Fans of Loose Wire may possibly recall a column I did a year or so ago, when I tried to match quaint English placenames with computer matters, assigning the names to things that didn’t yet have them. Here are a few: chettle (collective n) The debris, such as crumbs, dead insects and lint, that gets… Read More »
Burn and Foam. Starbucks is now offering a service where customers can browse music on computers in their outlets and then burn a CD of the music they like. Using its own Hear Music brand, Starbucks has launched the service in its new Hear Music Coffeehouse in Santa Monica, Calif. The service will be extended… Read More »
It’s that time of year, and the marketing folk are back with lame Valentine’s promotions. My first is from Audible.com, where I must have registered at some point, because I got an email with the subject field ‘Someone has sent you a Valentine!’ along with the following message: ‘Get a special Valentine’s day wish (and… Read More »
Sounds like an episode from Six Feet Under: the family of a deceased motorcyclist are suing a funeral firm after the dead man’s cell phone started ringing – from inside the coffin. A Belgian newspaper, Gazet van Antwerpen, is reporting that the night before the funeral the family gathered at the undertakers for a final… Read More »
Harry Potter’s latest oeuvre is circulating on the Internet — as an e-book. Jerry Justianto, who runs a blog on e-publishing, has been tracking it and says it raises interesting commercial and ethical questions. “It was available two days after the official release. That’s why it does not make sense for publishers not release… Read More »