Reading Martin Rees’s book Our Final Century — an analysis of a range of natural and man-made risks that may threaten our existence in the next hundred years — led me to discover the Long Bets web site. The foundation that runs this site aims to use long bets to encourage long-term thinking (see this […]
Month: December 2004
Why I’m boycotting Picturehouse Cinemas and the Brixton Ritzy
You can file this under ‘disgruntled customers’ and ‘name & shame’, though it’s also a case of failure in responsiveness and the breach of trust this creates, as covered in my posting on e-commerce usability. The story is a simple, one-sided tale that starts with an annoying but modest failure and ends up escalating to […]
Lists, lists of lists and meta-lists
The list industry goes into overdrive at this time of year, and Rex Sorgatz has compiled nearly 500 lists, covering everything from architecture to photographs, video games, wine, law and different categories of people. At least a third of the lists are of ‘cultural product’ — books, films, DVDs and music albums — that you […]
What’s on my iPod
For my last posting before Christmas, here’s my entry in the online parlour game of sharing what crops up if you shuffle the whole of your computer’s music library: Release yourself — Graham Central Station Suikinkutsu Water Chime — nature recording by David Toop Free Culture, Chapter 11: Chimera — Lawrence Lessig, read by Dave […]
Using social spaces to seed sales
Interesting to see how this Guardian report of a record label recruiting school-children to help promote its artists in schools (requires free registration) led almost immediately to the label, Universal, suspending its scheme. Clearly it crossed some taboos about commercial and possibly cynical ‘exploitation’ of children, even though the children were clearly happy participants. This […]
A virtuous circle of free and paid-for material
A couple of months ago I wrote about how I was enjoying Ashley Kahn’s book A Love Supreme: the Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album. Since then I’ve heard two sets of radio documentaries on A Love Supreme — one 30-minute BBC Radio 4 feature by Jez Nelson, and a four-programme series by Courtney Pine […]
Where broadcasting blurs into downloading
The coverage of this press release on the positive response to the BBC’s podcasting experiment — see my November posting mentioning the experiment — shows that podcasting is still making the ‘novelty’ news, but some continue to confuse its implications. This Digital-Lifestyles feature concludes, “The impact of this form of distribution will be significant. The […]
Seminar on ‘Supporting e-learners’, 20 Jan 02005
I’ll be giving a presentation at this E.learning age seminar in Hammersmith, along with me old mucker (translation for non-UK readers) Seb Schmoller. We’ll be giving a practical run-through of British Standard BS 8426 A code of practice for e-support in e-learning systems, which we drafted, and suggesting ways to implement it. Other speakers include […]
Latest on the BBC Creative Archive
Here are my notes from a talk given by Paul Gerhardt, Strategic Director of the BBC Creative Archive, at Tate Modern this afternoon. The current BBC Charter (due to expire in 02006) apparently provides for public access to the BBC archive, but ‘access’ means going in person to BBC premises to view or listen there. […]
21st Century library services
Yesterday was a big day for announcements about online access to the resources and services you would normally get in a library. The one that has got most attention is Google’s press release that they will be providing searchable access to the full text of library books old enough to be no longer under copyright […]