Public Address - Island Life (Home)

Internet the way you want it | Mar 01, 2007 08:49

How's your internet connection? Happy with its speed? Satisfied with its reliability? Has that old tyrant, distance, been vanquished by your computer?

If your answer to any of these questions is "no" then you may be a New Zealand internet user. The Internet, according to thousands of news stories and speeches, will do for 21st century New Zealand business what a ship with freezers managed to do for us a hundred years earlier. So why does it feel as though we're all still standing at the wharf, waiting?

Enter the clear thinking and highly accomplished internet businessman Rod Drury, with a plan. You can click here to read it. In four succinct pages he sets out a case for the people of New Zealand to set up a state-owned broadband fiber network, connecting all New Zealand cities, as well as a new high capacity undersea fiber cable to connect us to the world.

By his own admission, his politics lean to the more-market right, but in this case he judges that this vital infrastructure need is best met by the State. If you're one of the thousands of internet users whose Go Large experience has been just the latest in a string of disappointments, then you may well find yourself agreeing with him.

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Browned to perfection | Feb 27, 2007 09:28

I can't blame Tariana Turia for getting antsy about the government's immigration policy. The browning of New Zealand is so tantalising a prospect, one can forgive her for fretting at any threat to the vision, real or imagined.

And imagined it probably is, because, as is so often the case, the facts rudely intrude, as you'll see if you click over here to Blogging It Real where we see the makeup of new permanent residents for 2005/6

UK 14,674
China 6,773
South Africa 4,033
India 3,334
Fiji 2,366
South Korea 2,260
Samoa 2,188
USA 1,838
Philippines 1,252
Tonga 968

Facts, schmacts. You know what's missing in all of this? What's missing is a sense of vision and possibility. People just get all negative as soon as Tariana starts talking. Let's sketch it out a little and see if we can't allay some of the fears.

Because I move in the right circles and work to a biased agenda, I am privy to (and, yes, captured by) the relevant papers. The browning of New Zealand, in Tariana's view, will deliver us a perfectly-formed rainbow nation.

Its dimensions have been carefully conceived. New Zealand, according to her plan, would be composed of the right Brown types, and her people have even gone to the trouble of calculating percentages:

53% Russell
28% Wayne
15% Clint
4% Peter

Social engineering, let alone eugenics, is a perilous business, but Tariana is nothing if not fearless. I for one applaud her boldness.

Consider a New Zealand composed along those lines. 53% insightful, prodigious, down-with-the- kids, IT literate and well informed on geopolitical matters, 28% business-savvy, at ease with the tangata whenua and not at all constrained by any ideological tether, 15% good-natured and sports mad, but a bit stroppy with a few drinks on board, and 4% nostalgic old curmudgeon.

Sounds like us.

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Presidents Day | Feb 21, 2007 14:39

Entertaining as last year's "Yo, Blair!" exchange proved to be - if only for its banality and the dismal confirmation, if any were needed, that Dubya is not up to much as a global statesman - it seems there may have been a little shading left out of that portrait.

According to this review of an Ariel Sharon biography by Uri Dan, the leader of the free world is contemplating an extraordinary rendition of a somewhat extra-constitutional character if they ever bring in Osama for a hangin'.

Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon's delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: "I will screw him in the ass!"

I wonder if he would consider donning his flying costume and performing the ceremony under a banner on an aircraft carrier. Dude, I would totally flick over from a Britney Spears special to watch that.

The book itself sounds worth a look. Everything in the Middle East is dismal, and a pessimist such as Dan is never proven wrong. Assume the worst, and you will probably be on the money:

Dan reveals a little and conceals much when he hints that Arafat's death was not caused by any illness. He himself suggested to Sharon that Arafat be captured and brought to trial in Jerusalem, like Eichmann, but Sharon reassured him that he was dealing with the problem in his own way. Then Arafat fell ill, was flown to Paris for treatment and died. Was Sharon involved? This is what Dan wrote then in Maariv that in the history books prime minister Ariel Sharon will be remembered as the man who eliminated Yasser Arafat without killing him. Let every reader figure it out for himself.

Say what you want about Helen, the most she's likely to do to you is feed you to the press. If you're lucky, you'll even get tiling leave.

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I'll cry if I want to | Feb 20, 2007 11:36

I first noticed them at the meat section. I was leaning in to pick up a tray of skinned boneless chicken thighs when a heavy-set man pushed in front of me to seize the biggest T-bone steak I have ever seen. Vast, it was, and yet still not wide enough to span his enormous girth. A green and yellow polo shirt struggled to contain the kilos of flesh. He spoke in a boom. "This is more like it Trevor. In Capetown, we put two of these in a sandwich and scarf them raw."

There were three of them: the man with the cantilevered belly; another in an England supporters' shirt fiddling with his Blackberry; and a smaller man, eyes darting self-consciously about the supermarket. Blackberry man looked up from his screen. "What about the Foie Gras? Where is it Mallard, you soft prick? Is there any bloody decent food here? Why don't we just go back to the hotel and see if the power's back on?

They were loud, and really quite intimidating. Shoppers retreated into the aisles as the trio made their way through the store, the Englishman and the South African arguing noisily as they grabbed armfuls of food, pausing from time to time to mock their companion. I reached the checkout just behind them.

The young woman behind the till bowed her head shyly and scooted the items across the scanner as the man with the gut leaned his great hams of forearms on the counter and leered at her cleavage. "That comes to $2011.69" she said softly.

The foreigners both turned to Mallard. His hand went hesitatingly to his wallet. A red cardboard card bearing a photo of the Prime Minister and a short list of declarations fell upon the counter, followed by a platinum American Express card. "I've got $11.69 left on this one," he said, and spun around on his heel towards me. He fixed me with a level gaze as I pulled a six-pack of Stark from the trolley. "It's your party," he said. Turning back to the checkout, he declared to the operator "he'll get the rest," and with that he was gone, hurrying to catch up to the foreigners who were now at the exit door and singing loudly and off-key about a bicycle built for two.

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He cooks that crystal meth cuz his shine don't sell | Feb 16, 2007 10:26

The humble photo opportunity is the meat and drink of modern journalism.

Just like the food you eat, it can be modelled as a pyramid. At its vast base would be the pictures of the businessmen in suits grinning stupidly as they shake hands with the awkwardly self-conscious recipient of an unfeasibly large cardboard cheque.

Up the top, at the sharp point, you will find the booty call. Criminal booty. One or more law enforcement officers face the camera, each one of them solemn and lantern-jawed, chest just bursting with pride, surrounded by the spoils of a criminal enterprise come undone.

This picture comes from the archives of the Sylva Herald in North Carolina. You can click here to see a clearer image of the 'shine being decanted onto the road. What a great little newspaper it is. Had a group of kids not exploded a pipe bomb at their high school, and had one of them not been due to give the salutatorian speech at their class graduation, I might never have passed their way. Now I drop in every few months. It is presently so cold there, the waterfalls are frozen.

The rivers freeze solid and the brightest kids in the school blow up buildings. Who wouldn't feel like a bracing slug or two of something neat on a cold winter evening? The Sylva Herald is a little coy about the circumstances of the moonshine bust. Readers are merely given the reference details should they feel sufficiently inquisitive to visit the library and pull out a dusty copy of the original story.

Illicit distilling has a history both glorious and ignoble. Our own Hokonui tale sits more on the side of the angels than sinners unless you believe that alcohol itself is the devil's cup. At least they made something worth paying for. In the 1870s, NZ Geographic reports, whisky in New Zealand was imported mostly from Scotland and Australia and was frequently so watered down it was said "A dram was often offered a chair as it didn't have the strength to stand up."

When it comes to alcohol and drugs and prohibition, read the history books. It looks like a fool's game. As generally law-abiding as I am, I can't disagree with the news release the Mild Greens issued at the beginning of the year. They tore into the head of the Northland police organised-crime squad, who had declared to the Northern Advocate that his team expected to find and seize a record number of cannabis plants this growing season. Over the past five years, cannabis-plant seizures had been steadily increasing, he said, and then he got to the bit that lit the fuse for the Mild Greens.

Cannabis is still the base funding for other drug and criminal offending.

"Bollocks", exploded the Mild Greens.

It is the prohibition of cannabis that is the base funding and every one knows it. You don't need to be Einstein to see the connection between cannabis and crime is its 'legal status' and police are being simplistic and deceitful about 'drugs causing crime'.

I'm on the side of the argument that doubts the efficacy of prohibition. Don't like the harm done by drugs, including the most widely used - alcohol - but don't have any faith that prohibition will fix it. I sometimes wonder if the Police truly believe it in their hearts either.

But a burning pile of weed makes a hell of a photo call.

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Shopping Report | Feb 15, 2007 10:18

1742 - Parfait of Foie Gras*

Auguste Escoffier writes:

Fresh foie gras do not bear transport very well, and when sent from a distance, often reach their destination tainted. It is, therefore, difficult, whatever care may have been taken in their preparation, to obtain the results which are achieved by manufacturers who are renowned for this kind of produce.
Consequently, it is preferable to buy the Parfait of foie gras readymade from a good firm rather than try to make it oneself.

* P 571 The Escoffier Cookbook

PSC 1410 - Cartridge of HP Printer

The Techsploder and I had an email conversation this morning that touches on the existential angst of consuming computing goods. An excerpt:

David:
When I think about it, the thing that irritates me most is that I'm pestered by this machine like a toddler. Give me a new cartridge! Align my new cartridge! Go to the store and get six more cartridges! I didn't like that file. Give me a new power cycle!
Can't shoot it, can't put it in time out.

Juha:
Reminds me of Windows that. It pops up all sorts of useless information constantly. Worst one is Outlook 2007 - when you click on a folder to read mail in there, it pops up a bubble saying "Outlook 2007 is preparing the view" each time.

Just fucking do it and don't bother me with insane chattering...

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Page 3 Boy | Feb 10, 2007 16:03

At the age of 46, I have disrobed for a popular family magazine. The first consequence of this act may be that the magazine will become less popular, but that's their roll of the dice.

My principal concern is to answer the inevitable question I expect to be hearing from people once they have received their copy of this week's Listener, and that question is, of course: "What Were You Thinking?"

I'll start at the beginning. A few weeks ago, I had a call from Sally Blundell. She was doing a piece about heart attacks and wondered if I'd be willing to share my story. Happy to. Always happy to. I tell it so often, I fear I bore people to death, but that heart attack entirely changed my life, and even two decades later I am still absorbing its implications. She duly turned out a most interesting cover story, using my own tale as a way in.

Enter the unparalleled Jane Ussher, who took some lovely photos of Dad and daughter two years ago. "I couldn't talk you into doing one showing your naked torso could I" she asked brightly. I receive all kinds of odd phone calls here at the world headquarters of speechesdotcom, but this was the first time someone had asked if they could take a photo of me with my shirt off. Oh my unfulfilled dreams. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a topless model in a glossy magazine.

That's not it. Try this: For one thing I say "Yes" to everything. For another, as friends whose counsel I sought after the fact were quick to assure me, I am given to acts of vanity and foolhardiness.

"Sure", I said, "why not." I think she was surprised.

Let me share some of the advice I was given at no cost from one the nation's most expensive public relations practitioners:

Upsides.
Um..........

Downsides.
They won't airbrush you.
Rodney Hide tried this. It didn't win him anything but snide letters to the editor.
Men your own age will hate you. (How dare he not have a gut. Do you think he's gay?)
Younger women will be repelled (Middle aged skin. Gross.)
Women your own age will be appalled. (Oh dear, sad. I bet he's bought himself a sports car.)
Children will be frightened. (Mummmmmmmmmmy!)
You will have to confront this naked you at every corner dairy for an entire week. And each time you do you will think – do people think I think a lot of myself?

Talk about yourself till the cows come home but please don't lose your shirt over it!

I also consulted the previous editor of the organ in question. He said, "Look, by all means do it if you want to, but if it was me, I wouldn't."

Did I listen to them? I tried. In the end, though, certain combined aspects of my personality, namely: class clown, reckless gambler, contrarian, blind optimist won the debate. Not forgetting the previously mentioned foolhardy vanity.

We met at Cheltenham Beach: Jane; her glamorous assistant Naomi and I. It was all fun. You've seen the news shows following her around before, perhaps. She's a wonderful person. All photographers should be so nice. And she promised to do a kind job. I looked at my post-Christmas waist. Could they Photoshop off the love handles? Sure they could.

Off we went: Under a tree, standing purposefully and manfully, legs akimbo, in the sun; in the water, following directions. "I want you to come out of the water like Daniel Craig," she teased. I emerged as instructed from the water. "That's not exactly like Daniel Craig is it," I said. "No," said Jane. "No. He's more …...." - the beginning of a pause loomed over our little group - "British!" declared Naomi brightly. "That's going in a blog," I said.

I am indeed less British than Daniel Craig. You can turn to pages three and fourteen of the Listener to verify this for yourself. There is also a picture on page sixteen of Dad and daughter.

Mary-Margaret, I expect you to concur, looks beautiful and takes after her mother.

For the past couple of weeks I have been slagging off my friendly gym to anyone who will listen. "Look better naked" they promise in their exhortation to join an intensive class of six. All around town I have declaimed loudly against this evil manipulation.How dare they be so cynical? How dare they use a line certain to elicit large measures of self-doubt? There are vast numbers of women who have no reason to believe it but nevertheless consider themselves to look not sufficiently attractive when naked. And so on.

Well, here's some advice to myself. Less time slagging off the gym and more time on the weights since Christmas, and you might not have been so perturbed to see the state of your love handles in a glossy magazine, Chester.

There's always more than one perspective, though. This is, I rationalised to myself in the last two weeks, the year of the male nude. Everyone's at it. Harry Potter's getting his kit off. Matthew Ridge can't keep his clothes on, and every time you turn on the TV, there's Paul Henry, for whom I have the utmost respect, proving that it's okay in middle age to get your shirt off and let the flesh proclaim your humanity to the TV viewers of the nation.

It's only February. The year of the male nude could be, if you like, bigger than Ben Hur. Putting all misgivings aside about the less than perfect state of my aged self, I think there's a sound basis to this nudity business. Let's be having more of it. Few of us look so terribly splendid naked; but you know what? A little more honesty and authenticity could well do us all good. Less veneer, more truth.

So that's me at 46. Rippling abs, flowing locks, a truly marvellous specimen of alpha masculinity, even if I don't look very British. Narcissus came undone with his self-loving gazes but that's only because he was looking at himself in the water. You can't drown in a magazine.

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Mint Condition | Feb 07, 2007 20:15

Hell, in the usual run of things, is other people at conferences: dull types you can't shake off; egotists who like the sound of their own voice; cologne-drenched sales people; corporate Machiavellis; stale coffee; minutes measured out in mints from the saucer.

Not that all conferences are awful. I've been to some splendid affairs. Exotic locations don't hurt. Pimp your programme with a coconut palm and a golden beach, and your staff will love you for it. Add alcohol and dalliances, and you have yourself a party.

But your industry gathering, as advertised in the glossy brochure that falls out of your NBR, can be a dire business.

I blame the middle man; the dreaded Conference Organiser. The ads are all the same. You will hear, they assure you, from leaders in their field. They will have 'learnings' to offer.

It all seems somewhat ersatz, and there is a perfectly good reason for that: it is. Some poor bugger has to make a living doing it. He or she has to conceive a theme, round up a couple of dozen speakers, hire a hotel ballroom, run off the flyers and then hustle the whole deathless experience at two or three grand a throw to all the usual suspects: large corporate organisations, relevant government departments, hapless NBR readers.

You makes your booking and you takes your chances. Sometimes, you get lucky; talented people have interesting things to say and the gathering comes alive. Sometimes, you just spend a day in a windowless room staring at PowerPoint presentations, swapping business cards at the break.

People have been asking me: what exactly is Foo Camp? One answer would be: it's everything those joyless affairs are not.

The phrase they like to use is unconference. Like-minded participants are invited, they gather, and they decide then, amongst themselves, what they'd like to talk about and what they'd like to hear. If you're of a mind to give a presentation, you put your name up and nominate a time and place. And then off you go.

This was my experience from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. It was one of the most stimulating, entertaining and enjoyable things I have ever done. Various others have already reported on it. I'll add a little more.

Most Exciting:

My inner entrepreneur was fully-charged listening to the story of Rod Drury's latest project. NZ's Hi-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year is not resting on his laurels. He has pulled together a team of extremely capable people and they are primed. In fewer than six months they have sized up the market for accounting and banking software for small businesses and conceived an online service - 'Xero' - that will take care of the whole book-keeping enchilada from Goldstein to Government.

Drury is on the TradeMe board. He thought three quarters of a billion was a good number. He thinks it would be 'interesting' to put the first billion dollar deal on the board. I'm co-hosting with Finlay Macdonald on his Sunday morning show on Radio Live this weekend, and you bet we'll be getting Mr Xero on the wireless for a chat.

Also Damned Exciting:
Richard Simpson is by no means letting go of his Carlaw Park stadium idea. Travelators! I love travelators!

Most Dazzling:
The PitchBlack people get to do what most people of dream of: they fool around all day doing what they love (in this case: making really cool stuff with sound and light) and they get paid to take it all over the world to vast and dazzling events.

Most Unexpected:
David Haywood and I found ourselves undertaking, in an Open Source session, to make submissions to the select committee dealing with the copyright legislation. In a forum like this, if you have a tale to tell, you may well be urged to testify.

Most Civic-Minded:

Rob McKinnon will be on the Digital Democracy panel with Chris diBona and Alistair Thompson at the Great Blend in Wellington this week, and he is a man worth listening to. Idiot Savant, this one was for you. We found ourselves mentioning your name often as we were taken through firstly the UK site TheyWorkForYou.com, which is, in its own words, "a non-partisan website run by a charity which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected and unelected representatives in Parliament, and other assemblies" and then on to the NZ version Rob has set up: TheyWorkForYou.co.nz

We searched speeches, we checked voting records, we went through MP asset registers, and we discussed a very good plan to marry up a few online social networking techniques with the select committee process.

Biggest Can of Worms:
There is not, it seems, a can big enough to cope with all the worms that attend copyright law and digital rights management in the twenty-first century. Talk about your irreconcilable tensions. Talk about your noble intentions undone at all turns. Judith Tizard came in on an artists' rights-leaning perspective. I sense that after many hours of explanations, illustrations and ardent protestations, she took away a new one.

If you wanted to get yourself well-briefed, you were in the right place. Peter Gutmann was able to offer chapter and verse on the Vista suicide note, and there were Open Source people all over the shop.

You Put Some In, You Get Some Out:
I talked about the rise and stall of speechesdotcom, and building a storytelling facility into a dynamic speech generator. In turn, I got a clutch of excellent fresh suggestions from Mark Cubey, John Houlker and various Pitch Black guys. Thank you all.

I've Had A Foo

My only regret - not being able to see everything. I especially regret missing the One Laptop per Child session. I might have suggested modifying it to make room for a lunch box. Which reminds me that neither did I get to the hardware hacking session.

It was just a total treat. Everywhere you turned, you met good people with great ideas and an enthusiasm to share them. I didn't touch a single mint all weekend.

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