Posts of the week: the Ark Royal and what it’s like to be questioned by the police

Welcome to my weekly round-up of two blogging highlights from the past week: the post that I found most interesting or enjoyable to write and the post from someone else that I found most interesting or entertaining.

A post from me…

Why the Ark Royal doesn’t feature in social media presentations

I am rather a sceptic about some of the excitable points which are made about how, particularly thanks to social media, the world is meant to be changing in an unprecedented and accelerating way.

Previously I’ve pointed out how fifteenth century technology is still hanging on despite repeated predictions of its demise and how, despite frequent claims to the contrary, the iPod’s rate of take-up compared with that of radio is actually very slow and small.

And then there’s the Ark Royal – the name given to five ships central to the British navy over the last five centuries. Yet look how many years it took from being laid down to being commissioned into service for each of those ships…

You can read my full post here.

… and a post from someone else

Civilised values and the Yeates investigation

David Boyle writes:

I was hauled over by the police about 18 months ago under anti-terrorism legislation, largely because I was looking a little unusual. I was wearing shorts with a briefcase, one of the privileges for those of us who are self-employed on a hot day.

It only took 20 minutes or so and they were perfectly nice about it, but it reminded me of the vulnerability of people who can be portrayed as being very slightly peculiar, or even mildly different – especially when things get serious, as they did in the Joanna Yeates investigation in Bristol over the New Year.

Read the full post from David Boyle here.

Spotted any other great posts this week that I may have missed? Let me know in the comments.