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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.
Want to see real racism?
This is from a show in the United States called “The Young Turks” on the so called “racist” KFC ad. According to the guy in the show, the ad is “stereotypical…pushing a stereotype. When I’m thinking race or something…they’re trying to make the target look bad or worse than they actually are…which it does. With […]
Is It Still Racist When Indians Kill Indians
No, that’s the caste system isn’t it? Still, given what happened in Australia during the Schapelle Corby arrest and trial, we’re not exactly innocent when it comes to xenophobia. The Advertiser: Two detained at airport over Singh murder POLICE are refusing to reveal the identities of a man and a woman intercepted at Sydney Airport […]
Stilgherrian Is Right
Sea Shepherd? Gave my opinion 2 years ago Sea Shepherd of course claim it was a deliberate attack. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Thing is though, guys, if you don’t want to be involved in a collision at sea, don’t fucking well deliberately put your boat so close to another.
Finally Fixed The Site
Completely reinstalled WordPress here. The DB was the most fun: a full import borked the site again, so when with cutting and pasting the key tables from the SQL db into phpmyadmin, one at a time to check if they’d break the site or not. comments seem to be working, although the template needs some […]
Lets Lay The Abbott Bias On Hard
I may not be the biggest Tony Abbott fan in the world, but likewise the coverage in the MSM of Abbott’s shadow cabinet appointments today was so bias as to be cringe worthy. Yeah, remember that the MSM is suppose to report on facts? So when I hear on nearly every news service that Abbott […]
Nichenet Turns 10
Roughly 10 years ago (the exact date I don’t recall, except that I’m sure it was 99) I registered my first business name: Nichenet. Two business name registrations later and Nichenet became Nichenet Pty Ltd in around late 2006-2007. The name came about when I was asked to pitch for the design of a website. […]
Rudd-erless while Oil Spilled
Those who know me know that I’m no tree hugging hippie…sorry greenie, but there are things you do, and things you don’t do. Like let oil spill into the Timor Sea for 2 months before plugging the hole. Where was Rudd during this time? Surely if the inept operators couldn’t have fixed it with X […]
John Hartigan, your shipment of fail has arrived
John Hartigan, CEO of News Ltd in a speech July 1 talking about the decline of newspapers I mean, at its most basic, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s just bad reporting. There?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s almost no evidence. For starters, newspaper ad revenue in Australia has been growing ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú not declining over the past 5 years as it has in the US […]
If you’re going to give 16 year olds the vote, why not take it further
WTF: Push to give 16-year-olds the vote in federal elections/ The Oz The idea clearly reeks of Rudd looking for extra votes for the ALP given that under 18’s would be more likely to vote in that direction. But having said that I’m not dead against the idea: “young” people should have a say to […]
Personally, I’d blame the parents
Fourth Geelong student commits suicide: News.com.au Suicide is a terrible business, but it’s not helped by quoting mentally deficient adults in newspapers either. The opening paragraph…and the sub-headline used on the front page of news.com.au reads A GRIEVING mother has blamed the internet for the death of her 14-year-old daughter. Yes, the internet KILLED her […]
Tips for blog applicants round 2
I’ve started shortlist candidates for our Associate Blogging positions tonight and I felt it might be time for a follow up to this post back in May. – When the ad includes the line “The email should absolutely under NO circumstances come with an attachment. If you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have examples of your writing online, upload […]
Changes at The Inquisitr
The good news before we start is that hopefully the worst of the US recession is over for us ad wise on the site. We’re still not doing anywhere near the fill or CPM rates we were getting in the last quarter of last year, but through a combination of improved traffic, improvements from our […]
Wanted: Opposition leader, apply to the Liberal Party
News.com.au: Malcolm Turnbull’s political career has been smashed in just one week, and senior Liberals believe there could be moves within the party to remove him as Opposition Leader within days or weeks. It takes an awful lot of specialness to completely fuck up Utegate, and yet Malcolm Turnbull has. Instead of Rudd and Co […]
What was Channel Nine’s role in the Chk-Chk-Boom scam?
Days after Clare “chk-chk boom” Werbeloff was exposed as a fraud online, the Australian newspapers have finally caught up. According to reports, “she has also signed a contract with Channel Nine’s A Current Affair and is likely to appear tomorrow night” and that she wouldn’t be speaking to any other media outlet. That would be […]
Where’s the NBN Debt Provision in the Budget?
As I noted last night, besides some small related investments, there was no additional funding allocated to the NBN in the 09/10 budget, leaving a $38.3b short fall. The Government has previously said that the NBN would raise money via infrastructure bonds, but wouldn’t these bonds count as debt? The on the books catch is […]
Waterboarding
Lets take away the arguments for and against the use of torture by the US Government as a legitimate tool in the fight against terrorists, and lets consider the effectiveness of the favored method of “waterboarding.” The argument for waterboarding is that it’s an effective way of breaking prisoners, and gaining vital intelligence information. And […]
Qantas Fail
SMH: Save Qantas from unfair practices, unions urge QANTAS needs saving from “unfair competition” from foreign government-backed airlines to protect Australian jobs, the ACTU will argue today when it meets the airline over its decision last week to axe up to 1750 jobs. Yes, but who saves us from Qantas extortion on routes without enough […]
Wnning line: “I’d trust Mr Bolton like I’d trust a rabbit with a lettuce leaf.”
I still don’t know what this bloke is playing at: I mean seriously, all the media attention and sucking in investors only to sell out at the 11th hour, but I love this line in response The Age: Stunned investors vent fury at chairman “He’s not going to get (the $4.5 million), I can promise […]
Blue Moon: NBN waited for you….
Oz: Telstra open to break-up TELSTRA will consider a voluntary separation of its wholesale and retail arms as well as the sale of some assets to the federal Government’s proposed $43 billion broadband network in a spectacular about-face that effectively dumps the aggressive four-year strategy championed by chairman Donald McGauchie and chief executive Sol Trujillo. […]
NBN as a TV killer? Unlikely
Mark Day in the OZ (via Mumbrella) IF we look through the increasingly clouded questions surrounding the Rudd Government?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s plans for a fibre-to-the-home high-speed broadband network, how it will be designed, who will build it, who will own it and what it will cost end users, one thing is crystal clear: this is a game-changer […]