My most important news comes from my twitter feed where I follow newsmakers and journalists around the globe. I ignore broadcast TV especially “the news” and I despair at the mainstream daily newspapers who all seem to be trapped in the death of a thousand cuts. Those cuts come from… read more →
Robert Reich will be known to many readers of this blog as the author of “Inequality for All“. That documentary came out in 2013 and while it focusses on the U.S story it examines the implications of widening inequality in a way that is cogent and relevant to many countries… read more →
In the last year or so a number of friends and family have died. Part of it is I’m just at that decade when life catches up with some of them and while every life is different it kind of makes you stop and reflect on your own mortality too.… read more →
The dawn of a New Year is popular time for resolutions and other changes in outlook. A new year is like a new start and given that it coincides with holidays in many locations – having a few days to relax often helps to renew our outlook generally. For me… read more →
Recent research on 301 cities worldwide reveals that the major risk to future civilisation is in fact us. Market crash and human pandemic are the top two risks worldwide. The header image shows an “artists view” of a volcano in Auckland Harbour. (volcano is #4) Here is a case study… read more →
I heard parts of this story on radio and wondered how it has not shown up as a major news story. Sadly I think U.S citizens have such low expectations of their government they expect such dire consequences or have super high expectations and don’t believe whistle blowers. “almost 90… read more →
The story below reads like some kind of awesomely bad joke. The government of a small country spends up large to bully a free lance journalist when all he has done is to tell an inconvenient truth. All of the $643k plus whatever they paid in other (non-disclosed) legal costs… read more →
Yesterday was the launch of the latest TIN100 results. The TIN100 is the top 100 of NZ’s high tech sectors. It includes a couple of larger companies such as F&P Appliances and Datacom alongside a wider number of software and IT services companies. New Zealand has made some good progress… read more →
I have just read Popski’s Private Army (PPA) about an extraordinary character who fought behind enemy lines in WW2. Popski – whose real name was Vladimir Peniakoff came across the NZ units in Egypt and a number of them were in his unit. Popski didn’t like the upper class English… read more →
The much touted $ benefits are all tiny numbers at some future date – pretty much rounding errors. There may well be gains for some sunset type industries but on the IP side (sunrise) which is really the future of all business we have been handed another level of constraints.… read more →