🔗 WWW
There are a lot of links out to different parts of the web on this site. I try to mark them all so they get listed here.
Dems and Repubs have a lot more in common than we might think.
In US politics … the two prime parties are symbolized by a 🔗 Donkey and Elephant.
The curious thing is that 🔗 Thomas Nast created both the original satirical cartoons.
- Same guy.
- Drew cartoons that dinged both parties.
- Both parties adopted their own cartoon …
These days they’d sue him!
Fuck TikTok.
Fuck Russell Brand.
🔗 TikTok users including Russell Brand given special status, messages show.
Just in case you get too happy absorbing 🔗 Reasons To Be Cheerful, now you can 🔗 Cry Once a Week.
It’s all about balance.
I have saved 🔗 Layers of Time: Pace Layers of Work by Stowe Boyd to read properly later - but it triggered some other works I have been absorbing recently how the our digital worlds have been shaping our physical world for decades - and it is only accelerating.
Careful What It Says In The Small Print
I was meant to be picking up a car from 🔗 Europcar this afternoon - for a one month reservation.
I just tried to change that reservation and pick it up early tomorrow.
Lady on the call center said no problem - and was about to hit the confirmation button … but as she was talking I hear that the new price was DOUBLE the old price.
DOUBLE!!!
When I booked car, the agent said that there would be no problem and no charge to change the booking if I need to.
I relayed this to this booking agent.
Absolutely she said, it would normally cost you 6 dollars to change the booking - and we are waiving that fee … but the contract also says that if the cost of the rental changes, we have to reflect that change in the new contract.
New job this afternoon … go down to Auckland Airport and pick up the car rental.
🔗 Minister pulls brakes on cycling and walking initiatives.
Seriously? It costs THAT much?
Meanwhile ‘my man Dana’ has been banging on about the US propensity for cars of the large and heavy variety forever … not to mention the battery decisions being made - necessary apparently - because of the weight and size factor of these vehicles.
This just today for example.
While the Internet and iPhone came on faster, these were internal revolutions. They didn’t change the world around us. Mass EV adoption will.
🔗 🎵 Car Drivers Torment a City with Celine Dion Songs
Protest songs are everywhere - except on TV or radio.
More proof .. if proof were needed .. that I live under a rock … fascinating .
JESSICA CHASTAIN: But then I looked at the test, and I thought, OK, it doesn’t seem too unreasonable. And then I looked at my films, and I realized not one of my films has passed that test.
Talking of LinkedIN - 🔗 take a look at this which I just dropped onto LinkedIN. It’s my position on the Callaghan debacle that New Zealand’s ‘Office of the Auditor General’ has just weighed in on.
TL;DR - Callaghan are guilty.
To quote;
Callaghan Innovation did not …
… a whole tonne of stuff. The piece is called - Accountability Has No Meaning in New Zealand - because really unless something now happens. It doesn’t.
Those who live in Aotearoa should find it particularly interesting. Even if you haven’t been tracking the past few years of the story.
I think I just broke 🔗 LinkedIN
There’s a LOT of stuff going on in New Zealand at the moment as the new Govt takes control and is starting to / trying to (not sure which) roll back everything the previous Govt was doing. C’est la vie.
In parralel, the topic of efficiency seems to be on everyone’s lips - different learned people in different positions essentially reporting ‘findings’ .. new budgets in cities … and the eternal question of whether we are getting what we pay for.
Just one small example from Wayne Brown in Auckland … a speed bump in a road to slow traffic down costs multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ll let that sink in.
I am far from qualified to comment much on this (other than that seems a lot to me), but Bernard Hickey definitely is - and if you want to read his excellent Substack around not just speed bumps - but all things political and fiscal in this fine country - look no further than 🔗 here.
Meanwhile - Aotearoa - don’t feel so bad - this 🔗 🎙️ podcast from Freakonomics relects on the US construction industry. Turns out it is the only industry that has not become more efficient over the past seventy years - because that is how it is designed!
📽️ Finally steadily working my way through ‘The Morning Show’ .. review forthcoming at some point in the future - but meanwhile - a track that got played on last night’s episode …
🔗 🎵 One Way Glass by Innerspace Orchestra
Gorgeous. So of course I had to look it up …
Dear ‘Chris’ Over in Australia, 🔗 Foreign investors who snap up Australian homes to face higher taxes.
You might remember that I was never a fan of 🖇️ Ramaswamy
Just 4 months later - even Fox has tuned on him … FOX!
Fox🔗 News Goes Absolutely Nuclear on ‘Court Jester’ Vivek Ramaswamy - The Daily Beast
🔗 Seventh Russian general confirmed dead’ … hoist by his own petard’?
Not keeping a strict count now - but someone should, along the lines of …
Russian Generals killed by Ukraine: 7
Russian Generals claimed to be killed by Ukraine: 16 plus one admiral
Russian Generals accidentally killed by Russia
Russian Generals purposely killed by Russia
That last one isn’t as strange as you might think - putting aside this from a year ago : 🔗 Putin said to be conducting internal purge of military generals, intel personnel we ‘know’ a bit about 🔗 this one at least.
Meanwhile, Putin just created 60 more … I wonder what the Russian department of ‘Workplace Safety’ thinks?
🔗 Apple’s new Journal app won’t be available on iPad and Mac
Seriously? I guess if I use it … it will only be for photos … no writing .. oh wait …DayONE dos it all on all platforms.
40 years ago …