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 […]
Read More… from I thought political division got you nowhere in New Zealand
Consistently, for the last several weeks, the ads I would see on YouTube have been for Hyundai. I didn’t think much of it, other than Hyundai going through an advertising blitz. After uncovering Google’s outright deceptions regarding its former Ads Preferences Manager, where the company promised not to track people when they opted out—but […]
Read More… from Does Google advertising continue to track you after opting out?
My friend Lou, who I enjoy winding up, just arrived in Belfast on holiday with her fiancé. I wrote on her Facebook the following slice of forgotten Irish television and film history. If I was in Belfast, I would be rapping. I pulled up to the house about seven or eight, And I yelled to […]
My friend Stephen Smith filmed the following in Cuba, looking at the pre-1959 US cars that are still running (mostly on non-original engines) there. It’s also interesting for the odd non-US car that you see: various Ladas (the original Zhiguli shape), a Volkswagen Gol in one scene, and an Emgrand EC8. Steve and his wife […]
There’s a good reason (other than time) I do not watch Elementary, though I did try about 10 minutes’ worth before giving up. The last time I watched the US make Sherlock Holmes, it was the above: The Return of Sherlock Holmes (though I believe it was 4:3). CBS updated Holmes to the modern […]
This is the sort of thing I would throw on my Tumblr but the Olympic Committee won’t allow embedding there. Ergo: It’s from the 2002 Games, where Steven Bradbury takes home Australia’s first gold in the Winter Olympics. The last lap is at around the 1′30″ mark. Fast forward to 2014 and remember […]
Read More… from Flashback to 2002: Australia’s first Winter Olympic gold
The spirit of Gene Hunt is alive and well in the Greater Manchester Police, in the form of Sgt David Kehoe. Arresting someone over drink driving when he has neither drunk nor driven reminds me of The Professionals episode, ‘In the Public Interest’, about a corrupt police force in an unnamed English city outside […]
Read More… from Frack away, IGas Energy: the Metropolitan Police has your back
There were a few upset people in November because Google compelled everyone who wanted to comment on YouTube to have a Google Plus profile. Even a co-founder of YouTube, Jawed Karim, objected. But it’s been a long time coming. In 2011, Google combined, as is its prerogative, YouTube accounts with its own. While […]
Read More… from Upset about needing Google Plus to comment on YouTube? Here’s a radical idea: don’t
Back in September, The Dominion Post claimed on its front page that I have an ‘accent’ that is holding me back. It was a statement which the editor-in-chief subsequently apologized for, and which she had removed from the online edition—you can judge for yourself here if the claim was a falsehood. Still, despite having lived […]
Read More… from Steve Guttenberg shows us how a Kiwi accent is done
When surfing, there are precious few people who, like me, de-Googled their lives. There’s the odd blog post here and there, but, overall, those of us who took the plunge are few and far between. It still puzzles me, given the regular privacy problems that I find on Google Dashboard (Google supporters will argue that […]
Read More… from Google pays out US$17 million over Doubleclick privacy hacking