Friday 14 September 2007

A radical green agenda that the press manages to ignore

Two weeks ago the Liberal Democrat party released possibly the most radical green agenda that this country has seen for quite some time

It combined huge improvements in energy efficiency, renewables for generation and international carbon trading schemes.

Yet the press managed to ignore this which was a real shame as it outlined a radically different future. Unlike either the Labour and Conservative parties who have pussy footed around the issue, is suggested some very clear measures.

Ashley Seager, the guardians economics correspondent delves into this issue further in his article political climate change is changing faster than our prime minister

Wish Lists - Another trick from Amazon











Whenever I need to see how an ecommerce web site presents products, I'll often end up at Amazon just to see how they have done it.

Amazon has obviously realised that I havn't bought anything off my wish list in ages, so has decided to remind me on when I went to the site today. The arrows allow to scroll through the list so that I can see whats on the list.

Now all they need to do is tell me how much I am going to save on each book and the credit card will be out

Monday 10 September 2007

What's the Metros Agenda?

For those readers who live outside of the uk, The Metro is a free newspaper that is distributed in most of the major UK cities. Since it was first launched over 5 years ago, its proved very popular and many people, including a lot of friends have stopped buying a normal newspaper and just pick up the metro.

At least when you buy a paper, you normally know its political point of view, as you're going to choose a paper that matches your own. The Metro has very little actual analysis and normally concentrates on celebrity stories.

This mornings front page story was about a so called 'report' by the tax payers alliance into how UK families are paying £400 extra over the amount needed to cover their carbon footprint. Clearly the Taxpayers Alliance has an axe to grind over this and are certainly entitles to their point of view as is any individual or organisation.

What is surprising is that a survey run by a group with a clear right wing agenda manages to make it onto the front page of a national paper. If the conservative party was making a song and dance about this, I could understand.

Hence to the title of this post. The metro is owned by associated newspapers who also own the daily mail which is clearly aimed at white conservative middle class Britain, so what exactly is associated press up to?.

With so many stories that they could have run about the effect that global change is having, why concentrate on this non issue.

Instead of getting people to actually start thinking about the earth and each other, this article does nothing more than reinforce the Whats in it for me attitude.

Being Ahead Of The Curve

As reported by the Financial Times, the Guardian and the BBC, it appears that elements of the Chinese army have been tested the electronic defences of this country.

Once again it looks like William Gibson was ahead of the curve in his book Neuromancer in which he foresaw the Chinese army deploying large virus clouds to take out part of cyberspace.

If you haven't already read Neuromancer, I'd highly recommend doing so as William Gibson describes the cyberspace & the web back in 1986, a full three years before Tim Berners Lee even started fiddling around with it at Cern. Its influence can be seen in films such as the Matrix.