You never know where your interests will take you

A seven-year-old needs to figure this out: what would the Ford Escort Popular Plus be priced at if were assembled in Aotearoa?   Amanda and I were chatting about prodigies. Some young people are amazing, doing uni classes at intermediate or high-school age, or playing piano like Mozart, and while not all of us have […]

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Generation Z has the right idea with flip phones and digital cameras

  This may be a source of comedy on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but to me it’s obvious why young people are opting for flip phones and digital cameras. They’re smart enough to think: why should I have a device that’s addictive and wastes my time? Why should I spend time on websites […]

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Finished replying to my 2005 and 2006 emails

I’m not exactly proud of this, but last month I finished replying to all my emails from 2005.    That year I was stuck in Auckland for an extra day due to the airport there being fogged in. I said to another traveller, ‘Well, I won’t catch up on emails now till the end of […]

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An expat’s thoughts about Hong Kong

Studio Incendo/Creative Commons 2·0 As an expat, I’ve been asked a few times about what I think of the Hong Kong protests. There’s no straight answer to this. Here are a few thoughts, in no particular order. The British never gave us universal suffrage, so the notion that it was all roses before 1997 is […]

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The smart ones always seem to be the minority

Pixabay Each year, I mentor one student from my Alma Mater. I won’t reveal their identity or what we discuss, as these are privileged, but one thing that became apparent today is how each generation might think that young people are on to it. That they won’t fall for the same bullshit that we did […]

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Getting inspiration from Douglas Rushkoff

John Nowak/CNN I’ve had a 52 Insights interview with Douglas Rushkoff open in a Firefox tab for nearly half a year. It’s a fascinating piece, and I consider Douglas to be spot on with a lot of his viewpoints. I’ve revisited it from time to time and enjoyed what Douglas has had to say.   […]

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Being answerable to your public (or, if you can’t engage now, can we expect you to in office?)

One of my supporters Tweeted to say I was the only candidate at Vote.co.nz who has bothered to reply to citizens’ questions. It’s good for me, but sad to see my opponents so disengaged. I was also surprised to see that only three of us have bothered to register for the website this time, despite […]

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The statistics back up my manifesto: we need to help young Wellingtonians

One of the things I hear when campaigning is that one should not focus too much on youth, because young people do not vote as much. I think the first part of that is bollocks.    While it’s true that the youth vote has never been strong, no one can claim to represent a city […]

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Replacing a social network near you: real life

As news emerges that teenagers have spent less time on Facebook, and there are more profiles getting closed on the social network, Sony has released its newest trailer for The Social Network. After 9-11, it’s time to tell the “other” story of the ’noughties. And if Facebook is the topic of a Hollywood film, then […]

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