Author Archive
On narrow social focus and moral taste buds
A wonderful book review in the NY Times ‘Why Won’t They Listen?’ sheds some light on the ‘my tribe is better than yours’ bias we discuss here from time to time. Reviewing The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, William Saletan describes how we acquire preferences for social values (liberal v conservative) over time, based on […]
What do you think?
Sign on the ferry back from camp yesterday. When I read ‘body parts’ I think ‘dismembered’. Am I wrong? – P Update: You know, like chicken pieces.
This is a very good cartoon
Tom Scott — as sharp as ever … It’s a funny thing, the justice system. I worked at the Supreme Court when Arthur Allan Thomas was going through an ill-fated appeal of his 1971 wrongful convictions for murder. A scientist named Jim Sprott conclusively discredited the police ‘evidence’ that a shell casing they said they […]
Bryan Gould’s must-read on the changing face of John Key
Wow. I’m still catching up on things that popped up while I was away and largely offline this week. Read this analysis from the nothing-if-not-polarising Bryan Gould in the NZ Herald: Tougher approach hints this term is Key’s last … What is now clear is that the goal of the first term was simply to […]
Simon Power is putting it all behind him. Whaaat?
This caught my eye in today’s NZ Herald piece Govt turns its back on terror law about the woeful state (sarcasm) of our country’s botched me-too Terrorism Suppression Act. [Former justice minister] Mr Power, now a banker, said yesterday he could not recall why he allowed the review of the act to be dropped. He […]
Heads must roll: Minister for Marmite
While I was away I heard the Marmite crisis predicted last year has actually bitten — hard. I didn’t know Nick Smith was the Minister responsible for Marmite, but, well, yeah, I can see he really had to go. Accountability. On a serious note, Smith’s cronyism has added more weight to those suggesting an image […]
Fishing for suckers
Just back from my school camp/tropical island holiday (ha!) and look what was on the fax machine: A new scam looking for victims… Fishy? Yup. Yellow Pages Group is warning its small business customers not to be sucked in by a scam that asks for their details so that they can be listed online. The […]
Tropical holiday
I’m a parent helper on my son’s school camp on Motutapu Island this week … so things will be quiet from me. Go well in the meantime. – P
Read the logo. What do you see?
Designer Erik Spiekermann: Standing on the shoulders of giants? Or appropriating existing symbology and harvesting its legacy? Thought provoking. – P
Denounced
I’m writing a post about denunciation and related matters … and look what popped up in my twitter stream: Ha! -P
Hidden liability in a dotcom domain name
I did not know this: … having a .com domain name for [your] website is sufficient for [you] to be subject to US jurisdiction – which allows for nasty stuff like the US government seizing [your] website or extradition to USA to stand trial over there based on allegations alone. The bottom line: If you […]
A dark, cynical, political thrill
I saw this film ‘The Ides of March’ with a pal on Friday night and it was brilliant. Dark, sinister, awful, and brilliant. What is it about politics that provokes acts of treachery and intrigue? Why does it so often descend into the arena of personal destruction? Plutarch records the intrigue surrounding Brutus’ assassination of […]
Fabrications, lies, errors – and ‘dramatic licence’
A huge embarrassment for ‘This American Life’ … RETRACTING “MR. DAISEY AND THE APPLE FACTORY” 16 March 2012 Ira [Glass, Executive Producer and Host of This American Life] writes: I have difficult news. We’ve learned that Mike Daisey’s story about Apple in China – which we broadcast in January – contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting […]
51% of web site traffic is ‘non-human’
“Report: 51% of web site traffic is ‘non-human’ and mostly malicious By Tom Foremski | March 13, 2012, ZD Net Summary: Web site analytics packages record what real people do on a site but most web site traffic comes from other computers often with nefarious intent. Incapsula, a provider of cloud-based security for web sites, […]
