Posts Tagged ‘telling the truth’

What ‘letting it slide’ can cost you

From a review of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ appearance at a recent tech Q&A: Jobs acknowledged that the next-generation iPhone photographed by Gizmodo was circulating as a part of the normal testing of wireless products. “To make a wireless product work well you need to test it. You have to carry them outside. One of […]

Get it off your chest, I say. It’s better.

From an interesting article about the soon-to-be-released first volume of Mark Twain’s full autobiography — which he instructed not to be published for 100 years after his death (which is now): “There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn’t such […]

Speak up

REAL ESTATE ALERT from Neil Jenman Thursday May 27, 2010 Dear Subscriber A few weeks ago, my wife and I got an extortion demand – take down your web sites, abandon the publication of your book, Stitched! or your children will be targeted. On Friday May 14, Channel Seven ran a story about the threats […]

Ranting and raving? Oh yes, but sooo right!

I had lunch with my good friend Graeme today after he picked ‘the best song ever written’ on National Radio … and he hadn’t yet seen this absolutely wonderful recent rant and rave, telling-the-truth criticism of Glenn Beck by The Daily Show’s acerbic commentator, my hero Lewis Black …

More opprobrium for dishonesty

America’s favourite whipping boy, once media-darling Mark Zuckerberg, ‘founder’ of Facebook, gets even more attention (below). I wonder how he’s coping? Facebook CEO Faces Accusations Of Securities Fraud Huffington Post | Catharine Smith First 05-20-10 05:38 PM It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s new privacy policies […]

Wow. What an image …

This is one of the slides illustrating a story about the oil spill affecting the Louisiana wetlands and the environment in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond … The damaged beauty of the image speaks to me. God knows we really need to protect the natural environment — for our kids, and their kids. This […]

Hello, Jason? Asperger’s doesn’t equal ‘sociopath’

OK, so we all know Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a reputation for being treacherous and a bit of an arse, but this reference by Jason Calacanis to Asperger’s syndrome seems like sloppy labelling to me … otherwise, it’s an interesting opinion piece. A little self-indulgent, but that’s part of Jason’s recipe. Last year, when […]

Freeloader culture: taking things that aren’t yours …

Andrew Keen’s opinion column “Copyrights take a back seat to profits on the Web” is worth a read. Even in the digital world, standards are still necessary and some old rules deserve respect. Creators should still be fairly compensated for their work, and we shouldn’t tolerate stealing as the road to profit. And, as much […]

Honesty in advertising — a rare and beautiful thing

Yes, I know, I spend a bit of time hassling spruikers (and others) for their hyperbolic marketing claims — like this from Mr ‘get-rich-quick’ himself Dean Letfus: After this week it’s “too late baby now it’s too late” to catch Shaun Stenning and I showing you how to generate genuine, sustainable cashflow fast. … Did […]

Damage control re 4G iPhone: NOT ‘sold’, just ‘exclusive access’

This spin is being promoted: Gizmodo didn’t “buy” the lost/stolen/disassembled 4G iPhone prototype for US$5,000 … they just paid that money for “exclusive access” to it … that’s part of Brian J Hogan’s attorney’s positioning statement referred to here. Brian J. Hogan, a 21-year-old resident of Redwood City, California, says although he was paid by […]

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 […]

How convenient

While we’re on the topic of authenticity and journalistic ethics… Research into the only known film of the Anzac campaign has revealed that soldiers identified as Australians are New Zealanders and Irishmen…. Soldiers in a vivid trench fighting scene thought to have been of Australians were the 5th Royal Irish Fusiliers at Suvla Bay, and […]

And the spin goes on … Shaun Stenning’s latest

Here’s Shaun Stenning‘s latest effort to get the genie back in the bottle … by (again) threatening legal action and spinning a yarn about how copyright works. It’s interesting to see how he operates. Read the full letter here (160k PDF) for yourself and see how plausible you find it. Background: A bunch of very […]

The ‘message’ of SHAME

I mentioned Steven Pressfield and his model of ‘Resistance’ — as a force/’personality’ and ever-changing foe to overcome in your own creative endeavour or ‘life-work’ — in a reply to Graeme yesterday. I highly recommend Pressfield’s book The War of Art for anyone seeking to move forward … in anything. He writes a ‘Writing Wednesdays’ […]