Apropos of my earlier post ‘More unintended consequences?‘ …
Tom Scott nails it.
(via Stuff.co.nz)
“Buzz kills privacy” – ooooh!
So you don’t like Google Buzz?
Turn it OFF, then, and stop complaining:
Nightmares for Gmail users as Buzz kills privacy – NZ Herald :
“Of course, those still dissatisfied can simply turn off Buzz.
There’s a small link to do so at the bottom of the Gmail inbox page.”
Duh.
UPDATE: – a bit of background spin worth reading at businessinsider.com: How google went into code red and saved google buzz
(See comments for a more jaded view of the whole fiasco.)
“No more lies”
It takes courage to speak up (image: wordle.net)
Thank goodness there are still people like this in the world …
Bridgecorp staff told to lie to investors, court told
By Edward Gay NZ Herald Monday Feb 15, 2010
A former staff member of failed finance company Bridgecorp has told the court she and her colleagues were told to lie to angry investors who had not been paid.
Katie Greengrass told the Auckland District Court that it was clear “investors were not being paid”.
She said staff were told to blame the lack of payment on a “banking glitch”.
Greengrass was giving evidence at the depositions hearing against Bridgecorp directors, who each face 10 charges brought by the Securities Commission relating to issuing false prospectuses for the finance company that still owes 14,500 debenture holders $459 million.
…. Greengrass told the court this afternoon that when staff arrived back from their Christmas break in 2007, the phones were ringing.
She said her supervisor went into a meeting with Petricevic before addressing her and her colleagues saying: “OK, ladies, here’s the line.”
Greengrass said she told the colleague: “No more lies” and was sat down in a corner and given another job to do.
“No more lies”. Good for her! That’s taking a stand. More than some would do.
Look, I know it can take a lot to stand up in the face of wrongdoing. My half-jokes about Asperger’s aside, it’s pretty obvious that most people are brought up to ‘please’ others (‘Can’t we all just get along?’)
So raising a hand and saying “Hold on, this isn’t right!” Continue reading →
A lawsuit waiting to happen…
OhMyGosh.
Snapped in Howick...
Tax? ‘Quite a good idea’…
In New Zealand, there’s been a lot of, umm, ‘debate’ (heat but not much light) about finding a way to tax residential property investors. Much ado about nothing, we hope.
Here’s a brilliant ad in support of a proposed UK tax on banks…
I have one or two people I would like to question in a similar manner about their public claims… watch this space.
Cyber-bullying — and an aftermath
(image: latrobeschool.com)
One of my early blog posts here at www.ThePaepae.com reflected on Remembering the cyber world is not the real world.
Of course there are exceptions, like the NY model slandered anonymously whom I discussed in Potshots from behind a mask of anonymity are, by definition, cheap:
My view: People need to be accountable for their public statements. Anonymous log-ins tend — in some — to breed a recklessness and nasty damaging discourtesy. And they shouldn’t get away with it. (I still defend the right of whisteblowers to post anonymously — but not personal abuse or lies.)
and here.
Now this: key quote “Some of the comments are clear criminal offences.” Wow.
Charges likely after Christchurch Facebook threats
NZPA 14/02/2010 via stuff.co.nz
People who joined in a vicious online attack against a new Christchurch principal will be prosecuted, police say.
A three horse race to rule over the global distribution of digital content … Apple in front by a nose.
iPad vs Kindle (image: crunchgear.com)
Worthwhile evaluation from someone who knows the publishing game better than most — and from more angles.
Why Apple’s iPad is shaking things up with Amazon and Google
from Martin Taylor’s e-report — digital publishing downunder
When Apple launched its long-rumoured iPad tablet computer late last month, it fired a major salvo in the battle for control of media in a new digital era. In its global sights were Google and Amazon who, along with Apple, are the companies driving this seismic shift in media.
All three companies are jockeying to be gatekeepers between content providers and consumers. So far, many of these battles have been playing out overseas but in 2010, New Zealanders will get to join in.
It’s the ability to get consumers to pay for digital content and reduce its reliance on a broken online advertising model that is at the heart of the media’s excitement. So it’s not surprising that a lot of the early jostling is for control of the one major medium that’s largely ad-free, books.
With business models that link online stores to specialised gadgets, companies like Apple and Amazon are proving that consumers will pay for music downloads, ebooks and even online newspaper subscriptions if you make it easy and attractive enough.
Speak up (or shut up) to defend a friend?
I’ve had occasion to reflect on this, one of my habits/traits/addictions: Speaking up for my friends.
And, having thought about it: Yup — I’d do it every time. It’s almost involuntary. (Asperger’s?) I’d hope (but not expect) my friends to do the same for me.
There’s another aspect, too:
A friend of mine was approached by a newspaper reporter asking for a ‘character’ type comment about the son of family friends. The ‘boy’ had fallen on hard times — not completely of his own making, but he DID help topple his house of cards with his unfortunate (OK, let’s call it arrogant) manner. At the time of the journalist’s call he was being publicly pressured and pilloried by the tax authorities, among others
The reporter wanted my friend (who’d employed the ‘boy’ decades earlier) to say something ‘negative’ about him — anything disparaging would have done nicely … but why?
Why kick him when he’s down? Why provide one more lash of opprobrium at a time when his personal life, his business life, his world was creaking under pressure, threatening to blow apart at the seams?
The reporter quizzed my friend about the boy’s liking for luxury cars and penchant for collecting speeding tickets … and my friend muttered something about the boy always being “a good driver” in his company … a comment which (ridiculously) made it into the newspaper in a mangled form. Quite unnecessarily.
The issue is loyalty. Why add to someone’s pain? Just shut up.
But let me be clear: I’m not suggesting collusion or a mafia-like a code of silence (omerta).
Should we ‘cover’ another person’s sin? NO. That makes you an accomplice.
I’m as offended as the next fair-minded person (see what I’m doing there?) at, for instance, the ghastly cover-ups of pedophile priests, police and probation officers, abusive foster parents and negligent social workers.
They need to be exposed. So do the con-artists and spruikers who prey on the vulnerable.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, in those circumstances, and many others.
And exposure, god help us, as painful as it is, is sometimes our best first hope.
For instance, a man I’ve come across, a self-proclaimed paragon of virtue, has things going on in his life that I believe would be terrible for him if they were exposed.
Terrible at one level, but, can I suggest, in another way such exposure could be the saving of him? Continue reading →
Mark Withers on John Key’s ‘Tax Direction’ speech
“3 bullets dodged but there’s still a round in the breech!”
Mark Withers - author of Property Tax - a New Zealand Investor's Guide
I had a chat with specialist property accountant Mark Withers this morning — ‘the morning after’ NZ Prime Minister John Key’s speech at the opening of Parliament.
Here’s a free 13 minute audio interview (mp3) hosted by Empower Education.
And here’s a link to the Withers-Tsang website for their client update…
(Mark is the author of Property Tax – A New Zealand Investor’s Guide.)
UPDATE: You can listen to it here via a new plugin:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
More iPad preamble – “a clear window into the software”
“People who are focussed on the hardware are missing the key thing: – software and services” – Walt Mossberg Wall St Journal
“One thing you have to understand about this gadget is that the gadget disappears pretty quickly. You’re looking into pure software.” – David Carr NY Times
On the Amazon Kindle: “It looked like something the Mennonites made 150 years ago.” – Carr
23 minutes worth watching:
Great quote: “Is this a bridge to the future or a gallows for us?”
From Brainstorm Tech blog
Intelligence finds a way to express itself
Shon Hopwood, Mediocre Criminal Turned Top Jailhouse Lawyer
“A Mediocre Criminal, but an Unmatched Jailhouse Lawyer”
Cool story from the NYTimes.com
Johnny Dankworth RIP
![Johnny Dankworth (1927-2010) [image: nme.com]](http://www.thepaepae.com/wp-uploads/2010/02/Johnny+Dankworth.jpg "Johnny+Dankworth")
Johnny Dankworth (1927-2010) image: nme.com
Jazz legend Johnny Dankworth dies aged 82
Sir John Dankworth, a mainstay of the British jazz scene for over 60 years, has died.
Saxophonist Sir John, 82, served as musical director to the likes of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald.
Sir John, known as Johnny, died in a London hospital on Saturday. He had been ill for several months.
His wife, the singer Dame Cleo Laine, announced his death at a concert at their Buckinghamshire theatre, where she was performing with their children.
The concert on Saturday was celebrating 40 years of the theatre, which the couple founded in the grounds of their home in Wavendon.
Dame Cleo broke the news to the artists before the concert began but did not tell the 400-strong audience until the finale. (continues…)
Farewell Johnny. You made a mark. You were the soundtrack of generations.
Doctrinaire aggression vs physical aggression
Wole Soyinka: On origins of religious strife…
In Mr. Soyinka’s view, the origins of the current phase of the world’s religious strife—including all of the bloodshed in Nigeria—lie with Ayatollah Khomeini and his fatwa against Salman Rushdie, in 1989.
“It all began when he assumed the power of life and death over the life of a writer. This was a watershed between doctrinaire aggression and physical aggression. There was an escalation. The assumption of power over life and death then passed to every single inconsequential Muslim in the world—as if someone had given them a new stature.“Al Qaeda is the descendent of this phenomenon. The proselytization of Islam became vigorous after this. People went to Saudi Arabia. Madrassas were established everywhere.”
The ‘British problem’
England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there.
From The Daily Beast
Worth reading. A different spin on our discussion The overblown role of religion in conflict
The rise (and fall) of the value of online advertising
Following a report on Apple boss Steve Jobs pitiching the iPad distribution channel to NY newspaper chiefs…
The highlighted bit (see below) about online advertising space being (a) infinite in supply and therefore (b) valueless accords with my thinking (although I am not a genius, nor all that experienced).
I’ve done some online advertising and direct marketing, and it seems to me that even when advertising in a ‘targeted’ space, where ‘viewers’ are supposedly pre-selected to have demonstrated interest in your type of offering, ads are still seen as an interruption, or ‘a necessary evil’. (Do I sound cynical? Well, maybe. Just an observation.)
(Image: Paul Newman — The Australian, 1 May 2007)
I recently saw banner ads in a discussion forum provoke a barrage of negative word-of-mouth about the advertiser and its offering — so much so that had I been the advertiser I would have regretted placing the ads. The cacophony of derision just went on and on and on … picking holes in the ‘offer’ and the ad wording, castigating the advertiser, the hosting website, questioning the legality of the whole thing — eventually uncovering what looked like plagiarism in the ‘offer’ and prompting a quick ‘site-down-switcheroo-site-up’ revision.
Now even looking on the bright side, the adage ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ isn’t, literally, true. Oh no. I’m pretty sure that was a negative experience from a ‘marketing’ point of view — shooting yourself in the foot, even — although good feedback that the ‘offer’ wasn’t ready for prime time, so not without value. Continue reading →
Apple’s iPad: “a replacement for computing”
“The iPad isn’t the future of computing; it’s a replacement for computing.”
— Mike Monteiro, muledesign.com
(image: Mike Monteiro muledesign.com)
A vision of the future….
As many others have noted, the release of the iPad might be the cannonball into the consumer device pool the iPhone dipped its toes in. It’s also been referred to as a thing that sits between that iPhone and your laptop.
I see it as more of a fork in the road. It’s the thing many people will get INSTEAD of a laptop. read on
Yeah, mon! What he said.
It’s a game-changer.
