Brand Kim Dotcom: what has changed?

Equal access: an audio recording of this blog post can be found here. It’s disturbing to see so many Kim Dotcom jokes post-General Election, with plenty of Kiwis happy to ridicule the bloke because of Internet Mana’s terrible showing in the polls, and the loss of Hone Harawira’s seat.    Yet not too long ago, […]

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About Labour, I was nearly on the money in May

In May, I wrote (in the wake of the Oravida scandal): The problem with all of this is: where’s Labour, in the midst of the greatest gift an opposition has been given for years?    One friend of a friend noted that maybe Labour shouldn’t be attacking, because we Kiwis don’t like whingers. It is […]

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When the parties uploaded their opening statements to their YouTube accounts

This is when each political party uploaded their opening broadcasts to their official YouTube accounts. Ideally, they should have gone up on Saturday night, when they were broadcast on television, as that was when those of us online were hunting for them. (TVNZ did not have these up on demand on the night, either, but […]

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Facebook loves spammers

Can Facebook please explain why these obvious bot accounts, all of which have been reported, are allowed to remain on their website? (I have asked Facebook this directly already on Twitter and Facebook.)    Some were reported in 2013. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007203668633&fref=pb_other https://www.facebook.com/sluchevskiya?fref=pb_other https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003332425523&fref=nf_fr https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001139762163 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007774961452&fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003723657320 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007526100670&fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007575222133&fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/kyoko.fukada.902266?fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/cindy.weaver.7311?fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/patricia.lima.393950/ https://www.facebook.com/thomas.lawler.756?fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/kolthoff.danuta?fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/kaj.werner.50?fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/qkquddy?fref=tl_fr_box https://www.facebook.com/iwssr?fref=tl_fr_box […]

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‘Planet Key’ is good old-fashioned Kiwi satire

Fed up with the Electoral Commission barring Darren Watson from expressing his valid view with his satirical song ‘Planet Key’, I made a spoken-word version of it for my Tumblr a week ago, with copyright clearance over the lyrics. I wrote: Since the Electoral Commission has imposed a ban on Darren Watson’s ‘Planet Key’—in fact, […]

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I thought political division got you nowhere in New Zealand

A week and a half ago, I appeared on Back Benches to talk about Winston Peters MP’s “two Wongs” joke, and confined my comments to that.    My response, ‘There are still people who enjoy watching Rolf Harris, just as there are still people out there who enjoy listening to Winston Peters.’ And, ‘We have […]

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Caveat emptor: Facebook’s click farm problem is worsening

Many people will remember this video, which exposed Facebook using click farms to inflate customers’ likes (I would have used Veritasium’s original, but YouTube won’t show embedding codes at the moment):   Facebook Fraud Exposed: Does Facebook Advertising Lead to Fake Likes? from Reputation911 on Vimeo      I won’t repeat what they exposed, as […]

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The 2014 General Election: the impressions the parties have left, so far

A Kiwi friend, based in Australia, and I were discussing the General Election yesterday on the phone.    First, I told her, you wouldn’t know one was on. It’s like Christmas when the global financial crisis hit: people weren’t in the mood.    Secondly, minor parties like Internet Mana are probably doing better than the […]

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A familiar call after two mayoral campaigns on Wellington’s knowledge economy

The latest Victoria University study, expressing that there is a shortage of creative people, sounds very familiar.    Dr Richard Norman highlights in a Fairfax Press editorial that knowledge economy companies are ‘struggling to capitalise on opportunities for growth because of limited local talent …    ‘Many of these companies are well-seasoned and high-earning—a third […]

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John Cleese is wrong about humour

Has John Cleese become embittered?    He suggests that the Bond films after Die Another Day (his second and final) were humourless because the producers wanted to pursue Asian audiences. Humour, he says, was out.    ‘Also the big money was coming from Asia, from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, where the audiences go to watch […]

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