all talk and no action

What is the deal with web sites sticking numbers in front of their names? I should change the name of this site to 36 Monkeys.

Two years ago, marketing student Joanna Wojtalik came up with the idea of sticking miniature magazines under the labels of drinks bottles so they could be distributed via grocery channels rather than the traditional magazine publishing channels. "I take a lot of interest in the content of product labels and how they are used to market a product. It occurred to me that there was a lot of scope to do more with product labels. I thought a magazine inside a label would create a huge point of difference in any consumer product," she said.

The scheme has now gone into commercial production in Australia with a 32-page, A7 (74mm x 105mm) mini-mag called iLove, which is attached to bottles of mineral water.

The editorial team is headed by Felicity Robinson, formerly a senior editor with Marie Claire. Each issue carries 10 pages of ads, and the publisher, Modern Media Concepts, reckons the circulation will hit around two million. That's a lot of potential eyeballs for the advertisers.

MMC says it has plans to expand into children's and men's magazines in the next 12 months, and that it will shortly announce a series of joint ventures with other publishers and drinks companies.

[From gizmag via Popgadget]

Here's a useful piece of advice from The Washington Post Freelancer’s Guide to Not Getting Fired:

If you write for a newspaper, and you want to keep your job, don't tell your employer to "eat a bag of cocks".

[via The Word is Not Enough]

Malcolm McClaren says he's going to do for games what he did for music three decades ago. Apparently, he's revealed to MVC "plans for a range of themed clothing, music and even a game itself."

Even a game itself? That'll shake up the games industry.

Technology journalist Richard Cobbett has listed his five ways freelance writers fail their audition, which prompted me to finish a list I've been meaning to jot down: seven ways to make your editor love you. These, too, are real life examples.

1. Impress with your sci-fi movie knowledge
In tech journalism, Star Trek references get full marks for originality, but quotes from Star Wars, Buffy or Lord of the Rings come pretty close. Start your report from a Microsoft keynote with "In a stunning turn of events similar to when Captain Kirk saved the Enterprise in blah blah" and you'll be front of the queue for the next commission.

2. Do it your own way
A commission is merely a guideline. Feel free not to read it, or to read it and then ignore it. This applies to all parts of the commission: word count, deadline, and especially the content of the piece. If you've been asked to conduct an interview but it's nearly time for Neighbours on TV, don't bother: simply copy and paste a few quotes from the web.

3. Disregard deadlines
Don't stress if you can't meet a deadline. There's no need to email or call to ask for extra time -- editors are used to work arriving late and so they give you a false deadline set a couple of days before they actually need the copy. If you're later than two days, though, claim that server problems/spam filters/Ukrainian hackers ate your work the first time around. We fall for that one every time.

4. Half a feature is better than none
If a commission asks for 2,000 words of body copy, two 500-word boxouts and 10 screenshots with captions, feel free to send in 1,500 words of body copy, one boxout and three screenshots with a note saying "the rest will follow shortly; I'm just waiting on some quotes and other material from the PR agency." Then go to the pub. We'll happily sit and wait for the rest to arrive.

5. Stop writing when you feel like it
If we ask for 3,000 words, feel free to overwrite and send in 5,000. We never allocate pages for your article in advance, so we'll just use however many it needs. Or we'll spend half a day cutting it back to the correct word count instead. Don't warn your editor in advance, though -- that would spoil the surprise. And don't forget to invoice for the extra copy, whether it makes it into the final piece or not.

6. Show off your layout skills
Microsoft Word is perfect for laying out articles: you can paste in images, use all sorts of fonts and colours, and then drop in some cute clip-art to liven up the design. Our designers will thank you for saving them the hassle of doing it themselves. Sure, the commission specified plain text, with images in a separate zipped folder, but that's just a guideline, right?

7. Take a break
Once you've submitted your copy (a week late, preferably), unplug your modem, chuck your mobile phone into a cupboard and go mountain biking in Wales for a week. The likelihood of us needing to contact you to check a fact or verify a quote is slim. And we can always wait until you return.

Dan Oliver likes to review the occasional movie, and I can turn my hand to movie reviews, as well. Always ahead of the latest releases, last night I watched 2 Fast 2 Furious. Well, some of it, anyway. My verdict? Better than Catwoman, but not as good as the modern classic The Dukes of Hazzard. I should write for Empire.

Bring on the what‽ Browsing the headlines at Metafilter, I thought my eyes were playing up when I saw an odd character on the end of a headline. Apparently, it's called an interrobang, and it was invented in 1962 by American ad agency head Martin Speckter. I think it needs to be used on a magazine cover.

I've just received a press release informing me that every single one of Simple Mind's UK tour dates is completely sold out. Oh well.

Pop trivia: Don't You (Forget About Me) wasn't written by Simple Minds. It was written by Keith Forsey, and originally offered to Bryan Ferry, who declined to use it.

[Image credit: Bob Thacker]

I've always thought that wasps were nasty creatures, but the Ampulex compressa wasp is the baddest of the bad. When the female wants to lay an egg, it first hunts down a cockroach, before stinging it to cause brief paralysis and then, while the roach is unable to move, it stings it again -- IN THE BRAIN.

Science author Carl Zimmer provides a grisly account of the events that take place:

She apparently uses sensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it -- in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex -- like a dog on a leash.

The wasp then steers the cockroach into its burrow, plugs the door with pebbles and lays an egg on the underside of the roach. The egg hatches, the larva chews its way into the roach and there it lives, snacking on the innards of its host. A month later, out pops an adult wasp, all ready to start the cycle again. Nice!

[via Boing to the Boing, and thanks to Dope on the Slope for the image, which isn't a cockroach-brain-injecting wasp as far as I know, but it's still a wasp]

It's 200 years since the industrial revolution and we've reached the pinnacle of technological achievement: IT'S A MOBILE PHONE THAT LOOKS LIKE A SPORTS CAR.

Made by LG, this clamshell phone makes an engine noise when you open it, and honks its horn when you receive a text message. It's out in Germany later this month, apparently.

[Via Foursprung]

Belgian daily newspaper De Tijd plans to test the effectiveness of e-paper by giving 200 readers a device designed by Irex Technologies, reports Editor's Weblog.

Called the iliad, the device offers an 8.1" screen capable of a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, and weighs 390 grams. The manufacturer claims that the rechargeable battery will last for over a week without recharging, based on an average use of three hours reading per day. When the trial's participants receive the iliad at the end of April, they'll be able to use it to download and read their daily news.

The trial is set to last for three months and, if successful, the paper plans to release e-versions of the paper by the end of the year.

Gary Marshall has already posted about the closure of Smash Hits magazine, and of course it's been all over the news. But one thing I find odd is that while so many people are talking about how it's been killed by the internet, it's not the end of Smash Hits; it's the end of the paper version. The brand will continue as Smash Hits music TV, the web site and a digital radio station, according to Emap, which publishes the title. So actually the internet has done the opposite of killing the title -- it's given it a new way to interact with its audience.

There have been similar discussions about newspapers losing readers to the internet. I'm guilty of that migration: I read the Guardian online during the week and only buy the paper version at the weekend. But in both cases, I'm still a Guardian reader.

Pigeons are going to start blogging. According to the New Scientist, 20 of the flying rats are to be equipped with mobile phones and cameras then released into the skies of San Jose, California, where they'll monitor pollution levels and send their reports as text messages to a live blog. A mobile phone and GPS receiver will be worn in a pigeon-sized backpack, while cameras worn around the birds' necks will allow them to take aeriel photos.

[Thanks to eti for use of the image]

HMS Daring, the first of six new destroyers being built for the British Navy, hit the water of the River Clyde yesterday, where it was towed into dry dock for a few final touches (guns and stuff). The ships cost £605 million each, and when they come into service in 2009, it's claimed they'll be the most powerful and advanced warships in the world. And what technical advances they'll have: cabins will come with their own iPod charging points, according to The Times.

[Image source: Navy News]