More shoddy BBC science journalism

There’s been talk recently about the BBC’s problems with integrity – I heard one chap say that the current crop of BBC journalists are the best-trained they’ve ever been. But, their science and health coverage continues to be shamefully poor. Lets take today’s headline story – Alcohol link to bowel cancer risk. Now, if you’d [...]

Who are your best coders?

Kevin Marks “In the end, this means that really great coders will keep getting paid less than they are worth and average ones will keep getting paid more, so the economic benefits of great skill will go primarily to the companies with the best employees and not to the employees themselves.” I read this post [...]

More on organ donation.

More than 400 people will die this year because they need organ transplants. Shame on you if you’re reading this blog and have not registered your intention to donate organs after your death on the NHS Organ Donor Register. It’s the least you can do, and I can’t see how any ethical person could object [...]

Quantity theory of facial hair.

I propose my first theorem: “In any sufficiently close social group, the aggregate amount of facial hair reaches a certain level and thereafter remains constant.” The colloquial term for the phenomenon is the ‘zz-top effect’. The theory is easily tested, and no known evidence of its failure has yet been noted. Observe a group of [...]

A two minute task you should do now…

It took me just 30 seconds to register on the NHS organ donor register. You should do it now. I’m pretty ashamed that I haven’t done this before.

Open-source economics

Back in November the EU looked at the economic impact of open-source software. It’s a mammoth report, but it’s also an extremely important one – FLOSS software doesn’t have the lobbying power of the monopolists who peddle proprietary software. It’s uncompromisingly positive about the benefits of FLOSS, going as far to suggest that they’re so [...]

Don’t develop, cobble.

Chatting with my brother tonight – not a very frequent occurrence – about an idea he has to build a site around young professionals in the media industry. Twenty minutes later, including finding and buying a domain name, he has a fully functional installation of Drupal running on one of my servers. Another ten minutes [...]

Developer salaries on the rise… again.

The guardian reports today that average web developer’s salaries have risen by a whopping 23% in the last year. Definitely a sign that we’re in the midst of a tech boom. Interestingly, the article claims that the retail sector is driving the demand. I hope this signals the end of companies seeing development as something [...]