Category: Economics
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Forgive me, but I thought it was the ‘Labour’ party
Just a quick comment on the furore surrounding the potential strike by tanker drivers, and the government’s response on this… Seems to me that they have deliberately kicked sand in the air on this one in order to distract from the more serious news about shenanigans surrounding Tory party funding and access to the Prime Minister.…
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Chinese Highways | Enclosure of the Commons | Minimal Wages
It seems that the current coalition government are determined to raise the revenue that’s required to keep our roads up to scratch by arranging an elaborate private finance initiative, which will probably result in the Chinese government owning contracts for road management. How can this possibly make sense? There must, one presumes, be an economic…
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Homeless People as WiFi Hotspots | The Wire | Seeing the Invisible
One of those bizarre stories that makes you check the date carefully and make sure it’s not 1st April: homeless people are being used as mobile WiFi hotspots in Austin, Texas, during the South-By-South-West (SXSW) conference. Yes, you did read that correctly, and you can read the full report in The Atlantic here. That piece…
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Catching Up…
Been quiet here… which is probably a function of being very un-quiet elsewhere. So thought I’d mention a few of the things I’ve been doing / working on… Firstly, I have to mention The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach. It’s a big, wonderful novel which basically ate most of my time in the past…
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There Is No Original | 3D Printing | Object Piracy
Occasionally an article catches one’s eye that genuinely opens a raft of interesting new thoughts. That happened to the other day when I read this Guardian piece about a new area of Pirate Bay that offers templates for 3D printers to clone figures for Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Lord of the Rings table-top games. Up…
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SOPA | Internet Piracy
In the most high-profile action against the US Senate’s ‘Protect Intellectual Property’ Bill (PIPA) and the House of Representatives’ ‘Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Wikipedia has begun an English language black-out of its main site. As you’ll know if you read here often, I’m in the depths of a book-length piece on piracy. The aim…