Who the?
I'm Rob Minto, and this is my personal website or blog.
See the [About Rob] page for a bit more about this blog and the story behind the picture.
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Best of this blog
- The internet of 1901
- The lazy journalism of citing Facebook and Twitter
- The gender timebomb of India and China: a stab at the numbers
- Changing the clocks – how the numbers (don’t always) stack up
- The X-factor flaw: the new demographics of pop
- Zuckerberg vs Hirst
- What Sarah Palin has in common with Ludwig Wittgenstein
Category Archives: ideas
John Terry vs Chris Huhne, Fred Goodwin vs Johann Hari: why it pays to wait
TweetI can’t help thinking about four recent falls from grace. In essence, two are about awards, the other two about pre-emptive punishment. In all cases, we could benefit from being less hasty. I’ll explain why. Let’s start with pre-emptive punishment. … Continue reading
Posted in Football, ideas, Journalism, Politics, Society
Tagged Chris Huhne, Fred Goodwin, Johann Hari, John Terry
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Occupy Wall Street: how quick were the media on the uptake?
TweetThe Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading and sprawling, into different countries and encompassing many issues. But how fast did it take for the news media to catch on? This is possible to quantify using two things – Factiva to … Continue reading
How Georgia rules the newspaper web fonts
TweetWhat have the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, FT and Independent got in common (aside from being UK newspapers)? Politically? Not much. Ownership? Couldn’t be more different. Style? Now you are getting somewhere. If you’ve ever surfed a few news websites and … Continue reading
Congestion vs population
TweetI’ve seen a few references to a study on big cities and congestion recently, so I thought I’d take a closer look. It’s a survey by IBM – so caveats aplenty are needed. For starters, it’s based on a sample. … Continue reading
Posted in ideas
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How to live dangerously – a book that does statistics a disservice
TweetBeing a statistics junkie, a couple of people recommended to me the book How to live dangerously by Warwick Carins. Normally, I would read it, enjoy, and move on. But this book has prompted a mini-review (several years late, but … Continue reading
Posted in Books, ideas, Society
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The gender timebomb of India and China: a stab at the numbers
TweetWhen I visited India in 2003, I was shocked by areas of the countryside where there seemed to be not a young girl in sight. It was all boys, as far as you could see. When we asked our tour … Continue reading
When monochrome should rule
TweetI was in a deli near work yesterday, and used my debit card to make the purchase. So far, so ordinary. But then something caught my eye. The payment machine was new, shiny, and had a colour screen. Now that … Continue reading
Will debranding cigarettes cut smoking?
TweetToday, March 9, is national no-smoking day (in the UK). Coincidence or not, it has also been announced that tobacco displays will be banned in shops, with the further possibility that cigarettes could be sold in plain packets. Will this … Continue reading
London – the new monolithia
TweetThe London skyline is rapidly changing. This is obvious, and has been much-written about. Since the 2008-09 hiatus in construction due to the credit crunch, building big is back on. UPDATE: would be remiss of me to not mention the … Continue reading
What Sarah Palin has in common with Ludwig Wittgenstein
TweetMy college philosophy tutor* once told me why Wittgenstein was the most important philosopher of the 20th century. It was because he permanently changed the debate. All philosophers who came after him could agree, or disagree – but they couldn’t … Continue reading