The Oxford Times recently ran a story about a cyclist who became trapped under a car. A group of passers-by managed to lift the car off her before the paramedics arrived and are rightly praised in the article for their heroic actions.
Designing a train ticket website? If the usability is poor, I might buy the wrong ticket. Designing an online booking system? Bad usability could lead to a lot of confusion and unnecessary phone calls. Designing a medical device? Bad usability could kill someone.
“Sometimes I’m afraid my son will be killed for something as insignificant as a snack.” That’s what one woman told researchers when they asked her what it means to be poor. Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) shared stories like this when she spoke at Oxford Town Hall last night.
What does it mean to be poor? Before we can fight poverty, we need to understand it. International poverty campaigner Sabina Alkire will be speaking at Oxford Town Hall tomorrow (Tuesday 13th November) about using multidimensional indicators of poverty to build up a detailed picture and advocate effectively for the world’s poorest people.
Last Wednesday I bagged myself a Pitch slot at Oxford Geek Night 27, which gave me a minute’s worth of attention from the 150 or so assembled geeks. That minute wasn’t enough to get my point across, even given how fast I talk; hence this blog post.
Today I discovered that the front wheel of my bike had been stolen. It must have been an easy crime to carry out; the bike was parked at Oxford train station with just the frame locked to the stand. It probably only took the thief a few minutes to get the wheel off.
I was tempted not to bother reporting it to the police because I know very well that I won’t get the wheel back, but I decided I didn’t want this crime, however small, to be invisible.
The BBC is currently considering axing three of its regional news services. The local “opt-outs” for Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Jersey (plus surrounding areas) may be closed as part of the BBC’s money-saving drive, misleadingly branded “Delivering Quality First”. This blog post was written to answer some of the more common questions about the proposals.
Attempts to harmonize easily strand when considering population environmental banks to harmonize with disease-oriented/clinical banks.
Make sense? Thought not. But that sentence was taken from a medical journal with subscription costs of nearly €900 a year, a journal covering important developments in European medical research.