we’re entering silly season when you read stories like this. Ken Livingstone apparently believes that getting cyclists to fit licence plates so that they could be fined for infractions like jumping red lights or cycling on the pavement would be a good idea. I suspect that as this comment came during a…

  • Landis on Drugs?

    So what to make of the drug charges that newly crowned Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is chasing? I was amazed to read that it was Landis who’d been charged. At some point yesterday I heard a vague radio report that one of the riders in this year’s Tour had been found positive for…

  • G24

    I was wondering only the other day when G24, the Guardian’s new print on demand PDF service would start. Well it seems to have started today. I’ve got to say that is a great idea, and just right for commuters and people at lunchtime. If it’s automated, then all the better. The content already exists…

  • The Long Tail

    You may well have heard of the Long Tail by now. It’s all based on an article that this book’s author, and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson first published in said magazine a couple of years ago. Simply put, it’s all about the value of the “long tail” of sales beyond the bestsellers, with plenty…

  • Chugging

    If you walk down a central London street like Carnaby Street, most lunchtimes you’ll come across in-street charity teams who are very keen to get you to sign up a direct debit order with whoever they’re representing that day. It’s called “chugging” – charity mugging. I’ve known for ages that these teams are not volunteer…

  • Amazon Gorefest

    Amazon is running a video commercial on their site for a book called The Death Artist. You can currently see the ad somewhere around the crime book section (I suspect that like other ads, it’s only shown a certain number of times, so it’s tricky to link directly to). Anyhow, the reason that this is…

  • Blogging in Britain

    Last week MSN released a report entitled Blogging in Britain (PDF via The Daily Telegraph) which is all very interesting and supplies lots of hard and fast numbers which I’m using for a work project. But whoever worked on the presentation of the stats in the report really needs to go back to school and…

  • Lies Of Omission With Lists

    Channel 4 had one of those interminable list programmes on the other night. In this instance, it was the 50 films you should see before you die. The final list is here with Apocalypse Now coming out on top. In this case, the list was put together by a panel, and it was all to…

  • MP3 Audiobook Giveaway

    Last week, when I was bemoaning overly-abridged audio books I noted that The Times was claiming to be giving an unabridged audiobook of Stormbreaker, but pointed out that it couldn’t really get a 240 page book into 78 minutes. Well today it became clear that they were giving out an mp3 audiobook. Full marks for…