Internet old-timers are not necessarily more polite than newcomers. They do, however, tend to know the rules, sometimes as a result of having been slapped down more than once by even-older-timers. Beginners in online communication often don’t even realise there are any rules at all. Hardcore open source geeks, for example, that is people who […]
Read MoreI’m in Dixons Currys.digital, buying a new computer keyboard. What sounds like a competent cover version of Starship’s We Built This City is playing. For a moment I wonder if it’s the start of one of those godawful trance retreads of 80s guitar hits. You know the sort of thing: Owner Of A Lonely Heart/Max […]
Read MoreIt’s the sound of ball bearings grinding against fragments of broken glass on a wet pavement. It’s being wired straight into my jaw in full-frequency Dolby surround. Yes it hurts, but if I didn’t have a face full of lidocaine I’d be squealing like a pig in a combine harvester. There’s a man with his […]
Read MoreBecause of a couple of gremlins over at the Euston Manifesto site we’ve accidentally been turning people away from applying for tickets to our meeting next Tuesday evening in London. It’s free and there will be three speakers on the subject: “Darfur: An Urgent Case for Humanitarian Intervention”. Follow the link to email us for […]
Read More“I also have a problem with the discourse of planned/unplanned pregnancy in this context. Planned/unplanned assumes young women have agency, that they can choose what happens to them, that pregnancies are either accidents or overtly desired. In fact, for these young women, pregnancy will be one more in a string of things that just happens […]
Read MoreToday, 13Apr06, we—bloggers, academics, campaigners, writers, scientists, journalists, citizens—launch the Euston Manifesto. With this document we hope to publicly assert our progressive, democratic, egalitarian, internationalist principles in the face of recent attacks upon them from the Right and, to our dismay, the Left. Many of us are of the Left, but we come from across […]
Read MoreNow on The Learning Curve I’m going to talk to Peter Warden, the Head of the Winnie Mandela Community School, about the transformation in its fortunes that he presided over and about his upcoming role as the leader of a new a new government initiative to roll out his exciting methods across a range of […]
Read MoreThree months from now clueless articles about “Generation @” will be appearing in British Sunday newspaper supplements. [via Slashdot]
Read More…but, having read three different people write recently that British ‘Bloggers are united in their opposition to ID cards, I’d just say that I think they will be rather handy actually. I’d like my medical data stored on mine too, if that’s okay with everyone. Not only can I see no sound principled case against […]
Read MoreBLAIR HAS HOSPITAL TREATMENT AFTER PUTTING BACK INTO NO 10 WORKOUT Michael White, political editor Friday May 20, 2005 The Guardian Tony Blair was taken to hospital last night to receive treatment for a slipped disc suffered while working out in the gym in his Downing Street flat. That’s very convenient for a typical bloody […]
Read MoreAndy at Rummaging writes the ‘Blog post about Eurovision that I would have written had the bastard not beaten me to it by cunningly publishing it in advance of the grand final.
Read MoreClare In The Community is a radio adaptation of a Guardian comic strip about social workers. Given that description, you’ll probably be amazed to read that it’s also very entertaining. Listening to the fifth of six episodes I laughed out loud several times.
Read MoreScientific American writes about EpiSims, a program that simulates the spread of an infectious disease throughout a population, taking into account the social interactions of the people within it. [via Slashdot] This is a good time to point out that I conflated a couple of different issues when I rambled about the spread of HIV […]
Read MoreI bought a copy of Kate Fox’s Watching The English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour a few weeks back. I’ve not really had time to read it of course. So far I’ve managed three chapters: “The Weather” (which, appropriately, opens the book), “Linguistic Class Codes”, and “Rules of Sex”. It’s pretty accurate so far—so […]
Read MoreBecause I wanted to experiment with the Amazon developer interface and because I want people I’ve never met before to buy me stuff, I have integrated my US Amazon wishlist into PooterGeek (over to the right and down a bit). A random entry from it should appear each time you reload this page. I also […]
Read MoreNever go to the supermarket on an empty stomach. As your blood glucose falls, the bright colours and bleeping will disorient you, the myriad choices will overwhelm you, and, worst of all, you will hear the carbs calling, calling. You will leave with enough noodles to start your own Thai restaurant and three family packs […]
Read MoreYou’ve got to admire his originality: A British academic has provoked controversy by calling for female drug addicts to be paid to take contraception to stop them having children.
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