Monthly Archives: October 2008

Blogs are dead, apparently

Well nobody told me, and, seeing as Tiny Planet has grumbled back to life after some weeks of semi-hibernation, they can feck off. The death of the blog was proclaimed by Wired:

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

There is a fair point there. It’s not exactly a level playing field when the likes of The Huffington Post and Engadget have professional teams cranking out dozens of posts a day. But you might as well proclaim soccer to be dead because only four teams in the English premier league stand a realistic chance of winning it; that doesn’t suddenly mean that people won’t play the game (or in this case blog) simply for the sake of enjoying it. You think I do this for money? Like hell I do.

Dubai says no to soccer club

Zabeel Investments has seen sense and is no longer pursuiing Charlton Athletic. It had made an indicative cash offer for the Championship club but it has all come to nought. Zabeel has been linked with Liverpool, Newcastle and Everton but

today went as far as saying it has “no current intention” to acquire “any English club for the foreseeable future” therefore killing off any future rumours it could purchase a financially distressed English club.

Zabeel could probably have picked the club up for peanuts but, as Charlton are hardly setting the league alight this season and are far from marketable on a global scale, I’m not at all surprised that the deal is dead. It blamed the financial crisis and the debate over foreign ownership of English teams for the buy’s demise, and I am sure this played a factor, but at the end of the day, and with all due respect, it’s Charlton Athletic. Even if it had the money to compete at the highest level, there’s no guarantee it would attract players of the right calibre.

Links o' the day, 23/10/2008

The journey so far… in numbers (Kathy Foley)

My Saks spree: How to spend $150,000 like Palin (Slate, chosen more for its oddness than me having an interesting in such shopping :P)

Is this the most eco-friendly car innovation since the hybrid? (Treehugger)

Leukemia drug halts, reverses MS (AFP)

New car targets 1,000mph record (Sky)

In Jordan, prayers for the persecuted (The National)

Fake cop busted after stopping real one (AP)

The return of micro-states? (Catholicgauze)

Dolls and toys that creep us out (Dark Roasted Blend)

X-rays made from Scotch tape (Boing Boing)

Blasts from the past

Sonic the Hedgehog is apparently Britain’s favourite computer game character, beating Mario by about 3% of the vote. The vote is a nice mix of oldies and newbies, with four of the top five featuring in games from the 80s and early 90s (Lara Croft was third). The other old school characters in the top 10 were Link (Zelda) and Blanka (Street Fighter).

Unfortunately there’s no indication in the story about when the survey was conducted, or among who. If it was a general poll of gamers, then it really shows how far more recent games have to go before dislodging the classics. If it was done among people in the industry, well in all fairness they would have been around longer, and so the likes of Sonic and Mario could have dominated their formative years in computing.

EDIT because I hit “publish” instead of “save”: I would have liked a bit more detail on the survey itself; they story just says “among gamers”. Was it a web poll? How many gamers? How old were they? Regardless, the poll shows how far more recent creations have to go before they dislodge the old favourites.

I had neither a Sega nor a Nintendo in my youth, so my vote might well have gone to Guybrush Threepwood.

Links o' the day, 21/10/2008

The program for a supermajority. (Crooked Timber)

Ctrl-Alt-Del. (Robert Cringley)

Florida woman goes to jail over $7.45 bill. (AP)

Inconsistency irks with letter of the law. (Football365)

Reviving the fine art of cafe culture. (The Irish Times)

European economic weather map. (FT.com)

Group says US used Ethiopia for dirty work. (The National)

And special mention for behind-the-times headline of the day:

Greens, greens, they’re good for your heart: study (AFP)

Diets worldwide that are rich in fried and salty foods increase heart attack risk, while eating lots of fruit, leafy greens and other vegetables reduces that risk, a groundbreaking study showed.

(The study was groundbreaking because it included developing countries, but this information is buried in the story.)