Bill Bennett
Spent the morning doing urgent things for one client and totally missed another client (from the same company) had urgent things that needed attention, so wrapping it up at 8pm. 12 hour days are not unusual, but now I’m in my 60s I could do with fewer of them.
If I was a high net worth investor, I’d put some of my money into building more renewable energy in New Zealand. It might not give me the maximum return, but it would warm the cockles of my heart to know I was making the nation and the world a little better.
I’m not in any way saying it’s good that so many cafes and restaurants are going out of business, but it felt like there might have been too many even before the government got its economic wrecking balll going.
It’s a cardigan day.
When I was growing up in the south of England, cardigans were an eminently sensible and occasionally stylish way of staying warm in Spring and Autumn. Then I went to live in Wellington, where they had a negative reputation, something to do with public servants and old people.
A decade ago I froze while at an Eden Test Match during an Auckland cold snap in Auckland. So next week I purchased a winter thermal under vest. It hasn’t been cold enough since then to wear it. I’m keeping it because I may head South one winter, yet it speaks volumes about climate change.
Because I frequently work on Saturdays and Sundays I sometimes take a half day off on Mondays. Some people get upset if I don’t immediately respond to their Monday morning calls or emails. They can get stuffed.
While I readily admit the four for $5 supermarket croissants aren’t remotely close to the glorious $4 each ones sold in real baker’s shops, they make a nicer change once in a while. And my word are they good for toasted sandwiches…
Call the cops.
Birkenhead New World was selling Hot Cross Buns yesterday.
HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE NOT IN PRISION?
Three games into the new English Premier League season and I’m about to fire up my prediction spreadsheet. It’s not perfect, but I was either winner or runner up in a big tipping competition for four or five years in a row back when they were a thing.
For almost 20 years I’ve been getting all notifications from Amazon in German. I ordered a German book for someone in 2005 or thereabouts so the algorithm has got me down as a Jerry and no amount of support calls, online char or mail can fix this.
Shuffling the streaming video options ahead of the must watch new season of Slow Horses which starts midweek on Apple TV. Have decided there is no need to subscribe to more than two services at a time, so out goes Prime… which we’ve more or less sucked dry anyway.
As an exercise I asked ChatGPT to write a short blog post in the style of my main billbennett.co.nz website.
It did an OK job but I’m not going to be put in the shade anytime soon.
On Friday afternoon I was asked to make a few minor additions to an otherwise finished and agreed writing job. I was tired so said I’d get them done for Monday morning. It’s now Sunday noon and the muse still hasn’t arrived. This never used to happen to me before I had Covid.
I’ve been writing about infrastructure for the New Zealand Herald since 2013. Here’s a story from this week:
I decided a while ago that for every time I complain about something on social media, I must then post something positive. So here goes:
I got to the conference at the Viaduct Events Centre really early and the coffee that’s in those flask things was really fresh… and surprisingly good.
I can enjoy TV drama, sport and documentaries, but I simply cannot watch any kind of ‘reality TV’.
I’m probably in a minority of one here, but I can live with that.
The last technology news story posed on Stuff.co.nz’s RSS feed was on November 23.
Either the feed is broken (very likely) or the news organisation has completely given up on technology news (still likely, but not quite as likely)
Given all the talk about the Oasis reunion, I’m surprised no music-savvy news subeditor has worked Gas Panic into a headline.
On the other hand, it is quite possibly the worst-ever Oasis track,
Forget AI, VR and Blockchain, the technology that gives me the largest productivity boost is the humble RSS feed.
That and the Bialetti espresso moka pot.
What unsung tech heroes drive your productivity?
Ben Werdmuller and Manton Reece prefer the term social web to Fediverse.
This makes perfect sense to me. Social web does a far better job telling you what to expect, Fediverse is far more abstract.
Will be spending the next couple of days covering the Building Nations conference for the NZ Herald. e
If I get irritating unsolicited email I don’t bother unsubscribing, I just send it straight to the spam folder. Many of the swine ignore unsubscribe anyway. Others use it to verify the address then trade it with other spammers. Sending it to spam trains my mail sorting algorithm and can train your mail provider so you’re doing everyone a favour.
What is the inverse of nominative determinism?
Cognitive dissonance:
On one hand my inner music snob is appalled by the idea of tribute bands.
On the other hand, if you listen closely, a lot of excellent, well known acts are stealth tribute bands. For instance there’s a lot of Beatles tunes and ideas hidden in Oasis' best albums.
