The Wiki Man

The Wiki Man: Needled by PINs

The phone-hacking scandal may bring restraint to Britain’s redtop journalists and relief to a few thousand minor celebrities but, for the country’s 59.99 million unfamous people, it will merely make technology a little more irritating. The phone-hacking scandal may bring restraint to Britain’s redtop journalists and relief to a few thousand minor celebrities but, for

The Wiki Man: Stuff and nonsense

I would have more sympathy for criticism of consumer culture were it not for the people who voice it — usually the type who owns a second home in Tuscany but is horrified that their cleaner has two televisions. I would have more sympathy for criticism of consumer culture were it not for the people

The Wiki Man: Engineering solutions

This is from a 2007 blog, listing the Chinese politburo: Hu Jintao, 62, President of the People’s Republic of China, graduate of Tsinghua University, Beijing, Department of Water Conservancy Engineering. This is from a 2007 blog, listing the Chinese politburo: Hu Jintao, 62, President of the People’s Republic of China, graduate of Tsinghua University, Beijing,

The Wiki Man: The drama of gadgetry

I won’t write about Twitter or superinjunctions this week except to say that no broadsheet newspaper could have given such prominence to a story of a footballer’s grubby affair had it not been able to do so under the pretence of discussing the ‘profound legal implications’. I won’t write about Twitter or superinjunctions this week

The Wiki Man: Shopping for a self-image

Judging by the television channels in international hotels, Europeans must think Anglo-Saxons are the most boring people in the world. While Italian, French or German stations show a mixture of soap operas, game shows and other cheerful nonsense, English-language channels are confined to news bulletins and the kind of rolling financial programming once parodied by

The Wiki Man: Manual labour

I am writing this in the brown-carpeted lounge of Phoenix Sky Harbor, which claims to be America’s friendliest airport — and indeed that may well be so. I am writing this in the brown-carpeted lounge of Phoenix Sky Harbor, which claims to be America’s friendliest airport — and indeed that may well be so. Enough

The Wiki Man: The obsession with things

I’m off to California next week to visit relatives in Los Angeles, but we are flying into Phoenix first. I’m off to California next week to visit relatives in Los Angeles, but we are flying into Phoenix first. I love Phoenix for quite a few reasons, not least the Botanical Gardens and the Frank Lloyd

The Wiki Man: Sporting behaviour

‘You’re never alone with a Strand’, created by the S.H. Benson agency in 1959, is now famous as the most unsuccessful advertisement ever. With its raincoated figure standing alone on Albert Bridge, seeking solace from some unseen misfortune by drawing on a Strand cigarette, it was admired on artistic grounds until it emerged that the

The Wiki Man: Making a hash of things

According to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, every alien race in the universe has independently invented an intoxicating drink called ‘jinantonix’ or at least something that sounds very similar. According to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, every alien race in the universe has independently invented an intoxicating drink called ‘jinantonix’ or at least

The Wiki Man: Losing track

About a month ago at a conference I was shown an analysis of customer satisfaction surveys from a large hotel in the United States. What emerged from this study was that a guest’s enjoyment and appreciation of almost every aspect of a hotel is coloured by their initial experience of their visit — specifically how

The Wiki Man: Fleece the parents

‘Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard for marriage (being the union of one man to one woman for life to the exclusion of all others). ‘Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard

The Wiki Man IT’s not all that

One argument levelled against command economies by people such as Hayek is that, without the information contained in market prices, it is almost impossible to allocate resources efficiently. In other words, there can be no ‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’ without some price mechanism to reveal what those

The Wiki Man: Anyone can be a phone hacker

To play this joke, you need a friend who’s flying abroad. To play this joke, you need a friend who’s flying abroad. Just log on to any website that allows you to send anonymous texts and, while the friend is in mid-flight, send an SMS to his phone (let’s assume he is landing in Cape

The Wiki Man: A question of trust

One of many reasons I love reading about crime on Wikipedia is the marvellous pieces of unintentional comedy you get at the end of an article in the list of internal links. Beneath the entry for the Hay poisoner Herbert Rowse Armstrong, for instance, comes: Poisoners | People executed by hanging | Executed English people

The Wiki Man: A lifetime of Lent?

What divides the left from the right nowadays is almost never the wildly divergent aims each group claims to believe in: it’s simply that, at a personal level, each finds the other bloody irritating. What divides the left from the right nowadays is almost never the wildly divergent aims each group claims to believe in:

The Wiki Man Christmas e-cheer

Unsure what to buy for your loved ones this Christmas? Here are two ideas. For diehard smokers, try buying an electronic cigarette, currently causing controversy in California, where an attempt to prevent their sale was recently vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. The devices cause debate for a host of reasons — not least because there is

The Wiki Man: Web building

After the womenfolk in the household have gone to bed, I like to spend a minute trawling a few porn sites. In my case it may be either www.privateislandsonline.com (the estate agency most beloved of James Bond villains) or more commonly www.savewright.org, with its section ‘Wright on the Market’ listing all the properties currently on

The Wiki Man: A new dimension in uselessness

In the less politically correct age which was my childhood, a series of stocking-filler paperbacks sold in their millions. The first was called The Official Irish Joke Book — Book Three (Book Two to follow). The only joke I remember concerned the Irish Nobel Prize for Medicine, ‘awarded to a man who had discovered a

The Wiki Man: The inefficiency of email

To me this is a silly line of attack. That’s not to suggest there are no possible improvements to Royal Mail services — I can think of several. For instance someone should ask postmen to reverse their round every year, so that it isn’t always the same hapless householders (me, in this case) who receive