Author Archive
Lowlife con-artist uses internet to fleece Kiwis
Good riddance to this lowlife who, according to the NZ Herald this morning, came to this country as a visitor and scammed Kiwis using his ‘knowledge’ of how to pull confidence tricks over the internet: Rogers, who is in his late-30s, was sentenced this week in the Napier District Court to 17 months in jail […]
A glimpse of the future?
For geeks only: Charlie Stross expounds on his version of the future of computing — and it’s far more than the ‘death to PCs viva everything in the cloud’ mantra. He extrapolates from recent statements and events surrounding Apple … I’ve got a theory, and it’s this: Steve Jobs believes he’s gambling Apple’s future — […]
Powerpoint makes us stoopid
I’m not a big fan of overcomplicated, dense Powerpoint ‘presentations’. I’ve seen them used as a crutch and overladen with bullet points and too much type. Looks like other people have reached the same conclusion… Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. […]
iPhone ‘finder’ – a real sweet guy according to his attorney
Brian J Hogan, your fifteen minutes of fame start NOW. See Wired Records show a Redwood City address for Hogan about a mile from the bar where he found the phone. … His attorney says he recently transferred schools and will resume his college education in the fall. He has been working part time at […]
Even more convergence
OK this is getting spooky. After Dilbert climbed into the G4 iPhone prototype theft, now Jon Stewart has also … “buying” for the sake of his commentary the idea that Apple has the Silicon Valley police SWAT team in its pocket. And coining the term ‘Appholes’. Zing! Watch the full 8 min video clip at […]
True or false doesn’t seem to matter to liars
This is a really good essay about dishonest argument — which is one of my bugbears, as we have discussed before. It’s about US politics, but many of the points apply to the business of selling as well. Salon’s Gene Lyons examines the tactics deceivers use — repeatedly telling bare-faced lies or claiming the exact opposite […]
Kieran Trass: last week ‘property guru’, this week ‘property genie’
Landing in my in-box this afternoon … A promotion for an upcoming ‘not another property seminar’ with Kieran Trass, fresh from his stint at the NZ Property Guru’s [sic] hard-sell roadshow … Starring Kieran Trass as ‘The Property Investment Genie’. Well! Knowing Kieran as I do, I might have plumped for a different imaginary magical […]
Stating the obvious/sympathy for the dev… uh, Gizmodo’s Chen
Far be it from me to leap to conclusions about a police investigation, but let me say in response to this: It’s Cannabis & Co – cops By Alanah May Eriksen | NZ Herald | Wednesday Apr 28, 2010 A national indoor gardening chain would not have turned a profit if it hadn’t been knowingly […]
‘If you tell a lie often enough you’ll start to believe it…’
More from Michael Lewis on the success of Dr Michael Burry… Includes this: [Big finance firms selling sub-prime instruments] create lots of risk. The only way you get that risk out there and get people to take it is to disguise it. So they got really good at disguising the risk and they got so […]
Nice reference to Godwin’s law
Remember Godwin’s Law? As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. …but sometimes contracted to: ‘The first person to mention Hitler or the Nazis in an online argument loses’ Here’s a nice reference in a comment thread on the TUAW post I linked to earlier re […]
I think they call this convergence …
re the iPhone prototype that was, er, lost then fenced … Scott Adams Dilbert has a strip which shows truth is at least as strange as satire… Read it at Dilbert.com And read this TUAW report of a Search Warrant being executed at the Gizmodo editor’s house. Oops. And here’s Fake Steve Jobs’ typical acid […]
Sarah Palin: cashing in on the brand
Very interesting article by Gabriel Sherman: “The Revolution Will Be Commercialized” on how Sarah Palin became a national industry and built her wealth, quickly, by seeing that there was money to be made … but serving out her term as Alaska’s governor wasn’t the way to get it. Nowadays, for both poles of the political […]
Scott Adams – on ‘legal’ use of Dilbert cartoons
LOTs of people routinely reproduce Scott Adams’ Dilbert (and Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, my other favourite) thinking their lil’ ol’ blog is too small to matter and they can fly under the radar. Adams discusses his views past and present, and presents his new, streamlined, licensing model with ‘License Me’ button. The post is worth reading […]
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
My son and I attended the Anzac Day parade and memorial service on the hill in our village today. Moving. There are big questions about our culture’s mix of the military and the ecclesiastical, but they can wait for another day. This song, first sung to me by my friend Ben in NYC, was in […]
Absolutely brilliant!
Jon Stewart responds to Bernie Goldberg’s response to Jon Stewart calling Fox News out on their terrible hypocrisy in rather colourful terms … I know that I criticize you and Fox News a lot, but only because you’re truly a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization. — Jon Stewart. Watch video at thedailyshow.com Calling Fox News […]
