The man-made climate guilt trip

For the past couple of weeks, many big-wigs are meeting in Copenhagen for a chit-chat about climate change. This happens against the backdrop of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit email hacking. This is said by some to offer evidence that climate scientists have manipulated data in order to boost the case that […]

Is the blogging era over?

It is commonly said that blogging is dead. The refrain has increased in frequency over the past year or so, as Twitter extends its influence further and further. I have been blogging since 2002, when I was just 16. Over the years, it has been my favourite means of communicating online — more than Facebook […]

Hello? Is this thing on?

I’ve you’ve been trying to visit any of my websites for the past 36 hours or so, you will have been out of luck. It was all the fault of an exploding transformer (that’s the last time I call Optimus Prime ugly, boom boom). In that sense, I suppose I can be lucky that no […]

Reaching a wider audience or just creating an echo chamber?

For the past few weeks I have been using Digsby, a smart Trillian-style multi-protocol IM client. I’ve tried such programs before — Trillian, Pidgin and Meebo — but for one reason or another they all annoyed me. For this reason, before Digsby I stuck to having MSN, Google Talk and Skype all open at once. […]

Too many thoughts on Fuji

Firstly — apologies for the lateness of my review of the Japanese Grand Prix. Another busy weekend spilled over into Monday, and is spilling over into Tuesday and Wednesday as well. (I am being very naughty by writing this post.) There are so many talking points that it is difficult to know where to start. […]

Is it safe to say something now?

I am quite reluctant to write about the week’s off-track events in the world of Formula 1. Originally I wanted things to settle down before I wrote anything. But ever since then, things have steadfastly refused to settle down. A few people come along to kick some dust into the air and the whole issue […]

Lame new words spread on the internet like a rashr

The internet is said to have made a lot of people’s jobs more difficult. Record company bosses, for instance. Or insurance companies. Or publishers. Surely another should be added to the list: lexicographers. I was thinking the other day about how quickly new words enter everyday vocabulary. Before the internet, language evolved slowly and often […]

Spoofers can just eff right off

Some absolute arsehole is using spoofing email addresses ending in @doctorvee.co.uk to send out spam emails. I can tell this because I was greeted with seventeen bounced emails in my inbox. Goodness knows how many more were sent out. I guess I can count myself lucky that this hasn’t happened to me before. But I […]

Handwriting — who needs it?

Is handwriting really needed any more? Kids around the world are forgetting how to handwrite — because all of the writing we do is on the computer. It’s a familiar story. Every time we went back to school after the long summer break, my friends and I would all comment that the most difficult thing […]