Above: Good news, Newsroom and The Spinoff are there in Google News. Further to my blog post last night, I decided to look at Google News to see who had the latest on our PM, Jacinda Ardern. Feeding in her name, the above is the results’ page. I had thought that I had […]
Category: New Zealand
Posts relating to New Zealand.
Saving the internet from itself—Sir Tim Berners-Lee sees the same dangers
Above: The Intercept is well respected, yet Google cozying up to corporate media meant its traffic has suffered, according to Alternet. There’s a select group of countries where media outlets are losing traffic, all because Facebook is experimenting with moving all news items out of the news feed and on to a separate page. […]
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Behind the scenes
Agent: Yes, that’s correct, we promise we can find you a job, no matter what. Applicant: That’s great! You can help me? Agent: Of course. Now, let’s look at your academic transcript. The Agent studiously examines the transcript. Agent: Oh, dear, this isn’t very good. Applicant: Um … Agent: It says you have a very poor average, that you scored 16 […]
Secret “Asian” man (with apologies to Tak Toyoshima)
Matt Clark Above: Driving a silver Aston Martin. I’m citing the Official Secrets Act when I say I may or may not be on the tail of Auric Goldfinger. Oh dear, I’ve been outed. I’m a spy. Actually, Walter Matthau and I prefer ‘agent’. You can read between the lines in this New […]
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The hunt for reliable news is harder today
Above: A reputable Las Vegas newspaper, the Las Vegas Review–Journal. I’m not going to weigh in on the debate surrounding the US Second Amendment today, but what I will say is whether we like their politicians or not, the victims in Las Vegas didn’t deserve their fates. My thoughts and prayers go to them and […]
Consumer’s choice: how I bought a car from the UK over the ’net and shipped it home
Originally published at Drivetribe, but as I own the copyright it only made sense to share it here for readers, too, especially those who might wish to buy a car from abroad and want to do the job themselves. It was originally written for a British audience. Above: The lengths I went to, to make […]
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Too many white cars make fake news
A photo taken in Wellington with a test car I had for Lucire. White cars aren’t the over-represented colour in New Zealand: guess from this photo what is. A friend of mine put me on to this Fairfax Press Stuff article, entitled ‘Silly Car Question #16: Why are there so many white cars?’. It’s a […]
All I really know is who I won’t vote for
One thing I love about New Zealand is that we’re not mired in an election cycle years before the event. We’re three weeks or so out from our General Election, and only now am I feeling things are heating up. It’s not that we haven’t had drama. Weeks ago, Metiria Turei was co-leader of […]
Give nothing to racism
What an honour it was to appear as one of the first batch of people in the Human Rights’ Commission’s Give Nothing to Racism campaign. Taika Waititi, New Zealander of the Year (and a Lucire feature interviewee from way back) introduced the campaign with a hilarious video, and it was an honour to be considered […]
Go well, Dave Moore
I was very saddened to learn of the passing of my colleague and friend Dave Moore on May 31, which I learned about a few hours after. You don’t expect your mates to drop dead at breakfast while on a press trip, especially not at the age of 67, and it’s particularly painful to […]