For reasons that may become apparent at a later date, I was looking at the wikipedia page about digital publishing.
Specifically, I was looking at the ‘comparison of e-books with printed books‘.

For reasons that may become apparent at a later date, I was looking at the wikipedia page about digital publishing.
Specifically, I was looking at the ‘comparison of e-books with printed books‘.


WordPress – which is where this blog is hosted – provide statistics so bloggers can see how many readers they have and what brings them to the site.
I’m intrigued by the readers who arrive from search engines looking for specific things.
Or, more accurately, I’m intrigued by the things they are looking for. The image on the left shows the most popular search strings from a couple of days ago.
The variety of ways that people think of for searching for the same basic idea fascinates me. But, after all, if there’s more than one way to kill a cat, there’s probably more than one way to slaughter a pig.
Continue reading “don’t confuse the slaughtered pig”
A friend happened to comment that the latest edition of the Radio Times had meerkats on the front cover.
This got me wondering why meerkats hadn’t been “invented” when I was in school – they’re like an internet meme that sprang fully-formed in the public consciousness just a few years ago – and I did a quick bit of on-line research.
Continue reading “ferreting around on the web”
Last week I received a writers’ newsletter with yet another warning of a new phishing scam. This scam asks for your bank details so tax owed to you can be paid in directly. One of the recipients responded saying that she didn’t see how people could still be fooled; hadn’t we had enough warnings?
Of course people will continue to be fooled by such things because they want to believe that they are going to get a windfall.
But why people fall for a story like this one about swine ‘flu and zombism, is a bit more complex. It’s a brilliantly done hoax, but there are any number of clues that let a careful reader identify it as just that: a hoax.
Continue reading “panics and pandemics”
When I got to the writers’ group last night I put my mobile on the table. (The bar where we meet is usually noisy and no way would I hear it ringing from inside my bag.) The phone is a chunky old flip-open model, reminiscent of the communicaters in Star Trek, and wouldn’t impress anyone. It joined a couple of other phones on the table, of varying ages, but all fairly standard.
Then José arrived. His phone is much slimmer, with a complete querty keyboard, and I swear I felt a tremor of envy run through the group. Looking around the table at all these phones of differing shapes and sizes, I was reminded of the business card scene from American Psycho.
Continue reading “size matters”