First signs of Spring?

I noticed this in Howick this morning … first signs of Spring?

Can Spring be far away with signs like this?

By their fruit

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation,
because your character is what you really are, while your reputation
is merely what others think you are
.
— John Wooden legendary US basketball coach

Even a scoundrel can take comfort in the wisdom of John Wooden’s words, and I’m sure some do.

But the question of character goes deeper than shallow justifications or mealy-mouthed complaints about being misunderstood … or suffering for being ‘a tall poppy’.

Sometimes, despite our best defences, we bang up hard against unequivocal principles of (gasp) right and wrong.

I remember a cartoon in Winkie Pratney’s wonderful book Doorways to Discipleship which showed a man lying on his bed listening to a record (vinyl. Yes, it’s an old book) which repeatedly played an affirmation: “It’s alright Joe. Everybody robs a bank once in a while.”

Winkie was making the point, I think, that some things we do are wrong, period. No matter what we tell ourselves about it to rationalise the ‘crime’. We will pay a ‘price’ for that action.

image: http://heavenawaits.wordpress.com/997/

No folks, it’s NOT all a matter of perspective or situational ethics, as some suggest.
Some of those who ‘do’ bad things tell themselves they ‘are’ good people.
But it ain’t necessarily so. They’re liars, fools, or both.

I’m actually a fan of the saying: ‘Stupid is as stupid does’. So it is, I believe, with what we dangerously call ethics or morality. Our actions reveal our character. What we stand up for, what we oppose, what we build — it all counts.

On the sometimes contentious issue of judgement (i.e. Who the hell do you think you are to judge me?) I find it hard to go past what Christ said (and probably Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Homer, Shakespeare … who knows who else?) “You will know them by their fruit”

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? — Matthew 7:15-16

To ‘beware’ of false prophets we must be able to recognise them and label them — which we can only do by discernment — judging them. That’s the game.

We shall know them by their fruit — their past results, their track record, their reputation — as I have said before here and elsewhere. These things reveal character, sometimes despite ardent declarations of ‘turning over a new leaf’ and noble-sounding professions of motivations which can, at times, smack of a dubious sales pitch …

Fair use — ‘iconic’ is a rationale

'Iconic' as rationale for fair use of someone else's (Martin Elliott's) copyright image — from wikipedia (click for link)

We’ve discussed ‘fair dealing’ and ‘fair use’ of other people’s intellectual property previously.

I stumbled across THIS useful explanation on wikipedia following a link from Jason Kottke on reproductions of classic photographs in lego and found it interesting enough — the copyright aspect — to quote in full here.

Lego Tennis Girl: ode to a 'classic' image. Yup. flickr.com/photos/balakov/sets (click for link)

Copyright is owned by Martin Elliott.

Fair use rationale for Tennis Girl

The picture is being uploaded in a scaled down low resolution version under fair rationale to illustrate an article of significant cultural and historical importance: namely this is alleged to be the biggest selling poster of all time and is an iconic image for the 1970s in the UK and beyond.

This image is iconic. No meaningful discussion about the subject can be had without reference to the image. The image was/is extremely widespread with over 2 million posters being distributed (see article for ref).

So to be clear the rationale:
1. Significant cultural and historical importance
2. The image is iconic
3. The image has widespread use
4. No meaningful discussion about the subject can be had without reference to the image
5. The use of this image does not limit or impinge on the image’s commercial use: namely sale as a full size poster.

Licensing
This image is of a poster, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher or the creator of the work depicted. It is believed that the use of scaled-down, low-resolution images of posters to provide critical commentary on the film, event, etc. in question or of the poster itself, not solely for illustration on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.

Point #5 is the kicker for me: “The use … does not limit or impinge on the image’s commercial use…” … and all I’d add is: and the original source is properly attributed or referenced where possible.

What does it say about our ‘culture’ that Martin Elliott’s Tennis Girl is “alleged to be the biggest selling poster of all time and is an iconic image for the 1970s”? It is a playful image. Cheeky. (Ba-da-boom!)

image by Bruce McBroom/Pro Arts Inc. LIFE magazine 1976

I thought that ‘biggest-selling’ accolade went to the Farrah Fawcett poster at left (click thumbnail for a larger image) — which, when you think about it, I guess, has a similar ‘theme’… and truly was ‘iconic’ — if that means on A LOT of teenage boys’ bedroom walls. Ahem.

I seem to remember there was a black and white poster of Raquel Welch too … that was pretty ‘iconic’ too.
Yup … Definitely. No question about it.

More on ad blockers …

image: opindian.com (click for link)

Remember our earlier conversation about ad-supported sites suffering from increasing use of ad-blockers?

Well, a new round of quelle horreur!! has been prompted by the very recent release of Safari 5.0 with a Reader mode (which, it turns out, uses the open source code of the arc90 Readability java bookmarklet I’ve been happily using to improve my web-reading experience for ages now — who knew?)

Anyway, with Safari 5.0, this is the very useful adblock list (css stylesheet) I’m using at present.
Combined with Click2flash (which allows you to whitelist sites that don’t overdo the flash-bling-thing) … it’s working great.

And here is some wailing and gnashing of teeth about adblockers, prompted up by Apple’s new ‘Reader’ feature in the just-released version of Safari (although Jim Lynch has my sympathy):

http://jimlynch.com/index.php/2010/06/07/safari-reader-apples-weapon-of-mass-destruction/

and here’s his argument for NOT blocking the ads on his site:

http://jimlynch.com/index.php/about-ads-ad-blockers/

Like I said, sympathy, but not convinced I should eschew the idea altogether. I blame the histrionics of some of the ads on newspaper sites. Desperate for revenue? Then don’t annoy the hell out of your readers.

As for ArsTechnica — well, they don’t expect anyone to take this seriously, do they? Oh dear.

Apple’s “evil/genius” plan to punk the Web and gild the iPad

By Ken Fisher |

….So how bizarre is it, then, when leaving Apple’s rosy App Store garden and entering the public square of the Web to find the following phrase on Safari 5’s “new features” page:

“Safari Reader removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles.”

So the company that has made an advertising platform a major part of its iOS strategy is also hawking an ad-blocking technology for its Web browser, where it has no stake in ads. App Store: use our unblockable ads, developers! They help you get paid for your hard work! Web: hey, block some ads, readers! They’re annoying!

iPad: ‘a revolution, guys’ — Seth Godin

Marketing and web guru Seth Godin recently gave his friends at the Kindle team an open briefing on their options in response to Apple’s iPad selling at a rate of one every three seconds.

image: businessinsider.com (click for link)

It’s an interesting read from a number of points of view, not least: what are your options when your business has been outmanoeuvred? (Or “a pretty urgent moment”, Godin calls it.)

Fewer than you might think, in some ways. More in others.

Whatever, business-as-usual is a recipe for slow (or not-so-slow) decay.

Look for hidden values like camping on an audience/tribe/market’s infrastructure sweet spot, adding value … or, as Godin highlights, look for ways to become the ‘language’ or ‘medium’ of some other valuable transactions…

Any other ideas?

Helen Thomas interview

Helen Thomas is the 89 year old White House correspondent who ‘retired’ over her comments that ‘Jews should get the hell out of Palestine’, leave the ‘occupied’ land, and ‘go home’ to Poland, Germany and America. (Yikes! Jon Stewart had a take you can see here via Huffington Post.)

But this interview in Vice magazine is definitely worth reading. Not so much for the Israel stuff but her tough line on journalism and politics. An introductory line for flavour:

Besides, if we were 89 years old and had spent the last five decades watching a steady flow of spin and doubletalk issuing forth from the mouths of countless men (and a select few women) standing behind a podium with the White House seal on it, we might be getting a little grumpy by now too.

There’s a lot more to this woman than meets the eye. Read it at Vice Magazine here where they say: Don’t let Helen Thomas’s views on Israel alone define her for you.

I agree.

On a related note, it’s tragic to see that RabbiLive, who recorded the ‘infamous’ comments that Helen Thomas made so freely and published them (clips in the Daily Show extract above) — to worldwide acclaim, are copping hate mail:

An explosive reaction — and hate mail by the ton (click for link - but be warned: some of it's nasty)

Another good graphic

From my.barackobama.com

The picture tells a story (click for link)

Is it true? Dunno. I guess so. Like this morning’s example, the graphic tells a story all by itself.

What a good graphic!

Sometimes a picture's worth a thousand words. Great to see a bit of perspective instead of 'The End is Nigh!' - style reporting. (image: NZ Herald)

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 the old sharemarket quote we used in one of Olly Newland’s books (The Day the Bubble Bursts 2nd ed., p32):

The bull climbs up the stairs
but the bear jumps out the window.

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.)

Clarke and Dawe on European economies ... (click to watch at ABC)

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/20/2905304.htm

Thanks to A for the tip.

On the courthouse steps

image: Emmerson via 'Red Alert' (click for link)

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’ comments he made about their timber product while still a footloose and fancy free Opposition spokesman.

Apology from Nick Smith read to the court:

“I apologise for having made public statements that did not fully represent the position in relation to TimberSaver. In particular, I now accept I overstated the risks associated with the use of TimberSaver; that the problems were with the marketing of timber, and ensuring the conditions of use were complied with, that were not primarily the responsibility of Osmose and that, as a result, some of the statements I made were incorrect and unfair to Osmose,” Nick Smith said (quoted in MP ‘delighted’ case settled out of court — NZ Herald).

In other words: “I shot my mouth off and didn’t have the facts.” Oops.
Too bad taxpayers had to contribute $209,000 to his ‘defence’. (Bloody ridiculous!)

Lesson learned, do you think? I’m not sure.
We discussed Nick’s slow learner status earlier. I think he’s what you could call ‘a resistant case’… as indicated by this follow-up self-serving gobbledygook statement issued afterwards:

“Although I’ve been very grateful to have received $209,000 of public money from Parliamentary Service, given that the work involved my work as the then opposition spokesperson on building and construction. “The cost to me personally is in excess of what it has cost the public purse. Sometimes that’s the price for standing up for what you believe in,” he said.

“…standing up for what you believe in” — riiiight, Nick.

Oh, and the terms of the settlement are confidential. Surprise me. Why should they be?

Nick Smith is not a hero, in my eyes, however he sees himself. But he is a whistle-blower, so kudos.

The case highlights one of the interesting things about defamation — financial damages.
Why the Osmose case was a defamation action worth pursuing is that it wasn’t just an issue of untrue statements leading to ‘hurt feelings’:

“Osmose … alleged that statements made in July 2005 about the company’s surface-treated timber product, T1.2, destroyed the product’s reputation and the company lost more than $14 million in projected profit.

So (a) untrue (‘incorrect’ as Nick Smith now admits) and (b) damaging — future profits destroyed by publication of the untrue statements.

If the statements had been TRUE and the profits destroyed — too bad. It was the fact that they were untrue and, I suspect the pugnacious Nick Smith (still clinging to the ‘standing up for what I believe in’ — even if it’s untrue!) apparently until today refused to put it right and issue a correction. (Easy to be gung-ho, Nick, with taxpayer funding — albeit just a subsidy.)

I discussed some related issues with respect to an in-some-ways similar case at PropertyTalk in a post entitled ‘Better to die on your feet that live on your knees‘ which was prompted by threats against a whistle-blower. Continue reading →

Looking good … design is almost everything

Apple iPhone 4 — looks like they've done it again ... (click to read about the design - WATCH THE VIDEO)

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 US politics, and you haven’t yet, READ IT. Brilliant.

Here’s a review from the Observer which focuses on one aspect of the account, the political ‘love story’ between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

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 Monday, as though announcing the discovery of some hitherto unknown body of water. Citizens of other nations have long since resigned themselves, of course, to sailing those crowded waters, but for Israelis — and, indeed, for Jews everywhere — this felt like headline news.

Read it at the NY Times

Of all the anthropomorphic hat-wearing cartoon bears who consistently overestimate their own intelligence, Yogi Bear is probably the one that deserves his own film the most. (image: hecklerspray.com - click for link)

We ALL see ourselves as clever, insightful, good drivers, more virtuous, smarter-than-the-average-bear … or in words of The News from Lake Woebegone: “… where all the children are above average.”

Chabon makes the point well that this overestimation is, at best, rooted in selective attention and memory. It reminds me of the in-group/out-group discussion we had last year about the sources of conflict …

Keeping things in perspective

A nice bit of (historical) perspective, and reminder just how truly corrupt the Nixon administration was …

Nixon — political combat to the point of crime ('If the President does it, it's not a crime.' Oh yeah?) image: thepunch.com.au

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 out by people who offer weak argument in the absence of facts. They try to group things together that don’t belong together, to equate people or organisations that are different. They sometimes use a misleading shorthand which, effectively, aims to deceive.

His final line is a hoot too:

So perhaps the time has come to amend or extend Godwin’s Law:
The first to cry ” Watergate” loses the argument.

Ha!

No hard feelings – present some facts

image: http://images.flowers.vg

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 have consequences.

Some of those mentioned have made their feelings known privately and publicly, and their outrage about the outrage (to quote Lewis Black) and intimidatory behaviour and threats have seen some censorship and retraction lately. (Not here.)

Bullyboys will give it a try whenever they sense weakness — remember the Marshmallow Theory?

Sometimes, as we have discussed before, the targets of criticism will, instead of considering whether there’s any legitimacy to the points being made, or raising a fair and reasoned argument, simply try to thump or abuse their critics. Sometimes they, or their anonymous glovepuppets or secret alter-egos will merely make false allegations in an attempt to smear the critic. That happens a lot.

To demonstrate what I mean, here’s a recent example from the comment thread at interest.co.nz. (It followed Managing editor Bernard Hickey quoting from this post on ThePaepae.com which responded to comments prompted by Gareth Kiernan’s article.)

by Anonymous – 30 May 10, 3:27am
it’s interesting to see Peter Aranyi commenting on this blog (and in numerous of his own posts) about Dean being a “spruker” when his Empower Education business does exactly the same thing? now am i [sic] the only one to think that hypercritical? [sic] The only difference between Dean and Peter is that Dean can actually get people to his event and Peter couldn’t event [sic] get his own mum to come list [sic] to his event..

Charming, don’t you think? These poorly drafted and factually incorrect comments — anonymous, naturally, and posted at 3.27 am! — popped up as a Google alert a day or so later… so I replied thus — in my own name:

by Peter Aranyi – 02 Jun 10, 10:17pm

What a novelty: an anonymous commenter accusing me of being a bad ‘hypercritical’ person.

Anonymous 3.27am, your tired old ‘Peter’s just the same as those he criticises’ schtick doesn’t cut it, I’m sorry to tell you. Empower Education doesn’t sell property — unlike your hero, property spruiker (note spelling) Dean Letfus.

I’d be curious to see any evidence or justification for your comment that EE does ‘exactly the same thing’. Your claim is nonsense.

Here are just three easy to find examples of offers Dean Letfus made to his ‘students’ (source: his website):

Dean Letfus selling sections in Fiji:

Coral Lagoon ~ Last Chance!!

Hi there.
I promised you one final chance to get in on this Fiji development. Well here is the info.
Continue reading →