Duncan Stephen

Article — 7 January 2009 — 1,034 words

Woolworths as it was known and loved, and neglected

In 1982, the British arm of Woolworths was separated from its US parent when it was bought by retail consortium Paternoster, later to become Kingfisher. It changed the direction of the company forever. According to the Woolworths Virtual Museum, BBC News reported on Woolworths being under British ownership for the first time against a backdrop […]

Article — 6 January 2009 — 771 words

Woolworths: The curiously British US-based company

Business — Society

Work: Woolworths

Today, the shutter came down for the final time at Woolworths Kirkcaldy, Store 1201. It was among the final group of branches to close. It is the end of an era. This institution had been a fixture in Britain’s High Streets for almost 100 years. The history of the original company set up by Frank […]

Article — 23 November 2008 — 533 words

Prices dropped at Woolworths

Business — Current affairs

Work: Woolworths

Update: This offer has been extended! It will now end on Sunday 30 November. This is great news if you’re unable to pop into Woolies until the weekend. Okay, first off, I know it’s a while since I posted on this blog. And I appreciate that this post represents a rather jarring change in tone. […]

Article — 1 November 2008 — 1,081 words

Happenings at Scotweb2

Business — Society — Web

I said that I had hoped to tweet a bit from Scotweb2. I am terrible at multitasking though so I only managed a miserly two, hurriedly posted during lunch. So instead I will write a report of what went on. First off there was a great talk by James Munro who works on an interesting […]

Article — 28 October 2008 — 203 words

Reading The Guardian in full

Media — Web

I have long been an advocate of full RSS feeds for reasons outlined in this post. I do, however, understand why most news outlets opt to keep partial feeds. News websites, unlike blogs, typically show you just the headlines and a short summary of each story on the front page — just like a partial […]

Article — 25 October 2008 — 299 words

The paradox of the paradox of voting

Economics — Politics

I wrote my dissertation about the paradox of voting, which is the problem that rational choice theorists have in explaining why people vote. You are more likely to be killed on the way to the polling station than affect the result once you’re inside it — so why vote? The puzzle interested me as soon […]

Article — 23 October 2008 — 1,540 words

Rumours of blogging’s death are exaggerated, but not greatly so

Media — Society — Technology

There’s been a lot of chat recently about whether blogging is dead, sparked by this article in Wired by Paul Boutin. It’s easy to scoff at the article, and the idea that blogging is dead is obviously nonsense. But I doubt the claim would have got so much attention if there wasn’t a bit of […]

Article — 10 September 2008 — 409 words

Interesting event about web technologies: ScotWeb2

Business — Society — Web

I’ve recently been doing little bits and pieces helping out with the organisation of a very interesting event called ScotWeb2. It will take place on 31 October from 1000 to 1600 at the Holyrood Campus of Edinburgh University. It will be an informal barcamp / unconference-style event. It’s being organised by Alex Stobart who works […]

Article — 10 August 2008 — 841 words

Spelling B******

Culture — Society

This week a university lecturer, Ken Smith, suggested that spelling “mistakes” should be accepted as variants. This has upset Ideas of Civilisation and Colin Campbell among others. I side with Ken Smith on this occasion though. I hate spelling mistakes and love to point them out. Only yesterday I saw a greengrocers’ apostrophe and instinctively […]

Article — 17 July 2008 — 1,381 words

Why is technology news not news?

Current affairs — Media — Technology — Web

I’ve been wondering a bit about the way technology news is still ghettoised. I don’t mean news about the latest rubbish web 2.0 start-up with a ridiculous name. I mean quite important stuff. Security problems and the like. Take what happened last week. A patch to fix a major flaw in the DNS was released. […]

Article — 13 November 2007 — 298 words

Blocking Beacon

Current affairs — Personal — Technology

I am usually a defender of Facebook. But this time I think they have overstepped the line and have introduced a ‘feature’ that makes me personally uncomfortable. From The Facebook Blog: Just as Facebook shares your on-site interactions with your friends through News Feed, we now give you an option to let News Feed share […]

Article — 12 September 2007 — 2,026 words

Shove your partial feeds up your RSS

Media — Technology

(Yes, every post I write about RSS must contain the hilarious “‘RSS’ sounds a little bit like ‘arse’” pun.) I have a request for those people who publish RSS feeds. Make them full feeds! I know there is a supposedly a debate about whether partial or full feeds work best. Well, that is not really […]