Author Archive
Farewell Charlie Gillett – Mr Eclectic
We’ve lost Charlie Gillett — longtime advocate-promoter-svengali of ‘world music’ … rock ‘n’ roll historian, and the supportive champion of so many different types of music. Not so much a gatekeeper as an enthusiastic enabler, Charlie helped so many careers and helped people get ‘heard’. I loved his BBC show. You never knew what you’d […]
A tale of woe … or fevered imagination?
The vast majority of the world’s population will NEVER visit an online discussion forum. They don’t care. (More important things to do etc.) Those who do (visit, and care) can be divided into a few categories from lurkers (who look but don’t post) to occasional and regular posters, to fanatical networkers and naked self-promoters who […]
Now Attack ads?
This fantastic spoof of a political attack ad just works. Excellent! Like Fake Steve Jobs, it’s brilliant satire — all with the ‘aim’ of getting 37Signals’ new book REWORK ahead of Karl Rove’s Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight on the best-seller lists. I love the sunrise and the uplifting music […]
Scoundrels
I’m reading a version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island to my young son. This neat interchange caught my eye: Soon the Captain waved his hand for silence and we all stopped talking, except for the good doctor, who went on speaking loud and clear. The Captain glared at him and commanded —”Silence below decks!” […]
Exquisite writing…
“ There were those who considered themselves lucky and those who considered themselves unlucky. Those who put their loss behind them and those who would never be the same again. Those who prayed and those who cursed and resented. Those who stole and those who gave. Jokers and worriers, optimists and pessimists, opportunists with an […]
On the wall of honour … Fake Steve Jobs on Google
So good, I had to plonk it here: One of my heroes, Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons)… China to Google: Drop dead Minister of Information Technology says Google must obey the laws or leave, and China doesn’t give a crap because they’ll be just fine without Google. (Especially since they apparently can waltz into Google’s […]
How dangerous is Facebook?
Tech columnist for The Independent Rhodri Marsden, prompted by the jailing in the UK of a serial rapist/murderer who groomed his latest teenage victim through Facebook,* reflects … What is it about these sites that’s creating such a problem? First, they’re extraordinarily popular with young people. Facebook is second only to Google in terms of […]
Ad-supported site … or ‘supporting’ the advertisers? A case study.
An interesting debate is rumblng about the use of Ad-blockers on web browsers… Ars Technica’s Ken Fisher laid out his case “Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love” including this section which got me thinking: My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not […]
Bluster and threat are commonplace
As in life, bluster and threat are commonplace in business – especially the technology business. So that interaction was good preparation for a later meeting with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. They’d flown in over a weekend to meet with Scott McNealy, Sun’s then CEO – who asked me and Greg Papadopoulos (Sun’s CTO) to […]
Quote of the week
If you want peace, work for justice. — Pope Paul VI I don’t quote many popes. But he had a point.
“If book publishers are supposed to be the gatekeepers…”
First raised in a comment here, this story of a fabricated Enola Gay memoir, an imaginary PhD supposedly issued and withdrawn by Victoria University of Wellington (my Alma Mater) complete with “baseless and defamatory” allegations of a hot debate about evolutionary theory (!) … well, the whole thing just gets more and more interesting … […]
Erring on the side of ‘simple’
A police investigation into ‘stolen’ or ‘leaked’ emails from the Leader of the Opposition’s office reveals just how slack so-called computer security can be… until we have reason to beef it up. I bet they’re more security-conscious now! “While it is accepted by the experts interviewed that external hacking can never be fully eliminated, ‘hacking’ […]
Engaging… (iPad)
I’m not all aquiver like some of the media, but this DOES look like a new doorway to me… Cool. (Premiered during TV coverage of the 2010 Academy Awards today.)
When propaganda turns into ‘demonizing’ …
Sometimes a zealot can go ‘too far’ …. even for his/her own supporters. I’ve seen it in political debate. I’ve seen it in business. The ‘object’ of the exercise — the debate, the contest of ideas — becomes somehow personal, and the ‘campaign’ can start to lose focus. It can be like a blood lust […]
