They said what? Quotes of the Year

Wednesday, December 30, 2009


The urbane, the insane...

Back by popular demand, here is our Annual Hall of Stupid, leavened with a few moments of genuine wit. It's a Stephen Fry Free Zone. Almost.

“The City Is A Leisuresuit For Surviving The Future”

Ben Hammersley of WiReD magazine Tweets his Deepest Thorts. The Ham is now advising the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: your taxes have never been used more wisely.


“Everybody loves the BBC and it doesn't cost anything, Murdoch should learn a thing or two”

Expert punditry from reader 'peter 3' at The Register. More on Murdoch vs. The Chocolate Factory here and here.



"As an anarchoautonomist I need something really different, but my prediction is that green (and non-securitarian) regulation of informationalism is probably the best we can achieve through our struggles."

Climate activist Alex Foti tries to channel the revolutionary spirit of Tom Paine, Martin Luther King...but doesn't quite manage it. Found on the mailing list.


“I genuinely felt proud and excited when I was finally handed my card. I loved seeing my name, face and the words British citizen on this tiny piece of plastic. That’s who I am, and why shouldn’t anyone know?”

Local newspaper columnist Angela 'Memento' Epstein, founder and sole member of the YesToID is thrilled to be the first in the UK to receive her tag. Perhaps she regularly forgets who she is?


"In digital media, as in fortune-telling, the future is pretty much treated as part of the present. "

Guardian discovery Mercedes Bunz helped fill the gaping chasm caused by the absence of Jemima Kiss. In digital media, as in fortune-telling, the predictions are a load of horsecock from an expensive charlatan. Funny that.


“algorithm-aided human writing will meet human-aided algorithmic curation; quality will rise.”

Jeff Jarvis - a Business Thought Leader & Worldwide Media Leader - predicts a bright future for journalism. He was so proud of this cybernetic wedding, he Tweeted it, then Blogged that he'd Tweeted. (Number of successful internet businesses founded by Jarvis to date? Zero). More Jarvis here, wherein we review his book.

“Functionally an ad-banner trolling site who will publish any rubbish if it'll get clicks, and best ignored”

Senior Wikipedia weirdo David Gerard has had enough... of El Reg. Amongst other things we've been called recently include "an internet scandal-sheet" (BBC), "an online lesbian magazine" (The Independent) and "The Media Mouthpiece" by Phorm founder and CEO Kent Ertugrul - last seen shouting at the bins,

“Look on the bright side. We have the potential to become micro-celebrities in our very own day time infomercial”

One-man strategy boutique Jan Chipchase in a blog post called "You Are a Walking Advertorial". Mr Chipchase works for Nokia.


“These are published images: delivered to the public - public domain - public property...”

Tireless copyright campaigner Crosbie Fitch explains what's his is his, and what's yours is his, too. He was describing the National Portrait Gallery's decision to protect its digital rights, against a landgrab by Wikipedia. See that Porsche over there? It's on a public road. It must be public property...


NEF co-author Saamah Abadallah

“The trade off is that we got a huge (and 95 per cent positive) press hit - and that's all part of the game too.”

The 'new economics foundation' (which hates capital letters) admits it had to make up numbers for its Happy Planet survey, where poor countries are rated the happiest. To be honest, we just wanted to print that picture of the report's author, Citizen Saamah Abadallah, again. Thank you, Facebook.


“Swans

Champagne flutes

Christmas parties

Organic food

Anyone Scottish

Non-Russians with Russian girlfriends

Film stars

Complaining about the smoking ban

Celebrity chefs

Pronouncing the last ‘e’ in furore

Coloured bathtowels

Cappuchinos after 11am

The Caribbean

Art Deco

Suicide

Scented candles

Garlic on your breath

Saying ‘My garden has its own microclimate’

Framed photographs of anyone non-Royal

Morocco

Bottled water

Not knowing the words of hymns

St. Tropez

David Walliams”

Nicky Haslam's list of "things he hates". Where's the IT angle? There isn't one.

“The last thing anyone wants is to be thought of as the sort of person Stephen wouldn't invite to his lovely Norfolk home for the weekend along with Richard Dawkins, Emma Thompson and Alan Davies”

Satire site Daily Mash has the measure of Twitter's most-followed bully, Stephen Fry. Twitter cemented its reputation as the No.1 social network where has-been celebs enforce forelock-tugging respect, and marketing consultants and nontrepreneurs can wash their consciences clean.


“ We know with certainty that we know fuck-all ”

Peer-review in action: climatologist Ed Cook writing to CRU's Diviner of Treemometers, Ed Briffa, in 2003. He was referring to trends over 100 years - but for critics, it sums up the state of the "science". More on Briffa here [bonus mailbag goodness here], and the Climategate scandal here.

“It can accumulate a cash hoard of tens of millions of dollars while charging companies to buy back their own names and then listing everything in exactly the order it would have been had no one bid at all.”

Analyst Eric Clemons has the measure of Google's business strategy. Or as Fake Steve put it, "Google has become what Microsoft used to be — the evil dicks who look around, find some area where people are making money, and say, Hey, fuck it, we’re bored, so let’s do the same thing for free and put those guys out of business."

“Lets say now we're off Weymouth in 2012 and we're doing the Olympic games, and we suddenly find a boat... [carrying] a bunch of topless lovelies, heading around having had too much to drink”

Lord Alan West, the security minister, AKA Lord Bournemouth (West of Spithead), AKA the former head of the Royal Navy, explaining the applications of a net-flinging "futuristic bazooka", developed by the Home Office Scientific Development Branch.


“It’s just that I can never work up the energy to be interested in other people. Male or female. I just can’t stand them. Not. At. All. Also, with sex, there’s the touching thing, and with that the germ thing.”

Fake Steve explains why Bimbo Eruptions never happen to Steve Jobs.



source:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/30/quotes_of_the_year/

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