Saddened to see colleagues lose their jobs as we bid, ‘Auf wiedersehen, Heinrich Bauer Verlag’

03.04.2020/10.00

I am privy to some of the inner workings at Bauer Media through friends and colleagues, but I didn’t expect them to shut up shop in New Zealand, effective April 2. Depending on your politics, you’re in one of two camps. TV3, itself part of a foreign company who has made serious cutbacks […]

Don’t give the keys to the company Twitter to just anyone

02.02.2020/08.50

A few thoughts about Twitter from the last 24 hours, other than ‘Please leave grown-up discussions to grown-ups’: (a) it’s probably not a smart idea to get aggro (about a joke you don’t understand because you aren’t familiar with the culture) from your company’s account, especially when you don’t have a leg to stand on; […]

When the writers don’t check the Cobra 11 universe

10.04.2019/13.03

This is how big an Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei nerd I am. Three years ago (April 7, 2016), we were introduced to Daniel Roesner as Paul Renner in ‘Cobra, übernehmen Sie’. There is a flashback scene dated April 7, 1996 when Paul and Semir meet for the first time, with Paul as […]

Fighting intolerance is the key to a tolerant society

01.04.2019/09.22

Hat tip to Mauricio Freitas. Source: Pictoline. pic.twitter.com/eJVhZxA4ZW — Merlin Ks (@Merlin3ks) July 14, 2018 Quite simple, isn’t it? I sense my parents’ generation (who were kids during WWII) would have understood this, but I worry about my generation and the ones following. You may also like Victor Billot on the 2019 UK General […]

Alarm für Cobra 11: why the inconsistent season numbering?

29.03.2019/12.25

RTL Above: From the first episode after the half-season break, ‘Endstation’. All three men have, at some point, played the sidekick on Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei: Erdoğan Atalay, who was hired to play second banana in the third episode but has since become the star of the show; Rainer Strecker, the man whom […]

Wired’s Louise Matsakis did what no other journalist could: break the story on Facebook’s forced malware scans

24.02.2018/09.28

With how widespread Facebook’s false malware accusations were—Facebook itself claims millions were “helped” by them in a three-month period—it was surprising how no one in the tech press covered the story. I never understood why not, since it was one of many misdeeds that made Facebook such a basket case of a website. You’d think […]

Why the next Holden Commodore will have a traditional boot

01.12.2016/13.24

Above: The Holden Commodore SS-V, facing its last year of manufacture. The current wisdom appears to be that when the Holden Commodore VF leaves production in 2017, it’ll be replaced by the liftback version of the Opel Insignia B. After all, the only big sedan Ford Australia’s offering in place of the now-defunct Falcon is […]

Volkswagen’s scandal won’t spread to other German car groups

24.09.2015/14.50

If you want a humorous take on what happened at Volkswagen this week, the above video sums it all up. During my 2010 mayoral campaign, I noted that if New Zealand did not diversify its economy to have more of a focus on technology, there could be a problem. Relying on primary products (I didn’t […]

Alarm für Cobra 11 changes direction again, with Daniel Roesner as Paul Renner

18.08.2015/10.26

Poor Vinzenz Kiefer. The co-star of Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, which commemorates its 20th anniversary next year, will be written out of the show, and not by his choice. Since the departure of Tom Beck as Ben Jäger a few years ago, the producers of the long-running German action series decided to […]

A year of random thoughts: 2014 in review

29.12.2014/12.05

For the last few years, I’ve looked back at the events of the year in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. (In fact, in 2009, I looked back at the decade.) Tumblr’s the place I look at these days for these summaries, since it tends to have my random thoughts, ones complemented by very little critical thinking. They […]