I bought some undu at Painsbusys to eat with my flaunaue. Why can’t my mobile spell properly?
My phone has everything: camera, polytones, triband, GRPS, internet, MP3 player. The manual is heavier than the phone, which is heavier than my wallet, now substantially emptier for having purchased it. But there is one flaw: the predictive text dictionary.
Published in The Guardian, 24 November 2005
Thanks to David Allen’s cult time-management credo, I have a tidy desk, a clear conscience, increased output - and an unfolding love affair with my filing cabinet.
It is grey and it is ugly, but I love it. My new Bisley four-drawer filing cabinet dominates the corner of my all-new home office. It is the centrepiece of a new organisational system that has rejuvenated my perspective and changed my life. It is all I can do not to stroke it.
Published in The Guardian, August 05
Dissident scientists advocating a controversial theory of the universe are having a field day in the wake of NASA’s Deep Impact comet collision earlier this month.
Scientists promoting the Electric Universe model say their predictions for the comet mission appear to have been more accurate than NASA’s.
Published on Wired.com, Aug 05
Trail of electronic data from US websites leads to convictions for Britons buying psychedelic drugs on net.
Police have arrested and prosecuted more than 22 British customers of websites selling class A designer drugs online after a trail of electronic evidence from busted websites in the US led police to addresses across the UK.
Published in The Guardian May 05
Usenet newsgroups dedicated to piracy are seeing a resurgence in activity as file sharers seek less-policed areas of the internet to trade illegal data…
Published on Wired.com May 05
Feel guilty eating a constant stream of ‘evil products’? You could go Fairtrade.
Published in BBC Olive Magazine May 05
Is it OK to borrow someone else’s wireless network without their permission? And how do you stop others doing the same to you?
I am faced with a modern ethical conundrum. My flat is very long and thin and, frustratingly, my wireless network does not extend from the office at the back to the lounge at the front. My dreams of sofa-surfing have been thwarted. However, my laptop does pick up my neighbour’s Wi-Fi connection. It’s called “belkin54g” after the brand of router he is using. A quick Google reveals the default passwords for this router. A few security screens later, I’ve effortlessly hacked into my neighbour’s Wi-Fi. I can now surf on the sofa while watching TV and drinking red wine. Bliss.
Of course, he doesn’t know this, which leaves the conundrum: should I tell him his network is unprotected and risk losing my convenient living room wi-fi? Or should I continue to hijack his connection, risking discovery and a possible neighbourly feud?
Published in The Guardian April 23rd 05
An obsession with healthy eating could be dangerous, doctors have warned. So what’s it like suffering from orthorexia?
My family have accused me of having it. My friends suspect me too. After a brief resistance and some research, I’m ready to concede: “My name is David and I am mildly orthorexic.”
Orthorexia nervosa is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. Unlike the related anorexia, sufferers are concerned not with quantity but with quality. It’s not about feeling fat, but about feeling pure.
Published on BBC News March 05
With an estimated five million people now connected to broadband at home, one early internet enthusiast is giving it up for good. David McCandless explains why he’s given it the boot.
Published on the BBC News Magazine, Feb 2005
Take your pick from a range of innovative white products that simply shout “Excellent!” and “Hahahahaha!” to anyone who sees them. On you. As you walk back from the train station. At night. Alone. Oh and be sure to take out our affordable Apple Insurance.
It’s the perfect fine-tasting antidote to fast food, didn’t you know?
Published in BBC Olive Magazine Dec 04
This just in. Everything’s been solved.
Is it really that much better than tap? Really? Why?
Published in BBC Olive Magazine Oct 04
Some online games are so addictive, some players just can’t stop - even if their lives depend on it
Ahmar Ahmad has not been outside his home in Beckenham, south London for three weeks. He barely speaks to his brother Amir anymore, just a few words when they see each other in the morning. A year ago, the 30-something brothers, avid PC games players, came across an online fantasy war game called CastleQuest 2. That was when things started to go wrong.
Today, the brothers are the top-ranking players in the game and proud of it. But it has cost them. CastleQuest is set in a persistent real-time universe. When you leave, it carries on. So to hold onto their position, the brothers must play the game 24 hours a day, in shifts. Each shift lasts 12 hours. As one gets up, the other goes to bed. They know it’s odd. It would be funny if they could only free themselves from it, but they can’t. They are addicted.
Published in The Guardian September 04
What are they? And why are they bringing about the end of the world?
Published in BBC Olive Magazine Aug 04
Within 24 hours of its release, the MyDoom virus had flooded the world’s email networks, making it the fastest-spreading virus ever.
Published in The Guardian Feb 04
They first detected it at 13:03 GMT, 10 days ago. An innocuous attachment in an email sent from Russia triggered a minor alarm at the Global Operations Centre of Messagelabs, a leading email security firm. No one paid it much attention. Just another new virus, one of the handful that are trapped, analysed and blacklisted every day in the darkened bunker in Gloucester they call the war room. Little did they know…
The internet underworld of extreme drug use finds its voice.
“Everyone who was still left at the party began running like hunted animals. I wasn’t sure if Ray had a weapon at this point so I decided to just run away from him. We wouldn’t have been so scared to fight him had he not been naked and also a 6-foot-1-inch, 180-pound Taikwondo Black Belt. About five of some of my bigger friends restrained him by holding his arms and legs that were kicking furiously. This is when he started to speak as if he were possessed. He would repeat the same phrases in random order. He was saying shit like: “This is perfection, I am Jesus, I am the center of the universe, I’m gay, Come lie with me, Daddy Mommy lie with me, black people, fingertips, Cock!!!” and he would scream at the top of his lungs between saying these horrid things…”
“Possessed Rampage” by TJ
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=6839
On underground drug websites, there are tens of thousands of ‘trip reports’ - web-essays detailing the first-hand experiences of users of just about every drug you can image: synthetic, plant, household cleaning product. Speed, cannabis, ecstasy, opium, LSD, alcohol, Benylin, even caffeine, even nutmeg . Plus bizarre ‘research chemicals’ with exotic lab names such as 5-Me0-DiPT and 2-CT-2 that are too new to have earned themselves a street name.
Unedited, unfettered, often unpunctuated, trip reports make compelling, voyeuristic and at turns touching and harrowing reading. The writers have no inhibitions. Anonymity frees them (as do the drugs). Many are typed under the influence: pure streams of altered consciousness, running to thousands of words.
Published in Tank Magazine Feb 04
It will arrive next day by registered delivery in an unassuming padded envelope, promises the blurb on the British website. Inside, vacuum-sealed, will be 7.5g of AK47 - high-grade Cannabis Sativa. “Very strong nice smoke,” gushes the sales copy on the site. “Back by popular demand.”
Published in The Guardian Jan 04
The US army’s foray into violent PC games has been hailed a success. But it didn’t allow for one thing - cheaters
Christopher has been killed in action many times: 305 to be exact. But his most recent death was the last straw. Defending an Alaskan pipeline from terrorist attack, he and his nine-man squad came under fire from a sniper who picked them off, one by one, in just under a minute.
“We were lying on the ground, prone, in thick fog,” he says. “There’s no way he should have been able to shoot us, let alone see us. He must’ve been cheating.”
Published in The Guardian May 03
I produced this back in 2003 for Seethru.co.uk. It’s since become one of the biggest timewasting games on the Net. There’s even a version of it on Facebook called Jetman. Over quarter of a million people play it everyday.
My hi-score is 2987. See if you can beat it.
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Hi! I'm a London-based writer into technology, subculture, and anything strange and interesting. My work has appeared in over 30 magazines and newspapers including The Guardian and Wired. I edited the BBC webzine Seethru. My copywriting has won awards. Mostly though, I like to make jokes. All of which were recently published a spoof of the web, The Internet Now In Handy Book Form. I am now no longer funny.
Check out my spoof of the world wide web. It's funny yeah?
"You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll realise you didn't cry at all, but simply laughed again."
Charlie Brooker, The Guardian
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