Category Archives: Business

Dear Woolworths

Stop trying to make me use your crappy “self serve” checkouts.
I noticed you installed them a few months back. A few weeks ago, out of curiousity, I tried it.
It was just that: a curiousity. My experience went as follows:

I was reminded of my first job as a checkout operator, which I utterly detested. It was [...] Continue reading

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At long last

International customers can buy Amazon Kindle ebook readers without jumping through tricksy hoops!
I am quite excited about this. I spend a lot on books shipped via Amazon. The Kindle means that I would spend less per book and eliminate shipping costs.
Edit: Though it looks like they’re only going to sell the plain Kindle, not the [...] Continue reading

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Google and News Ltd are in the same business.

A cat named Hartigan has apparently put himself amongst the blogging pigeons. A generous amount of fur and feathers has flown as a result.
For example, Hartigan has defended traditional media reporting and newsroom methods; bloggers say that News Ltd don’t “get it”, or are already giving in, or their content sucks, or some combination of [...] Continue reading

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Do you own NAB shares? Flog ‘em now.

NAB’s CEO has decided to work amongst his hoi-polloi in a corner cubicle.
Cubicles are one of worst false economies created by bean-counting. Managerial types seem to thrive on interruption. They love a crisis in which they can prove that they are as good as Captain Hornblower.
However it’s been known for a long time that cubicles [...] Continue reading

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Do you own NAB shares? Flog ‘em now.

NAB’s CEO has decided to work amongst his hoi-polloi in a corner cubicle.
Cubicles are one of worst false economies created by bean-counting. Managerial types seem to thrive on interruption. They love a crisis in which they can prove that they are as good as Captain Hornblower.
However it’s been known for a long time that cubicles [...] Continue reading

Posted in Business, Cross Posted from Club Troppo | Leave a comment

What’s Killing The Newspaper? It Isn’t Bloggers.

In the last few months, the discussion of the future of newspapers has become a recurring topic in the media and online. Several common themes and arguments have emerged. The most common gripes are either that newspapers are being killed by bloggers, or that newspapers are being killed by failing to get their own news, [...] Continue reading

Posted in Business, Cross Posted from Club Troppo, IT and Internet, Journalism, Media, Metablogging, Print media | Leave a comment

What’s Killing The Newspaper? It Isn’t Bloggers.

In the last few months, the discussion of the future of newspapers has become a recurring topic in the media and online. Several common themes and arguments have emerged. The most common gripes are either that newspapers are being killed by bloggers, or that newspapers are being killed by failing to get their own news, [...] Continue reading

Posted in Business, Cross Posted from Club Troppo, IT and Internet, Journalism, Media, Metablogging, Print media | Leave a comment

Take that, Greek (and B-School) Mythology!

In ancient greece, the Oracle at Delphi drew its authority and oracular insight from Apollo, the Sun God. In the org-chart of ancient greece this made the Sun more important than the Oracle.
Of course the greeks had it wrong. The Oracle had knowledge; that made it a local power. Apollo received lip service, Delphi received [...] Continue reading

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Payment woes continued

My startup dot-com project continues to plod along in the gap between university labs, assignments, tests and other studious miscellanea.
Today I spent some time getting down to the nuts and holts of payment systems.
I’ve done some work on this before, of course. Westpac knocked me back for their ordinary merchant account. I began to look [...] Continue reading

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On a risk I had not considered

As most of you know by now, I’ve been slowly working in my spare time on a dot-com project. I haven’t knuckled down to do a proper risk analysis yet — let’s face it, coding is much more fun — but I’ve certainly kicked various scenarios around in my head while working on it.

So, for [...] Continue reading

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