As Twitter (and other social media) descend, what’s been interesting is seeing how many of us Kiwis aren’t being terribly original. No, I don’t exactly mean Dr Don Brash thinking that he can import US-style division into New Zealand wholesale without understanding the underlying forces that helped Donald Trump secure their presidency (in which case […]
Read More… from The easy-to-spot signs of the social media racist
Above: Dementia Wellington’s support has been invaluable. Today my father turned 83. It’s a tough life that began during the Sino–Japanese War, with his father being away in the army, and his mother and grandmother were left to raise the family on their land in Taishan, China. In 1949, the Communists seized the […]
Read More… from Eighty-three today with Alzheimer’s: a caregiver’s viewpoint
Elijah van der Giessen/Open Media/Creative Commons That’s it for ’net neutrality in the US. The FCC has changed the rules, so their ISPs can throttle certain sites’ traffic. They can conceivably charge more for Americans visiting certain websites, too. It’s not a most pessimistic scenario: ISPs have attempted this behaviour before. It’s another step […]
Read More… from The end of US ’net neutrality: another step toward the corporate internet
Clilly4/Creative Commons I see there’s an opinion piece in Stuff from the Chamber of Commerce saying the Wellington City Council should sell its stake in Wellington Airport, because it doesn’t bring in that much (NZ$12 million per annum), and because Auckland’s selling theirs. It’s not too dissimilar to calls for the Council to sell […]
The Ford Focus Active: by the turn of the decade, this will be the only four-door passenger car Ford will sell in the US and Canada In a surprise move, Ford has announced that it will cease selling passenger cars in the US and Canada by the early 2020s, excepting the Mustang and the […]
Above: Autocade can be hard work—and sometimes you have to put up less exciting vehicles, like the 2001–7 Chrysler Town & Country, for it to be a useful resource. March 8, 2018 marks 10 years of Autocade. I’ve told the story before on this blog and elsewhere, about how the site came to be—annoyed […]
Since Flyme 6.2 for the Meizu M2 Note, Meizu has ceased providing automatic updates of its OS to rooted phones. There are a lot of pages and YouTube videos about unrooting, and after finding that none were relevant, I’d like to add to the din with what worked for me. Meizu’s own instruction to […]
Read More… from Upgrading from Flyme 6.2 on a rooted Meizu M2 Note
My good friend Stefan Engeseth’s Sharkonomics hit China a year ago, and it’s been so successful that the second edition is now out. It looks smarter, too, with its red cover, and I’m sure Chinese readers will get a decent taste of Stefan’s writing style, humour and thinking. I even hope this will pave […]
Read More… from Stefan Engeseth’s Sharkonomics out in China with a new edition
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 […]
Read More… from Secret “Asian” man (with apologies to Tak Toyoshima)
Hong Kong’s skyline in 2008, photographed by Scrolllock. Has it been 20 years since Dad and I sat in front of the telly to watch both Britannia sail out of the harbour and China set off a magnificent fireworks’ display to celebrate getting Hong Kong becoming one of her possessions again? Following some of […]
Read More… from Twenty years on, the Hong Kong handover reminds us how impotent Britain proved to be