January 2012
3 posts
“If someone says a rhinoceros is coming in two seconds, we worry. But if you say...”
– A Buddhist monk said this to Christopher Dickey on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, last week. (via newsweek)
6 tags
The UK Budget in simple terms
inspired by the lovely idea here http://weknowmemes.com/2011/12/the-us-budget-explained-in-simple-english/ I wanted to show the UK budget in household terms. Somehow getting rid of those zeros make it much easier to see the ratios.
I got most of these figures from the sources below. I took the cuts from the Department expenditure limits from the Treasury, which say DEL is set to fall from...
December 2011
6 posts
“There’s no such thing as a poor urbanized country; there’s no such thing as a...”
– Edward Glaeser, cited by Robert Kunzig in The City Solution via National Geographic Magazine (via stoweboyd)
Funny, I thought most urbanised countries were bankrupt, or going that way pretty quick.
3 tags
EU to close Patriot Act data access loophole
In case you missed it, Microsoft opened a can of worms in June when they were the first US company to finally admit that they would release data from any of their global datacentres if requested by the US goverment under the patriot act. This contravenes European data privacy regulations, and when you consider the kinds of data US companies hold (Lockheed Martin and the UK Census data for...
“For first time in 20 years, TV ownership declines. And households watch a record...”
– Emergent Futures Tumblelog
Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office... →
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that...
November 2011
10 posts
60 Minutes on America’s poverty epidemic -...
FAMILIES LIVING IN CARS
This is the home of the Metzger family. Their dad, Tom, is a carpenter. And, he's been looking for work ever since Florida's construction industry collapsed. When foreclosure took their house, he bought the truck on Craigslist with his last thousand dollars.
Pelley: How long have you been living in this truck?
Arielle: About five months.
Pelley: What's that like?
Arielle: It's an adventure.
Austin: That's how we see it.
Pelley: When kids at school ask you where you live, what do you tell 'em?
Austin: When they see the truck they ask me if I live in it, and when I hesitate they kinda realize. And they say they won't tell anybody.
Jade Wiley is eight years old. She spent three weeks living in her car with her mom, her dad, two dogs and a cat.
Pelley: Did you think you were ever gonna get out of the car?
Jade Wiley: I thought I was going to be stuck in the car.
Pelley: How did you keep your spirits up?
Jade Wiley: By still praying to God that somebody'd let us stay in a hotel.
Pelley: And how did you get out of the car?
Jade Wiley: Well there's this nice lady named Beth. And then she gave us a lot of money so we could stay at the hotel. And now I'm staying at the hotel.
2 tags
Monthly Amazon EC2 pricing in £GBP
I do this every 6 months or so for a quick ready reckoner of EC2 prices.
Heres the standard on demand pricing
And here’s the price if you pay a reservation fee up front
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions,...”
– Oscar Wilde
3 tags
“the best form of welfare is still a good, high paying job”
– Attributed to Kennedy
Remember, when a country goes bankrupt, your bank...
Sometimes the news just seems so insane we just ignore it, but if you’re lucky enough to have more than £85,000 in savings, then remember you need to put it with different banks to have any chance of protecting it if there is a sovereign default. In the event of a country like Greece collapsing, it’s pretty likely to take out a few banks, and there’s no guarantee that the...
How to get a PDF into evernote and make the...
If you use evernote, it may come as a bit of a shock that it doesn’t support searching of handwritten notes in PDF files. Honestly, even with premium. Evernote only does it’s handwriting search magic on image files like JPEGs.
If you use a mac, you can use Automator to turn any PDF into a collection of images, then just drag those into an evernote.
Just right click a PDF, choose a...
October 2011
2 posts
“OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.”
– Steve Jobs’s final words. (via newsweek)
September 2011
3 posts
5 tags
3 tags
WatchBeen watching this video after reading @BenWightwick recent post on the gamification of legal (http://bentheba.co.uk/2011/09/19/the-gamification-of-legal/)
On the video I love the bit where he describes how we really have this inbuilt bias to complete a series of outlined steps, which is why those forms always say ‘Step 2 of 3’ or the progress bar on linked in shows your profile is...
July 2011
1 post
Why can't all prisons be like this?
I have long wondered why prisoners can’t make more of a contribution to society, whether clearing rubbish or building roads. A magistrate from Hastings told me it was down to fears over health and safety, and a reluctance by the prison service to spend lots of time outside!
Well here at last seems to be proof that prisoners can help society - why can we not see more initiatives like this...
June 2011
1 post
Know list Shooting Star!
Wow! We made it to the legal technology place to be - OD is listed in “The Know List Top 10 shooting stars” - thankfully they avoided putting a photograph of me up there!
May 2011
4 posts
3 tags
Email footers. Dumb and and legally pointless.
‘ If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system and notify the sender immediately’
‘do not use, copy or disclose the information or otherwise use it or any part of it in any form whatsoever nor act in reliance on it’
I still see hundreds of these pointless footers and it bugs me, wastes space, and takes up paper and ink when I print things.
The...
Interview with Angus Bradley @safedropdotcom MD →
very interesting it is too :)
3 tags
Disruptive marketing - quick wins, and things to...
We had a good meeting at vistage yesterday, @Robert_Craven came in and gave a talk on disruptive marketing. I made some good notes (first time taking notes on the ipad!)
Here’s some of the things that really resonated with me, I like to do a summary like this so I remember things better, hope it’s useful to you too.
‘Delighted customers are 5 times more likely to buy again than satisfied...
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the...”
– Martin Luther King, Jr
March 2011
1 post
Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized...
In a snappy paper called ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly’ by Daniel Oppenheimer, he discovered that big words slipped into reports to make the writer sound more intelligent just doesn’t work. In a series of 5 studies, Oppenheimer created samples of vocabulary used in various passages including cv’s and...
February 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Choosing a web framework - Django growing 6 times...
In Jan 2008 we were choosing a web framework, and went with Django. At the time, to help decide, I surveyed ODesk for the number of freelancers offering expertise, and Jobserve, for the number of jobs for that skill.
Now, three years on, it’s time to look again and see if we made a good choice.
* Thats the number of jobs listed in the last 7 days, as of 3rd Feb 2011.
From our point...
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
January 2011
1 post
1 tag
Psst - need some free books for your kindle?
Manybooks.net offer loads of kindle friendly ebooks for free. You can actually download straight from your kindle.
Make sure you’ve got network access (wifi or 3g), then press menu, then experimental, then launch the web browser. From here you have access to thousands of books.
November 2010
1 post
4 tags
Selling your business - tips from M&A...
Useful excerpts from a Smith & Williamson ‘managing your exit’ workshop I was at last week, targeted at owners looking to sell their business. We talked a lot about a clear vision, and a storyboard, and giving the buyer permission to buy.
Never tell anyone the value of your business - Stating a value puts a ceiling on the price. The owner can walk in and announce “I’m not taking less that...
October 2010
2 posts
2 tags
Get a free weekly magazine with content from...
I’ve been super happy with my Kindle since I took delivery a month ago. My best find so far has been that using longform and Instapaper gets me a free weekly magazine with content from magazines like Rolling Stone, Wired and the New York Times. Here’s the very short list of apps I’m using most days:
Instapaper - send a daily or weekly bundle of pages you’ve marked to...
September 2010
2 posts
Kindle - the ultimate coastal sailors navigation...
I’ve been using the kindle for a few weeks, and with free 3g internet access in 100 countries, it could be the cruising yachtsmans dream. Here’s why:
- The battery - It lasts for a month, you won’t even need a charger for most trips
- 3g wireless web access - You won’t go surfing the net, or shopping with this, but it’s perfect for checking the shipping forecast,...
August 2010
3 posts
UK Companies - useful reference for shareholders... →
want to know the sunniest parts of the UK? UK... →
Since we moved to Deal, we couldn’t believe how sunny it is, and nobody else believed it either. So I found this map, hah!
February 2010
1 post
Zendesk vs Tender - saas helpdesks
We’re upgrading our helpdesk system, we currently use ‘kayako’ which is incredibly full featured, but sadly also incredibly complicated to manage.
The current main options that meet our needs (simple, fast, easy and fully integrated with email) are tender and zendesk.
My initial findings posted below.
I think for us the campfire integration and escalations will mean that Zen wins by a...
November 2009
1 post
is as happy as Larry doing page designs for the new safedrop.com site. nice to be creating stuff.
October 2009
1 post
1 tag
September 2009
1 post
Think I may try this for our services :) > 37signals valued at $100 billion
http://ping.fm/slTvE
July 2009
2 posts
student builds a toaster to highlight the effect of mass production we take for granted. takes 9 months costs $2k! http://ping.fm/PI2I1
secured microblogging for the enterprise will be huge. Yammer looks good, cubetree looks even better.. http://ping.fm/rzqyf
June 2009
2 posts
Markus Frind works one hour a day and brings in $10 million a year. Knew I was doing something wrong… http://ping.fm/rWV7g
7 rules for choosing a web agency or freelancer
I’ve managed the build for hundreds of websites, and am always getting asked for tips. Here’s a collection of things to be aware of when you’re engaging with an agency or a freelancer. 1 - Copyright Make sure you own copyright to any custom code & design, and get the photoshop .psd graphics, not just the jpegs.
2 - CMS - content management The content management system for...