Posted in digression, online journalism on May 7th, 2008
Sorry, I know, I know, it’s about the BBC again, but I’ve just realised that there’s an increasing vogue on BBC News for bunging up a bit of video without sound, or without any commentary, detail or analysis. Hell, even I can do that (I wouldn’t bother watching this, incidentally: it’s not that interesting) And, [...]
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Posted in internet, journalism, writing on May 1st, 2008
Hi, it’s 2008. Just wanted to remind you, because BBC News thinks it’s discovered a security flaw in Facebook applications. Yes, apparently they can gain access to your and your friends’ profile information, so a malicious application could pose as a legitimate one and harvest profile details, even if they’re not public. I had to [...]
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Posted in digression on Apr 28th, 2008
You can take your SI units and all your battles between imperial and metric measures and shove ‘em, because, as the BBC will tell you, there is only one true measure of size: the London double-decker bus. This is probably my single favourite thing about the BBC News website. Whenever there’s a Big Thing, you [...]
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Posted in online journalism on Apr 4th, 2008
OK, let’s see if you can spot the flaw in this particular child-protection idea simply by reading the following standfirst: Sex offenders’ e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children. Any inkling why that might not work? Frankly, I find it astounding that anyone [...]
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Posted in online journalism on Mar 31st, 2008
I’m particularly bleary-eyed this morning, so I’d read half a story before I noticed, but the BBC seems to have changed the layout of its stories. Interestingly, they haven’t changed the front page (yet?), so the two don’t match particularly well. UPDATE: Ah, must have caught them mid-change, here’s the new front page. I like [...]
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Posted in digression on Mar 19th, 2008
I’m hurt. I’ve been trying very hard not to just slag off the BBC lately, and a friend pointed out this evening that he kind of missed it. Well, if you think I’m going to say something sarcastic about under-bonnet forecourt-proximity-detecting depreciation devices you’ll be sorely disappointed. Instead, a mini rant about Microsoft. Regular readers [...]
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Posted in journalism on Jan 24th, 2008
Posted in journalism, work on Jan 22nd, 2008
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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Posted in digression, journalism on Jan 4th, 2008
OK, I made a new year’s resolution to leave the BBC alone, but I can’t resist it. Sorry.
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Posted in writing on Dec 6th, 2007
Charlie and I normally agree on a remarkably high proportion of things, so much so, in fact, that people are beginning to see us as a happily married couple. Just to scotch that particular rumour, then, here’s something we don’t agree on. Or should that be, “here’s something that we don’t agree on”? In the [...]
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