hackbash

I’m somewhat consumed by work at the moment. Not the sort of ‘consumed’ where an awkward genius with a shock of white hair locks himself up in an attic to emerge seven months later with the answer to the universe, alas, but the kind where an arseload of freelance descends to snuff out every weekend [...]

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Blimey. All Fox News wanted to do was have a sensible, informed discussion about the death of Heath Ledger, and guest Montel Williams has to spoil it all by mentioning the fact that 28 US troops had died in Iraq since the beginning of the month, and asking why we aren’t talking about them instead. [...]

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I’m still a bit perplexed by this BBC article. I picked up on it earlier when researching personal finance stories, and ended up writing about it for a client. The thing is, the BBC seems quite sure that the FSA “is to examine the rules governing websites that compare insurance products”. And, at the time [...]

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This blog’s got quite a scoop – it appears to be the first site anywhere on the internet with the low-down on the 2008 Product of the Year. There’s some hardcore investigative journalism for you, but I guess it’s all about connections. The Thats [sic] News article is written in the kind of no-nonsense language [...]

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After lots of work and a couple of nights out, what I could really do with today is taking it easy, but something in this story about Gordon Brown’s visit to China made me choke on my toast and Marmite: Mr Brown has also offered China £50m to help the country tackle climate change. Hello? [...]

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Nobody’s perfect, and I’m quick enough to point out other people’s mistakes, so here’s one of mine. It’s in this news story on Spannerworks’ own website: Those who reported problemsdid estimated that more than a quarter of the work… The nicely munched up construction comes from Charlie having fixed my awkward original, and me subsequently [...]

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This is serious. Hasbro and Mattel, who make the Scrabble board game, have asked Facebook to remove Scrabulous. I must admit that I was puzzled by the legal status of the game when Charlie and I first descended into addiction. I wondered if the copyright had expired, or whether the Scrabulous coders had come to [...]

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Here we go again. Flood warnings across the country as it pisses it down with rain and the tide of watery metaphors looks set to rise in the media. According to a reporter for Radio 4′s 6 o’clock news, the National Flood Forum’s helpline has already been ‘inundated’ with calls. Back on the very first [...]

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Busy week, sorry for the lack of posts. Been writing a story based on a report by Experian that makes some interesting, if not entirely original, predictions about the rise of the “super advocate” in 2008. Basically, the idea is that the opinions of influential figures within an online community will dictate how a company [...]

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