Joe's Jottings

Google Buzz and Google's incursion in to Social Networking

· google, privacy, personal-and-group-networking, personal-stuff, privacy-issues, technology, the-media

Many years ago there was a joke in techy circles that likened Microsoft to the Star Trek aliens 'The Borg'.  It appeared at the time (mid 1990s) that Microosft were indeed determined to assimilate eve…

Espresso Entrepreneurs and Cargo Cult Capitalism

· entrepreneur-issues, personal-stuff

An item caught my attention recently- so much so that I actually replied to the other blog!  It suggests that in order to succeed as a startup you actually need to be in Silicon Valley or a similar pl…

Saying Sorry, Contrition, Repentance and the Scorpion

· morality, christianity, personal-development, personal-stuff, philosophy

Earlier this weekI commented on the words of John Healey, the Housing Minister who said that repossession is not always a bad thing.  As has been pointed out, the 46,000 people repossessed in the last…

A 21 hour working week? Earth calling nef....

· consumerism, working-life, community-building, personal-stuff, philosophy, politics

I don't like to admit it in public, but I kind of like my work.  I'm self-employed, in IT.  I probably do around 35 hours a week 'client facing' work and probably about 10 hours a week grubbing up new…

We know where you've been on the Net, and we don't need no steenkin' cookies!

· privacy, personal-stuff, politics, privacy-issues, technology, the-media

I'm not overly paranoid about people knowing where I've been on the Internet; I'm aware that it's pretty easy for a website to feed your browser 'tracking cookies' that can be used for marketing and a…

John Healey - Caring, sharing New Labour - repossessions can be good!

· community-building, politics

Unsurprisingly, repossessions are at a 14 year high.  It would have been unthinkable for the recession to have had any other impact on householder finances, as is indicated by this report on the BBC w…

BBC bias in favour of globalisation?

· media-bias, personal-stuff, politics, the-media

As is my habit, I popped in to the BBC Website this morning to catch up on what's been happening in the world and saw this article, with the link headline from the front page of 'Why globalisation mea…

Social Search = global groupthink?

· google, personal-stuff, privacy-issues, the-media

A few days ago I came acrossthis item in Google's blog - looking at what they call 'Social Search.  This is a set of applications being developed by Google to allow image content that you and your soc…

Can money buy happiness?

· personal-stuff

My answer to this question has always been 'No, but it makes misery feel pretty good.'  However, according to a recent session at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the answer might be 'Yes'...or then…

What happened to the Stiff Upper Lip?

· personal-stuff, politics

In separate interviews, we heard today that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had openly cried when discussing the death of his daughter in a media interview, and we also found Spinmeister Supreme Alastair …