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News, comment & net.oddness from David Brake, a UK-based consultant, journalist and virtual community builder. To contact me or give feedback on anything you see here, enter my message forum. Please drag the link that follows: do.good.daily onto your bookmarks and click on it when you start your online day. It will open four windows at once that make it easy for you to fund education in the third world, give 1.5 cups of food to the starving in the third world, donate capsules of vitamin A to save children from suffering from preventable disease (new!) and clear 80 square cm of land mines (the amounts will vary depending on the number of banner ads available).
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Friday, February 09, 2001
OC Weekly: Supplement: Taxi Driver Confessions I doubt a London taxi driver would have as lurid a set of anecdotes as this one in Orange County does. They're mostly about sex in the back of his cab so younger readers don't click there! [Thanks to World New York for the link].
Salon.com - The Napster parasites - Strangers can see what music you have downloaded using Napster. This didn't worry many people I suspect because they thought the only people on Napster were fellow music pirates... But now marketers are digging into this information as well. An interesting investigation by Janelle Brown of Salon. Thursday, February 08, 2001
Embracing the coming recession - "some people in this city [NY] are choosing to embrace their pink slips, feeling they need a break. They see a recession as … refreshing. To them, it’s an opportunity to kick back, guilt free, without panicking that others are staying up late, working weekends and getting ahead." I don't know whether this is a genuine trend or just some guy intereviewing a bunch of his friends but it makes sense to me...
Game over at Gamecenter I guess this was inevitable given the ZDNet's merger with CNet. Still a blow, though - I preferred Gamecenter's coverage.
New Scientist: Push-button pleasure Just in case you hadn't already seen this... This excellent magazine I used to work at has the scoop of all scoops - an orgasm generator. Also see this BBC News report based on the story.
At last a use for WAP This service pays you £1 for answering simple surveys using your WAP phone. Of course the results will be skewed because the people who have joined the Instantintelligence "focus group" are likely to be upper income technophiles, but that's no skin off my nose - I could just use a few extra quid! And the advantage for the people doing the survey is that they can get their answers almost as soon as they ask... Tuesday, February 06, 2001
Oh oh... Study: PDA use makes you stupid. I'm not sure about the methodology, though. Take this example: "One high-flying 28-year-old salesman treated by Dr Sawaguchi was forced to give up his job when he found himself forgetting where he was going, who he was supposed to be seeing or, when he finally got there, what he was selling." That just sounds like the way of the world these days...
Bestseller Dreams (washingtonpost.com) An interesting piece that follows a "mid list" author in his search for fame and a readership and explains why so few make it.
A new ambitious content site? Talk about ignoring the zeitgeist! This site is UK-based and is being run by the editor of the now-defunct LM (Living Marxism) magazine. By the time of its death LM had evolved into a much more broad-based publication than its old name suggested... The initial content of the site doesn't fill me with excitement but I am delighted to see people still willing to get out there and try... |
