NZBC

Thursday, May 31, 2007

KiwiSaver's dirty secrets - revealed!

Under the above heading at Public Address, Keith Ng outlines various objections to the new-look Kiwisaver, including this:

Ha, you've just been tricked into saving for your retirement with your own money, sucker!

Er, isn’t that how saving usually works?

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Aussie humour

Like most Australians - don't you find? - this isn't as funny as it thinks it is, but Values Australia (motto: "A real mate would lay down his wife for his friends") is worth a trawl if you're bored.

Especially recommended is the Sealed Section on the "English" page which has, I think, the only New Zealand joke on the whole site. How restrained.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Mouse glue

I'd never heard of it before - have you? - but this made me laugh.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Five minutes with Kevin Ireland

Kevin Ireland (pictured: ‘Self-Portrait’ oil on canvas, 500mm x 600, 2004) is a poet, short story writer, novelist, librettist and painter. Born Kevin Jowsey in Auckland’s Mount Albert in 1933, when he was 24 he changed his surname to the name of the street he happened to be walking along at the time. He went to England in 1959, remaining there for 25 years (with the exception of a spell in Bulgaria where, using only “restaurant Bulgarian”, he translated poetry into English). Living in London, he worked as a sub-editor for The Times. But he’s always considered himself a New Zealand poet and claims he never really left. His work appeared in Mate, Landfall and Islands and he found he was spending more time in Kiwi company, until he realised he might as well come back: “We were the end of the hippie trail that led through Katmandu to our house in Maida Vale,” he says. So in 1974 he returned to New Zealand, and settled on Auckland’s North Shore in 1985. How to Catch a Fish (2005) is non-fiction and one of his best-selling books. In it he not only gives advice on getting started but also warns against over-fishing. His latest collection of poems, the thoroughly enjoyable Airports and Other Wasted Days, has just been published by Hazard Press. We were after some trade secrets, so NZBC enticed Kevin with a glass of Lemora wine. Read on…

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Bloggers for freedom of speech in Fiji

Eagle-eyed viewers might have briefly spotted the NZBC home page on TV3 News last night. We’re proud to be associated with this initiative, driven largely by David Haywood from an idea by Tze Ming Mok. As well as our friends at Public Address, the bloggers of Just Left, Kiwiblog, No Right Turn and Spanblather also support the action. We’ve agreed to publish guest articles by Fijian bloggers and provide hosting, if required, as has Scoop. Since Sunday, when the press release was issued, the military regime in Fiji has apparently announced it will no longer be trying to track down anonymous bloggers. But they will still take them in for questioning if they “happen to come across them”. The story has been picked up by other New Zealand bloggers, as well as the Fijian media, prompting a certain “Sparrow of Other” to label us (in a comment since removed by the moderator) “the ultra left wing and the gay squad of NZ”, claiming we’ve become “embroiled” in an area that does not concern us:

“They best keep their vile ideological filth in NZ and not spawn it across the seas, fiji can well do without. Their sick mentality is to conjoin with other groups that share their warped ideology.”

Now that’s what we call free speech. It may be the first time Mr Farrar has been accused of being ultra left wing, if not the first time NZBC has been called a “gay squad” (I told the DG those tote bags were a bad idea). Fijian bloggers undeterred by our warped ideology and vile ideological filth can email the NZBC here.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Time, travel

We're getting electric trains in Auckland. How modern.

Though passengers who have made an effort to catch the trains, which don't go where people want and don't go often enough, will have to put up with "severe" disruption. Probably something like the orange chaos that is Queen St's rearborisation.

Regional transport chair Mark Ford thinks rather than minimising hold-ups through clever project management and buses it's about communication.

"It is going to be no easy communications exercise to keep that loyalty during that period because it is going to be extraordinarily disruptive," he said.
Ontrack chief executive David George said the company intended electrifying the network in stages, concentrating first on routes to the most popular destinations.
"We will work with Arta and rail operators Toll and Veolia to reach an accommodation on service issues," he said.

One hopes service applies to passengers and not to minimising payments to operators.

The kicker is, as it should be, at the end.

A serious development constraint is the Britomart station in downtown Auckland, which needs to be turned into a through station linked to an underground rail loop through central Auckland if it is not to reach saturation point by 2020. This will cost another $1 billion.

Look at the map on the page. Wouldn't a western loop from Onehunga that followed the new motorway to Waterview and ducked under Ponsonby to Britomart be a beautiful thing?

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Being Web 2.0

Sometimes you come across people who really practice what they preach and it can be quite inspiring. I didn't attend Tara Hunt's presentations at the Govis conference in Wellington this week, but just a peruse of her blog is impressive enough.

First there's this great post about her meeting with Marilyn Waring. Then there's her absolute adoption of Web 2.0. You can see her presentation online (and it looks a pretty interesting one), and then there's using FlickR to share her travel schedule ...

Monday, May 14, 2007

Now it’s Vector’s turn to be average

They’re all at it. Hot on the heels of Sky and Metrowater, this weekend’s comic interlude was provided by electricity lines company Vector, writing to tell us it will be increasing its line charges from 1 April 2007 (this correspondence coming a little late for that, but for some reason it apparently could not be sent via email):

“The impact on the average residential electricity bill in Auckland will be on average [sic] around $5 to $6 dollars [sic] a month. However, this will largely [sic] depend on the amount of energy you use.”

Largely depend? What unspecified factors are they asking us to unquestioningly accept? Who writes this stuff, and why not dock the price increases from their salaries?

Friday, May 11, 2007

Metrowater: we’re paying for this

The latest in the current spree of companies bludgeoning us with marketing into believing their price increases are good for us is Metrowater: “Last year, after five years without an increase, Metrowater increased water and wastewater prices. This year prices will again increase.” Unlike Sky TV’s geniuses, however, Metrowater’s chief executive Jim Bentley, in his letter dated 9 May, has a veritable reservoir of advice for customers on how to save money in spite of price increases. Committed as his company is to “learning and growth”, Bentley — clearly an expert in advanced economic theory — offers this:

“Another way to reduce your costs is to use less water…”

Thanks, Jim. Drop me a line any time you have any more gems like that.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Treasonous Republicans give comfort to enemy

Well, what can you say about the Republicans giving George Bush a warning that he has to make progress in Iraq by our springtime.

Cowards and traitors! The terrorists will be looking at this and taking comfort! And this just as the surge is beginning to show clear progress!

Sigh.

Still we, the weak men of the NZBC, can hardly preach.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Sky’s the limit

I love the way marketers try to make bad news sound like they’re doing you a favour. Sky TV’s letter announcing yet another price-hike is a piece of disingenuous smarm: “…our mission is to provide you with the best possible entertainment value. We try to hold your subscription as low as possible, while at the same time improving our programme offering to you.” As if the customer inconvenience of renumbering all its channels (arbitrarily, as far as I can tell) wasn’t enough, Sky runs on mongrel technology, so it’s hard to see how a $2.75 rise for the movie package plus Arts channel will be an improvement (the price last went up by $2.45 in May 2006). The MySky errors Fiona at PA has pointed out aren’t limited to PVRs. The current glitch on Sky Digital infuriatingly flicks from a booked programme to the Weather Channel. But at least it doesn’t do what the previous SkyGlitch did, and bump the volume up to full blast and remove all your booked programmes! Sky tries to justify “passing on some costs” to the subscriber by announcing the introduction of a Crime and Investigation Channel, which (judging by the way Discovery and NatGeo have deteriorated in the last two years) will no doubt turn out to be a “one-stop shop” for re-runs of CSI, Frost, Midsomer Murders and Poirot. It may finally be time to say goodbye to Sky.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Mixed lollies

Okay, hey-ho let's go with some fab lolly linkages.

From Mark, if it's not on the net it doesn't exist.

From Stephen, media in a keyword bidding war (via Marginal Revolution)and Barack Obama's Myspace page is under new management (via Tim Worstall, who also gives us his quote of the week). Jessica Alba is self-conscious and doesn't want her movies to be about her and her bikini. And, Tim Blair meets John Malkovich.

From Chris, Scarlett backs the Jesus and Mary Chain, cutely (via Dubdotdash). How Hollywood hotshots are fighting back against Bittorrent and file sharing.

Some depressing thoughts for authors everywhere — but if this is true, how come the 2007 edition of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is filled with (presumably thriving) literary agents? How are they all paying the rent, if not without using author royalties? Private incomes?

Via Arts & Letters Daily, breakfast, anyone? “King Edward, in his final illness, took his doctor’s advice and promised to limit himself to two cigars before breakfast.” With a hat-tip to Deborah on PA System, this is definitely the best Kurt Vonnegut obit online — and be sure to click on the link to the official Vonnegut website.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps is well worth reading.

And from me, the people have spoken: George Bush is the worst president since Jimmy Carter. France is about to become a Red State. Marty Kaplan asks whether a Murdoch controlled Wall Street Journal would have led with a 3000 word obituary to the Iraq war.

Would you like ads with that?

“Many people no longer want to pay for recorded music – it’s a fact. They will pay above the odds to go to a live concert, they will even pay for mobile ring-tones of their favourite artists, but the majority of people under 30 can’t or won’t pay for online recorded music any more.”

So says Peter Gabriel in an opinion piece for the Times. But he’s a glass half-full kind of guy, and thinks that “new doors have opened up as the old ones have closed”. He has a plan.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Shameless self-promotion

With the much-needed help of Dennis and Brian at Webdirectionz, my website has been given the extreme makeover treatment. As well as an excerpt from my first novel, it now contains over 30 short stories, including some flash fiction, poetry, along with a recommended soundtrack of music suggested to accompany some of the writing. I’ll be happy to email a free PDF copy of any of the stories or poems to anyone who wants to print them out and read them at their leisure. The manifesto I’ve written for the home page — about why I’ve chosen to take such an apparently “radical”, free content approach — has been picked up by US author-blogger Paul di Filippo. Drop in any time. And then come back here.

Other links
Mark J’s ‘Absolutely 100 percent’
Jeremiah Tolbert’s ‘But wouldn’t it be cool’
Russell Brown’s ‘Hard News’
David P. Farrar’s ‘Kiwiblog’
No Bugles, no drums
Dave Awl’s ‘Ocelopotamus’
Richard Cooper’s ‘Thoughtcat’

Happy birthday Helvetica

Helvetica, the typeface designed by Max Miedinger, is 50 years old this week. Much excitement in Switzerland, of course, with a birthday party in Zurich recently. There is also a documentary film about it, directed by Gary Hustwit, and an exhibition at Moma.

Hat tip: PopBitch

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Xtra email: snail mail officially faster

An email sent from a Virgin.net address in the UK to my Xtra email address took a week to arrive in my inbox. The postmark on a recent letter proves snail-mailed letters get here faster than that. Friends are complaining about similar problems with mail sent via various European ISPs, and my web hosting company tells me a number of its NZ clients claim to have lost high volumes of email. Upon complaining to Xtra, these business users were told there was no problem, but mysteriously, following their complaints, they received a backlog of delayed email. I complained to the broadband help desk team leader at Telecom and have just received this official response, which I am posting here because I suspect some Xtra customers may still be unaware that there are mail delivery problems. If you think you might be losing important email, I recommend you to do the same.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Emission impossible

Lord Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There's a very civilised debate beginning here about whether carbon emissions are a cause or consequence of global warming, kicked off by Australian scientist David Evans who, having seen the facts change, now thinks that even if carbon emissions are part of the process they are not the main cause of warming. He has even bet $6000 on it.

Sheffield steal

It says here that “Relying not on traditional sales but on its web-savvy fans using the internet to download their favourite tracks, the Sheffield band [Arctic Monkeys] saw all 12 songs from their second record Favourite Worst Nightmare enter the UK Top 200. It marks the first time an entire album has charted… Digital technology has acted as a shot in the arm for the singles market over the past two years, confounding a popular belief that young people were no longer interested in buying singles… By the end of last year downloads made up 80 per cent of the singles market and 52 per cent of the top 40 singles chart market..”

How modern. Sheffield, of course, is where Joe Cocker, Human League, Pulp (with added Jarvis Cocker) and Richard Hawley come from.

Must be something in the water oop north. Or the beer, more likely.

Wouldn’t be the food. Inedible. Don’t go there.

Now read this

Cutting book reviews from newspapers is counterproductive argues a novelist and ex-journo, as reading books helps foster a newspaper habit.

The fastest way to profits at newspapers is to hire more editorial staff, not cut them.

In fact, cutting staff doesn't often make economic sense.

Bully boys

TV One warns that the following security camera footage of a skinhead in Nelson kicking a Korean youth in the head is disturbing, and then shows it four times.

I ask you. And they wonder why they're losing viewers.

Surprised they didn't put the clip on their website. Though it'll probably end up on YouTube.

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