Author Archive
Another good graphic
From my.barackobama.com Is it true? Dunno. I guess so. Like this morning’s example, the graphic tells a story all by itself.
What a good graphic!
I like this graphic from the NZ Herald just now — it puts today’s small Official Cash Rate interest rate rise in perspective nicely. Well done. Here’s the story (if you care) at the NZ Herald. My only point was: This is a good use of graphics to communicate. That graph does remind me of […]
Clarke and Dawe ask the million dollar questions
Hilarious and TRUE … John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis. (In the same ilk as John Bird and John Fortune and apropos our discussion re Europe here following Tony Alexander’s enews.) Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/20/2905304.htm Thanks to A for the tip.
On the courthouse steps
My own meagre experience is that a court date focusses the mind of the ‘offending’ party. ‘Out-of-court settlement reached on the courthouse steps’ has acquired cliché status. So it seems to have been with Cabinet Minister Nick Smith who (finally, after five years) issued an apology to a company suing him for defamation over ‘incorrect’ […]
Looking good … design is almost everything
Oh boy. They’ve made obsolete their own product … which was, if you ask me, the ‘secret’ of their success with the iPod: never resting on their own laurels, always pressing forward.
What a book!
Well. I’ve just spent much of the holiday weekend devouring this book: Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House (Mark Halperin and John Heilemann) The review extracts on the jacket promised me ‘Absolutely gripping’ and ‘Fantastically detailed …incendiary’ and ‘Sleazy, personal, intrusive, shocking — and compulsive.” All true. If you’re interested in […]
Worth reading …
We construct the history of our wisdom only by burying our foolishness in the endnotes. From a very good essay sparked by the Gaza aid boat raids… Chosen, but Not Special By MICHAEL CHABON NY Times | June 4, 2010 “GAZA Flotilla Drives Israel Into a Sea of Stupidity” declared the Israeli daily Haaretz on […]
Keeping things in perspective
A nice bit of (historical) perspective, and reminder just how truly corrupt the Nixon administration was … No, this isn’t “Watergate” (and never will be) Republicans have fantasized about a Democratic “Watergate” for decades. Can they still remember the real thing? by Joe Conason | Salon.com As Conason points out, shallow comparisons are often trotted […]
No hard feelings – present some facts
I know the spruikers I take aim at here now and then feel hard done by. So do some of their fans. I’m sorry for their hurt feelings. I really am. But the way I see it, they make their own bed and lie in it (— or lie from it, one could say). Actions […]
What ‘letting it slide’ can cost you
From a review of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ appearance at a recent tech Q&A: Jobs acknowledged that the next-generation iPhone photographed by Gizmodo was circulating as a part of the normal testing of wireless products. “To make a wireless product work well you need to test it. You have to carry them outside. One of […]
Get it off your chest, I say. It’s better.
From an interesting article about the soon-to-be-released first volume of Mark Twain’s full autobiography — which he instructed not to be published for 100 years after his death (which is now): “There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn’t such […]
Interesting discussion about crediting sources
How The Mainstream Media Stole Our News Story Without Credit by DANNY SULLIVAN on JUNE 1, 2010 http://daggle.com/mainstream-media-stole-news-story-credit-1906 Thanks to Bernard Hickey who tweeted it this morning.
Google ditches MS Windows after security breaches
Google to employees: ‘Mac or Linux, but no more Windows’ by Michael Rose | TUAW on May 31st, 2010 [US time] We first heard rumors of this policy change a couple of months ago, but now it’s made the papers: the Financial Times is reporting that Google is phasing out the use of Windows internally, […]
Stephen Fry on the joys of swearing
I agree with this: “The kind of people who say swearing is the sign of a poor vocabulary, usually have a pretty poor vocabulary themselves.” — Stephen Fry. That said, I’ve seen the real ‘shock’ effect an outburst of hot, emphatic ‘foul’ language can have on people, including kids — but it’s the intent and tone, […]
RIP Merata Mita
Our household was sorry to hear of the death of NZ filmmaker and pioneer, the courageous Merata Mita yesterday. Merata was a contemporary, mate and colleague of many in what we used to call the ‘Maori Rights’ movement … but so much more. Her film Patu! about the civil disobedience protests around the 1981 Springbok […]
