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Pumpin’ with rage

Pump packs are the work of the devil. Not only are they a waste of metal and plastic, when it’s finished there’s always a load of product at the bottom that gets chucked out along with the bottle ‘coz it’s just too much hassle to try and tap it through the (often skinny) bottleneck. Don’t you hate that spluttering noise when the stuff runs out, the deliberately* short straw is no longer immersed in liquid, and it’s just sucking up air like some kind of demented fish gasping for breath? The companies that make these products flog “refill packs” supposedly […]

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Going out of print

With the recent announcements from both Murdoch and Packer camps about charging for Web content, it looks as if print is finally conceding defeat to online media. I’m sure there are folks out there who count this as a triumph for the environment, but ironically, reading news on the Internet may not be as eco-friendly as they think; the environmental cost of making the computer plus the electricity required to run it probably far outweighs the impact of cutting down a few trees (which are renewable anyway). However, far be it for me – a geek – to harp on […]