Cool!
-P
Nothing like a clear rule
Spotted this sign as we were paying for lunch yesterday.
– P
iOS7 — no worries
Every now and then one has to ignore the doomsayers.
Earlier today I downloaded and installed Apple’s new mobile operating system iOS7 on my iPhone (5) and iPad (2). No issues.
Of course, now I’m reading about a worldwide internet traffic spike and terrible delays and Apple’s servers being ‘slammed’ and yada yada … There was a while there when my devices couldn’t get a straight answer from the App Store about which of their apps needed updating. But that’s no big thang, is it?
It works. And the new look/functionality is growing on me.
– P
Inconclusive
A friend tweeted a link to this AAP/NZ Herald story about research into coffee drinking, with the ALARMING headline… Coffee quaffers face increased death risk: study
As someone who, from long years of practice, knows how to repeatedly give up drinking coffee (i.e. I’m imbibing again, at present) reading it made me queasy — but not for the obvious reasons.
No, it was the terrible inconclusiveness of the ‘study’ typified by this statement about the (supposed) increased mortality of ‘heavy’ coffee drinkers:
“It could be the coffee, but it could just as easily be things that heavy coffee drinkers do,” says The University of Queensland’s Dr Carl Lavie.
Wha? The whole article is a bit like that, with a double-mindedness that makes me (a) laugh and (b) think it shouldn’t have been reported. That line, “It could be the coffee …” Well! Spare me.
Read it at NZ Herald … and see what you think.
– P
Here’s the story political journos fixated with sports metaphors missed yesterday
I got bored quickly with the boxing/gladiatorial references to Parliament’s Question Time yesterday.
Apparently it was David Cunliffe’s first QT as Leader of the Opposition. The coverage I saw was largely a (sad) case of style being reported over substance.
Having earlier in the day defended Patrick Gower’s ‘colour’ and instability, I was intrigued and, yes, disappointed with his ‘reporting’ on the six o’clock news. It seemed like a comedy skit more appropriate for Hamish & Andy or another laddish prank show rather than the network news.
Patrick Gower focussed on Cunliffe’s verbal faux pas (mixing up the words Chorus and caucus) and mocked Labour’s clear use of a talking point (Robertson replaced by Parker as deputy leader by ‘mutual’ agreement).
Bokay. As 3News ‘political editor’, that’s Patrick’s call — but it seems apparent he is pursuing an agenda to demean the Labour Party and its leader. Which, speaking as someone with no dog in the fight, is interesting to watch from the sidelines. In a slow-motion-car-crash kind of way. (I wonder how it will end?)
But by indulging his inner Jono Pryor last night, Patrick missed the real political story right in front of his nose. Fairfax’s Chalkie (veteran business editor Tim Hunter) spotted it …
Click to read the story at stuff.co.nz — including the observation (spoiler alert): “Chalkie must conclude that Key is talking codswallop, presumably for political reasons.”
There’s a ‘bubble’ effect, where a politician gets accustomed to deference from his underlings (if not obsequiousness). It can make them lazy, intolerant of dissent or correction, and casual with the truth. We’ve seen that.
But now and then, the bubble gets wedged up against reality. Throwaway remarks (or ‘codswallop’ as Hunter says) can awkwardly come back to bite. Continue reading →
Putting a name to Patrick Gower’s um, mischief-making
No Big Deal, but it was interesting to see how Patrick Gower described his own actions:
Click to read at Storify.com
Paddy Gower: “I was being mischievous.” ORLY?
The TV3 political journo seems to excite tremendous personal criticism every now and then — from various sides — for his attempts to ‘beat up’ or (as his critics allege) to create a story. (Quelle horreur!)
Left-wingers who whinge about him (see what I did there?) should, I think, recall how he has at times been a thorn in the side of the right.
Who can forget the ‘deceitful bastard‘ label Don Brash plastered on him? (With good cause? Dr Brash would say so.) But that was hardly a badge of shame for a journalist, it seems to me. Almost the opposite, in fact. Journalists — along with politicians — remain stubbornly at the bottom of lists of professions (cough) people trust.
Patrick Gower, along with his equally dodgem-like amigo Duncan Garner, has been part of the political education of many a naive and aspiring member of parliament. It was Michael Hastings (RIP) the journalist who exposed General Stanley McChrystal’s gung-ho attitude to pesky things like the chain of command who said, famously, in the aftermath of his Rolling Stone article:
Having a journalist around is like having a pet bear. Most of the time it’s really cool, but once in a while it’ll bite your hand off.
Political operator: The NZ Prime Minister’s chief of staff Wayne Eagleson defending himself and his staff from allegations they improperly influenced the Parliamentary Service and invaded a journalist’s privacy.
It may not be popular for me to say this, but I think a little bit of instability and unpredictability can be A Very Good Thing in political journalism. It can be good to keep the over-resourced, taxpayer-funded spin doctors, media manipulataors, political operators, advisors and ‘activists’ (paid or unpaid) — especially those of the government of the day — off-balance now and then.
Yes, Patrick is a loose cannon. Sure. (Remember this entertaining spiel? Wonderful!) In my view, he’s driven by ambitions and appetites of the sort that have always been part of the journalistic psyche. If he was, as some seem to wish, subdued into docile stenography, I think our political landscape would be the poorer for it. God knows we need ‘characters’ like him. Warts and all. That said, Patrick operates on a knife’s edge. He’s on a high-wire. Especially approaching an election where the stakes are high. Never forget it. Dicking around such as recorded in the trivial twitter banter above (“I was being mischievous”) to my mind, erodes a viewer’s confidence. Am I wrong?
Please read this NY Times column — ‘The Banality of Systematic Evil’
Goodness me, I just want to quote the whole thing! Gah!
Please, if you care about these issues of whistle-blowing and state surveillance (as I do) go and read this article by Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University writing in the NY Times:
The Banality of Systemic Evil
… In a June Op-Ed in The Times, David Brooks made a case for why he thought [Edward] Snowden was wrong to leak information about the Prism surveillance program. His reasoning cleanly framed the alternative to the moral code endorsed by Swartz, Manning and Snowden. “For society to function well,” he wrote, “there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.”
The complaint is eerily parallel to one from a case discussed in “Moral Mazes,” where an accountant was dismissed because he insisted on reporting “irregular payments, doctored invoices, and shuffling numbers.” The complaint against the accountant by the other managers of his company was that “by insisting on his own moral purity … he eroded the fundamental trust and understanding that makes cooperative managerial work possible.”
But wasn’t there arrogance or hubris in Snowden’s and Manning’s decisions to leak the documents? Continue reading →
On vulgar, irrational, deceitful misinformation campaigns
This, from Jon Stewart talking about Fox News, put me in mind of some of the oily local propagandists and liars who demonstrate a similar nasty, negative, fixation with ‘the left’ and reflexively spin their personal attack lines against public and private figures who represent it …
After showing a montage of Fox clips, Stewart asked “If we caught Charlie Manson, who gives a sh*t who gets the collar?” He continued: “And I get that Fox opposes a Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless and irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic succubus-like existence.”
via Newshounds.
I don’t buy the ‘all’s fair in love and war’ approach some take to political discourse.
Heart-stopping near capsize
Leading edge technology can be unstable. But this morning’s near capsize was just TOO unstable. I thought I was about to see AC72 Aotearoa go over … whew!
Yeah, well. Jeez.
Neighbours
You’re not really in control of how your next door neighbour … decorates their building.
I spotted this contrast on a trip to Wellington recently. I like the zebra pattern. But is it ‘simpatico’ with the pop-top architecture and retrofitted balconies next door?
Or are they both cheap and ugly?
– P
Free speech does not mean consequence-free speech
(image: kenanmalik.wordpress.com – click)
From the comments stream following an article by Mathew Ingram Public shaming and free speech: Why the rush to attack Pax Dickinson makes me nervous (worth a read):
Um? Pax Dickinson is free to say whatever he likes. And when his free speech potentially exposes his employers to legal ramifications of that speech, they are free to part ways with him. No one’s right to speak has been impaired here. Making this a free speech issue badly misses the mark.
I think part of the problem here is a category error, in that Mr Dickinson probably believed that his audience was primarily made up of people much like himself, “brogrammers” who would be amused and not offended by his jokes. It’s possible – even likely – that his tweets seem playful in the right context. However, on twitter, EVERYONE can hear you. Twitter has no context. And it behooves someone with a C-suite position at a very public-facing company to watch what he says in public. Else he may lose that C-suite employ. That is a normal social consequence.
Free speech does not mean consequence-free speech. Adults are free to say whatever they like. And they are also free to face the consequences of that speech. [emphasis added]
— commenter ‘Subway Suicide’ Friday, September 13 2013
Yeah, I’ve copped it for stuff I’ve said online, and castigated others for their so-‘published’ comments. Continue reading →
A note on embracing storms
Spotted in Howick this afternoon — a little bit of wisdom from another age (or New Age?)
This is good advice. Rather than indulging our reflexive fight/flight/freeze instincts when we strike conflict, it’s best to look for ways to meet other people’s interests — and get your own needs met.
Sometimes that means compromise. It doesn’t have to be sour, or bitter.
Sometimes it means standing in scorn. We’ve discussed that before. Be true.
I’ve learned (and continue to learn) that negotiation is the key business life skill.
I’m flawed, at times volatile, and my behaviour can be seen as ‘too emotional’ at times, but I’m strongly committed to seeking agreement by negotiation, where I can.
The hostile alternatives are often extremely unpalatable. To all sides.
– P
‘Space gray’? Where have I heard that before? Oh, yes.
Apple has announced a new iPhone model — discontinuing mine in the process. (Does that make it a collectors item? Yep.)
The new iPhone 5S comes in three colours: Silver, Gold, and Black, er, Slate, er, ‘Space Gray‘. What?
Apple’s new iPhone 5S – in ‘space gray’. (pic: Apple – click)
I knew I’d heard that colour description before …
BMW i8 Spyder in ‘space gray’. (pic: autoevolution.com – click)
Ah. Stickin’ with the top end marketing programme I see.
– P
Wow. British Wildlife Photography Award 2013
This photo by George Karbus won the overall British Wildlife Photography Award 2013:
Photo by George Karbus (source: BBC – click)
The beauty of Britain’s wildlife is celebrated as the winners of the British Wildlife Photography Awards are announced. This incredible encounter titled ‘In the living room’ was the overall winner and submitted by George Karbus who said: “Water visibility is always very limited in Ireland, and I was very lucky to get a shot like this.”
I love images of dolphins, for reasons I’ll explain another time.
– P
via BBC
It’s approaching double entendre, and, yeah, made me chuckle.
I spotted this advertising display at the foot of an escalator today.
“I control what bounces around here.” Hahaha. Nice.
Nuthin’ exploitative about that. (Seriously.) Good on Serena Williams.
– P
