Author Archive

‘Blackphone’ — Dystopian ‘loss of privacy’ memes are not new. But they seem fashionable now. And possibly commercially viable.

Watch this. It makes me want to try one out. (Except for that line about ‘the Android we’re all familiar with’— er, no not me.) Introduction to Blackphone from BLACKPHONE on Vimeo. But in the comments on that Blackphone promo — posted on Vimeo yesterday — there’s a link to this 4-year-old promo for Else […]

This is so cool

How cool. I bet any kids who dissed her at school are feeling dumb now …

Burglars or Whistle-blowers? Exposing the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO … precursors to Snowden.

A fascinating piece of history — eight ‘new left’ activists acting in 1971 to protect the citizenry’s right to dissent … by exposing the FBI’s actions to infiltrate protest groups, spy on all sorts of people opposed to the Vietnam war, and, along the way, to ‘enhance paranoia’. Nice work. Well worth watching at NYTimes.com. […]

Converting lies, by repetition, to …

via Banksy

Yeah. It’s a cat video. Get over it.

Funny! (And I like my cat.) – P

Lawyer says ‘My inaccurate client wasn’t lying’ (Oh gee, I think I will die laughing)

How lovely for James R Clapper to have someone willing to speak up for his honesty and integrity … Short version: He didn’t lie, he merely “… was surprised by the question and focused his mind on [something else] …”* Now waiting for my kids to try that one on me. – P * “In […]

Spoofing the use of Photoshop to distort the reality of women’s bodies in ads

I spotted this wonderful ‘defacement’ of a fashion billboard image (in Germany?) It looks like the activists have pasted on a Photoshop toolbar. How wry. Given our discussions before about the use of Photoshop to create impossible-to-attain ‘role models’ (bleurgh) and the negative effects on women and girls of such distortions, it’s good to see […]

Dick move Macworld. Really.

This article wafted across my browser … Really? I thought Leaked images? That sounds intriguing … but it’s not till you get to the bottom of the 1300 word ‘article’ (cough) that you read: “There are no leaked images of iOS 8 yet, but as soon as we see them, we’ll share them with you […]

Strive for peace (from a different angle)

Late last year (ha! That’s the first time I’ve said that in 2014!) in a post Settlement of legal action as a ‘peace premium’ I explored how … Sometimes it’s clearly in the interests of a ‘wrongdoer’ to pay something for peace … and it’s appropriate for prosecutors to accept effectively an admission and a […]

For my darling

Lovebirds singing a wonderful song by Sara Bareilles. – P

Behind the Washington Post’s end-of-year interview with Edward Snowden

Worth watching … December 24, 2013 3:54 PM EST — Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman discusses how his exclusive interview with Edward Snowden came about and whether the former NSA contractor would ever want to return to the United States. (Jeff Simon / The Washington Post) LINK TO VIDEO HERE Snowden is being predictably and […]

Presented without comment

Read on at the NZ Herald. I am saying nothing! – P

This looks like the raw output of a comment spambot …

Wow, WordPress’s Akismet spam filter snapped this so it wouldn’t appear as a comment, but it’s fascinating to look at the syntax … I remember my geek pal Sarah describing translation-type scripts that spammers sometimes put article copy through to try to make it seem like ‘unique’ copy (to prevent Google downgrading it). This looks […]

Big Time (1986)

Happy New Year! – P

Hot flushes and other responses to emotion

‘Self-reported’, but even so. I always try to keep an open mind about these things. Here’s the article: Mapping How Emotions Manifest in the Body Across cultures, people feel increased activity in different parts of the body as their mental state changes. — Olga Khazandec The Atlantic – P