- Why the Kibibyte is freaking me out – From the “well you learn something new every day” category. Apparently a kilobytes probably isn’t what you think it is…
- Earthquake hits much of England – We actually felt this here in London, although in my half-asleep, half-awake doze I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was real or a dream!
- Danish wind turbine eats itself – To all those that said that wind power was safe…
- Behind the Scenes at the Bay Bridge Construction Site – I saw the construction going on a few times last year, but from a distance while driving past. Interesting to see what they’re doing in more detail.
- Hand-wringing About American Culture – Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? – “Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.” The article concentrates on the US but I don’t think it’s limited to North America.
- America – more hassle than it’s worth? – Next week they’ll announce that all travelers need to wear orange overalls, the next that all flights go straight to Guantanamo… and then they’ll announce that it’s all an elaborate joke and that they just wanted to see how far we’d go before complainin
This is not the first time that I’ve had plans to go to Denmark. It was a bright and sunny Saturday morning in June 2002. The previous day had been my last working in the Norwegian capital city and I had a week of sight-seeing planned. First I would head west, to the fjords around Bergen and then I’d head back, through Oslo into Sweden, down the coast and cross the Oresund Bridge into Denmark.
- eBayer invites buyers to rip him off – It does seem that eBay has become a victim of its own success. Having said that, some of the ways that they’re trying to tackle fraudulent users are clearly bonkers.
- Japan MPs moot halt to executions – Hopefully this will move from “moot” to law, and then from temporary to permanent.
- Designing What’s Right for Consumers – Is it really so hard to design consumer electronics? The manufacturers say it is. Everyone else seems to disagree.
- WordPress 2.3.3 – I’ve upgraded to the current version of WordPress. As ever, if you spot anything amiss please let me know!
- Afghan Student Sentenced to Death After Downloading Report – Good to see that the invasion of Afghanistan has resulted in more freedom for the locals…
- Forget passports – teachers and kids are the new ID card targets – Despite the loss of personal data and despite the fact that they will not (and cannot) do what the Government says they will, the ID Card scheme is still not completely dead.
- The True Cost of SMS Messages – “How come technology, communication, and infrastructure is getting cheaper while the costs of SMS messages are increasing exponentially? My theory: SMS messages are transfered over air made of solid gold.”
So Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo. I’ll leave the detailed analysis to people better qualified than myself but I thought that I could add a little perspective simply by looking back and remembering something that happened less than ten years ago.
As you can no doubt guess from the title, the event that springs to my mind is the merger of HP and Compaq. The main problem with HPaq at the time was that merging HP’s loss-making PC business with Compaq’s loss-making PC business just wasn’t a good idea. Fiorina pushed the whole MBA line of thinking: being the biggest player will allow greater economies of scale, lower prices and more profit. Unfortunately, two big losses merged tends to make a big loss also, albeit perhaps smaller than the old combined total1.
- Fifty years of LEGO – Best. Toy. Ever. And still going strong.
- Polish IT worker calculates exact speed of snail mail – Apparently snail mail is actually slower than a snail.
- For those who thought that the MacBook Air had no use… – It’s odd that Steve Jobs didn’t mention any of these uses though.
When was the last time that you came across a printer with only a parallel port? Have you ever used one of those two serial ports on the back of your PC?
Personally I don’t think I’ve used a parallel port for over five years and I don’t recall ever having used a serial port despite using computers for over twenty years. So why do many PC manufacturers still include them on new PCs? Would they not be better using the same space for more USB ports, a Firewire socket or even to save a few pounds by simply not including it?
My first reaction was to hate it.
Actually, no. My first reaction was what a cute, almost-square book. My second was to hate it. It’s only a few pages into it and Levy is already discussing his great taste in music and disparaging mine (“… a pathetic Pet Shop Boys tune, the sort of thing that Nick Hornby would listen to on a bad day.”)
It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. But — step back — what was I expecting? Well, the blurb on the back tells you that you can learn how the iPod became the defining object of the 21st century. Having read most of Steven Levy‘s previous books, the obvious point of comparison was “Insanely Great,” the story of the Macintosh. But while the Mac took several years to put together, the iPod took only around six months. In hindsight maybe it’s pretty obvious that it’s not all the trials and tribulations of putting the machine together.
- Are You Better Off than You Were 2,000 Years Ago? – The next president of the United States of America? If only…
- Apple unveil iNvisible iBook – Even more Apple announcements this week. Kind of.
- How to Spot Arial – I never realised that Arial and Helvetica were so different!