From Bill Thompson’s Flickr photostream. It’s the first time I’ve ever been grateful for my MacBookPro’s tendency to overheat!
Chutzpah
You have to admire RyanAir. They have to shut down their website for three days to install major upgrades. So they’re using the necessity as an excuse for another fire-sale!
Politics, policy and the Internet
The Centre for Policy Studies has published an interesting report about the Net and UK politics. It concludes, among other things, that the only political party to make serious use of the Net so far is the xenophobic British National Party.
Sony gets revenge for Betamax
Revenge, they say, is a dish best eaten cold. Well, Sony must be chewing fossils, because Toshiba has given up on HD DVD…
TOKYO – Toshiba’s decision to no longer develop, make or market high-definition HD DVD players and recorders will mean consumers can start feeling more confident about buying the victorious rival technology – a Blu-ray disc player.
Analysts say competition is expected to heat up among the manufacturers of Blu-ray players and recorders, which include Japanese makers Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Sharp Corp. as well as Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea.
In making the announcement, Toshiba Corp. President Atsutoshi Nishida said he wanted to avoid confusion among consumers…
Laid off? Share the pain with Twitter. (And get job offers.)
From the Los Angeles Times…
SAN FRANCISCO — When Ryan Kuder lost his job last week, everyone knew it. That’s because he chronicled the experience of his last hours at Yahoo Inc. through a stream of electronic dispatches laced with gallows humor.
Using Twitter, a service popular in Silicon Valley that allows users to broadcast short messages to an unlimited number of people, Kuder posted periodic updates of his final, caffeine-fueled day as a senior marketing manager at the Internet company, starting with his last commute to the Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters and ending with margaritas at Chevy’s.
“Ironic that I just got my PC repaired yesterday. Won’t be needing that anymore.”
“This is a serious downer. Trying to drown it in free lattes. Which I will miss.”
“Dear BlackBerry, What great times we had. I’ll miss you. At least until tonight when I stop on my way home and buy an iPhone. Love, Me.”
Tracery
Father Thames
Nice view, though.
Towering edifice
I’m at a seminar which is being held (improbable though it may seem) in Tower Bridge, which Wikipedia describes as “a combined bascule and suspension bridge”. It’s also darned chilly up there in the North Tower.
Vanishing point
Between the Rock and a hard place
So Northern Rock is to be nationalised — something that should have happened months ago. What’s interesting is the light the affair shines on Gordon Brown’s shortcomings — his chronic indecisiveness, coupled with mindblowing stubborness, which means that his government is invariably dragged by the force of events into doing the obvious thing — but too late. This is an administration in terminal decline.
Later: Anatole Kaletsky is speechless with indignation:
Why should a Government that has consistently refused to offer public funding for potentially viable commercial projects of real national importance – aerospace, public transport, nuclear power – now be spending tens of billions on supporting a bust mortgage bank? Is it because Britain is short of mortgage lenders, lacks employment opportunities for bankers or suffers a deficiency of financial innovation?
Even if politicians at Westminster are unwilling to ask such questions there can be no doubt that others will. It is quite likely that the European Commission will veto the business plans for Northern Rock unless these provide for a rapid rundown of both its lending and deposit-taking operations.