Geeks invented the internet. And for many years it was inhabited solely by geeks and academics. Over those years a number of unwritten rules arose which controlled the way people used the internet. The unwritten rules were passed on to newcomers who saw the wisdom of the rules and continued to follow them. Everyone followed the rules and all… Continue reading Pointless Battles For Geeks
Opentech 2008
The full schedule for Opentech has been announced. There are three tracks of talks and it looks like that I’ll need a couple of clones in order to see everything that I want to see. The previous Opentech conference (was it really three years ago) was a lot of fun and I fully expect this one to be… Continue reading Opentech 2008
Blog Fixed (Hopefully)
Regular readers will know that this blog has experienced some problems over the last few months. Since I last moved to new hardware this blog has been running really slowly and more often than not any attempt to publish content (whether a blog entry or a comment) has ended with a server error. This has… Continue reading Blog Fixed (Hopefully)
Books I Read in April 2008
A lot of books this month. But you might think that there was a bit of cheating going on. The Bible: The Biography – Karen ArmstrongThis is a book I’ve wanted to read ever since I saw it published in hardback last year. Actually, it wasn’t quite what I expected. I was expecting a lot… Continue reading Books I Read in April 2008
Blogging Nonsense
One of the joys of MPs having blogs is that you often get to see what they are really like without their utterances going through the filter of the party spin machine. And it’s amazing how often so many of them make complete fools of themselves. Today’s example is Nadine Dorries. Of course as a… Continue reading Blogging Nonsense
Understatement
From a geek mailing list where they are currently retreading the endless arguments about why there aren’t more women in Open Source. Now arguably, “chick” is a bit derogatory. It’s not even ironic British understatement – the writer isn’t British. But it’s a good indication of just how far we still have to go.
Pub Quiz
For a number of years now we’ve taken part in a weekly quiz in a local pub. We do pretty well and occasionally win. The chap that runs this quiz runs a number of other quizzes and a few times he’s held a Champions’ League night where top teams from all of his pubs come… Continue reading Pub Quiz
Apple Shopping
I’m not sure why, but I always come out of the Apple shop on Regents Street feeling slightly disgruntled. It’s like I’m visiting some strange planet where I don’t understand the customs and I know I’m never really going to fit in. The staff don’t help. I know they’re all really helpful, but at the… Continue reading Apple Shopping
Redirecting RSS
I’ve harped on about this before, but I firmly believe that when you publish a URL on the web then it should be permanent. Of course you might want to change the way that your site is set up at some point in the future, but when you do that you should do everything you… Continue reading Redirecting RSS
Pushing Daisies on ITV
Pushing Daisies Like most people I know, I very rarely watch anything on ITV. The channel just doesn’t seem to want to appeal to people with my tastes. But recently that seems to be changing. ITV have been showing a couple of American import that seem to be aimed at people exactly like me. Firstly… Continue reading Pushing Daisies on ITV