I thought I would start a fresh series of Gadgets That Are Stupid: gizmos that seem to do things right but suffer a design flaw that renders them hazardous to one’s health, or peace of mind, or that of one’s partner. Here’s the first entry: An alarm clock. On the surface an excellent purchase: It even … Read more
Please note that I don’t work for Nokia, this is not an official Nokia site, and although I’m flattered by all the attention this post gets, posting your problem isn’t going to help you. I’ve invited Nokia several times to offer some text that I can include here to direct users to a real Nokia … Read more
I’ve never got on well with banks. I thought I had found a good one in FSharp, an offshore banking unit of the Bank of Ireland, but they were so good they couldn’t possibly survive and they didn’t. I also have an account bank with a rather odd outfit in Hong Kong (that I won’t … Read more
As I heard the name of my publication, The Asian Wall Street Journal, being mangled once again over an indifferent phone line by secretaries who could not, or chose not to, make out my English accent — variations today included Asia Watching Journal, Asia Movie General or my current favourite, Asian World Strip Journal – I … Read more
In this week’s column I wrote about how to counter cellphone rudeness. For the full text I’m afraid you’ll have to subscribe to the publications I work for (here’s the Far Eastern Economic Review version; the WSJ version will appear later today), but here’s some idea of what seems to get people going: While it’s … Read more