Category: Stories
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Junk science and booze tax – a study in spin
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Andrew Orlowski
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“Let’s find out what everybody is doing, and stop them doing it” – A P Herbert Putting the price of alcohol up to a minimum of 40p a unit would keep 41,000 people a year out of hospital, save the NHS £116m a year, and avoid 12,400 cases of unemployment, a report from Sheffield University…
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The hitman, the Pirate Bay and the Freetard professor
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Andrew Orlowski
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REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?! FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression! REG: It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality – Monty Python’s Life of Brian Everyone’s a prankster these days – it’s all in the name of art. On Monday…
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The dumb, dumb world of Malcolm Gladwell
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Andrew Orlowski
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Have you ever had the nagging sense that there’s something not quite right with the adulation that follows Malcolm Gladwell – the author of Tipping Point? But you couldn’t quite put your finger on it? We’re here to help, dear reader. Gladwell gave two vanity “performances” in the West End – prompting fevered adulation from…
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“We’re going to be last to market”: Chris Castle’s battle stories
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Andrew Orlowski
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bullient lawyer Chris Castle has a unique perspective on the Music Wars. A former Sony and A&M executive who “switched sides” to Silicon Valley, then found himself defending the original Napster, which he called one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century. His clients range from technology companies to major recording artists. So to…
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Anderson downgrades Long Tail to Chocolate Teapot status
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Andrew Orlowski
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“The end came quickly,” as authors of morbid weepies like to say. On Monday WiReD magazine editor Chris Anderson effectively admitted game over for his “Long Tail”, the idea he’s been dragging so lucratively around the conference circuit for the past four years. In as many words, he downgraded it from “the future of business”…
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How to destroy the music business
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Andrew Orlowski
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Put yourself in these hypothetical shoes for a moment. My goal is to make as much money as possible by doing as little work as possible. I have no creative talent except for generating and recycling marketing buzzwords. I have no technical knowledge or ability – but I can get my head around a Twitter…