Posts by Russell Brown
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Up Front: Life on Mars, in reply to Lilith __,
Arggh! Just read that.
It was unusual getting a measurable earthquake in Auckland. First time I can recall feeling one here.
But it was NOT "scary". It was a short ripple that made the floorboards crack.
Aucklanders on Twitter are cracking self-deprecating jokes and Jackie Blue spoils it. Sigh.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Tim Hannah,
Any thoughts of how, as a consumer, you can rightfully boycott a book (by not buying it) but you are powerless when your Council uses your rates to buy that same book for its public libraries.
I’ve considered standing for Council on a platform of “The library shouldn’t buy any book on behalf of the entire community unless I like it”. But I’m feeling a little discouraged as informal polling tells me my taste isn’t as popular as it should be.
And then you look at some of the more illiberal states of America and thank your lucky stars people generally don’t petition their local library to remove books in this country.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to Mark Graham,
Wishart talked last night on Campbell Live about telling a story of how the boys killings came about. I don’t know if there’s any defense in there of Macsyna or blame to Chris, but isn’t this a story worth telling? Even if it is by someone as loathsome as Wishart?
But that's where I think there's something contemptuous (in a moral rather than legal sense) in Wishart choosing to exploit the news value of the inquest -- to the point of claiming to have the untold truth about the babies' death. It's despicable.
But I was fairly stunned at the TradeMe rep on a panel at NetHui today cheerily explaining that they were letting their users decide in an online poll whether the book should be allowed for sale on TradeMe. He thought it was democracy in action. It sounded creepy to me.
I'd be more comfortable if they'd just made a commercial decision and owned that. Shifting responsibility to the tiny proportion of their user base that bothers to vote is hardly a brave move.
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Up Front: Life on Mars, in reply to James Butler,
Stanier Black 5 is Jo Burzynski of Lyttelton. The work she'll perform is based on field recordings captured in the four hours after the Feb 22 earthquake. Challenging and special.
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Two points:
1. I can faithfully report that in Wellington Emma was so ladylike and decorous that even passing strangers remarked on her delicacy.
2. Emma will be projecting her ethereal ladylikeness from the stage at the Orcon Great Blend, Thursday August 4, Auckland Town Hall concert chamber, along with Mr Haywood and audio-visual works by Stanier Black 5 and Blair Parkes. Plus a DJ set from Shayne Carter and the launch of Digital NZ's 2011 Mixandmash challenge. RSVPs open next week. Wheee!
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Hard News: That's Entertainment!, in reply to recordari,
Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Destiny's Child at the Houston Rodeo for seventeen dollars? There was a flaming hoop involved.
No, funnily enough, you didn't. That sort of street cred is impossible to falsify.
I saw Sonic Youth encore with the opening chords of 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and then IGGY CAME ON STAGE AND SANG IT.
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Hard News: NetHui is here, in reply to Samuel Scott,
However, it would be fair to say that many APRA members and RIANZ affiliates do appreciate it.
Which was the correct answer :-)
Getting geeks and artists in the same room is a mild obsession of mine. Y'all have much to offer each other.
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Hard News: NetHui is here, in reply to Paul Brislen,
Get Vikram to tell you the weirdness of how they got to play the doco… then we can talk about copyright and where this whole shooting match is going.
Ah! Just heard the story of how it got resolved. I think we’ll save it for the show, if possible :-)
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Hard News: NetHui is here, in reply to Don Christie,
Others are using .tv, .ly and .co
Hah! I was helping Sam with his 'The Sauce' feature for this week's show and added precisely those examples.
What odd little accidents that Libya controls one of the more often-seen ccTLDs, the one used by Bit.ly, and that little Tuvalu could do a $50m 12-year deal for the use of its suffix.
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Hard News: NetHui is here, in reply to Don Christie,
This obviously gives lie to the idea that INZ somehow has a “natural monopoly” on domain names.
They do actually use the phrase "natural monopoly" themselves with respect to .nz -- and accurately, I think. Only one party can be delegated a ccTLD.
The really important change after the 2000 coup was opening up the retail side. When you think of how it could have been with Domainz, I think things have gone pretty well.