Month: January 2012

So, let me get this straight

Shane Warne has an argument with a cyclist. At a point during the argument, he drives forward and damages the bike (something he’s admitted!) so badly it can’t be ridden, he then leaves the scene without exchanging details and goes straight to twitter to put his version of the events. Meantime, the cyclist does the right thing and reports to the police, has photos taken for evidence and, I believe, has an independent witness statement supporting his version of events.

Warne has, at the very least committed traffic offences, could even be accused of assault, but uses his public profile to push blame onto everyone else – government, cyclists, not taking any responsibility himself.

What a nong! I know he’s loved for his sporting prowess and not his intellect, but this latest episode puts him firmly in the rarified company of other complete stooges, Rex Hunt and Sam Newman. Both had their rather unspectacular days in court, I hope Shane gets his!

Google – more evil by the day?

I find this very troubling.

Someone at Google appears to be deliberately and systematically polluting and plundering the crowdsourced data of competitors. Two instances seem to have been all but proven so far (check this post about OpenStreetMap and Mocality), it seems unlikely that it stops there.

If ever an action was hypocritical and seemingly calculated to destroy trust, it is this. In fact, it’s an action which could be terribly damaging to Google, which relies so much on trust every time someone uses Gmail, sends a Google+ message, hosts a document, amends a map. Crowdsourcing is trust in action.

For these reasons, I can’t imagine the actions have any basis in official policy at Google, but are likely the actions of an over-zealous group or individual. Whatever, the case, Google need to come clean about this REAL FAST! full disclosure, and nothing less will do. We’re waiting!