Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Dancing the DMCA

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  • Paul Litterick,

    Larkin is a great poet. Unfortunately for his reputation, his estate on his death was found to include a vast hoard of porn and his correspondence with Kingsley Amis on racial issues.

    He had been considered for Poet Laureate, to the outrage of The Sun, which discovered High Windows and commented on its first verse:

    When I see a couple of kids
    And guess he's fucking her and she's
    Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
    I know this is paradise

    Nobody who wrote like that could possibly be Our Own Dear Queen's poet. Oddly, The Sun did not notice This Be The Verse ("they fuck you up, your mum and dad...") and Larkin didn't want the job anyway.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report

  • merc,

    Oh God, Mr Anderton, not Mr Anderson (there is a reason for my confusion, won't go into it here).
    I see Farrar finally removed Swiftman's repulsive comment, but I still feel that Farrar incites his useful idiots.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    Larkin is a great poet. Unfortunately for his reputation, his estate on his death was found to include a vast hoard of porn

    That is one of my big fears in life, that I'm gonna die, you know, and my parents are gonna come to clean out my apartment, find that porno wing I've been adding onto for years. There'll be two funerals that day.

    I can see my mom going through my stuff.
    Look, honey, here's Bill when he was a Cub scout. Look at how cute my baby is. His little short pants, his little hat. Look how cute my baby was . . . I wonder what's in this box over here? 'Rear Entry', Volumes One through Forty?!

    - Bill Hicks: Dark Times

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

    She's a greenie!

    Are there people around who print off auto-respond out-of-office email messages? Do they file them or something?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Juha Saarinen,

    Philip Larkin?

    So what exactly are you doing?

    Since Nov 2006 • 529 posts Report

  • Riddley Walker,

    yeah it looks like DPF is really making an enormous effort to improve the tone of his site sewerage, including dud4jaundice sans-PAmask.

    AKL • Since Feb 2007 • 890 posts Report

  • Peter Darlington,

    She's a greenie!

    Gah, it's a corporate meme, pushed out by MFE I think? Loads of our staff use it too.

    Heh, I chuckle every time I see it on the bottom of screeds of unclaimed email printing beside various workgroup printers in the organisation. Think of the trees!

    Nelson • Since Nov 2006 • 949 posts Report

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Are there people around who print off auto-respond out-of-office email messages? Do they file them or something?

    Funny you should say this (but it's probably on her auto sig), but more that 15 years ago I migrated the data for a GM of one of the Parliamentary agencies from one computer to another. He had gigabytes of data because he'd saved everything since the day he started. And all of his emails requested read & delivery receipts.

    Thousands & thousands of auto reply messages, and read receipts.

    OTOH, I also migrated the data from all of Bolger's ministers' proprietary computers to PC Servers. A huge undertaking for some, one or two took days (this was a while ago) to transfer.

    One minister's migration took a couple of hundredths of a second though. We tjhought there was a problem & reran it several times.

    Then we checked the server & found that all there was stored on this hugely powerful computer, was 19 documents. All of them personal missives from the minister's PA.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report

  • 3410,

    Air New Zealand; doesn't copyright law protect parody as a legitimate form of expression? By identifying Dan's piece as parody, isn't You Tube admitting there are no legal grounds for their decision?

    From my understanding US law does protect parody quite strongly; (NZ, not so much. Here, again, is part 3 (Acts permitted in relation to copyright works) of the Copyright Act 1994, the relevant section being, I presume, 42 (1) ("criticism" etc.). I suspect that anyone not profitting financially from such a parody might have a decent chance in challenging, on the basis of parody, alleged copyright infringement under NZ law. However, since it's on the 'net, I guess NZ law probably doesn't apply in this case.)

    Ironically, since YouTube clips are presumably hosted in the US, Dannews is theoretically very likely to be successful in challenging the takedown under US law, if he saw fit to try.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Span .,

    Are there people around who print off auto-respond out-of-office email messages?

    Sadly, yes. I work with two. Drive me batty they do.

    Although it's not as bad as the time recently when we were all (like 20 of us) posted, from our Wellington office, invites and menus for a work dinner we were obligated to attend (so what was the point in sending us the menu!). Each came in a seperate envelope, stamped, to each of us, and the invite and menu were on separate pages, despite both being one side only, and even printed in colour, despite the use of only one colour (very close to black) throughout. The waste of time for the receptionist in opening each envelope alone was criminal. It's almost as if this person had never heard of email, or climate change, or saving trees, or anything.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 112 posts Report

  • Hadyn Green,

    Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

    I sit back, close my eyes and consider the environment, just before printing the email.

    Shouldn't it just say: "don't print this email"?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report

  • Hadyn Green,

    If you recycle, isn't the planting of more trees to make more paper better for the environment?

    (I'm trying to work this one through as I type)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report

  • Stephen Judd,

    I generally like the style of Steyn's writing.

    I loathe and detest Steyn, but I agree - he's the master of the mot unjuste.

    The thing that irritates the hell out of me is that literally I am as well qualified to pontificate as Steyn. In fact, since I actually did study some history and pol sci, arguably I'm better qualified. The man is a jumped-up music critic with nothing better behind him than any other interested amateur's background reading. Apart from the amusing language in which they're couched, I can't think of any reason why his opinions deserve notice. (And given their racist, actually genocidal nature, the sooner he fades into obscurity, the better).

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report

  • Joanna,

    In defense of her email signature, most of the agency I work for has that line automatically included in all their emails. I suspect it's part of govt3 initiatives. Along with tiny cube rubbish bins but still not having the proper recycling set up installed.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 746 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    That is one of my big fears in life, that I'm gonna die, you know, and my parents are gonna come to clean out my apartment, find that porno wing I've been adding onto for years. There'll be two funerals that day.

    Heh, anyone with a sense of humour should acquaint themselves with the work of Florence King- the world's funniest misanthropic bisexual feminist conservative :)

    The Florence King Reader is still in print (I think) and a bloody good place to start, containing extracts from her brilliant and brilliantly caustic autobiography, essay collections, columns and book reviews. An added bonus is the whole of her hilarious - and sadly only - novel, When Sisterhood Was In Flower which has something to offend everyone.

    But as Miss King says in her author's note:

    I did not include any samples of my true confessions or porns. [...] In any case, I threw [them] out years ago and kept only the contract letters, It was a matter of pride. Living alone as I do, I started to worry that if I should die suddenly and the authorities had to enter my apartment, they would find the porns and think I read them. I don't care if people know I wrote porn, as long as they don't think I read it.

    Well, I see her point.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Stephen Judd,

    One minister's migration took a couple of hundredths of a second though. We tjhought there was a problem & reran it several times... Then we checked the server & found that all there was stored on this hugely powerful computer, was 19 documents. All of them personal missives from the minister's PA.

    My dad recently retired as a head of department at a large polytechnic. He avoided email wherever possible, leaving his secretary to deal with it all, on the grounds that there were far too many people trying to communicate with him as it was, and the last thing he needed was yet another channel through which yet more messages could pile up. As far as he was concerned, part of a secretary's role is to filter the boss's incoming messages. And you know, I can't help thinking there's a certain soundness to that view.

    (Have you ever stood by as a senior manager painfully hunted and pecked their way through an email, and thought that the demise of the secretary, dictation, and the typing pool is a damned shame?)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report

  • andrew llewellyn,

    In this case the secretary didn't seem to be dealing with it. There didn't seem to be any "it" to deal with.

    And y'know, it'd probably be scurrilous for me to name that minister. so I won't.

    However.

    It was no surprise to me that none of Murray McCully's emails were leaked to Nicky Hagar.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report

  • Riddley Walker,

    probably because he was the leaker ;)

    nice to see btw, mayor quimby doing another flipflop on s59 now that he realises they're on a sinking ship full of vote losing right christian fundamentalists. shame his attempts are getting much traction, and what attention there is has been quite derisory.

    AKL • Since Feb 2007 • 890 posts Report

  • Leigh Kennaway,

    <Have you ever stood by as a senior manager painfully hunted and pecked their way through an email, and thought that the demise of the secretary, dictation, and the typing pool is a damned shame?>

    And what about that most noble of extinct species - the filing clerk?!?! Anyone who can Jurrasic Park them back in to existence deserves a Nobel Prize, and will get my eternal gratitude!!

    Western Bays • Since Feb 2007 • 79 posts Report

  • Che Tibby,

    riddley, i heard second-hand that the speech to the salvation army in chch flew like a lead balloon.

    apparently the audience was very well misjudged by the speech-writers.

    naturally, this isn't stopping dpf calling it "fan-bloody-tastic".

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report

  • Riddley Walker,

    oh the taste of a nice cup of cold sick.

    AKL • Since Feb 2007 • 890 posts Report

  • Che Tibby,

    noooo... the cup of cold sick is what they're forced to give to the homeless. not much money in charity, you know.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report

  • Jeremy Andrew,

    that most noble of extinct species - the filing clerk

    I used to be one of them, back in the old days. Ask me about microfiche and the myth of the paperless office.

    Hamiltron - City of the F… • Since Nov 2006 • 900 posts Report

  • 81stcolumn,

    that most noble of extinct species - the filing clerk

    I too was once a filing clerk, but not for long. I entered the employment of Her Majesty’s department of Inland Revenue. It was quickly discovered that I had a lexical problem that quite genuinely caused me to put files in the wrong slots. Dealing with as many as 100 tax files a day can you imagine the chaos ?

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report

  • Che Tibby,

    i worked at ird for a year before my current employer.

    it's like you never left.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report

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