murf

I am loving Deutschland 83

January 22, 2016January 22, 2016 No Comments

Very much. Cast, soundtrack, storylines, all great so far. It’s all vaguely familiar in some ways, my early childhood was lived through the cold war. I remember the wall coming down, news stories of spy swaps at checkpoint charlie, Regan and Ghorbachev. It’s the little things that make it interesting too: Waitress: “Roundsteak or Rib-eye?” […]

Read on ...

Arts Life People Sounds

David Bowie, dead at 69

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 No Comments

MESSAGE FROM IGGY: “David’s friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person. He was the best there is. – Iggy Pop” — Iggy Pop (@IggyPop) January 11, 2016 David Bowie died on 10th January, 2016, or perhaps, he just went home: David Bowie has returned to his home after […]

Read on ...

Big Business Internets Technology

Beware the Internet of Things: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

January 15, 2016 No Comments

So, a glitch in a software update to the Nest left users quite literally cold as their nest devices stopped working. Very irritating, and the nine-step, time consuming fix sounds quite awkward to say the least. But there’s more: Making matters worse is the lack of recourse. Buried deep in Nest’s 8,000-word service agreement is […]

Read on ...

Big Business Economy

Capitalism vs Markets

January 13, 2016 No Comments

They are, in fact, two different things: capitalism is a system of ownership; markets a method of exchange. Although the two have sometimes gone together, this need not be so. Crony capitalism in which a few monopolies or cartels run much of the economy gives us capitalism without markets. And market socialism would give us […]

Read on ...

Cycling

Cycling in 2015

January 10, 2016 No Comments

I started 2015 having made a decision that I didn’t need the car anymore, but felt I needed to prove it. So, 12 months later, I’ve covered approximately 2,170 kilometres by bike to and from work, plus another 600 or so doing all those little trips to the shop, park, doctors and so on. Basically, […]

Read on ...

Humour Internets Oddities

6th Jan 2016: The day the internet watched a puddle

January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 No Comments

Newcastle became famous for a day for being the location of a puddle. Streamed live on periscope, it seemed to catch the attention of everyone on what was an otherwise boring January afternoon. I freely admit I joined periscope just for this, as did quite a few others. It kind of ate itself when the […]

Read on ...

Arts Sounds

This week, I have been mostly…

January 8, 2016January 9, 2016 No Comments

Listening to Du Blonde, Motorhead, Honeyblood and The Raveonettes. And some Cardies. Du Blonde is a new one, suggested by some recommendation engine ( amazon this time I think), which seems to be where I pick up all my new bands these days (does word pf mouth work anymore?). This is Beth Jeans Houghton’s new […]

Read on ...

Arts Life People Sounds

‘If I dropped dead tomorrow, what a fantastic f**king life I’ve had’

January 7, 2016January 7, 2016 No Comments

Interesting interview in the IT from a while back with Francis Rossi of the Quo. On life: What keeps you going? Many things. Money is one of them. When I was going to a Catholic school we had a teacher called Mrs O’ Sullivan. She said that when you are older and die, you’ll have […]

Read on ...

Big Business Internets ReadWriteWeb

Stay in the garden, kids!

January 6, 2016 No Comments

News has broken that twitter might be abandoning it’s rather unique 140-character limit for messages, or at least allowing for longer ‘click for more’ type messages. So what’s the point of that? Competing with Medium? Yes and no, it’s largely an effort to keep people in the garden that they’re building. What’s really changing here, […]

Read on ...

Politics

A bit fantastic

January 5, 2016January 6, 2016 No Comments

Renua launched their manifesto yesterday – “Rewarding Work, Rebuilding Trust”. They’ve got the field to themselves at the moment, trying to steal a march on the established parties with an early launch. One bit jumped out so far, the 23% flat tax proposal, which seems to be a ‘tax cuts for all!’ offering. Ms Creighton […]

Read on ...

Who?

I am loving Deutschland 83

David Bowie, dead at 69

Beware the Internet of Things: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

Capitalism vs Markets

Cycling in 2015

6th Jan 2016: The day the internet watched a puddle

This week, I have been mostly…

‘If I dropped dead tomorrow, what a fantastic f**king life I’ve had’

Stay in the garden, kids!

A bit fantastic

Author: murf