Author Archive
Plain sailing?
Pretty sharp cartoon from Emmerson in today’s NZ Herald: But last night’s Campbell Live report on the GCSB bill featuring an international observer* expressing astonishment at the Key Administration ‘kissing the feet’ of Washington DC, tells a different story. Watch it: Dissecting the GCSB bill The team Campbell Live is doing a sterling job … […]
Steve Jobs movie trailer
I missed the Facebook movie, The Social Network, mainly because of disrespect. (I’ll catch it sometime.) But yeah, I’ll definitely go and see this one. – P
Public versus private forgiveness. And unforgiveness.
It’s been a while since we’ve discussed forgiveness here, although this post, “Do I believe in the forgiveness of sin?” and this one, Remembering Karla are never far from me … especially when I consider what I’ve learned and observed about the toxic effects of ‘harbouring’ unforgiveness. Last night I read of journalist/blogger/writer Andrew Sullivan’s […]
Samsung Galaxy S III explodes in girl’s pocket, burns her leg badly
Back in the 1990s, like today, I was the proud owner of a procession of Apple laptops including, for a while, a PowerBook 5300ce — the model that was dubbed ‘the FireBook’ after a widely reported incident where one of them burst into flames on a desk when its battery (manufactured by Sony?) overheated. My […]
Really sorry to read this about biased coverage
It was a real shame to read this about Al Jazeera … Gulf News: Al Jazeera staff resign after ‘biased coverage’ Cairo: The news channel Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr saw 22 members of staff resign on Monday in Egypt over what they alleged was coverage that was out of sync with real events in Egypt. […]
Sights and SOUNDS of coffee being made
Yeah, I’m a coffee addict. I’ve also worked in broadcast engineering, and specifically, acoustics. So this video from Diego Stocco appeals to me on all sorts of levels … Diego Stocco – Huge Coffee from Diego Stocco on Vimeo. Yum. Of course, for many of us, the aroma is the best part of coffee. So, […]
Suppressing free speech and editing Wikipedia. Is that why we pay taxes, Mrs Collins?
This blog post (below) from Roger Brooking gives me the creeps. Go and have a read and see what you think. Judith Collins’ staff editing wikipedia articles on justice issues in NZ? I’ll wait. Interesting, huh? Not so much for the [alleged] revelation that someone from Justice minister Judith Collins’ office tried to influence who […]
On Bain rifle fingerprints
Earlier this week I saw Frank Mackasy described as an ‘another activist’ making submissions on the proposed GCSB bill at the Intelligence & Security committee…. Earlier, another activist Frank Macskasy told the committee the existing oversight of intelligence agencies hadn’t worked. Mr Macskasy said he was concerned that within a few years the GCSB and […]
Good ol’ fashioned values …
Here’s how ReadWriteWeb promoted the awareness campaigns of StopWatching.Us and Restore The Fourth … Yeah. Nice. Read all about it. – P
Not a bad looking logo
I like good graphic design. I pay for it on the books and other projects we publish because I think it adds something valuable. See the communication tag here at The Paepae for a few random examples of graphics that have taken my fancy. This logo (below) an Android Twitter app called Falcon Pro, appeals to […]
John Key’s resignation? Pretty bold prediction, John.
In violation of the inverted pyramid model of news writing (most important factoids & points at the top) NZ Herald political writer John Armstrong buried his strongest line in the third-to-last paragraph of his narrative of Kim Dotcom’s appearance at the NZ Parliament’s Intelligence and Security committee last night: Outside the hearing, Dotcom accused Key […]
Sports mascots as racial stereotyping? (Or is that being ‘precious’?)
There’s a fascinating discussion — on Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish website — with input from all sides about the use of Native Americans and other groups as sports mascots. Have a read of it, if that subject interests you. I was struck by the National Congress of American Indians‘ effective use of substitution and juxtaposition to […]
“In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers … It is afraid of an informed, angry public …”
via the WikiLeaks website: Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others […]
Seriously folks, try using the DuckDuckGo search engine instead of Google
At the risk of sounding like a gushing fanboy, I want to encourage you to at least give a trial to the DuckDuckGo search engine. It’s here: https://duckduckgo.com I blogged about it last year here: (Default search engines, privacy … and trying alternatives to Google) and all that’s happened is that it’s gotten better and […]
Miss Tibet
Now this was a surprise … Beauty pageant as political statement? (And spot the inner beauty/outer beauty point.) What do you think? – P
