The Luddite side of me

This might make me sound like an old fogey, but doing things the electronic way is only good if that way happens to be more efficient. Not so the AA, which I see has switched to notifying me about my membership renewal via email.    Here’s what I told them tonight after spending 20 minutes […]

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There’s still a place for blogging—in fact, it might be needed more than ever

My friend Richard MacManus commemorated the 14th anniversary of ReadWrite, an online publication he founded as a blog (then called ReadWriteWeb) in 2003, by examining blogging and how the open web has suffered with the rise of Facebook and others.    It’s worth a read, and earlier tonight I fed in the following comment. I […]

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Dr Libby’s team puts it right

That’s a nice conclusion. Since my previous blog post, Dr Libby Weaver’s people got back to me within 24 hours. Although no notes from her seminar were available, we decided that I should get a Dr Libby book, which duly arrived. Here ’tis: Good on @drlibby's team for being so on the ball and keeping […]

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Paging Dr Libby

Update: scroll down for a happy ending to this! Even famous people can slip up. Two posts on Instagram, one of them mine, the other an hour later on Dr Libby Weaver’s account.    If you’d like a closer inspection, here’s my photo cropped roughly where hers is. The clouds are the giveaway, and trust […]

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Avon walling

A week ago, Avon found an inventive way to get its brand noticed in peak-hour traffic.    I could make this about how people don’t know how to drive these days, or about the media fascination with Asian drivers when the reality does not bear this out, but let’s make it all about Avon—since they […]

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Online publishing: how the players we dealt with changed in 2016

Above: Brave Bison’s predecessor, Rightster, left much to be desired in how it dealt with publishers, while investment commentators had concerns, too.   Twenty-sixteen had some strange developments on the publishing front.    First, we noticed Alexa rankings for a lot of sites changed. Facebook itself went from second to third, where it has stayed. […]

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How my Dad called the primary and the election for Donald Trump ages ago

FJM88NL, licensed under Creative Commons I’ve had a phone call and a lot of comments on this in the last couple of days: my Dad, who is 81 with early-stage Alzheimer’s, called the US presidential election for Donald Trump months ago. I posted it on my social networks the day he made his definitive call, […]

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What a great opportunity for New Zealand that lies before us

Above: When I refer to Hillary in the below blog post, I mean the self-professed ‘ordinary chap’ on our $5 note.   As the results of the US presidential election came in, I didn’t sense a panic. I actually sensed a great opportunity for New Zealand.    I’ve been critical of the obsession many of […]

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Snapped on Instagram

This wasn’t taken by me, but by another car enthusiast, who goes by Kiwi_cars on Instagram. They (I don’t know the gender though one shadow in one photo suggests it could be a male) photograph some of the more interesting cars in New Zealand, and I was flattered to have mine spotted and posted on […]

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Brexit reminds us that we need to take a lead in making globalization fairer

Brexit was an interesting campaign to watch, and there’s not too much I can add that hasn’t been stated already. I saw some incredibly fake arguments from Brexit supporters, including one graphic drawing a parallel between the assassinations of Anna Lindh in 2003 and Jo Cox MP, saying how the murder of the former led […]

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