I hadn’t seen this ’til this morning … wow! Take a look at this octopus footage …
Good comment on YouTube: “Those indie octopus film-makers will resort to any means to get equipment.” LOL
(Video below the fold to stop the youtube code slowing down this page) Continue reading →
You may (or may not) recall my posts ‘More deceitful photoshopping‘ and ‘Re-touching to the point of distortion‘ which sought to highlight the distortion of ideas and images of modern-day ‘beauty’ — thus setting an unattainable target for young women wanting to groom themselves to be ‘better looking’.
(Jenna Marbles’s ‘How to trick people into thinking you’re good-looking‘ video is a classic! Warning: coarse language.)
Well, look at this: Fox News host/hottie Megyn Kelly (who recently denied Fox News carries Nazi rhetoric — apparently without irony) was recently featured in a ‘gentlemens magazine’ … attracting the new media equivalent of wolf-whistles for her, erm, appearance.
It wasn’t until I was looking for a graphic of Ms Kelly (to, ahem, illustrate my blog post, I assure you) that I came across this report that on styleite.com that said GQ had photoshopped ‘half her face away’. Blimey. Take a look:
DISTORTING BEAUTY: styleite.com blows the whistle (click for link)
I think she’s beautiful enough without this trashy, deceitful fiddling. What do you think?
I see in the US a clumsy someone’s launched a class action lawsuit against Apple over the ‘durability’ of the iPhone 4 glass screens … not tough enough for some butter fingers.
Funny, I’ve had iPhones for a few years, including the iPhone 4 and haven’t damaged them. Lucky, I guess.
That said, on the TV news I spotted Dave Gibson, leader of NZ band Elemeno P using his iPhone 3GS to check Facebook comments about his band not being ‘Christian-enough’ for the Parachute Christian Music Festival they are headlining at … oops. (Apparently it’s the second one he’s broken! Rock stars!)
Dave Gibson's smashed iPhone still works! (image TVNZ - click to watch video)
Let’s face it: ‘Durable’ doesn’t mean ‘indestructible’.
Psion Series 5 — not tough enough IMO.
Not that I’m completely unsympathetic, I broke TWO then state-of-the-art Psion Series 5 organisers in pretty tame accidents (like, bag fell off chair in cafe). Its much-more-robust predecessor, the Series 3, I dropped off my car roof onto concrete with hardly a blemish … a couple of times(!) The Series 5 just wasn’t robust enough in the housing — not shockproof enough. But we didn’t sue them. (My wife broke the screen of her Palm Tungsten once, too. Gee. we’re starting to sound as clumsy as the Californian litigant!) My iPhones have fared pretty well so far.
What’s your experience?
This ‘operation’ falls into the same dubious half-light as the murky ‘Domain Registration’ scams where plausible-looking documents offering to register your domain for, er, let’s call it uncompetitive prices are sprayed around looking for suckers.
Low-ball share buyer Bernard Whimp has made close to $300,000 through an offer made to Vector shareholders by his limited partnership Energy Securities. The energy company yesterday said more than 300 of its investors had accepted an offer to sell their shares at a price that was significantly less than their market value.
Companies associated with Whimp, a former Christchurch property developer who is now registered to a Sydney address, sent letters to shareholders in seven large listed companies between Christmas and New Year.
Vector, Telecom, Fletcher Building and TrustPower investors were among those targeted with offers to purchase shares at a discount of up to 43 per cent on the market price.
Yesterday Vector said 373,209 shares, or 0.15 per cent of their shares that are available for trading, had been sold to Whimp’s company.
Energy Securities had offered $1.56 per share – 34 per cent less than the $2.36 they were trading at on the market on December 29. The difference in the offer price and the listed price could have netted Energy Securities $298,567.
Vector chairman Michael Stiassny said he was concerned shareholders had unwittingly sold their shares at a rate below market value. “These shareholders did not receive a fair price for their shares and that absolutely galls me,” he said. Stiassny said that while it was up to individuals to make their own investment decisions the board was concerned at the style in which the share offer was made.
Read on at the NZ Herald.
Of course, I’m sure Low-ball share buyer Bernard Whimp (who has previously used limited partnerships to get around a four-year ban on holding directorships that ended in October) sees nothing wrong with what he does.
Someone called Bernard Whimp didn’t see his actions as wrong in this case, Bernard Terence Whimp v The Queen either. Read the Supreme Court judgement here (PDF)
Key quote: Continue reading →
Impressive and worth watching — Rachel Maddow on CNN’s decision to air what they (CNN) described as the ‘OFFICIAL Tea Party response’ to Obama’s State of the Nation speech:
CNN presented an alternate reality of their own making, one in which their debate partner officially speaks for the Tea Party and in which the Tea Party is a co-equal third party of equal stature to the Democrats and the Republicans… and CNN has a competitive and potentially financial interest in selling you that alternate reality as if it is news.
Pretty tough words, but justified, I think. Video below the fold Continue reading →
I mentioned in a comment the news that Rahm Emanuel’s bid for his ‘dream job’ of Mayor of Chicago had hit a snag. Of course the split decision by the Appellate Court to boot him off the ballot for the election is being appealed. (Who wouldn’t?)
Rahm Emanuel campaigning (AP photo)
But now, it appears the narrative is undergoing a transformation. From Emanuel as well-monied (some say ‘outsider’) frontrunner … to Emanuel the oppressed underdog fighting the fight for democracy and the people of Chicago’s right to ‘decide‘ who’ll be their mayor.
As Albert Huber, ‘Follower of Chicago politics’ writes in the Huffington Post:
Voices in the op-ed pages have moved him from the frontrunner to the heroic and oppressed warrior. Now he is just a man who wants to give the people their right to vote but is being blocked by those pesky courts. He gets to carry the sword of Democracy against America’s favorite branch of government to scapegoat. This explains why one of the most pro-big business, largest money candidates was able to get 200 people to brave the bitter cold, hold signs, and chant slogans in an act that is usually reserved for underdogs.
But now Emanuel gets to be exactly that, the underdog, and everybody loves an underdog. No matter which way the Supreme Court rules, the Appellate Court’s decision will be good for Emanuel’s public image. If they rule against him, he will be a martyr for democracy put on the cross of judicial politics. If they rule in his favor, he will enter the election in February having fought through a fire of bureaucratic technicalities and a system that was against him only to emerge victorious. What’s more Chicago than that?
Nice — especially the description of ‘those pesky courts’.
Of course his political opponents and other detractors simply point to the question: Does he fulfil the statutory requirements to qualify to be a candidate? Which is a good question that demands a good answer. ‘Intent’ is so rubbery.
+
UPDATE:
In what’s been called ‘a scorching smack-down of the appellate court‘ the Illinois Supreme Court voted 7-0 to reverse the disqualification of Emanuel on residency grounds. From the judgement:
Although adopting a previously unheard-of test for residency that would have applied to all future municipal elections, the court made no attempt to explain what its standard means. The only hint given by the appellate court is that, whatever its standard means, this candidate did not satisfy it. The appellate court never explained what it meant by “actually reside” or “actually live.” Indeed, as its discussion of section 3.1-10-5(d) reflects, the entire appellate court opinion can be read as nothing more than an extended exercise in question begging, in which the appellate court sets forth the question to be answered as what it means to “reside” (No. 1-11-0033, slip op. at 11), and concludes that it means to have “actually resided”
Full story with links to judgement at Huffington Post
Very interesting article Dealing With Assange and the Secrets He Spilled by Bill Keller in the NY Times.
Julian Assange: "...smart and well educated, extremely adept technologically but arrogant, thin-skinned, conspiratorial and oddly credulous." - NY Times (click)
The reporters had begun preliminary work on the Afghanistan field reports, using a large Excel spreadsheet to organize the material, then plugging in search terms and combing the documents for newsworthy content. They had run into a puzzling incongruity: Assange said the data included dispatches from the beginning of 2004 through the end of 2009, but the material on the spreadsheet ended abruptly in April 2009. A considerable amount of material was missing.
Assange, slipping naturally into the role of office geek, explained that they had hit the limits of Excel. Open a second spreadsheet, he instructed. They did, and the rest of the data materialized — a total of 92,000 reports from the battlefields of Afghanistan.
At one point Keller describes Wikileaks as “a secretive cadre of antisecrecy vigilantes”… doh, Bill, who’s being ‘credulous’ now? What do you expect? Of course they’re secretive! Just like journalists hunting a story or working up confirming sources. (The NY Times and other media granted access Der Speigel and The Guardian, set up a password-protected “conveniently searchable and secure database” for the WikiLeaks material and “Back in New York we assembled a team of reporters, data experts and editors and quartered them in an out-of-the-way office.”)
Add to that the very real aspect of the ‘intelligence’ manhunt/vendetta against Assange, and yeah, I think they have every right to be ‘secretive’ … or even ‘paranoid’ as discussed here earlier … and seems justified? Bill Keller:
An air of intrigue verging on paranoia permeated the project, perhaps understandably, given that we were dealing with a mass of classified material and a source who acted like a fugitive, changing crash pads, e-mail addresses and cellphones frequently. We used encrypted Web sites. Reporters exchanged notes via Skype, believing it to be somewhat less vulnerable to eavesdropping. On conference calls, we spoke in amateurish code. Assange was always “the source.” The latest data drop was “the package.” When I left New York for two weeks to visit bureaus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where we assume that communications may be monitored, I was not to be copied on message traffic about the project. I never imagined that any of this would defeat a curious snoop from the National Security Agency or Pakistani intelligence. And I was never entirely sure whether that prospect made me more nervous than the cyberwiles of WikiLeaks itself. At a point when relations between the news organizations and WikiLeaks were rocky, at least three people associated with this project had inexplicable activity in their e-mail that suggested someone was hacking into their accounts.
Read it at NYTImes.com
There’s a very nice interview with singer-singwriter Don McLean over at the Sunday Star Times in the lead up to his NZ tour.
image: via CNN (click)
I like what he says about not ‘explaining’ his lyrics after the fact…
“Songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.”
I saw him in concert in Wellington a few years back. He is a class act, a real minstrel/troubadour (a ‘lone wolf’ he told Julie Dann in the interview) …. and for many of us, those songs are inside you, part of your personal history.
Go, if you’re thinking about it or you’re even half-interested.
He is very good.
I’d heard that Fox News’s photogenic and intelligent host Megyn Kelly (who I have before observed deny reality) categorically denied that Fox News carries pundits and commentators using Nazi rhetoric to hammer political opponents (which we sometimes refer to here as Godwin’s Law).
Maybe she’s talking about a different Fox News?
Here’s Jon Stewart, playfully pointing out the nonsense in her refusal to acknowledge the truth. (video below the fold) Continue reading →
Havi Brooks and Selma (theFluentSelf.com - click)
From one of my favourite, favourite people on the interwebs, Havi Brooks (theFluentSelf.com) recently:
We all have our stuff.
We’re all working on our stuff.
It’s a process.
*Sigh.*
So true Havi. Thanks for the reminder. – P
PS Havi’s list ‘Some things I have learned about sovereignty‘ is absolutely golden.
An interesting article about Mark Twain impersonators in the New York Times was illustrated with this fabulous photo by Candice Nyando:
Click to read this article at NYTimes.com
Read the article at NYTimes.com
More ‘comment’ about Shaun Stenning’s Twalk and the Asian ‘refund movement’ …
Lesson: 'I've understand that there's no such thing as quick bucks in internet marketing world.'
Ru shares her five ‘lessons learned from his program’ … and asks a few questions which I think will be typical of people caught up in the Shaun Stenning roadshow.
Here’s a sneak preview:
Lesson 1: “…understand that there’s no such thing as quick bucks in internet marketing world”.
Hang on. Isn’t that the exact opposite of what he and his gaggle actually preach?
Read the full post here.
My questions…
(Thanks to MK for the link.)
Mopping up those pesky blog comments (oh, and images, logos, photos, videos ... and emails ... Crikey.)
For what they’re worth:
I make no claims whatsoever about the veracity of these clauses, which were sent to me as part of documentation supposedly prepared to settle the ‘refund movement‘ affecting Shaun Stenning‘s Twalk get-rich-quick-through-the-internet scheme in Indonesia. (Malaysia and Singapore are still in flux, I’ve been told.)
The documents, while extraordinary as you’ll see when you read them, certainly seem plausible to me (or I wouldn’t publish these extracts). I feel I recognise the wording and sentiments from other documents I have perused.
See what you make of them yourself … and ask yourself:
Does this rigamarole seem like ‘normal business practice’ when refunding a dissatisfied customer?
Or does it seem to go quite a bit further?
(I know what I think.)
6 Confidentiality and disparagement
6.1 Confidentiality
The contents of this Deed or the Agreement are confidential and each party must not disclose them to any person or corporation except:
(a) to another party to this Deed or the party’s legal adviser;
(b) if required by law, a regulator, the requirements of any stock exchange or a self regulating organisation which has jurisdiction over a party; or
(c) with the prior written consent of each other party.6.2 No disparagement
Each party agrees not to make any comments to any third party on any medium, including but not limited to internet blogs, which denigrate or disparage the other or otherwise make any statement, or permit or authorise any statement to be made, which is calculated or reasonably likely to damage the reputation or cause other damage: (i) the other party and their Related Bodies Corporate and each of their, directors, officers, employees and agents, past and present; and (ii) Twalk, the Program or any other product or service provided by Armidale.
….6.4 Removal Of Comments Undertakings
(a) On and from the date of this Deed, Client and TDW must immediately remove:
(i) All public comment made about the program, Armidale or its related entities, employees, contractors, directors or sub-contractors from any internet site including but not limited to facebook, blogs or forums. Continue reading →
Sports broadcaster Martin Devlin has outed himself as the “celebrity” in the Auckland disorderly-behaviour name suppression case.
I was happier ignorant, thanks stuff.co.nz Here’s a reality check;
Devlin said he had been described in the media as a “household name”.
“I think we all agree that description is totally inaccurate.”
Yup. Much ado about nothing.
SURPRISE! Watch this video of Great White sharks using the element of surprise to catch hapless Cape Fur seals who are forced to cross a narrow strip of shark-infested water (literally) to go fishing for their own food. Amazing. (STUNNING 3 min video below the fold)
from the BBC Documentry Planet Earth
