links for 2009-09-18

I get so much 'dofollow' comment spam these days that moderating the submissions is a real chore - but this a gem. Someone claiming to be in their seventies in Australia who spotted one of the legendary white stags of Epping Forest in the 1950s, and it was a real animal, not "the ghost"

You've *got* to love the Internet - from the comments "Those are some ugly Excel graphs. Can't you make them look a little better?" [actual interesting proper bit of the article via Jo Geary]

Very long response from Danielle Nagler to complaints about BBC HD picture. I have to say that rather like the 'audiophile' customers at Reckless, I don't really *get* people for whom the whole process of broadcast is more important than whether the actual content is any good. Or *get* people who then post comments like: "I am quite impressed that Danielle Nagler had the time to e-mail that to one of the contributers, I think that is pretty positive. However cutting and pasting it to the rest of the blog audience I think is patronising and shows a lack of good quality arguments". Danielle's response runs to over 1,200 words - what was she meant to do - not post anything to the blog? Or run the whole thing through a thesaurus?

Fanstastic. In the middle of a recession with 8 months to go to a local election, you promise to saddle the council tax payer with £35m of debt and sell off existing sports facilities in an Olympic borough, all to develop a piece of ground you've had lying empty for years because nobody can find a financially viable scheme to develop it.

"Most of the Creative Suite users don't have a clue about modern web analytics. We don't mean to insult them, far from it. These are just different worlds by and large. The creative folk are likely struggling first and foremost to stay on top of the complicated blend of actually being creative in the fairly technical environment that is the modern, standards compliant web. That's no small task and few really do just this much well. Designers thriving on analytics data? It's a lovely idea, but we have our doubts about it."

"Bryan declines to say what the tipping point might be—or what the sites’ overall traffic is—but he says some sites have managed to attract between 30 and 35 percent of the local online population"

Anyone else suspect the Thames ruse was the smoke'n'mirrors so all the other changes pass by unreported?

"Lieutenant-General Phillip Valerio Sibanda, the Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army, told a study seminar of army officers in Harare on Monday that foreign-based radio stations are at ‘war with Zimbabwe’ and told the soldiers to remain on guard against such things."

"Councils are already accused by the press of producing propaganda in newspaper-style publications, now Carmarthenshire Council is under fire for plans to launch an internet TV station at a cost of £30,000 a year."

"Brayne has a rather profound indictment of early 21st century journalism and it’s effect on human behavior: 'The concept of modern independent free media that I can write what I like and that’s it’s really just about ratings and sales is profoundly irresponsible.... The media don’t want to be regulated, actually they don’t want to be accountable to anybody. Journalists have a massive responsibility to take their profession more seriously than they do.'"

"“Hope they like the taste of my bumper,” writes Alan from Warrington, another reader with apparent murderous intent and a +8 approval rating from other Mail readers. Way to go Alan, hope you kill a young mother first!"