futureworld 1

14th January 2009: A couple breaks up because Google Street View reveals he is seeing another woman.

that's how I roll

From the rut.

spEak You're bRanes

Dodginess abounds in Web 2.0. I have posted about it here and here. One of the worst locations for this on the BBC's Have Your Say page which is a playground for the permanently outraged and confused.

Someone has catalogued all this on spEak You're bRanes (a nod to Iannucci-Morris satire gem, The Day Today). They have even organised it into categories, like Armchair Generals, Curtain Twitchers, Unfocused Rage, Permanently Bewildered and Werthers Original Imperialists to name a few. Makes for great reading.

Polarized journalism

Two screen grabs from the Daily Mail and Mirror. Headlines have been highlighted.

Sometimes two different stories will give an insight into the cogs of journalism. Here, this total contradiction just shows the amount of empty speculation at work.

Cracking Open Microsoft Office

Nope, sorry Microsoft lawyers you aren't going to find a way of cracking Office software here. Just please pass the message on to your packaging people so Office can be opened without having to Google for instructions.

In bad catalogues

Specifically for chilly days (when you have forgotten your coat, jumper, bra and judgement) this will replace the shape of nipples with the much more normal shape of medium-sized soap.

Ordinary Night London

Just came across this on Flickr and thought it was great. Made all the more so because there is a nice story behind it. One of those ones that makes a little incision into the ordinary, lets you take a peek in and closes up when you're done. I love little things like that, events that don't change anything but are nonetheless thoroughly interesting.

I read a book like that last month, which starts with a crisp London nightscape. A neurosurgeon, unable to sleep, peers out into the night to see a plane with an engine on fire gliding across the cool night's sky, with the BT tower in the foreground. The book is Saturday by Ian McEwan.

The plotlessness of it - whilst being the primary cause of dislike among many Amazon reviewers - was the gateway to an exquisite celebration of the ordinary, which manages to capture something about what it is like to live in London right now.

I recommend this book with caution because people are clearly split between viewing this as boring, smug drivel and a work of majestic literary observation. In a geekier moment, I noticed this is supported by the soft u-shaped function that has emerged from the review graph on Amazon.

If you love the rich details of ordinary life then this is unmissable; if not, it's not.