Facebook paid USD $8.5 million to acquire the Internet address ‘fb.com’ — from American Farm Bureau Federation — for internal use by its employees.
— Reuters
Oh boy. USD $8.5million for a domain name …
Nice to know ‘The Sun’ respects copyright
It’s good to know The Sun newspaper respects copyright. Phew.
See what happens if you right-click today's pic of Ricky Gervais (Getty images via The Sun - click)
Oh, it’s News Corp — Rupert ‘so,-basically-you’re-stealing-from-me’ Murdoch.
Fair enough.
Whistle-blowing at a news conference (note the smear)
LONDON, Jan 17: A former Swiss private banker handed over data on hundreds of offshore bank account holders to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a news conference on Monday.
Rudolf Elmer once headed the office of Julius Baer in the Cayman Islands until he was fired by the bank in 2002. He is scheduled to go on trial in Switzerland on Wednesday for breaching bank secrecy.
Elmer handed Assange the data at a news conference at a media club in London. The two yellow and blue discs contain information on 2,000 banking clients who have parked money offshore.
“He (Elmer) is clearly a bona fide whistleblower… We have some kind of duty to support him in that matter,” said Assange, who is on bail in Britain and fighting extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning over alleged sex crimes.
That’ll be interesting. I wonder what will emerge.
Also interesting to observe: … A man “scheduled to go on trial in Switzerland on Wednesday for breaching bank secrecy” gives data openly to a man “who is on bail in Britain and fighting extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning over alleged sex crimes”.
See how the ‘intelligence community’s smear of Julian Assange is working?
Watch how the media is led by the nose by these professional fabricators of false evidence appearing real. (FEAR)
They have plenty of other dirty tricks up their sleeves too, I bet. ‘De-capitation attacks‘.
Steve Jobs
image: Reuters (click)
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.
— Apple CEO Steve Jobs 17/1/11
All I can say is I wish him and his family well.
(It’s galling the way some people focus on the stock price. It will take care of itself.)
A little bit of crossover …
Regular readers know thePaepae.com isn’t a soapbox for my business pursuits. Even so, every now and then I’ll share something of what I’m doing for those who may have some slight interest.
In that spirit, here’s a 12 minute ‘sample’ clip of an audio programme on the outlook for the NZ property market and economy in the year ahead, featuring some genuinely experienced experts who it is my privilege to be friendly with: Olly Newland, Brendan O’Donovan and Mark Withers. (Recorded at a live MARKET UPDATE event in Auckland last month … introduced by lil ol’ me.)
Audio clip here:
More details here.
The Letters … by Leonard Cohen
from the video for 'Democracy'
You never liked to get
The letters that I sent.
But now you’ve got the gist
Of what my letters meant.
You’re reading them again,
The ones you didn’t burn.
You press them to your lips,
My pages of concern.
I said there’d been a flood.
I said there’s nothing left.
I hoped that you would come.
I gave you my address.
Your story was so long,
The plot was so intense,
It took you years to cross
The lines of self-defense.
The wounded forms appear:
The loss, the full extent;
And simple kindness here,
The solitude of strength.
You walk into my room.
You stand there at my desk,
Begin your letter to
The one who’s coming next.
Words and music by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson
Elementary — so how many of these do we do?
from Robert Valett — Prescriptions for Happiness
from Robert Valett’s Prescriptions for Happiness — one of those A-Z’s that can be a combination of corny and insightful. Better than reading the news! – P
Best wishes to our mates in Queensland
With the flooding, the last thing they’ll have time for is browsing the internet (!), so they won’t see this, but I wanted to ‘send’ my best wishes for their recovery, and condolences to the grief stricken. It’s a tough situation. – P
Oh boy, another Facebook ‘enhancement’ …
OK, so first we’re offered this ‘upgrade’, then, what? we’re forced to do it?
click to visit thePaepae.com at Facebook -- and 'Like' the page (if you do) please
‘You’ll be upgraded‘?? Errr, what if I don’t actually LIKE the new graphic-heavy profile?
Ahem, Facebook: Isn’t the customer always right?
A small issue, yes, I agree. Never mind. (Oh yeah, and maybe I’m NOT the customer…)
Dagmar Andres-Dahmen. Wow.
An artist friend of ours* is displaying her latest work … if you’re in Auckland and you’re interested, go check it out … and this cool invitation …
Dagmar Andres-Dahmen's exhibition - click to enlarge
Otherwise (or as well) you might enjoy her website: www.dagmarandresdahmen.co.nz
* We bought a painting of hers a few years ago and she’s just gotten better and better.
Not a bad mission statement
(image: nett.umich.edu)
Broadcaster Keith Olbermann recently gave an insight into his motivations and goals for a controversial segment of his show…
“This ordinarily is where you would see our ‘Worst Persons in the World‘ segment,” Olbermann said Monday late into the broadcast. “For more than two months, I’ve struggled with its value. We suspended it for a time, there was a small clamor to bring it back, and bring it back we did.
The segment was born in humor with clear intentions: criticism, sarcasm, satire, calling out, even ridiculing. But a lot of people — especially those who don’t watch the show — still think that I literally mean, these are the three worst persons in the world.
“There is potential danger in that,” he continued. “So the name has got to go. But the purpose — to employ the French philosopher Bergson’s explanation that laughter is a social sanction against inflexible behavior — that remains relevant and important and maybe more so than ever before.”
“…born in humour with clear intentions: criticism, sarcasm, satire, calling out, even ridiculing“.
Yup. Good stuff. I aspire to and hold the same intentions for aspects of thePaepae.com (I also want to encourage, inspire and learn.)
Just so long as it’s interesting, right? 😉 – P
PS Another good model is Anderson Cooper’s ‘The Ridiculist‘
PPS I’m still not saying I’m a saint. Crikey. Bleurgh.
A subliminal message to ‘investors’ getting ‘educated’ [groan] about distressed US properties
Neil Jenman says: DON'T SIGN ANYTHING. (pic by Peter Aranyi)
That’s actually me under the cap … I got it from Neil Jenman with some other cool stuff when he visited Auckland a few years back to harass the local property spruikers and give some advice to buyers and sellers … I wear it with a chuckle.
It reads DON’T SIGN ANYTHING … with Jenman’s website www.Jenman.com and his tollfree number. (He’s got a book of the same title.)
I have to say, you know, there are times when that seems like pretty good advice. Like for instance, when you’re faced with ‘this deal is too good to last, be quick, don’t miss out, going fast, you’d be crazy not to, this will change your financial future!’ -type persuasive sales talk.
As one unfortunate punter seeking ‘education’ (cough, splutter) from what Jenman calls a ‘selling machine’ learned first hand and reported, considerable pressure (real, implied or imagined) can umm, … well … let’s just say it can occur. i.e. Pressure to ‘proceed to contract’ … i.e ‘sign here, here and here’.
Just as travel can loosen a tourist’s wallet and credit card (we’ve all done it), sometimes the spending/investing decisions made during these types of ‘research tours’ or ‘educational’ workshops and bus tours are later regretted. Sometimes regretted bitterly, in fact.
—
Meanwhile the hyped-up internet-pushed ‘gold rush’ sales pitch for US rentals continues. Remember the UK-based spruikers hawking Memphis distressed property? Look: Now they’re pitching ‘bargains’ in Buffalo, New York. That rings a bell — wasn’t that one of the areas the Sydney Morning Herald warned against?
Hurry, hurry, hurry! 'Cash only deal'. Oh dear me.
Am I being too cynical? Hmmm.
Leonard Cohen: A remarkable life. Indeed.
A must for any serious fan of Leonard Cohen
A dear friend gave me this terrific book for Christmas. I love and am inspired, challenged, chastened — simply moved by Leonard Cohen. (‘I know his melancholy is your joy, Peter, but can we change the music please?’ my beloved wife said to me once.)
The book is a must-have for serious Cohen fans (and it’s a great read!) It’s a detailed, insightful biography and Anthony Reynolds’ sources seem pretty good. Several of Cohen’s long-term collaborators (including players on his recent ‘never ending’ world tour, which I caught in Monteal and Wellington. Wow) have contributed, but the book is not a hagiography. Well worth reading.
The proofing is shocking — some real howlers (vacation for vocation, words missing, someone whose name slides from Anne to Ann to Anna within two pages) but the thoroughness of his narrative and the just plain ‘interestingness’ of the content more than makes up for it.
One quote worth mentioning (and Reynolds has gone to great and effective effort to give the book a rich texture with direct quotes and quotes from other sources) reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson’s damnation of the music industry as ‘a cruel and shallow money trench…’ (which I quoted relating to Gin Wigmore recently):
The record business is not filled with wonderful people.
The business itself is pretty sllmy, pretty cutthroat. The making of records is a wonderful art but the business is awful, run by lawyers …
— Record producer John Lissaur quoted in Leonard Cohen – A remarkable life by Anthony Reynolds.
Hmpf!
Snakes alive!
I’m not going to say which gaggle of personable snake oil salesmen sprang to mind when my niece read out this joke from our Christmas crackers this year. (It’s true.)
CRACKER! Ignore the endearing spelling mistake (... which also reminded me of someone.)
Poisonality. Bwahaha! Who? Take a guess.
Watch what you’re doing …
Rock musician Larry Norman (1947-2008) (image: flickr)
Larry Norman‘s name came up on one of my friends’ Facebook walls last night … I loved what this musician gave as his gifts — and his influence. He was a cool cat with great intelligence and, it seemed to me, a sense of mission and virtue. He was a gutsy individualist, a trailblazer as others have noted.
This is what I wrote on FB:
It was a privilege to work with Christian Birch to promote Larry (all in black) Norman on one of his NZ tours… My friend Murray Broom and I got to hang out with him quite a bit because we organised the logistics etc. of his Wellington concert
Larry gave me a whole new perspective on music royalties when he ‘grabbed the bag’ from our sales of his LPs (yes, vinyl) citing the lack of a licence agreement for NZ. The guys at Word Records in Levin — whose stock they were— were NOT impressed, but were ultimately very gracious to us.
I remember we talked about many things. Some of which, like his courageous example, are still with me.
I liked this song ‘Watch what you’re doing’, in the spirit of ‘Why should the devil have all the good music?’ …
