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Apr 18 2003
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Obscene Ikea product names

Posted by | trivia | No Comments

Not being a fluent Swedish speaker, I could be wrong, but I sometimes wonder if Ikea product names are one big practical joke. Billy bookshelves, Lac or Dik wallhangings or a bedside table called Tracy “Home-furnishing giant Ikea has apologized for accidentally naming a child’s bunk bed after an obscene German expression. The $175 bed is called the ‘Gutvik’ – which means ‘good f- – -‘ in German. The company insists it was named after a tiny town in Sweden.” NYPOST.COM National News: WEIRD BUT TRUE

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Apr 18 2003
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Things to do if you are visiting Britain in the near future.

Posted by | trivia | No Comments

This week: The British and World Marbles Championship — held at the Greyhound Inn at Tinsley Green, West Sussex Next week: International worm charming championships at Totnes in Devon. June: Toe-wrestling and snail racing. August: Bog Snorkelling, Wane Rydd Bog at Llantrwyd Wells in mid-Wales. Autumn: Competitive lie telling in Cumbria. Eccentric Britain Gets Its Marbles Rolling

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Apr 18 2003
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French culture minister steps in to stall sale of Universal

Posted by | business | No Comments

The French culture minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon is alarmed at the possible sale of Universal, after rumors that Apple might buy it, because it owns rights to French artists such as Johnny Hallyday. Er… somehow I don’t think Hallyday is one of Universal’s more lucrative assets. ‘”The minister wrote this letter to say he was being vigilant and that he wanted to be kept informed of the progress of the Universal Music dossier given the importance of this cultural company for French creativity and the value of our national heritage,’ the paper [les Echos] quoted a source close to the minister as saying.” “Aillagon wants more than just financial concerns to guide the sale of Universal Music, which has popular French artists such as Johnny Hallyday under contract, the source said.” Reuters

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Apr 17 2003
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Why I like Barbershops

Posted by | diary | No Comments

Ken Layne offers sound advice for haircuts: “Anyway, when in doubt, go to the barber shop closest to your local military base … unless that base houses Marines, in which case you may just want to leave your hair as is.” I like old fashioned barbershops – currently I go to one that hasn’t changed since the 40’s (including the barbers) and is located opposite the Bank of America on Pine St. in San Francisco. It offers the following key barbershop features: 1. 15 minute turnaround, no appointment. 2. Cab-driver style conversation. 3. Overall ambience of the urinal area in an expensive old hotel. 4. Proper barber chairs – expensive poncy salons have chairs that are not designed for cutting hair. 5. Non-PC reading material. 6. Hair cut facing away from mirror. 7. No referring to hair gel, pomade or grease as ‘product’. 8. Ability to pretend to be Al…

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Apr 17 2003
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Barcode hackers

Posted by | trivia | No Comments

Walmart has taken action against an activist site that encouraged people to name their own prices for items by printing off fake barcodes and sticking them over originals. “Re-code.com still provides a database of bar codes that can be copied and pasted into printing applications. It suggests, for instance, that users stick a label for Nerf balls over the bar code on a box of rifle ammunition.” MySanAntonio : Business

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Apr 17 2003
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The first Internet age epidemic

Posted by | science | No Comments

Doctors log on to fight SARS outbreak “Crippen says SARS is the first Internet-age epidemic.” (Sorry, I just can’t get over the fact that the physician quoted here is actually called Dr. Crippen, the name of one of Britain’s most notorious murderers.)

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Apr 17 2003
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Weblogs show the future advertising model of the web, ads need to be at the level of items not pages

Posted by | predictions | No Comments

Steve Hall points out that because links to individual postings often produce the traffic to weblogs, there needs to be an advertising system for weblogs adaptable to variable traffic to individual permalinked items. The notion of advertising at the ‘page’ level is meaningless for weblogs. I believe the permalink model will inevitably extend to all web publishing – a web page is a virtual rendering of one or more items, individual postings have self contained meaning and therefore value. To put it another way, the web is a web because of links. Links point to information elsewhere, and information exists within content, not pages. If there are no permalinks to individual pieces of content, then the advertising model of the web will never be able to fully take advantage of linking. Eventually everthing on the web will have a permalink. “Slate wrote an article about a post on Gawker that…

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Apr 16 2003
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The hypocrisy of the outcry at the looting of Iraqi museums

Posted by | crime | No Comments

An old work colleague told me a story of how he used to work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London as a student in the 1950’s. Periodically they would throw stuff in the garbage that they didn’t feel was worth restoring. A restorer who had worked there all his life used to salvage these pieces and restore them, at home, in his spare time. When the restorer fell ill and, unusually, didn’t show up for work, his boss decided to visit him and check if he was OK. On entering the restorer’s house he found an Aladdin’s Cave of salvaged artifacts. The restorer was fired and his pension withdrawn. The restored artifacts were removed from his house, placed in a pile and burned. Curators are outraged by the loss of Iraqi antiquities, but unless they offer up some of their own collections they are hypocrites. Looting during war…

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Apr 15 2003
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Proposal for 1000ft skyscraper in London

Posted by | architecture | No Comments

Critics are complaining about a scheme for a Renzo Piano Tower: “London will become a high-rise city, with the dome of St Paul’s slowly reduced to a pimple.” Planners should be realistic and play the New York game of ‘air rights’, allow tall buidings and get something in return such as some green space. Telegraph | Arts

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