Category Archives: Random

NZ National Anthem Hard?

Is the New Zealand national anthem really that hard?

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I'm not a rugby fan. I'll be the first to admit that. However, I do take pride in my country, and when a singer totally botches my country's national anthem, I don't know if I want to laugh my head off, or run and hide.

Crystal Collins, American singer, was invited to sing the New Zealand national anthem at a rugby game between New Zealand and England in Denver. The results... Where does one even begin?

She butchered the Maori language, which is horrible within itself, but the English verse... What the...? It was so out of time, and didn't even follow the melody. I have no idea what she was singing, but it wasn't God Save New Zealand.

I decided that in response to this horrible rendition, I needed to actually sing for you what the New Zealand national anthem really sounds like. I might not be the best singer in the world, but trust me, that song really isn't that hard. Take a listen.

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Guilty

#CockyGate and Trademark Hell: Enough is Enough!

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I have been watching what is going on with #CockyGate, stunned by the train wreck that is gripping the publishing industry by storm. What started as one woman’s horrible mistake (and lack of understanding of trademark law) has blown up into a full-scale witch hunt. And you know what… I’ve had enough!

Pitchforks have been seized by the masses, and the mob is on the loose. No one is safe from this shit storm (and yes, I deliberately swore). I can tell you now, watching the social media feeds, there WILL be more than one author who will have their reputation harmed, if not destroyed, by this mess. Where will it end? Read More→

Smartphone

Smartphone game has crossed the moral line.

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Anyone who knows me personally will know that I've always had an objection to computer games. It's not because of the violence or anything like that, but because of the addiction that is inherit with computers and electronic games.

I've lost count of the number of times when I've gotten up at all godly hours in the morning to discover my husband not in bed, because he was playing a stupid computer game (the same game he was playing when I went to bed six hours before). When our son was first born, my husband's addiction to computer games got so bad that we had to put in rules: he wasn't allowed to play any computer games except on a Friday or Saturday night, when he didn't have work the next day. Now that our son is in his late teens, my husband can see the dangers of our son going down the same road, and my husband has been helping me teach our son to manage this special breed of addiction.

However, lately I've noticed that the nature of the advertised games on certain apps has changed. For the first time ever, it's the nature of the games that has me seriously disturbed.

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I Appear to be a Pack Rat of Data Files

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In getting ready for GDPR (the new privacy law in the EU), I decided to take things one step further and do something that I’ve been avoiding for such a long time. We’re talking about something that I have been avoiding for years. I decided to clean out the old files on my Google Drive and Dropbox, and limit what I actually had on my local hard drive.

OMG, what a mission and a half — mainly because it appears that I’m a pack rat of data files.

Shall I hang my head in shame now?

For years, I have separated my personal writing from my other projects. Because of the way Scrivener works (a word processing program specific for writers), I tend to keep my personal writing limited to my Dropbox. However, in my clean out exercise, I found a whole range of files, both on my Dropbox and Google Drive, that either didn’t belong there, or were mislabeled.Read More→

It’s not Zuckerberg’s fault that Google+ sucks.

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Like so many, I've been watching what is going on with Zuckerberg's Congressional Hearings. Let's face it, here is a man who had a brilliant idea to take advantage of the internet and the way things were changing to help people connect with others all around the world. In the last month, a few sticky wheels got oiled in a big way, and Zuckerberg got massive amounts of poo thrown at him for breaches in privacy, security issues and general business practices. I like, everyone else, wants to know what is going to happen with the popular social media platform. And we also want to know what Zuckerberg has to say about all of this mess.

Do I think he deserves to be summoned before Congress? Well, that's not for me to say either way, but I do believe that some heads need to roll over this massive privacy breach that hit mainstream media in recent weeks. Do I think he need to go to jail, like some are suggesting? Hell, no!

I want to say that you can't blame the guy for making this up as he goes along, but that really isn't an excuse. He's been at this for fourteen years. He should know the rules by now. But I don't think he should lose everything that he's worked for either.

Facebook might appear to be a monopoly, but it's not Zuckerberg's fault that Google+ sucks.

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