The Guardian

It is impossible as an employee of Rupert Murdoch to offer any thoughts on the phone hacking scandal in the UK without being accused of being a company patsy and probably also a sycophant, even a liar.

On a personal and professional level I have found some of the revelations which have come out of the UK to be troubling at the very least, and appalling at their absolute worst. It is also the case however that two of the biggest and most damaging allegations against the company aren’t actually true at all.

From where I sit, working for the Australian arm of this media business, the whole affair is starting to look like a psychotic and reckless fight-to-the-death by British journalists who, in that hyper-competitive media culture, have often cut corners or chanced their arms to be first with the news.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #6 Hackers and clangers" »

Few people, apparently, support the jailing of Julian Assange - Australia’s very own electronic Lord Byron,  the “romantic” hero of the Internet generation - for his organisation’s use and misuse (and, presumably, sale) of stolen US diplomatic documents. 

Fortunately, those rights he may have as an Australian citizen in a foreign country have been actively supported by the Australian Embassies in Britain and Sweden, as they should be. 

Perhaps even more fortunately for Mr. Assange, the United States Ambassador to Australia, Jeff Bleich, has decried the exaggerated claims of ideologues in US media and politics.

Continue reading "Julian Assange: Lord Byron of the internets?" »

Remember all the things you learned at school: the periodic table and calculus and Egyptian pharaohs and dangling participles and the causes of the First World War.

Now think about what you learned at school that is actually useful in your everyday life today.  Excluding obvious basics such as reading, writing and arithmetic, I’d nominate two things, neither of which I imagined would turn out to be so handy.  The first is touch typing.  The second is what the teacher announced in the opening class of Grade 11 economics: wants are unlimited but resources are limited.

It’s something I think about all the time.  For example, I like to imagine that if I had an iPad with The New Yorker application on it, I’d be Perfectly Happy for the Rest of My Life.  Sadly though, I predict that soon after, there’d be a strong hankering for a stylish red leather pouch for said iPad. 

Continue reading "iWant therefore iAm" »