Duncan Stephen

Article — 28 October 2008 — 203 words

Reading The Guardian in full

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 […]

Article — 7 September 2007 — 2,187 words

20 reasons why I will put my blogs on my CV (and three reasons why I might not)

Business — Society — Technology

Yesterday I looked at the dilemma facing a blogging job hunter (ie. me). Should I put my blog on my CV? Rhys Wynne and Rich Minx think that blogging gives you lots of skills that employers find desirable. The Devil’s Kitchen has added his thoughts here and asks if there are any more skills that […]

Article — 6 September 2007 — 740 words

Should I put my blogs on my CV?

Business — Personal — Technology

Here is something that I’ve been pondering about quite a bit recently. A few years ago it was all bad news for bloggers who have jobs. Getting sacked because of your blog stuck fear into so many that it the concept even spawned its own word: dooce. People who have been dooced are not in […]

Article — 22 August 2007 — 831 words

Facebook apps are revealing their potential

Society — Technology

My latest internet addiction is Scrabulous. Jeremy Bentham thought that humans wanted to maximise pleasure rather than pain. Goodness knows what he would have thought if he saw me inviting Facebook friends to play Scrabble against me. It has mostly been a demoralising affair. I hadn’t realised quite how rusty I was at Scrabble. I […]

Article — 18 August 2007 — 646 words

Why do those social bookmarking links exist?

Media — User experience — Web

There is a fixture of the modern web that I really don’t understand. And in terms of annoyance it is probably second only to Snap Preview. Millions of links to social bookmarking websites littering the bottom of every news article and blog post written. You know the ones. “Digg this!” “Send to del.icio.us!” “Pimp-me-do to […]