Bill Bennett
As a nod towards the early, glory, days of the internet, I’ve decided to reinstate the Blog Roll. It’s still a work in progress. Check back in a week.
Do you think anyone in New Zealand would buy a Cybertruck if they could?
(I asked the same question years ago about the Hummer a couple of days before spotting on on the Harbour Bridge).
I was hoping the news industry would see me out until retirement. That ambition is not looking too good today.
New Zealand’s overlooked billion-dollar industry
From my story in the NZ Herald:
“New Zealand’s financial technology sector is booming. Over the past decade, it has expanded at an annual compound growth rate of 32 per cent. That’s four times as fast as the overall tech sector.
That growth has taken the fintech sector to the point where it is roughly the same size as New Zealand’s wine industry.”
Read more at: www.nzherald.co.nz/business/…
In my capacity as a journalist writing about business and technology I get a lot of press releases about enterprise computing. Most are incomprehensible jargon soups (and curiosly, every company sending releases claims to be the world leader in their field).
If I ever make a call to follow up one of these, frankly dull, stories , I quickly learn that the person who wrote the press release doesn’t understand what it’s all about either.
I have seen so many terrifying stories about airplane travel in the past couple of weeks that I might stay grounded for a while.
It doesn’t help that I had Covid three days after getting off a Trans-Tasman flight.
This eight year old post may amuse you:
Stable Diffusion's seamy side
Ailments left me with time on my hands this week so I dived deeper into Stable Diffusion, I sometimes use it to illustrate stories on my website.
Going further into the models, Loras and so on, my overwhelming impression is that this entire sector is populated either by teenage boys or by grown men who have yet to get over teenage boys' obsession over women and young girls with abnormally large breasts.
Being tortured as a business model
One of the most disappointing recent technology trends is, that for many modern apps, the only practical documentation comes in the form of YouTube videos. I find video is a tough way to learn at the best of times, but scrubbing back and forth when something is not clear and then being constantly interupted by nasty, intrustive and inappropriate advertising is form of torture.
This story on my site, from 2008, might finally be out of date:
Dear anyone online. If I’m unsubscribing from whatever spam you are sending me you can cut the passive aggressive nonsense and the “we’re sorry to see you go”. At this point I’ve already heard too much from you. You are in danger of turning disinterest into dislike.
Even after 60 years of watching football I humbly recognise I couldn’t do a better job than most professional coaches or team managers. Even the unfeted ones.
On the other hand, I’m damn certain I could do a better job of running clubs than nine out of ten owners. The majority are idiots.
Checking if all those cross posting fediverse things are working as they should. Please ignore this.
For reasons that I don’t need to bore anyone with, Saturday got off to an extremely slow start. By the time I made it to the local, fancy artisan baker, most of the usual choices were sold out. So I went off piste and got a fruit loaf. Which turns out to be fabulous
I think in all my years of dealing with some awful documentation, Western Digital’s MyCloud documentation and support takes things to a new level.
Deconstructed Breakfast Burrito:
Here’s my go-too recipe when you need a filling, high protein breakfast but don’t have a lot of time for fancy cooking.
You can get this on the table in five minutes. It’s also inexpensive.
The name is because it loosely resembles what you can sometimes buy for breakfast in a burrito.
You need:
One or more eggs. If I’m hungry and I won’t get to eat for a long time I’ll use two. Otherwise one is enough. I use posh free-range eggs, but you can get away with any fresh eggs.
Some baked beans. About a third to half a tin of baked beans should do it. I use the organic ones that come with a less sugary tomato sauce, but any bakes beans will do. This also works well with butter beans and, at a pinch, other types of tinned beans so long as they are soft.
Cheese. I use New Zealand Tasty Cheddar cheese. Again, you can use most similar cheeses. I chop up about half a cup or so of cheese into small chunks. You could use pre-grated cheese.
Tabasco or other hot sauce.
Mix everything in a microwave safe dish, cover and microwave for around 90 seconds, give it a good stir and microwave again. You want the egg to scramble and be firm, but not overcooked. The cheese should be melted and runny.
Tip it on a plate and go.
The recipe is loose… you can play around with quantities. In fact everything about this recipe is relaxed. Feel free to use it as a jumping off point.
The political right use the term ‘woke’ in the way that communists would use the word ‘bourgeois’ to signify “things and people we don’t like and who had better watch out”.
It has the advantage of being easier to spell. That’s important give the education cuts.
It turns out having my Shingles vaccine at the same time as the Tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough vaccine may not have beenn a good idea.
Politicians’ salaries should be index linked by law to ordinary people’s income levels. It can be set at a higher levels, but it should rise (or fall} in line with everyone else.
I never respond to Linkedin connect requests from people I have never heard of because, as we say in New Zealand, I’m up myself.
I’m surprised at how many people complain about daylight saving. Don’t remember it being so controversial in the past.
End of daylight saving has played havoc with my appetite. It’s like jet lag, I didn’t feel hungry last night or this morning, now I’m ravenous.