The Adlington Post

My take on the war in the Middle East:

"The number of pokie machines in Auckland will continue to drop even if Sky City casino is allowed to have more of them, Prime Minister John Key says." http://news.msn.co.nz/nationalnews/8446024/auckland-pokie-numbers-falling-key-says

The new iphone 5 proudly brought to you by Apple - now available in white!

A collage I did for my cultural studies paper...

At present we are witnessing the wharfies at the Port of Auckland in a bitter fight against casualisation of their jobs. The National Government term for "casualisation" is "flexible" - they put a spin on the concept making out that it will benefit the workers, when in fact this is the thin end of the casualisation wedge - what it will mean is that this system will give the employer the right to tell people when they can work. Workers will no longer be assured of a 40-hour a week job. This in the NZ Herald today....you gotta admire the spin the Nats put on it - but it's bullshit no matter which way you read it. "A law allowing some workers the right to request flexible working hours is to be extended to all employees. The Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Act, which came into force in 2008, gave employees who also had caregiving responsibilities the right to request flexible working arrangements, including changes ...

Fairfax bought into social media in a big way - they are now finding out that the beast bites as well as feeds. This from the NZ Herald: "The $92 tickets for the three April shows in Auckland and Wellington sold out in minutes but within hours some had been listed on Trade Me. The bids have sky-rocketed as more tickets were listed. Last night there were almost 40 listings, with pairs of tickets costing as much as $735. In the last week, 224 auctions for One Direction tickets have been listed on Trade Me. The One Direction concerts weren't one of the Ministry of Economic Development's events under the Major Events Management Act so it was legal to on-sell tickets" - Trade Me spokesman Mr Ford said. May I suggest that if just one of the disaffected teenagers makes a video of their problem re this issue & posts it to youtube, it will go viral - & cause Fairfax one hell of a problem....that's all it takes....I've tried it with LG & Orcon when I h...

 There are an increasing number of media reports pointing out the perils of online activities. Basically everything we do online is logged, and the information is sold to the highest bidder. The notion of "privacy" is fast-becoming a quaint,  old-fashioned 20th century notion. Weekend Herald Sat March 3 2012: "Smartphone apps can gain access to your phone contacts, quietly make calls, read and send text messages, record your exact location and take photos. And many of your actions are tracked and analysed for advertisers or app developers - even a game of Angry Birds....... Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen said".......' all too often we are very quick to give [up] all kinds of data without really thinking of the implications, about where the company is based and about just what is happening with your data once you hand it over'..." read the full article here

If you have faith in computers & IT devices have a look at this photo - taken at the local branch of my bank last week:

Steve Robs Kids: despite all the hype, & the jokes ("there's an app for that") - apps are basically revenue-gathering, data-collating moles...ie in old hippie terms: bullshit. Remember - there is no app for imagination. Steve has robbed an entire generation of their imaginations...we see not gen-y nor gen-z...we experience gen-Dumbed-down .. ..we thought Disney was bad - this Apple is rotten . "Apple customers downloaded more than 15 billion applications in the past three years, the company said on Thursday, releasing figures that suggest the rate of downloads is sharply accelerating. The latest figures from Apple show that customers have downloaded around 5 billion apps so far this year, considering the company said in January that it had just passed the 10 billion download mark. It took roughly two and a half years to reach 10 billion downloads - but much of the period was spent without the popular iPad tablet, which has d...

 google is taking a very high-handed approach to its "customer service" - ie there ain't any. They keep changing the "look"of gmail & youtube - all to their advantage & as per their agenda:  sucking up our personal data so they can "monetize" our use of their services. I guess there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. hahahahahahah - don't even bother to try The good thing on the horizon is that even the Roman Empire didn't last 1,000 years. My prediction is that google won't even make it till the middle of this century - some smart folks will have figured that out & a truely user-friendly net model is about to be launched sometime soon.

Just what do the letters "ACT" stand for? I suggest: "Apocolyptic Conspiratorial Tendencies" "Absolute Complete Twats" "Appallingly Craven Turds" "All Cxxxs Together" ..any ideas readers?

"Computer gamers a bigger risk on roads" NZ Herald Computer geeks who play driving games are more likely to crash on a real-life road, a study says. It found that motorists who play games such as Need for Speed and Gran Turismo are also 44 per cent more likely to take risks on the roads such as running a red light, and are less successful at carrying out everyday manoeuvres. Continental Tyres commissioned the study of 2000 British motorists. Safety experts agreed that driving games gave motorists more bravado. But they said driving games should not be confused with computer simulators which are driver education tools that teach motorists to be aware of dangers on the roads. The British study found computer gamers were more likely to speed, suffer from road rage, be stopped by police and make insurance claims. They are also considered over-confident by non-gamers and a potential risk because they might repeat their virtual driving approach in the real world. Co...

Everything from my local fruit & vege shop comes wrapped in plastic & in these black trays. For those who get bugged by this kind of thing there is an annual competition for the best & worst packaging in NZ. Here is the link at "Good Magazine" - I get a weekly email from them updating environmental/food/green issues. www.good.net.nz/blog/siobhan-leathley/unpackit-awards

 Here is my 2011 Xmas tree which exemplifies the true spirit of Christmas as practised. The key ingredients are money, possessions, greed, & prostitution. My inspiration is a Quaker quote from the 19th century (sorry to be so old-fashioned): "Let those of us who are opposed to war look into our own homes and the furnishings of those homes for the seeds of war" - feel free, gentle reader, to substitute the words "global financial collapse" or "vulture capitalism" for "war".

Today Steve Jobs (aka Steve Robs) announced his retirement from Apple. According to the media he is regarded as a "god" by some in the industry. Somehow I hardly think that the people who slave in the Apple factories to produce ipods "Now In White" (gosh!) for some .50c a day would agree. See more of my adbusting and culture jamming activities on www.culture-jams.blogspot.com

Microsoft received much Twitter flak after a small PR account for Xbox encouraged followers to remember recently deceased musician Amy Winehouse by buying her last album on the company's entertainment marketplace, Zune. After about an hour of retweets - with comments such as "classy", "crass much?" and "Microsoft – failing at social media" - the account tweeted a follow-up. "Apologies to everyone if our earlier Amy Winehouse 'download' tweet seemed purely commercially motivated," it said. "Far from the case, we assure you." Microsoft is not the only company that has seemingly attempted to capitalise on the star's death. Apple posted an image of Winehouse on the front of the iTunes store with the caption "remembering Amy Winehouse". Her breakout album, the Grammy winning Back to Black, has subsequently become the No.1 album in the store. Amazon also posted a brief obituary that linked to a page where sh...

See more of my adbusting and culture jamming activities on www.culture-jams.blogspot.com