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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.
Microsoft Considering eBay Takeover?
Digital Journal reports on rumours that Microsoft has been in talks for several weeks about a possible acquisition of eBay. If Microsoft did buy eBay, it would deliver Paypal and Skype to Microsoft as well, two of my favourite apps. eBay has done a lot with both companies that has been positive, but I can’t […]
Gnoos is live!
Australia’s answer to Technorati, Gnoos.com.au is live. I had a chance to play with it prior to my recent holiday but didn’t get the chance to review it at the time. It’s first rate, super quick, and we’ll worth a look. It indexes international blogs as well…I’m not sure how many blogs they are tracking […]
Google Head
This is just bizarre. (via Dave)
Internet Advertising revenues close to $4 billion US in Q1 2006
Amazing figures from a booming industry. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $3.9 billion for the first quarter of 2006. The 2006 first quarter revenues represent a 38 percent increase over Q1 2005 at $2.8 billion and a 6 percent increase over Q4 […]
Al Lowe makes a come back
One of my favourite games designers, Al Lowe, he of Leisure Suit Larry fame, a game that I spent many, many hours playing on my old XT with its EGA monitor and 10mb HD, is making a comeback, and in true Al Lowe style, its with a comedy offering. Gamasutra has the interview here. Tags: […]
Online gambling to equal child pornography in Washington State
Slashdot reports that online gambling in the Unites States state of Washington is to become a Class C felony from June 7, that will put it on the same level as possessing child pornography, and can result in a 5 year prison stint and a $10,000 USD fine. What is it with the States? This […]
Pedophiles plan political party in Holland
I’m a firm believer in freedom of speech and association, but surely this pushes the boundaries, from China Daily: Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage. […]
Jessica Alba in Buddha T-Shirt
This pic via The Bastardly:
The pic says it all!
FeedBlitz takes Angel Investment
Feedblitz, a Web 2.0 startup that converts RSS into email alerts, has announced they’ve take Angel Investment from Tom Evslin. To quote Evslin on Feedblitz: In business terms, what FeedBlitz does is make the content of RSS feeds accessible to the great mass of web users who have no idea what RSS is and couldn’t […]
Spam Matters, only if you use Microsoft products apparently
ACMA has released the new tool in the fight against spam: spam matters, but apparently it only matters if you use Microsoft software because it only supports Outlook and Outlook Express. As a Mozilla Thunderbird user, I’m apparently not wanted. Oh well, ACMA is an evil organisation that stifles free speech and helps protect the […]
Dogon: Tim O’Reilly responds
Tim O’Reilly responds to the criticism over the C&D to a not for profit organisation daring to use Web 2.0 in their name. I won’t repeat what he says, but there was one point which I found amazing: At O’Reilly, we’ve even had to send a cease-and-desist letter once, to a company that was publishing […]
Australian TV moguls still don’t get the future of TV and computing
I don’t use IceTV myself, because they don’t offer a regional WA guide, but this company is doing a great job in making programs like Windows MCE more usable by providing a EPG, something that you just cant get in Australia, despite the fact you can pretty much get free EPG’s everywhere else in the […]
Why you can’t trust TV
This is hilarious! From the SMH: An Australian military commander has tried to ensure truth does not become a casualty of conflict in East Timor, but embarrassed a TV network in the process. Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network’s Today […]
Tall Poppy Syndrome, Mike Arrington, and how not to handle criticism
A fair bit of controversy about over allegations that Mike Arrington of Tech Chruch fame takes kick backs for favourable reviews. I don’t know the basis for these rumours, and I’m only an occasional Tech Chrunch reader, mainly because I personally find that Mike Arrington’s reviews tend to (usually) be nothing more than blind cheering […]
9rules no longer involved in Sex Network
Blog Network Watch reports on the setup of the SexNotWork blog network, and that Paul Scrivens, and others from 9rules, are no longer invovled in the network.
Google Video Ads need some work
Spotted at Hollywood Tuna: a Google Video Ad. One small problem though, at that’s the buffering rate. If you are going to expect people to click on and view video ads, you are going to want them to pretty much work from the moment the play button is clicked. The buffering time on this ad […]
Michael Jackson loves orphans, particularly the little boy ones….
Somebody at News.com.au has a very wicked sense of humour: and then there is the photo and captions: Let’s just hope they didn’t leave him alone with any of the little boy orphans. Tags: Michael Jackson
Google Crawling AdWords Landing Pages for Quality
At long last, it looks like Google might be (at least a little bit) cracking down on made for Adsense sites, in this case those who get their traffic using Adwords. From Threadwatch: Google is launching a spider named AdsBot to monitor AdWords landing page quality. Sometime in the coming weeks, a new AdsBot crawler […]
Alien in duck
We kid you not on this on: the picture is an x-ray of a injured mallard duck. Writes the SF Chronicle: As if crop circles weren’t proof enough that extraterrestrials are among us, an alien has now been found in the stomach of a duck. That, at least, is the conclusion reached by workers at […]