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Real Media | Oct 25, 2007 10:09

I spoke to a group of Media teachers at a development day at Unitech yesterday, and the subsequent conversation was quite interesting. These courses have flexible curricula (actually, according to Geoff Lealand no curricula), but they all teach secondary students basic screen production skills.

Yet none of them were teaching what ought to be a core skill in handling video these days: the optimum way of encoding clips to play on YouTube and similar services. In many cases that's because YouTube is dangerous ground for schools. Some of them just filter it at the gate.

It's the same with other social media; especially Bebo. And yet, when I had a wander through surrounding pages after Rory English's Bebo comments became a story, it struck me that this was a form of media that would be really useful to get kids to discuss. I got the impression that a lot of these kids were behaving as if they were in a private bubble, whereas they were actually on the public internet.

Same with blogs. Our kids start making PowerPoint presentations at intermediate level. But no one talks to them about a medium they're much more likely to actually use. It doesn't take a lot of skill to pimp your MySpace, but wouldn't working with WordPress be useful for Media students?

Even Wikipedia seems problematic. It's much easier to declare it unreliable than to impart some basic skills in assessing the merit of an article -- as the cornerstone of the vital modern ability to scrutinise information online -- and then how and when to edit. I think that's much more useful than faffing about with Second Life (yes, I probably do have a bias against Second Life).

As a result, I've promised to talk to some scholarship students about these things before the end of the school year. I'd also be interested to hear from teachers -- in the comments here, if possible -- about how they're approaching these issues.

Moving on, Nandor Tanzcos' most recent speech on the Copyright Amendment Bill is concise, clear and well worth reading.

And, as noted elsewhere, the New Zealand YouTube gateway opened yesterday afternoon. It's actually an improvement on what was on offer when I wrote about the launch of the YouTube regionalisation strategy in July -- they were going to fob us off with an Australasian site -- but I'd be interested to know how exactly the local content gets harvested and highlighted, because they seem to be missing quite a lot of it. I'm hopefully talking to a Google marketing chappy later today. I say hopefully, because press operations run out of Australia never seem to work very well. Certain companies need to learn this.

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Another Network in a Different City | Oct 24, 2007 10:14

Bernard Hickey is still getting responses to his Stuff blog calling for the government to step in and buy Telecom's fixed-line network, which is, according to a story by Tom Pullar-Strecker, going to be put up for sale as the consequence of an informal agreement with the government.

I'm not so sure, about a couple of things: does "fixed line network" mean only the network this side of the exchanges, leaving the trunk trunk fibre between exchanges as the basis of a Telecom wholesale business?

It's not really about one company running fibre to everyone's house; not in the next decade or two, anyway. Communities are capable of building their own access networks, local bodies can build neutral ducting so that new entrants can run fibre wherethey think there's a business -- and then there are projects like consume.net, the wireless community mesh network led by Julian Priest in London.

For these networks, you need telcos only to connect at the edges: bandwidth through the network is a matter of shared transit. It sounds like some hippy fantasy -- people put wireless access point on their roofs, thus forming a high-speed mesh in which everyone carries everyone else's traffic -- but these things are real and, in places like Spain, already covering quite large geographical areas. The picopeering agreement that governs peering and interconnection is now at 1.0 stage.

I can see such a network working well here in Point Chevalier: a contained, increasingly gentrified suburb with a long copper run to the nearest exchange, an old and degrading fixed-line network and residents on the verge of rioting over the state of their DSL service (a community meeting on the matter earlier this year was very lively). Rather than rewiring the entire suburb, you establish an interconnection point at its edge and allow wholesale competition to deliver service to that point.

Who knows how to work this stuff? Julian does -- and he lives here. He was born in Britain to a New Zealand family and has come "home" to live in Wanganui, where he aims to establish the country's first mesh network. I met him at the New Zealand Open Source Awards last week, and he struck me as someone who really wants to do something good. We should grab his expertise with both hands.

I'd be interested in any comments on both the viability of a mesh network and network strategy at the government level.
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My darling and I are going to see John Cale next month and I, for one, am excited. I haven't seen him play since my birthday in London in 1986, and that was basically a not so good version of the show he played at the Gluepot in Auckland in 1983.

As a rock journalist at the time, I got to spend some time with him -- in cars, in an extended radio interview and -- oh, so blokey -- at the urinal. He was a little difficult at times, and perhaps not entirely comfortable with what he had wrought -- when Doug Hood slapped on The Clean on the car stereo, he demanded it be taken off. I think he's a bit more chilled now.

I did have the satisfaction of providing him with a recording of 'Loop', an experimental track I had on a Velvet Underground bootleg that he thought had been forever lost. Cool.

But that Gluepot show, that was something. The clarity, the stentorian voice, the artistry. I made a recording with the basic mono tape recorder I used for interviews, and played it until the tape wore out. Even Murray Cammick was moved to observe it had soul, and Murray does not use that word lightly.

My tape's long gone, but there's a fan bootleg of the show. I couldn't find any more trace of it than a couple of dead torrents, but if anyone could put me onto it, I'd be well grateful.

The recent shows sound really promising: a young band, a freakish version of 'Heartbreak Hotel', medleys worked up on the afternoon of the gig -- and a version of 'Venus in Furs'. And his belting version of LCD Soundsystem's 'All My Friends' further suggests the old bugger's in form.

We went for the old-folks version and got reserved seats in the circle of the Bruce Mason Centre. I might yet have to clamber down to the floor. A lot of people got really excited about Dylan. I'm amped for this.

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Mint Chicks win everything | Oct 19, 2007 11:30

Or that's how it seemed, anyway. What might have been a parade of the usual suspects at the Music Awards last night turned out different, with the academy granting the Mint Chicks three awards, including Best Album, and Hollie Smith a further three. It made for a fun night.

There were, as Stuff's reporter gleefully discovered, goodie bags of sponsors' product draped over every seat in the auditorium, and also booster packs at the door, containing a bottle of Waiwera water, a can of V and a scarcely credible beverage called Smirnoff Premium Ice Double Black No. 118 with Guarana, which had an alcohol content of 7%.

In the interests of seeing what it is the kids are necking these days, I opened my can. It smelled like vomit. No, really. It smelled like vomit. It tasted like … well, I don't know what it tasted like. But it sure wasn't good.

There were better drinks in the media room, to which I gained entry with the first of a series of blags, during a less compelling section of the awards show. But mostly, it was well worth being in the audience, for the Mint Chicks playing, the excellent Johnny Devlin tribute by Jonny Toogood and the New Devils (which was, incidentally, the first chance Jon Toogood and Shayne Carter have had to share a stage) and even for Evermore, who performed Light Surrounding You with the assistance of a gospel choir. Special marks to Brooke Fraser for the good-humoured way she dealt with suggestions that she was, well, hot, and to Mike Hogdson and all for the video design -- again.

One thing no one was talking about -- but which I gather to be true -- is that the Mint Chicks are set to become a three-piece: the bass player isn't going with the rest of the bad to live in Portland, Oregon. I'm not sure how they'll go without a bass.

Back in the media room after the show, there was an amusing series of scrums around the winners, some of them involving Public Address Radio's team of Nigel McCulloch and Josh Thompson ("Terrible interviews," Nige cheerily informed me), and Paul Holmes in a white suit. Also of interest: the bloke from the Herald website editing the Herald's own video on the spot.

There was the usual noise and chaos at the after-party. Funniest moment: Peter Urlich carried his bespoke burger (top marks for a good range of soaking-up-the-booze food, BTW) into the toilets, and placed it on a shelf by the basins while he went about his business. As is so often the case, two young men decided to capture documentary footage of the star-burger with their mobile phones.

"Damn," came a grunt from the direction of the urinals. "I pitched that to Jeff Latch two months ago … "

Eventually Simon Pound and Abbie Rutledge grabbed me to dash over to Code, where Scribe was playing the after-after-party to a packed house, including an increasingly unhinged McColloch and Thompson. Additional blagging (in the door, up to the VIP bar on the mezzanine, a bright pink token for a free drink) ensued, and I stayed for some of an energetic set before jumping in a taxi to arrive home shortly before 2am.

I thought it was a good effort given that it was my second awards night in a row, follow the inaugural New Zealand Open Source Awards, which was fun in a different, hey-you-really-need-to-meet-this-person way. It was a great thing to be involved with and I think Don Christie, Chris Daish and the rest of the crew at Catalyst IT deserve bouquets for making it happen. They gave it effort, money and time, and it paid off.

Most interesting goss from Wellington was that the Copyright Amendment Bill, having been given the once-over-very-lightly by the Commerce select committee, isn't done with yet. There's a degree of concern at the highest levels that some of it doesn't make sense. Watch that space, for sure.

And, finally, a story I heard at the Music Awards …

In Auckland this week, a household of Maori musicians and artists and the like are being questioned by police officers over their potential connection to illegal activities that may or may not amount to terrorism. After half an hour or so it is apparent to the officer leading the questioning that these aren't the criminals he is looking.

So what, one of the guys asks, would you be doing today if you weren't here talking to us? Well," says the officer. "I do have two murders to investigate," and he turns and leaves the room.

I wonder if the cops in Taupo felt like they, too, had better things to do this week than confiscate $15,000 worth of computers from people whose connection to the real action (my view that there are matters of very legitimate concern for police hasn't changed) is pretty tenuous. Doing so with a ropey-looking warrant and then handing back the computers in a manner that suggested that their taking in the first place had been a bit pointless didn't help.

This isn't a government plot. It is not designed to facilitate the passage of the Terrorism Suppression Act amendment bill, which was already going to pass by a margin of 100 votes (indeed, the chief effect of this week's events has been to refocus attention on the amendment bill's considerable flaws). And I rather suspect that Labour is actually pretty much hating this. And I expect I'm not the only one wishing Ron Mark and Pita Sharples would both STFU and stop politicking until there are a few more facts to discuss.

With every additional intrusion, the police are raising the stakes for themselves. It seems clear that they have a great deal of evidence in hand, but some of their actions this week either that they're getting a bit desperate to find some key additional evidence, or that police command has overcooked this week's operation to a damaging extent.

PS: I have five copies of the smashing new Phoenix Foundation album, Happy Ending to give away to lucky Public Address readers. Just click the reply link to email me with the answer to this following question in the subject line: What kind of car features in the video for their song 'Bright Grey'?

PPS: I cannot advise on how you might go about obtaining it electronically -- iTunes NZ, as usual, is useless -- but I am loving Amy Winehouse's version of 'Cupid' from the Radio 1 Established 1967 anniversary album of cover versions. The fact that a skinny Jewish girl can lay a seamy soul vocal over a classic rocksteady beat and pull it off so authentically speaks to me of all the things I love about London.

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