One of my proudest achievements is never, ever having worn a bow tie.
One of my proudest achievements is never, ever having worn a bow tie.
I’ve been using Bluesky for three whole days now and no-one has given me a Mastodon-style scolding for not doing (or doing) something that is far from obvious but seems to offend.
Is it me being fussy or do other people think that news media, including specialist tech news media, doesn’t do a great job reporting AI? Specifically, there’s often not enough explaining and background information for someone coming new to a story to get a handle on it.
Hmm.
Just realised if I type BS into my browser address bar, I get Bluesky.
Poorly defined, open-ended non paying gigs* from difficult clients.
Poorly defined, open-ended non paying gigs.
Poorly defined non-paying gigs.
Non-paying gigs.
Paying gigs.
Paying gigs from regular clients.
Clearly defined paying gigs from regular clients.
Clearly defined, paying gigs from regular clients who pay quickly.
Clearly defined paying gigs from regular clients who pay quickest.
Clearly defined, high paying gigs from regular clients who pay quickest.
If you are interested in my take on the Optus outage that brought much of Australia to a grinding halt, you can catch the replay of my RNZ Nights interview here:
Feedback is welcome.
I’m on the New Zealand Tech Podcast with Paul Spain.
Talking about the Christchurch Call Summit and whether you need to constantly upgrade your phone among other things.
I explore the phone upgrade story in greater depth here:
My work goes crazy about this time of year as everyone in New Zealand races to get things finished before we head into Christmas and the (Southern Hemisphere) summer break.
Then, usually about the end of November it slams to a sudden stop and hardly anything happens until February.
I’m on a gigabit fibre connection. I can download a HD movie in the time it takes to pour a glass of syrah, but it looks like it will take more than 2 hours to download a 2GB Ubuntu disc image.
Friday’s newsletter went out a little later than usual, which meant it got lfewer immediate reads than most weeks…. I see a lot of regular readers picked it up and opened it this morning.
If you missed it, you can read it online: billbennett.co.nz/rural-exp…
Over the last decade I’ve written more than 300 features for the NZ Herald’s business reports. Perhaps the most noticeable change in that time is how the idea of business sustainability has gone from being a theory to being mainstream. There are few large New Zealand companies that don’t have a strong sustainability story.
Sure, you’ll find greenwashing, and it’s not always perfect. There is still a long way to go, but the progress is real.
In this year’s Sustainable Business report I interviewed Toitū chief science and advisory officer Belinda Mathers who works to certify companies as they reduce or even eliminate emissions.
There’s a story about RDT working with Auckland Airport to build a retail centre that takes sustainability a long way beyond emissions reductions.
Waste Management is moving fast to electrify one of New Zealand’s largest commercial vehicle fleets.
Law firm MinterEllisonRuddWatts wants New Zealand to get a move on building more clean electricity generation capacity.
And I interviewed Abbie Reynolds from the Nature Conservancy about looking for a fresh approach to conservation and protecting the natural environment.
Today’s newsletter includes a short editorial suggesting that a new Provincial Growth Fund would fix many gaps in New Zealand’s rural broadband and mobile coverage.
Jumped out of my skin at 8am when my loud ring tone blasted sound through the house. It was an incoming call from Australia. The caller rang three times. It would have been 6am in eastern Australia so I assumed the call must be urgent. Turned out to be a pocket dial from someone I’ve never met. They were spectacularly grumpy about being woken up when I returned the call.
A jolly good show:
In the populated parts of New Zealand you are never too far away from someone selling decent quality pies.
Wondered why I wasn’t getting responses to micro.blog posts from my phone. Turns out it I was sending them all to the test blog.
One of the most New Zealand things I can think of is how people say hello to a driver when they get on a bus and then thank the driver when they get off.
Last week I wrote this about the state of Twitter a year after it changed hands:
Twitter one year on – decline and fool
I also talked about the post on RNZ’s Nine-to-Noon radio show:
Humans in Australia and New Zealand can hear I have a British accent. After almost 40 years living here, it is not as British as it was. Weirdly, voice recognition works best for me when I use Australian settings. It is as if the computer thinks I’m Australian.
What’s that about?
Bill Bennett joins Kathryn to talk about how Twitter has changed in the year since Elon Musk’s $44b buyout. He’ll also look at why video streamers are pushing up prices well beyond inflation and why it might come with ads. And North Korean agents have been insinuating their way into tens of thousands of freelance IT roles around the world - what’s the danger and what are some of the signs one has been hired?
Where is Roadrunner?
Modern etiquette question.
How rude is it if I never answer those damn customer service surveys?
I used to answer them honestly, but that turns out to be a huge problem.
Trying to figure out if all the Federation development that’s been going on recently means I can now follow an indieweb enabled site like boffosocko.com from micro.blog.
The website hasn’t been updated in over a decade, yet there is still value in Unnecessary journalism phrases.
It is just what it says on the label. The website shows the wordy phrases journalists use to pad their copy.
Each phrase is simply illustrated with a handful of recent examples, mainly taken from US newspapers.
Some examples:
Never Before Lifeless body 4 p.m. in the afternoon
Before we get carried away, many journalists, including myself are paid by the word. A few unnecessary phrases will buy a cup of coffee. Write enough and you can pay off the mortgage.