This series is designed to help people to understand modern technology, and become more confident in using computing devices. It is not designed to educate experts. The author is involved in tutoring older students at SeniorNet, a New Zealand wide organisation. SeniorNet hopes that students will feel more confident in
There’s an apocryphal story that tells of a hospital where, on cue every Friday evening, any patients left in a particular bed of the ICU would mysteriously expire. For weeks, this went on. Apparently stable patients would suddenly shuffle off this mortal coil like clockwork, every Friday evening. Finally,
Press Release: National Party National will double the size of New Zealand’s technology sector by 2030 with a $1.29 billion plan that will aim to create at least 100,000 new high-paying, future-proofed tech jobs. “Doubling the size of the technology sector by 2030 is an ambitious goal,
When science fiction authors William Gibson and Bruce Sterling made Victorian inventor Charles Babbage’s “Difference Engine” the centrepiece of their novel of the same name, it was a reminder that many “modern” inventions have long, long histories. Babbage and co-inventor Ada Lovelace’s Difference Engine, and its even more
The Silicon Valley oligarchs are going to war with the Morrison government. At issue is the government’s efforts to force the tech giants to pony up some of their mountains of gold for the content they’ve been scraping for free for years. While it’s true that the
Paul Haskell-Dowland Edith Cowan University It’s surprising how quickly public opinion can change. Winding the clocks back 12 months, many of us would have looked at a masked individual in public with suspicion. Now, some countries have enshrined face mask use in law. They’ve also been made compulsory
Last week I wrote a post in regard to a recent announcement from Acting Superintendent Gini Welch that the NZ Police would now be operating a zero-tolerance speed limit breach policy permanently. In that post, I looked at some of the thinking behind the Police’s sudden urge to ticket
The late Christopher Hitchens said, in defense of free speech, “Every time you violate or propose to violate the free speech of someone else, you, in potentia, you’re making a rod for your own back”. Because, as Hitchens argued, who gets to decide? Right now, it may be people
Angela Renton The University of Queensland A recent demonstration video released by Elon Musk’s firm Neuralink might not look like much at first. In the video, a pig named Gertrude eats snacks from a person’s hand, while an accompanying computer screen displays blue lines that peak and trough,
Dave Parry Auckland University of Technology The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) has issued a warning to all New Zealand businesses to be prepared for cyber attacks, following almost a week of daily attacks on the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX). The attacks have caused outages, sometimes for hours, of
Sir Bob Jones nopunchespulled.com In a recent Herald article, Caro Rainsford, a director of Google in New Zealand, argued that the lockdown’s closure of schools and universities, paved a new education future of digital learning. She’s talking nonsense. In education terms the Internet is doing no more
If you have a great Youtube or Vimeo video to share send it to videos@thebfd.co.nz
It’s a little-known fact that, prior to the late 90s/early 2000s, the most intense period of globalisation occurred in the second half of the 19th century. For much of the 20th century, in fact, globalisation was in retreat. Walls and trade barriers went up and stayed up well
The highly contagious COVID-19 epidemic has stopped the world in its tracks. New Zealanders thought that they were okay and free from the virus as they had been told it had been eliminated. Jacinda told the world she had danced in celebration at the news and Kiwis felt reassured that
