/ blog · 2007
Archive
Posts from 2004 to 2017. This was a personal blog during a fairly chaotic decade in independent publishing — some of it tech commentary, some of it Australia, some of it ephemera. It’s kept here in full for anyone who arrives via an old link.
Current writing lives at SiliconANGLE.
Just what the world needs: A Twitter Clone
Scoble reports the Leo Laporte has switched to Jaiku, a Twitter clone. Already I’m seeing messages there from new signups thanking both Scoble + Laporte. Does the world need another Twitter? I’m finding keeping up on Twitter hard enough as it is, imagine having to do it on two sites, or three, or more? And […]
An open apology: I was wrong.
On March 28 I wrote a post pointing out that Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been duped by a clever person running a site called popuri..a site which I alleged ran on a script that could be bought for $20. Turns out I was wrong, totally wrong, and hence I openly apologise to all readers. […]
Nearly time to drop the Poor Photographer tag
I spent some time Thursday at Perth Zoo with my new camera, a Panasonic DMC-FZ50. Amazing what you can do with a decent bit of technology, certainly it might be time to drop the poor photographer tag, 10mgp with 12x optical zoom really makes for some half decent shots. More on my Flickr account.
TV: where Australia still lags far behind the US
From a Wired Report on TV: “According to Nielsen, the average consumer [in the United States] now has access to 104 traditional TV channels” Lets see. I’ve got 10, and only because I live on an estate that rebroadcasts a couple of free to air satellite channels across the estate SBS,ABC,Seven,Nine,Ten,GWN,WIN,Now,Bloomberg & ABC 2. The […]
Western Australia now the most taxed state
SMH: WA takes lead as heaviest taxer Absolutely disgraceful. When I moved here nearly 10 years ago WA was one of the lowest taxing states in the nation, if not the lowest. Unfortunately the only way to avoid taxes here now is to not undertaken any transactions that involve paperwork: for memory our stamp duty […]
Acer Vista Scam?
It’s April and I’m still waiting for my free Vista upgrade from Acer, sent the proof off two months ago, nothing back, rung, they told me to send an email, sent email, no response. Has Acer in Australia run a scam here? time to call DOCEP or the ACCC maybe? Hopefully someone from Acer in […]
TechCrunch duped again?
Arrington covers Sonopia. It’s an affiliate program with a little touch of custom branding based on the affiliate. I’ve seen similar offerings before. In 1998. TechCrunch duped again, or a slow Web 2.0 newsweek? who knows, but credit to those getting the coverage.
Wii outsells PS3 + XBox 360 in Feb
Latest US sales figures via El Reg: “According to market watcher NPD, some 335,000 Wiis were sold in the US in February. Microsoft sold 228,000 Xbox 360s and Sony 127,000 PS3s. Nintendo was just 20,000 units short of outselling both its rivals put together.” Overall figures to date: “Americans have bought around 5m 360s, to […]
The 2007 Federal Election will be fought on WorkChoices
Attended Capelfest yesterday, one of the biggest local annual fairs held in the South West of Western Australia. The Liberal Candidate wasn’t in attendance. Pure stupidity, Forrest might have a 10% margin but she won’t have the advantage of incumbency and if the swing is on the seat could easily be tight…even lost. The ALP […]
Australian Tsunami Crisis?
Tsunami Warnings for the entirity of the East Coast. Struth. Probably will be nothing more than a slight tidal surge (20-30cm), but reports coming in are saying people in Cairns are heading to high ground. More soon…possibly.
April fools day moved to March 31: Arrington
TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington today announced that April Fools Day was now moving to March 31. Arrington said in the statement that thousands of years of tradition meant nothing to him, because TechCrunch has a larger combined viewing audience than all the traditionalists in the world combined. “April 1 has never been a good date in […]
Open Source in Trouble?
If this is what Open Source can do, then maybe I need to drop Firefox for IE 🙂 Sort of reminds you of the episode of the Simpsons wher Homer builds a car, doesn’t it 🙂
Ian Thorpe a drug cheat?
SMH: “Thorpe’s drug test ‘positive’“ This one will be interesting. Thorpe is an Australian Hero and now it looks like he was taking persian rugs…the irony of it all.
Gun Crazy
Video over on Chris Pirillo’s blog. Sickening. Totally sickening. I’m hesitant to start another flame war on guns, but I’ll repeat what I’ve said previously, and note that this is coming from someone who’s politics has always been slightly right of centre, and in a classical sense closest to libertarian: US gun policy is crazy. […]
Why are TXT messages so expensive
Consumerist does the math on TXT messaging, and finds there is a 7314% markup in the US. Given Telstra/ Optus often charge 25c (AUD), sometimes more depending on the plan, the markup in Australia is even worse again. Of course a lot of it is due to the thieving all three major carriers partake in […]
US Spelling is a pain
Posted at 901am today on Bush quoting bloggers. Headline “President quotes bloggers in Iraq defense”, but is it right? In normal (ie not US) English the last word would be defence, and that’s how I originally wrote the post until the “I have to convert this to US English because of the site” part of […]
Is Dave Winer search engine spamming?
This post at Scripting.com Notice the link in the 4th paragraph for Russo & Hale. Not having a go at Dave on this, I’d be doing the same thing in his situation, but it’s interesting to see the godfather of blogging undertaking SEO on posts to hijack Google in terms of his enemies business name. […]
My AuctionAds gripe
I wrote a couple of weeks back that I was going to give Jeremy Schoemaker’s AuctionAds a spin, it certainly looked promising. Now admittedly I haven’t rolled it out beyond one small site because of this: The thing is, because AuctionAds isn’t contextual it’s near on hopeless unless you’ve got a very, very targeted niche […]
Bloggers make JibJab
Lastest clip from JibJab, Chris Pirillo, Michael Arrington and Robert Scoble can spot Kabul on a map….well I guess two out of three isn’t bad 🙂 (via Steve Rubel)
How to get listed on TechCrunch for $20
Amazing. Simply Amazing. TechCrunch reviews Popuri, a site that provides a list of data like backlinks in Google, Yahoo and others. LifeHacker then reviews the same site. Here’s the thing, there is NOTHING special about Popuri at all, accept that they’ve given the site a trendy sounding Web 2.0 URL and a lite lick of […]