/ blog · 2008
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.
Worst Ballmer interview ever
No, Steve Ballmer actually did a really good job, but the questions had more than a lot to be desired. I caught this originally in the car, and the News Radio announcer continually referred to Ballmer as Bal-a-mer, and I knew it was just going to get worse from there. Here’s some choice questions from […]
YouTube’s geotargeting beyond sucks
So I was trying to view a post on the YouTube blog tonight here. Simple exercise you might thing, but YouTube has decided that any time I visit it, on ANY browser (so it’s not cookie related), I should be redirected to YouTube Australia. No major deal with video content, given the swap out is […]
An end to the politics of old
Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. Voters have rejected the negative politics of McCain over something more positive. Today’s coverage on The Inquisitr Obama Victory Speech Obama Wins Election CNN Hologram Exit polls show economy number one election issue (update: Obama up) Election Results
We’re F*cked
So on Melbourne Cup day, the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates by 75 basis points, or 0.75%, on top of the 100 basis points, or 1% cut last month. We’re f*cked. Nearly 2% in 2 months….nothing I can remember in my life time. Massive economic stimulus attempt that could have only been based […]
Melbourne Cup tips
My first year in Melbourne for the Melbourne Cup….and I’m not attending. Wife + son home, turns out schools and workplaces make the Melbourne Cup public holiday (yes, it’s a public holiday for a horse race here) into a 4 day long weekend. Maybe next year 🙂 Camberwell is quieter then Easter…and there’s less shops […]
How Obama is to the right in an Australian sense
The 2008 US Presidential election is getting unprecedented coverage in Australia. The Presidential debates were covered live here on major stations, and our television news, online news, radio and newspaper news is giving the elections serious coverage. But how do the two sides compare in an Australian sense? Not everyone in Australia is following the […]
Lost Message
Alex Scoble today proved my point in raising the issue of civility on FriendFeed. For the record, I didn’t say Alex was stupid, I said his hate the rich meme was (and scary, weird and far to the left…which it is), other than that he’s been a great member of FriendFeed and I’ve enjoyed following […]
The sky is falling….in Melbourne
No, not the dollar dropping to 60c, or the auction rate below 50%. No, red dust. Lots of it. The Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, least Camberwell, Canterbury and Hawthorn, have woken up to find everything covered in red dust. On my car is looks like rain…and it’s a little sticky as well Not sure if […]
Pete Murray So Beautiful
I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of this song. PS: Grooveshark FTW. How people are writing about Lala and not Grooveshark is beyond me.
The McCain-Palin Mob
I know what some critics have said: you can probably find a loony bunch of Obama supporters as well, but no one can watch this video and not be staggered by its contents. These aren’t your typical red-neck hicks, these look like middle class, average white folk, clean cut, some well dressed. Just…just….
Top Gear Australia fails because it’s just a car show
Two episodes in, and it looks like Top Gear Australia is in some serious trouble, dropping 250,000 viewers to come in a 674,000 viewers and last in its time slot. It may be an SBS show, but this is an SBS that does advertising now, and it relies on viewers to work that; low viewers, […]
Change starts from the ground up
On September 8 I wrote a post observing a noticeable difference in Australian politics of late: that voters were sick and tired of negative politics, are were looking for positives, and this showed in recent election results. I put the question to the American test, noting that Obama was running a far more positive campaign […]
Blog commenting: I guess I’m wired differently
Darren Rowse at Problogger has a great post up today where he asked “10 Prolific Bloggers” to share advice on how they make their blogs more conversational, although the question sent via email read “How do you foster conversation on your blog?” 9 out 10 bloggers talked about tricks in posts, such as being controversial, […]
Grand Theft Hypocrisy
News.com.au reports on the ABC being forced to apologize over Tony Jones suggesting in an episode of Q&A that computer games aren’t rated in Australia. Pretty much a non-story, even if it is on the front page of news.com.au, but given I’ve never watched the show, there was one part that flawed me: During the […]
Worst Ruddy speech ever?
Apparently the PM spoke at the UN yesterday. The Oz has the full transcript here. The takeaway: look at the sound bites. One line statements after one line statements. Waffles McRudd. Soundbite over substance. Worst Ruddy speech ever. Howard may not have been perfect, but he at least understood that delivering a speech required substance..any […]
What we going to do when the money runs out?
WaMu gets siezed and sold in a fire sale, the $700billion bail out hasn’t passed yet, there are no large investment banks left on Wall Street, China has either completely cut off funds to the US, or in part depending on the report. I even read on FriendFeed that the Saudi’s were holding back money […]
Game Over.
Chinese banks have been told to immediately stop lending money to the United States, according to Reuters. Game over. No. 1 lender of finance to the United States: China. According to AFP, China is the world’s biggest holder of foreign reserves and second biggest holder of US treasury bils. Take Chinese money off the table, […]
Brilliant Politics
So your poll numbers are tanking so badly that even FoxNews gives Obama a 9pt lead. Your strategy of hiding Caribou Barbie from the evil liberal press has backfired by taking her out of the spotlight, resulting in the positive buzz shifting away from her. You’ve got a serious case of foot in mouth, making […]
5 To 10 Days Until Cash Dries Up
Jim Cramer on MSNBC calls end of the world if the $700 billion bailout isn’t approved. (via Donklephant). Still, bailing out the industry doesn’t fix the problem, it prolongs it. No one wants a great depression, but likewise the concept of bailing out private enterprise from their own muck doesn’t sit right.
A digital divide of usability
So I told my mother on the weekend to try Google Chrome after life long Internet Explorer die-hards and Firefox haters like Steve Hodson tell me that they’re sold and have switched for life. My mother still uses IE and refuses to use Firefox, no matter how many times I’ve tried to convince her otherwise, […]