I notice SkyTV has finally decided to inflict its banal advertising on its Premier League channel. The degradation of streaming video continues.
I made about 1.5 litres of over-baked rice pudding this afternoon. We’ve already eaten about a third of it.
Do you remember when “Sensitive New Age Guy” was a thing?
I bet they’re now all making anitvax YouTube videos, wearing MAGA caps and collecting weapons for the next assault on democracy.
I’m back on the New Zealand Tech Podcast:
This week we talk a lot about surveillance and a little bit about what happened when Huawei was pushed out of the local phone network equipment market.
There is more on the Huawei story at my site:
I’ve just realised it is halfway through winter and I still haven’t needed to wear my toasty winter jacket so far this year.
Nine-to-Noon
Was on RNZ Nine-to-Noon this morning talking about the tax that hurts New Zealand’s technology sector, the AI bubble burst and Google illegally abusing its monopoly.
I can find great Chinese style egg custard tarts all over Auckland, and many bakeries do the English style ones with crumbly pastry, but the Portuguese ones seem to have gone out of fashion. Any recent sightings?
I’ve seen the future: I can’t afford it.
There is a huge capacity and price leap between Apple’s 200GB iCloud storage plans and the 2TB plan.
The term “peak body”, commonly used in Australia, annoys me on many levels. It’s lazy, imprecise and often self-aggrandising, but that’s just for starters.
This is an unpopular view and may upset you, but hear me out:
When a well known musician dies, I really don’t want to hear their music at that point. To me, the rush to play their music is mawkish and disrespectful. I prefer to leave a short period of mourning first, then go for it.
The Repair Cafe
The Birkenhead Repair Cafe was held on Saturday. It was my first time as a volunteer, but I’m going to be a regular fixer.
I was confident about fixing things like toasters, kettles and sandwich makers, and we had some of these, also had a rice cooker, vacuum cleaner (which needed a hard-to-get spare part so it isn’t fixed yet) and two sewing machines, I could fix one but not the other, I think it needs specialist expertise. I’ll be doing some homework on fixing these before the next cafe.
Was hoping someone might bring a typewriter… I love fixing them.
We also had a woodworker, a jewellery repairer, a woollen-knitting fixer and a couple of sewing experts. There was a bike repairer set up outdoors.
It’s a great initiative. A lot of the repairs are trivial, things might have loose wires or need new plugs. But there were some challenges too… which keeps me on my toes.
The repair cafe is a brilliant idea, it’s important right now wth all the cost of living pressures, but it’s equally important not to send things to the land fill when there can be a simple fix. m
Will the bad news never cease?
I mean, yeah, it’s bad, but get a grip, it’s not like blowing up the Rainbow Warrior…
I have a theory that Terry Pratchett was personally responsible for the revival of the Flat Earth movement.
…And possibly the renewed interest in witchcraft.
Lost the gizmo that allows us to mount phones on the car dashboard using the air vent.
Local supplier has one in stock. Price is $70 plus ~$10 postage. Delivery in 7 days.
AliExpress price is $7.30 including delivery. Scheduled to arrive in 7 days.
Found a peculiar thing about the way social media picks up metadata from my Ghost-hosted website. Today I posted a link to the latest story. BlueSky uses the current metadata, but Mastodon and Linkedin used the metadata that was there last night in the draft, but was swapped out this morning.
Dear small business owner.
Using Instagram as your ONLY online presence means you are dead to those of us who don’t wish to sign up for surveillance capitalism. I’m particularly looking at you if you’re running a single suburban restaurant or a food truck. It’s idiotic.
I’m sure you know exactly how it works for a journalist: diary empty two weeks, a few things a week out, jam-packed 24 hours out.
Why on Earth is there a Yellow Pages in 2024? Can there really be a viable business model for printing a paper book of phone numbers for people who are incapable of using a modern phone’s browser to look up phone numbers.
More than a decade ago we opted out of getting the Yellow Pages. I found the communication recently when looking for something else. This week a new Yellow Pages directory landed on our doorstep. I had no idea there is a statute of limitations on opt outs.
If I worked in a public relations agency, I’d quickly become depressed about the constant need to pretend to be excited about excruciatingly dull announcements.
In crude political terms the American Democrat versus Republican election system feels like a choice between the sensible part of the National Party and loony section of the Nats with a bit of Act thrown in for extra craziness.
Social media is quite boring right now now for those of us who are not obsessed with American politics.
THat thing where you put something in a safe place, that is so safe you can’t find it again.