Posts by Richard Baxter

Pot Noodle boils up instant doner kebab

£1.01 for that?

Pot Noodles were about 35p when I was a student. Bloody inflation.

Skinny, curvy Asus Eee inspired by MacBook Air

"Small", "cheap" computer?

Gah! I thought the main attraction of netbooks, when they first came out, was that they were cheap as chips (under £200 for the basic models) and almost small and light enough to stick in your pocket.

If I'm going to spend four hundred notes (has anyone told Asus there's a recession on?) on some hulking great 10 inch thing I might as well go the whole hog and buy a laptop.

And more fool me for thinking that Eee PCs would stay the same size, but actually come DOWN in price. Duh.

Small ISPs reject call to filter out child abuse sites

"images of child abuse"

After the Virgin Killer/Wikipedia debacle, why does anyone still persist with the ridiculous fiction that all the IWF is interested in blocking are "child abuse sites" and "images of child abuse"?

It's very clear now that their remit is far wider than that - we will never know how wide, as the content of the block list is, and will remain, a secret.

Child porn yesterday, cheezy 70s heavy metal album covers today... your favourite sites tomorrow? Make no mistake, it's the thin end of a very thick wedge folks.

Jobs market bleak for grads as banking weakens

Starting salary?

I don't believe the true average starting salary, for all UK university graduates, is anywhere near £25,000.

This figure is just for the blue-chip, milk-round companies represented by the AGR, which pay high salaries but only employ about 5% of graduates - generally those who went to top universities, have extroverted personalities, and have names like Rupert.

Digital Switchover: town to lose BBC 2 tomorrow

Cheap as chips

You can get a Freeview box in Asda now for something like £12.99. Anyone who hasn't switched yet either can't receive Freeview, or doesn't want it.

No data protection exemption for YouTube baby battle video

Damn good reason?

Martin Benson - try telling that to parents who had their children snatched from them for no good reason at the height of the "satanic abuse" witch hunt. (There is, of course, absolutely no evidence that satanic abuse even exists, let alone that these parents were perpetrators.)

Social services personnel are only human and are therefore as vulnerable to moral panics and sheer stupidity as the rest of us sheeple. It's only right that there should be as much transparency as possible, as the consequences of a mistake can be devastating.