A weekend of malware

  I’m prepared to eat humble pie if one of our sites is actually distributing malware (naturally without any knowledge or action on our part). According to Google, Autocade is doing just that, as of the 23rd: Of the 3 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 3 page(s) resulted in […]

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Happy birthday, Lucire

Above The first issue of Lucire in 1997. Below right Lucire’s first iPad cover.   [Cross-posted at Lucire] An hour ago, we turned 13. Normally this wouldn’t have merited much of a mention, since 13’s not the sort of number people tend to celebrate. But I happened to be up, after a long day catching […]

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How easily they give up

I love how ‘Capital Day’ is always fun in The Dominion Post: you can’t believe the mileage I got out of its story implying that I could fix Wellington’s weather earlier this year with a fluxcapacitor. I even think it got me a few votes from people who didn’t see the irony (or the impossibility). […]

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Thank goodness I did not have a ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ moment on Saturday

On Saturday, I called then-Councillor, and now Mayor-elect, Celia Wade-Brown to congratulate her. I felt sure that the special votes would see her ushered in, and in my Sky TV interview that night, I stated much the same: I would offer our new Mayor my support for programmes that would benefit the people of Wellington. […]

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How well we engaged

This was a nice souvenir of the campaign: Brenda Wallace’s summary on how well we engaged on Twitter. I hate to think where I would have been without social media.    Although it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to my placing, I would be interested to know where the special votes will finally […]

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Winding down after a busy, post-campaign 24 hours

At our campaign after-party: self, Karen King, and Chloe Oldfield and Aaron Hape. It is perhaps no surprise that the last 24 hours saw more Tweets to me than any other period in my life, as the results from the local body elections came in.    I was overwhelmed by the messages, which were very […]

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Endorsements from Sir Michael Fowler and others—and why the Paul Henry débâcle matters

Yesterday, as some of you know, Sir Michael Fowler endorsed me, saying that I am the ‘intelligent’ mayoral candidate and he likes the programme I have outlined for our city. It goes beyond what is on my campaign site, of course—the programme includes plans to bring Waterfront Ltd. back under council control, increased transparency through […]

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Norman Macrae, RIP

I learned the sad news that Norman Macrae, CBE, 旭日章, passed away on June 11, just shy of his 87th birthday.    Norman was one of the great visionaries and forecasters of the 20th century, and served as deputy chief editor of The Economist till his retirement in 1988.    Among his forecasts was the […]

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It’s time to consider open source

Certain media are reporting the city’s [debt] in the $200 million–$300 million mark but our outside-council research reveals this is a very conservative estimate. It’s likely to be more.    Regardless of whether it’s $200 million or half an (American) billion (scary just saying it), any deficit that’s nine digits long can’t be good for […]

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Chevrolet doesn’t understand branding

After the chaps at Autocar began following me on Twitter yesterday—after all, I had been reading the magazine since it was part of the Ministry of Magazines, in the post-Iliffe days—I noticed a Tweet about Chevrolet asking its dealers to not refer to the brand as Chevy.    What?    According to Autocar: A leaked […]

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