by JAK | Jan 11, 2019 | culture, development, music
Ever had that feeling that when times are challenging you learn more. No one actively likes having a tough time but if everything was easy / peasy I suspect we’d be in cruise mode and oblivious. Many years ago a wise friend referred to some of this as the...
by JAK | Dec 13, 2018 | general business, industry futures, WordPress
Last week WordPress core was updated to version 5.0. A new version is generally no big deal and if you look at the release archive you can see this is number 12* for the year. Most of those are incremental updates prompted by performance or security improvements. In...
by JAK | Oct 3, 2018 | culture, general business, industry futures
The combined population of Australia and New Zealand is about 29m as of October 2018. The population of the Nordic countries is about the same. The Nordic region includes Scandinavia of which Sweden is the largest country by population. According to the...
by JAK | Aug 24, 2018 | culture
I went along to the Polarised long form debate between Douglas Murray and Cornel West in Auckland. It also toured in a number of Australian cities who had similar but not identical experiences. The “Polarised” title itself is paradoxical. The sub text...
by JAK | Aug 7, 2018 | culture
A few years ago I heard a great interview* with Dr Cornel West on the National programme. I loved that it was at times scathing about the U.S president (Obama at the time 2011) but still generous and hopeful and considered across a range of topics. Now 7 + years later...
by JAK | May 17, 2018 | culture
In what must be a massive win for pedant grammar twats everywhere an economist is probably right that inequality is less of a problem than unfairness. Semantics aside inequality is the net result of unfair conditions in the market that affect individuals and society...
by JAK | Apr 29, 2018 | culture
Back in 2011-2013 when there were various Arab uprisings including the Egyptian one I started writing a blog post about how I thought social media was changing the game in political terms. A friend in Thailand suggested it was too soon and not to be over hopeful that...
by JAK | Apr 28, 2018 | culture
There is a family story about the Von Tempsky violin which had been owned by my great grandfather Tim Howard until 1898. Apparently the violin was a 1625 Maggini*. Howard had been a policeman and a farmer near Invercargill and by all accounts a good violinist or...
by JAK | Mar 30, 2018 | culture
Last week I caught part of an extended interview with Dr Marcus Davey on improving health outcomes for premature infants between 24-28 weeks. The interview was with Kim Hill on Radio NZ. “Dr Marcus Davey, a developmental physiologist and senior...
by JAK | Mar 6, 2018 | general business, industry futures
Business readers in New Zealand may have noticed that one of the largest companies here has accrued just over $1b of losses in the past since March last year including impairments. They also fired their CEO and the Chairman had the good grace to resign. The other...
