You never know where your interests will take you

A seven-year-old needs to figure this out: what would the Ford Escort Popular Plus be priced at if were assembled in Aotearoa?   Amanda and I were chatting about prodigies. Some young people are amazing, doing uni classes at intermediate or high-school age, or playing piano like Mozart, and while not all of us have […]

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January 2023 gallery

Here are January 2023’s images—aides-mémoires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.     Notes Rosa Clará image, added as I was archiving files from the third quarter of 2021. The Claudia Schiffer Rolling Stone cover came to mind recently—I believe it was commended in 1991 by the […]

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If corporate America says it, it’s probably untrue

Le dernier.   I see the Le Snak range has now left us, after its US owner PepsiCo cited a lack of demand. I call bullshit, since during 2021 it was becoming increasingly difficult to find them on the shelves. Throttling distribution is not the same as a lack of demand, something you see time […]

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One award, one interview—positive publicity for May–June 2022

  On to more positive things. Earlier this year, Luxlife got in touch with us, to say Lucire had been shortlisted for their awards. It was later confirmed that we had become their ‘Most Pioneering Online Fashion Magazine 2022’, which I was very happy about—especially as we started 25 years ago. The judges did know […]

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Afterpay wants my account details (even though I don’t have an account) to investigate its own activity

Usual story: go into the Facebook advertising preferences, spot organizations that I’ve never dealt with somehow possessing private information about me that they’ve uploaded to Facebook.    One noticeable one was Afterpay, both its Australian office (no reply on Twitter) and the ‘Afterpay USA Business Manager’ (the US office did reply). @AfterpayUSA I don’t even […]

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Putting on the breaks

Being self-employed my whole adult life, I haven’t exactly been let go from actual employment, but there have been some gigs, paid and unpaid, that came to an end without me expecting it.    I’ve never been sore about losing them, but I don’t agree with the way they were done.    Gig 1. Did […]

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I can finally identify with the main character in a New Zealand TV show

While I care much more about when John Simm will grace our screens again (pun intended), it was hard to avoid the reality TV that gets beamed into our living rooms during prime-time. There is the disgusting Married at First Sight Australia, where I am speechless with shock that fellow Scots alumnus John Aiken appears […]

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Reduced Facebook? Australia is the lucky country

Whichever side you are on with Facebook imposing a ban on Australians sharing news content, this says it all about the level of intelligence over at Menlo Park.    In Australia, Facebook has not only de-platformed legitimate governmental bodies and non-profits, it has de-platformed itself.    Maybe taxing these companies would have been easier, and […]

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Like communist dictatorships, Google and Facebook threaten Australia

You know the US tech giants have way too much power, unencumbered by their own government and their own country’s laws, when they think they can strong-arm another nation.    From Reuter: Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Friday it would block its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a new code that […]

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Why con?

  During the course of the 2010s, I came across two con artists. One thing that united them was they were men. But they could not have been more different: one was rather elaborate and was the subject of a Panorama documentary; the other was a rank amateur and, at least in the situation we […]

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