Obscure Box

I know MasterChef is popular but I’m thinking someone’s cooking the numbers a bit too much on who’s watching the Channel 10 series. The Australian’s Lara Sinclair tells in “MasterChef sparks Coles sales surge” (Monday 21 June 2010) of the shows success and the impact on sales for sponsors. While advertising has boosted sales, it’s [...]

When 17 Century philosopher Rene Descartes penned a letter to a mate back in 1641 it’s safe to say he’d never heard of Google, let along the internet. The letter to Marin Mersenne later found itself as part of a collection of documents at the Institut de France (Institute of France). From here it was [...]

So the British Monarchy is on Twitter. The Queen has apparently been a big fan of the World Wide Web for many years so I suppose it’s no surprise that Her Majesty would also want the Monarchy to keep up with modern trends and enter the online social network marketplace. When I last looked an [...]

Sometimes a news feed offers too much. Take this offering today from ninemsn.com.au. A gruesome story with an equally gruesome offer of “Photos Video Watch live” if the feed is followed. Thankfully the full story “Teen rushed to hospital after tongue piercing” (Tuesday 4 May 2010) doesn’t contain any video or ability to watch live [...]

It was back in August 2008 when I first mentioned my frustration at what I called the Gates’ Breath, in Just wait a Gates’ breath. Now the brainy people at chip manufacturer Intel have revealed figures on a similar condition that’s called Hourglass Syndrome. The Reuters story Stressed by slow computers? You are not alone [...]