All 2 entries tagged Review

5 Dead Useful Little Websites

Everyone knows Google, bbc.co.uk and Wikipedia are bluddy useful, but here’s a list of 5 similarly useful little ones that you may or may not have heard of.

• Hype Machine
  Collates music blogs and the MP3s they host. In short: new music, freely downloadable (just watch out you don’t copyright thieve.)

• TempInbox
  Need to put in your email address to sign up for something but wanna avoid spam? TempInbox does exactly what it says on the URL

• Bug Me Not
  Helps you sample the subscribers-only parts of all sorts of websites.

• TinyUrl.com
  Natty little website that turns a long web address into something far more manageable

• Student Free Stuff
  I genuinely got a free Wilkinson Sword razor just 6 months after giving them my address. And my friend got some cat food. I perhaps should have stuck with “4 Dead Useful…”

: 19 Mar 2007 22:50 |  Tags: Hype Machine Internet Review Websites |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Put the brakes on Top Gear's prejudice…

I’m not complaining about the money that they spend on ridiculous stunts (quite good telly sometimes). I don’t even mind that the footage of one of the presenters nearly killing himself was watched by millions. My beef is that Top Gear reinforces our prejudices and stereotypes.

During tonight’s installment, criticism of Kia cars was based on the notion that

The Koreans eat dogs.

There’s also ill-informed nationalism

We are Britain; we are the inventors of everything.

And I don’t think either of these came from the worst culprit, Jeremy Clarkson. I’m sure I could find countless examples of blatant sexism and there were hundreds of complaints about the presenters’ mocking of post-recovery Richard Hammond.

I enjoy the sarcastic banter. I thought the idea of trying to send a Robin Reliant into space was brilliant. I just don’t think it’s a good message for the BBC to be putting out. Clearly, these aren’t the worst things anyone’s ever said and perhaps for tolerant Warwick students it’s all just a bit of misguided fun. My worry is that the audience is a lot wider than that and unquestioning young people can’t help but see this way of speaking as acceptable and maybe even intelligent.

I don’t want to see the programme end. I’m sure the presenters are bright enough to keep producing such otherwise quality output, without resorting to such narrow-mindedness.

: 19 Feb 2007 01:15 |  Tags: BBC Prejudice Racism Review Top Gear |  Comments (24) |  Close comments |  Report a problem