I have to hand it to Honda. The next new model from the Japanese firm is faster than the NSX and its old Formula 1 cars. It goes at Mach 0·72. The simplified version of Honda’s history goes something like this. Once upon a time, Mr Honda wanted to make cars. He wasn’t […]
Category: culture
Posts relating to culture, multiculturalism and cultural impact.
Zeiger confronts the U-bahn ads
A while back, in Desktop, I wrote about subvertising. This video, found via Rock Rodgers’ Tumblr, destroys the ads altogether, by means of a mirrored contraption that turns the projected images from a Berlin U-bahn station into rather nice art. Of course it isn’t legal, but one has to hand it to these chaps […]
Someone’s doing something right inside Google
The troubles with Google that I’ve faced—privacy breaches, Ads Preferences Manager not honouring its claims, fighting for six months on behalf of a friend over a deleted Blogger blog, Chrome being buggy (but not nearly as badly as IE9), phantom entries in my Google dashboard, unanswered messages—would suggest, to anyone studying business or a graduate […]
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Cortina, outdoors
I was peering through Ford’s archive as it celebrates 100 years in Great Britain. This brought back a few memories: the Araldite glue campaign. Right next to it is an outdoor ad for the 1982 Cortina—Taunus 80 to those outside the Empah. The Araldite ad showed how commonplace the Cortina had become. And back […]
LOL, Wag, flat white added to Oxford English Dictionary
A few new words and meanings—45,437 to be exact—have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, report the mainstream media. LOL is one, which I have always taken to mean little old lady, and have almost always used it in that context. Turns out that that was what the acronym originally stood for, […]
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A bad choice of word, but what does the gay community actually think?
While I was out, I had noticed on Twitter a news item about an octogenarian, working for American Airlines, who was sacked for his use of the word faggot. I despise words like that, just as much as chink or nigger, but the question arises: should he have been sacked, losing some of his […]
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More Facebook dating scam profiles: is this now the scammers’ medium of choice?
Remember when spam ruined email? Welcome to Facebook, 2011. And why, some day, people mightn’t be joining it if spammers begin making up a larger proportion of the membership. I have received two odd friend requests, and since there was no way I knew these people, I asked them what our connection was. […]
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Alarm für Cobra 11: a 15th birthday celebration
Today marks the 15th anniversary of Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, a German show I have followed for just over a half of its run. I’ve watched it through budget cuts and some naff storylines of late. It’s of some interest to chart the course of the show over these many years. […]
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Giving our young people a fair go
Earlier this month, I gave a workshop talk to the Leadership and Development Conference for the New Zealand Chinese Association in Auckland. I’ve just uploaded the speech notes, and as I did so, I wanted to append a few more thoughts. The topic was identity—not just branding, but personal identity. My self-critique […]
Volvo unveils its China strategy
Volvo has announced that it will build a plant in China, and seeks approval for a second, in what it calls its second home market. It was inevitable, though for the long-term survival of the brand, it’s not a bad idea. Through Geely’s acquisition, it can potentially leapfrog other foreign car brands inside […]