There are a few things, however, I do not like about it. The rampant racism of its readers, for example. That is easily avoided, however, and it’s occasionally fun to dip in for some sport.

I’ve typed about the bad use of language before, but that’s not as bad as today’s example. Today we have an excellent example of laziness or incompetence.

This article reports, through its headline, that

Three rescued after suffering injuries on Snowdon

It goes on to say

Three people have been airlifted to safety by an RAF helicopter in two separate rescues in Snowdonia.

So far so good. Snowdon is definitely in Snowdonia; the clue’s in the name. However, we read a little further and discover that the accidents actually happened on Y Garn (about 3.5 miles away, peak-to-peak as the crow flies) and Tryfan (just over 4.5 miles away).

It’s just so damn shoddy.

According to GS1 UK, the British branch of the global barcode regulator, there were 100 stores scanning at the till by 1984. It was 5,000 by 1993 and 10,000 two years later. By 1995, the figure was 20,000 and GS1 ceased bothering to count. The barcode had won.

Source: BBC News ‘Magazine’ article

Is it just me, or does this article say there were 10,000 scanners in 1995, and 20,000 in 1995? Does this mean it jumped from 10,000 to 20,000 in the course of that year? I’m genuinely not sure; this passage is pretty hard to comprehend.

The article goes on to say:

The next big thing in barcodes is people using their mobile phone cameras as readers.

It doesn’t bother mentioning why this is important. I’ve decided this article is poorly written.