internet

Categories under internet

Technology and democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, April 26th, 2016 - 23 comments

Preliminary evidence shows how social media giants like Facebook and Google could influence elections. Should we be worried?

Key on cyberbullying

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 3rd, 2016 - 48 comments

Any campaign against cyberbullying is going to need a more plausible figurehead than Key.

Your Favourite Conspiracy Sucks

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 pm, February 1st, 2016 - 198 comments

The return of the X Files has got me thinking. Just how hard is it to keep a big conspiracy secret? Happily, a British scientist has the answer; it’s bloody hard. More or less impossible, actually, according to his new formula. It seems the truth really is out there.

Herald Bingo

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, January 20th, 2016 - 40 comments

Can be used either as a bingo card or as a drinking game.

Really David Farrar?

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, January 15th, 2016 - 29 comments

David Farrar has criticised AUSA for refusing to publicly endorse a Pro Life Auckland offer of assistance to solo mother students and thereby stopping assistance occurring.  There is one problem though, AUSA did nothing of the sort.

Written By: - Date published: 5:56 pm, January 12th, 2016 - 15 comments

Te Reo Putake spins the black circle and has a listen to Bowie’s final album, Blackstar.

Sir Lynton Crosby and Dame Paula Rebstock

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, December 31st, 2015 - 106 comments

The British Conservative Government and the New Zealand National Government have both rewarded their friends with titles.

Judge scammed by a legal idiot and his pet pest

Written By: - Date published: 8:29 pm, December 8th, 2015 - 36 comments

Thank the deity of your choice for that. Judge Harrison has found and courageously, in a timely manner, corrected his mistake of granting an interim court order under s18 of the incredibly badly written Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. The problem for a judge being requested to give any injunctive order is that they only hear one side of the argument – that of the plaintiff. And in this case the plaintiff and his associates seemed to have deliberately lied to the judge.

Allahu Quackbar!

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 pm, November 29th, 2015 - 70 comments

4chan bombs Isis. Now that’s the way to hurt them!

TPP aims to kill filesharing

Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, October 10th, 2015 - 159 comments

According to the EFF “The Final Leaked TPP Text is All That We Feared”…

Government by Twitter

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, September 24th, 2015 - 66 comments

We have passed an interesting milestone in the evolution of NZ politics. Key’s poll-driven pandering has just been taken to the next level. Political / media dinosaurs will never be able to dismiss “The Twitterati” again.

Scientists remind dickheads of their inadequecies

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, August 27th, 2015 - 12 comments

Ever imagine what a bull elephant’s penis looks like? Well wonder no more. Biologists kicked off a #junkoff today with this challenge. I have to say that the local trolls waving their dicks about on this site look poorly endowed and rather unimaginative.

Hosking, Henry and Media Bias

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, August 18th, 2015 - 187 comments

Yesterday a debate that has occurred on the Standard about how main stream media has a right wing bias became mainstream when Winston Peters accused Mike Hosking of being a National Party Stooge.  An online poll provided overwhelming support for his statement.  And recently Steven Joyce attacked Rod Oram because his analytical thoughtful analysis critical of the Government displayed evidence of left wing bias.

Only ACT standing up for free speech?

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, June 26th, 2015 - 76 comments

ACT has withdrawn support for the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. Bravo. Labour, Greens – where do you stand on this badly drafted and damaging bill?

Global mode killed off

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, June 24th, 2015 - 21 comments

CallPlus folds and kills global mode to avoid legal action. We are not amused.

Effective political communication

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 pm, May 26th, 2015 - 61 comments

Richard Harman concluded his presentation to the recent Fabian “Destination Next Progressive Majority” event by quoting the noted political scientist Bob Chapman’s remark that he had “reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was far more important for a political party to have a communication strategy than an economic policy.” I’m inclined to agree.

The unusual case of the disappearing blog

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, May 12th, 2015 - 308 comments

Giovanni Tiso has discovered that Cactus Kate’s blog is slowly disappearing from the Internet.

PM’s social media advisor lashes out on Twitter

Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, May 11th, 2015 - 49 comments

PM’s staff threatening people on Twitter. Such a good look.

What do you reckon?

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, April 30th, 2015 - 33 comments

Video clip to make you all chuckle

The end is near for IE

Written By: - Date published: 2:56 pm, April 16th, 2015 - 25 comments

Internet Explorer is now less than 15% of the sessions on this site. However it accounts fro nearly half of the development and testing time for the legacy variants. Microsoft has a replacement in the works, which should get released soonish. But I’m tired of wasting time on a crap browser. I’m dumping it now.

Massive illicit bust of Edward Snowden erected in Brooklyn

Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, April 7th, 2015 - 13 comments

A group of unidentified artists have erected a bronze patina bust of Eric Snowden on a stone column in Brooklyn.  The authorities are investigating.

Open Internet and New Zealand media companies

Written By: - Date published: 10:53 am, April 5th, 2015 - 33 comments

Spark, MediaWorks, Sky TV and TVNZ are threatening to take Callplus to Court because it, like many overseas companies, offers the ability to locals to obtain an American IP address.

Defining the truth

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, March 17th, 2015 - 12 comments

Changes being considered at Google have far reaching implications. Who gets to decide what is true?

The Killing Moon

Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, March 16th, 2015 - 75 comments

TV3 have sacked two judges on X Factor NZ, while Jeremy Clarkson is more popular than ever. When is TV going to pull the plug on itself?

International travel perks for the people who got us into this mess?

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 16th, 2015 - 81 comments

The blogosphere leads the way in breaking a story about yet another sack of cash for MPs …

New site – Evening Report

Written By: - Date published: 7:14 pm, March 9th, 2015 - 20 comments

Selwyn Manning has set up and will edit a new site (eveningreport.nz). Nice to see another progressive net news and current affairs site being set up. It will be interesting to see how this one develops. But there is a lot of room for different media in the net space.

Protecting our Freedom

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, January 19th, 2015 - 7 comments

UK PM David Cameron thinks freedom will be enhanced by monitoring everything – something we used to call totalitarianism. We need more encryption and to make sure the internet is built for the people, not the data-miners – be they our security agencies, criminal gangs, or facebook.

The Hypocrisy of Hate

Written By: - Date published: 4:07 pm, January 11th, 2015 - 223 comments

You’d think that with all the WW1 commemorations going on at the moment it would make us more vigilant about our freedom and security, not sleep-walking towards another Holy Crusade (in the name of the God of Money and Father of Fossil Fuels), seduced by slick liars and the gods of commercialism and greed.

Free speech and surveillance online

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, January 7th, 2015 - 46 comments

A long, fascinating piece by Glenn Greenwald on The Intercept this morning.

Top MP tweeters ….?

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, December 29th, 2014 - 27 comments

Claire Trevett in the NZ Herald has an article on her chosen top MP tweeters, now that Judith Collins has vacated her (alleged) position as “Minister of Twitter” Not quite my list of top tweeters… and yours?

NZ Media and blogs vs blogs

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, December 6th, 2014 - 42 comments

Snippets from a detailed and interesting report on the ownership of NZ media, media trends and issues, and the role of blogs post dirty politics. One major quibble – not all blogs are created equal, no more than all TV is game shows, than all radio is talkback, or than all websites are porn.

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