If the breathless advocates of “the free distribution of ideas” are serious, they need either a) to come up with a realistic proposal as to how I am to keep feeding myself while giving the fruits of my labours away for free; or b) come out and say honestly that they don’t think any such thing as a “professional writer” ought to exist, and that I should just get a job like anyone else. In a way, I’d respect people who came out and said the second thing. What I don’t respect is people who can’t see that those are the choices.

“Artist choice is the key for new technology having an opportunity to be open for business and we need to build artist choice here if these new technologies are to have that opportunity.”

I suggest that the design of information software should be approached initially and primarily as a graphic design project.

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Twenty years later, despite thousand-fold improvements along every technological dimension, the concepts behind today’s interfaces are almost identical to those in the initial Mac.

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The future will be context-sensitive. The future will not be interactive.

Much has been written about IKEA’s remarkably effective retail formula. The Economist has investigated the group’s no less astonishing finances.

What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world’s richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous.

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Clearly, the Kamprad family pays the same meticulous attention to tax avoidance as IKEA does to low prices in its stores.