Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Somebody flicked the Christmas Switch | Nov 30, 2007 11:07

The bakery is festooned with messages wishing me season's greetings in a dozen languages. Outside the butcher's shop, a metre-high mechanised Santa sings something unintelligible and swivels his hips in a constant, lonely roadside dance, like an old man on party pills*.

Clearly, somebody flicked the Christmas Switch. So soon? I'm pleased, of course. We've sorted out a little holiday on Waiheke and all. But there are a few double deadlines to negotiate between here and there, with the special befuddlement factor of the party season.

We have our own party next week, in conjunction with The Wellingtonista and with the kind assistance of Freeview and Ponoko. I'd love to invite you, but the thing sold out on its first day, and we really can't fit another soul into Mighty Mighty. (You can, of course, simply try your luck at the door on Thursday night as you trip down Cuba Mall.)

But I do crave your assistance with a part of the party: the comedy quiz show called It Doesn't Give My Opponents Much Time Either, which -- in keeping with the resurrection of Blam Blam Blam for the do -- is themed on "when Muldoon was Prime Minister".

I'm after questions, curly and straightforward, under the topics of politics, music, food, fashion, TV programmes and headlines. I'll reward the most useful contributions with copies of Great New Zealand Argument: Ideas About Ourselves, now in its second printing and available for purchase from the Public Address Store. (It would make an excellent present for far-flung loved ones, really. As would books by Graham Reid and David Slack.)

The questions will be answered on the night by two teams of three comprised of Sean Plunket, "Tricky" Richard Langston, Graham Reid, Don McGlashan, Roger Shepherd and an elusive female contestant yet to be confirmed (the prospective female contestants have been very elusive …).

Just to state the obvious: email me the questions, don't post them in the public discussion forum.

You may also have noticed that it's Word of the Year time. Join the discussion here. After we've ruminated enough, I'll decide via a formula known only to myself which clever readers will receive the grand prize -- a $500 Ezi-Pay Gift Station voucher with Liquorland and the two runner-up prizes -- Heineken mini-kegs delivered to the door by couriers who smell strongly of aftershave. (And no, we're not delivering to London. Don't be silly.)

Check this out. My good buddy Andy has posted some more video goodness of his young fella making like his one-time pro-skater dad and carving up the streets and schools of Auckland.

You may feel free to post the URLs of other clips you believe may edify or amuse your fellow readers.

* You'll find no better bargains this Christmas, of course, than piperazine-based party pills, which become illegal to sell from December 18. Buy some for the whole family!

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Too busy with First Life sorry | Nov 29, 2007 10:28

I have a bit too much work to do to spend time at the Digital Future Summit today, but I'm watching the webcast. I was interested to see that one of the questions asked of Michael Cullen this morning after his keynote speech suggested New Zealand should follow Sweden and establish an embassy in Second Life.

Yeah, right: and let's follow it up by establishing an embassy in McDonald's, shall we?

I honestly don't get the obsession with Second Life, and the belief that it is some important shared space for humanity. It's a money-making venture, in which currency and land are issued and rents levied at the pleasure of the owner. It's only a brave new world if feudalism (or a pyramid scheme) is your idea of a viable political economy.

I guess it may have a role as an experiment in virtual spaces -- but compared to the teeming, surprising world of the open internet, almost nothing interesting happens in Second Life. The corporate branding angle -- woo! Coca-Cola's there! -- is hype: you could reach all the active users of Second Life and still not get as many people as you'd reach with an ad during One News on a good night.

I did try. Leo and I spent a couple of hours going through it, but we just got bored. We could, of course, have paid money to get more stuff, but why bother?

Anyway, a Mr N. Torkington queried Maurice Williamson's claim at the summit yesterday that we shouldn't look to emulate South Krea because 64% of their traffic was porn (Maurice then accidentally made a joke about them having "great penetration"). Is this a soundly based claim? I don't think so. It appears to come from a 2002 story quoting the luddite Australia senator Richard Alston. The 64% figure is actually the proportion of the South Korean population that had broadband internet at the time. It's more like 90% now.

On the other hand, South Koreans do seem to pay vastly more per head for porn than the citizens of any other nation. But almost all internet porn is American. Go figure.

If David Cunliffe's speech was the most interest part of yesterday's programme, the least edifying had to be the presentation by the man from AIM Proximity. I don't need a direct marketer to explain Wikipedia to me, thanks.

When I first read reports of the theory that humans may be shortening the life of the universe by observing it, my thought was wow: and you thought climate change was a hard sell to the public …

Turns out, of course, that you should be wary of what you read about these things in the popular press, and one of the authors has amended his preprint paper to emphasise they were not implying causality. But not before an amusing Slashdot thread unfolded.

Phew -- that was hard. I've finally selected the five posts that win a copy of Grant Smithies' Soundtrack: 118 Great New Zealand Albums. There were several efforts extremely unlikely to dip out, but the winners are:

Robyn Gallagher on Garageland's Come Back Special

Stuart Coats with the story of the Holy Family.

Andy Palmer on Bird Nest Roys.

Alec Morgan remembering Herbs' What's Be Happen?

And Rob Hosking on the Able Tasmans' Hey Spinner.

Congratulations (and thanks to everyone who chipped in -- it was a fun thread). If the winners could email me with your address details, I'll get the books in the post asap.

I did go to the Blackberry launch last night, which was quite fun, even if I didn't avail myself of the constant stream of blackberry-themed cocktails.

My next outing will be tomorrow evening, to see Bill Direen and Otis Mace at the Masonic in Devonport. In the meantime, here's a clip of Bill and the band playing 'Russian Rug' from the YouTube channel of TV5's Mike McCaleb. Nice.

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Ambition | Nov 28, 2007 10:30

David Cunliffe is ambitious. Whether consciously or not, he has begun to emulate the distinctive phrasing of David Lange when he gives a big speech. And today's speech at the Digital Summit was a big one. The topic was too ridden with jargon and acronym to really support much rhetorical flourish, but good lord, it had content.

The telecommunications industry, and business in general, has been worrying that Cunliffe and his government have charged up a blind alley with local loop unbundling. That the incremental improvements in service and competition it will eventually produce don't come anywhere the kind of infrastructure required for New Zealand to even stay level in telecoms, let alone climb the OECD rankings or enjoy a competitive advantage.

Cunliffe would seem to have been listening. Probably the key point in his speech was his identification of the investment shortfall: in the economy were inherited from our great economic reform, there have not been the kind of investors available who are willing to embrace the more modest level of return and longer horizons implied in broadband infrastructure investment.

The government, he said, is "exploring alternative investment models" -- indeed, soliciting suggestions on same -- that could fund the development of open-access fibre in urban regions, and an alternative fibre link across the Tasman. (The problem with New Zealand's international bandwidth, he pointed out, is not a constraint on capacity -- it's a lack of competition, and the consequent pricing.)

This kind of investment, with its long, secure, debt-style return, seems like a sitter for KiwiSaver funds. That, of course, is not something you could have said 10 years ago -- not only because such funds did not exist, but because here would have been ideological outrage. Telecom's high-return investment model was still being held up as a model practice.

(Cunliffe pointed out that Telecom's capital investment in rural areas in recent years has averaged $22 million annually -- three million dollars less than it gets from all the other operators under their TSO obligations. Depreciation in those areas, meanwhile, has been running at $50m to $70m a year. Go figure.)

Cunliffe also proposed state co-funding of open-access urban fibre loops as an extension of the Broadband Challenge, and an active programme of help for the "least capable" local authorities to bring them up to speed. Open access was a theme. The near-term goal is 20Mbit/s internet access for 90% of the country.

Anyway, gotta run. Suffice to say that Cunliffe has a greater command of the communications and IT portfolios than any minister before him; Labour should regard that as a competitive advantage in itself. His credibility was only emphasised when Pete Hodgson got up and reeled off the string of slogans that is the more usual fare from ministers at these shindigs. As far as Cunliffe was concerned, this was not the Knowledge Wave.

Meanwhile, John Key has a DVD. And he's ambitious too. Sheesh.

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