Free media experiment – day 2
The second day of my experiment in reading, watching and listening only to free stuff went fairly well. I discovered one author I had not appreciated, and watched another OK video. (more…)
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Free ebooks and video, first day
Yesterday was my first full day of consuming only free media, Its a day and a half since I started. So how is it going? (more…)
A month of only free content
For the next month (i.e. from 16th July 2011 to 15th August 2011) I will only read/watch/listen to legally free media (audio, video, books, whatever). The biggest changes will be reading only free ebooks (something I have been doing a lot of lately, anyway) and listening only to free music. (more…)
Are newspapers content farms?
I disagreed with a recent blog post by Alan Patrick which described the Huffington Post as a content farm. I do not think that the alleged lack of original content at the Huffpo is any worse than at many newspapers: so I concluded that it is not a content farm. It could be interpreted the other way: newspapers are content farms too. (more…)
The Huffington Post and AOL
The Huffington Post may not be a bad buy at the price AOL is paying, but that does not mean that AOL is right to buy it. (more…)
The internet as an instrument of control
Conventional wisdom has long been that the internet (and IT and modern telecommunications) are hard for governments to control and empower anyone willing to use them — activists and protesters in particular. I have long been sceptical, but I think its now clear I was right. (more…)
SETI@Home sacking and the death of local newspapers
Two newspapers and a local radio station cover the same story, and it looks like two different stories. At the very least, one account is so incomplete as to be misleading. (more…)
Efficient markets, bamboozled journalists and stupid regulators
The media seems to have reached a consensus that the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH) has been discredited by the financial crises. I have been somewhat bemused by this, as I could not see the connection. (more…)
Media spin killling babies
I can be nice about a journalist for once, because Sarah Boseley at The Guardian has shot down the misinterpretation (once again, spin to back up government advice) of a study on the safety of allowing babies to sleep in their parents bed. (more…)
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Journalists eat spin on organic food
I assume that everyone who is interested knows by now that the headlines claiming that a Food Standards Agency study showed that “organic food was not healthier” were grossly inaccurate. I want to know why journalists did not even read the first paragraph of the report itself, let alone any real analysis of the report itself, before reproducing the Food Standard Agency’s spin. (more…)
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