Posts relating to New Zealand.
This would be humorous if the implications of the copyright amendments were not so serious: Also speaking in favour of the bill, National MP Jonathan Young compared the internet to Skynet, the fictional artificial intelligence network in the Terminator movies that tried to destroy mankind. That was in the National Business Review. I believe […]
Read More… from National thinks the internet is ‘Skynet’ as copyright amendments pass second reading
This one hasn’t happened for a while (over a year), and, the last time I blogged about it, I managed to solve the issue—after putting up with it for years prior to that. (The solution before December 2009 was to wait for the computer’s foul mood to pass—hardly scientific.) Unfortunately, this fix no longer […]
Read More… from Errors abound in the New Zealand internet as government flip-flops again
I’m pleased to announce that automotive writer and historian Keith Adams is now collaborating with me on Autocade—and doing an incredible job. Keith has been as good as his word: not only has he fulfilled his promise to work with me on Autocade, he has got so much into the spirit of the site […]
Read More… from A great first few days collaborating with Keith Adams on Autocade
It’s shows like The Apprentice that have kept me away from watching TV. I was surprised to learn, in conversation last week, that TV viewership is up, while print is down. Shows you can’t base too much of what the general public does on your own experience. I estimate my magazine and book […]
Read More… from It’s about content, especially when reality is more appealing than reality TV
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 […]
Tomorrow, it will be one month since the Christchurch ’quake. It’s tempting to argue scale—the Japanese earthquake and tsunami versus our own—but at the end of the day, people are people, and our nations have both been hurting. We have become united, through disasters that emphasized that we live in an emerging global community. […]
Read More… from Some positive news a month on from the Christchurch ’quake
I am happy to say that Firefox 4 Release Candidate 1 is working smoothly with no crashes to date. It reminds me of, well, Firefox 3·0, before Mozilla started doing weird things to it and we had the multiple-crashing 3·5 and 3·6. Let’s hope this situation lasts. Meanwhile, the bugs I reported to the […]
The Christchurch earthquake is certainly not over, not while the city rebuilds. And the bill, at a meeting I had with some other luminaries last Thursday, is estimated to be in excess of the NZ$20,000 million that the New Zealand Government predicts. So, other than juggling the funds, what does the Government intend to […]
Read More… from In the wake of the ’quake, a time to be bold
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 […]
Christchurch, as it once was. These are some of the images that appeared on my old Vox blog (or, what is left of that). The Cathedral, as shot from my room at the Millennium Hotel The Holiday Inn The ceiling of the Isaac Theatre Taxis and a tram Gloucester Street Manchester Street New Regent Street […]