Author Archive
Laughing all the way to the Banks
‘Insufficient evidence’ From one Banksy to another — Police have decided they won’t prosecute ACT Party leader and sole MP John Banks for [alleged] electoral law offences relating to him improperly declaring tens of thousands of dollars of campaign donations as ‘anonymous’ when he’d personally solicited those very donations … because they can’t prove he […]
London Olympics. Of course Banksy will contribute
Subversive graffiti artist, thought-provoker and social commentator Banksy appears to be, erm, making his mark … With this: … and this: So far. via Fast Company.
Margaret Mahy lived the dream. And then some.
What an inspiration she was. Making a living from her wits. And so much more. Haere ra Margaret Mahy. Thank you. – P
Ask Jay Rosen …
I mentioned recently in ‘Declaring where you’re coming from‘ how thought-provoking I find some of what NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen has to say about the present and unfolding future of news media journalism. Here, via Andrew Sullivan is a link to a work-in-progress: Ask Jay Rosen Anything It’s also worth following some of Andrew’s […]
When celebrity stalking becomes something else
Some of us of have heard of the email tracking service ReadNotify. Former National Party insider and ACC claimant-whistleblower-conversation recorder-lightning rod Bronwyn Pullar used it or something like it to ‘trace’ her emails to ACC (and who knows whom or where else?) and demonstrate, at least to her own satisfaction, that they’d been opened. Repeatedly. Here’s […]
Preventing cyberstalking and breaches of privacy
We’ve been discussing cyberstalking and the abuse of private information on the web at an individual level. (hint: You want private? Don’t put it on the web!) But there’s more to it than unguarded Facebook comments and anonymous trolling. I remember I first made Jacqueline’s acquaintance here at The Paepae after I commented on the […]
Corrosion
Two unrelated (except that they’re comments about American poltiicians) excerpts from articles that jumped out at me recently. As they do. First, from What if he’d made it earlier? David Runciman’s (London Review of Books) review of the latest instalment in Robert Caro’s epic record of LBJ The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. IV: The […]
Judge David Harvey spikes ‘the enemy’ guns
David Lange once said, ‘He who lives by the quip, dies by the quip’. “The problem is not technology. The problem is behaviour. We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Justice David Harvey at NetHui Judge David Harvey’s later pun about the United States being ‘the enemy’ in a discussion about the […]
Flacks will always try this on. Resist.
The New York Times reports in a vaguely-nauseating article ‘Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back‘ on the increasing use of ‘quote approval’ by the US presidential campaigns as a condition of interviews with people associated with the campaigns. I’ve never agreed to that request when asked by ‘newsmakers’ at all levels, or […]
The Warrior – by Chuck Girard
I mentioned Chuck Girard’s album Written on the Wind recently as part of my eclectic musical ‘heritage’. My pal Graeme and I remembered Girard (who always struck me as a lost Beach Boy) and a few of his fellow inspirers like Barry McGuire and Larry Norman at lunch today… so I pulled this track up, […]
There goes the whole appeal of Facebook for some personality types … well, not really
In the same way that locks are only really designed to keep out honest people, this ‘dramatic’ change to how Facebook operates will, in reality, be of minimal effect. We’ve discussed the (lack of) privacy of material posted on the world’s largest social network before. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, some people gotta SNOOP. […]
IDEA: Turning payphones into free Wi-fi hotspots
Read at gigaom: New York starts turning payphones into free Wi-fi hotspots Smart idea. -P
Someone who asks questions for a living does a good job of answering some
From one of the most thoughtful and illuminating* ‘Twelve Questions’ columns I’ve read … NZ Herald: Knowing what you know now about the media, would you still want to be a journalist if you were starting out in 2012? Anita McNaught: It has changed, but with a few reservations I love the way it has […]
Bad behaviour online – NetHui
These notes (by Nat Torkington @gnat — available as google doc here) are from discussion/part of Judge David Harvey‘s presentation at Nethui underway now in Auckland. They directly touch on some of the recent discussion we’ve had on the topic of online free speech and harassment. [Harvey:] This session looking at bad behaviour online. Law […]
