Posts by Paul Brislen
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Journalism has (in newspapers) always been about selling eyeballs to advertisers, not stories to readers... the readers are the product, not the customer.
Unfortunately, publishers seem to have moved from the "give the reader good journalism and they'll be back" school of thought to a "we can reuse that story in 15 different publications in six different countries without having to even bother subbing it" model which, quite frankly, is farcical in this day and age.
I can, for instance, read the same story on NZ Herald, Stuff, Sydney Morning Herald, The Melbourne Age, BBC, Times Online, and so on...
which begs the question: why do publishers think I want to read it on one more than any of the others? And why aren't they trying to attract my eyeballs with contextual news just as hard as they are trying to attract my eyeballs with contextual advertising?
Also, it appears I've started the discussion with a blank box. Oh the irony. Russell, help!
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Thanks for the lovely words and great post...
We never got to push the emergency button but I wasn't too worried - for me the BPU (button pushing urge) came with the new Auckland hospital lifts, which have an override button for very-pregnant-mothers-who-might-not-make-it-to-the-ward-otherwise. It even had a flap over it JUST LIKE A MISSILE LAUNCH BUTTON!
Oh how I wanted to push that - never mind your urgent need to visit your granny on floor four, We're Having A Baby and You Can Wait!
I can feel the urge even as I write, like an itch... maybe I'll just go up there now and have a go anyway. What can they do?
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I've found the original Brian Gaynor column (well hidden on the Harold site)...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=316&objectid=12689
Even Brian's own list of columns on his company website doesn't include it. It should be required reading for all immigration officials I think!
Cheers
Paul
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Colin? Colin the cat?
I see... named after some wacky artist or other...
Naming conventions for pets is a tricky beast - I am about to become the proud posessor of two guinea pigs and I'm concerned that a: they'll die quickly and leave me with two bereft blubbering children and b: they'll be named Bubbles and FooFoo or similar.
And yet I'm reliably told I won't get much of a say in the naming. How can I combat this? What have other parents done (the Short List of Acceptable Names? The introducing of pets Already Named?)? What works?
Meanwhile, I detected a brief bout of this phenomenon:
on the YouTube footage. Fi, was that you?
Oh, should I say something about homosexuality? Erm... Colin the cat. No, that's all I've got.
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I must say I was underwhelmed with the fireworks display as well... a lot of it was ground-level stuff hidden in the trees at the Domain so once the front 10,000 people stood up to get a better view the rest of us took to chanting "Sit down ya wanka" and wondering whether we'd get a chance to see what was going on.
Mind you, my little girl enjoyed herself immensely and that was really why I was there so I can't complain. The fireworks we did see were Oooh and Aaah enough and she enjoyed riding on my shoulders through the crush of people on the way out as much as anything else. I didn't like to point out to her that when she's 15 that'll be a pain - she's four and she loved it.
Cheers
Paul
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Interesting column in the Dompost this morning:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/3983574a1861.html
Richard Long himself weighing in on whether juries should hear all the evidence.
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If the juries at the two recent sex trials had known that former policemen Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum were already in jail, for eight years, for a rape conviction, would it have made any difference to the outcome? I don't believe it would.
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Stephen - you're not wrong... but really when we're talking about historic rape cases like this there is no other evidence than the person's character... I think historic rape cases are probably unique in this regard - you wouldn't bring a historic case involving theft or even murder unless there was some kind of evidence, circumstantial or otherwise (an no, IANAL).
I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea that prior convictions should be introduced at all, but I think it's worth looking beyond a blanket "never" approach particularly in cases where there is similiarity between crimes or where the main defence/prosecution consists of a person's character.
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Rickards' position is a tricky one.
Either he knew what was going on and was involved (very bad) or he knew but wasn't involved but didn't say anything (also bad). Or he didn't know (and yet was 'close friends' with these guys) which makes him a lousy copper, or he knew but didn't feel he could do anything about it/was too junior/easily intimidated.
Having seen him talk to the media after the case I doubt it's the latter case, but that's about the only one that could conceivably make me give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what rank he was (or the others for that matter) back in the 80s - anyone know? Was he senior or junior to the other two?
It's very difficult as a junior member of staff to dob in senior members - but hey, he's a police officer and yes I would expect them to go the extra mile with such things.
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I'm interested in what we think about the whole idea of keeping prior convictions away from juries.
In most cases I can see that it's a good idea (just because he's robbed before doesn't mean he did it this time) but when it comes down to rape accusations so many of these cases rest on who the jury believe: the complainant or the defendant.
In those cases, surely a jury must hear about prior convictions? Doesn't it address the most important aspect of such a complaint - the character of those involved?
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So long as any govt-owned network is run on a MUSH network methodology, I think this would be a great idea.
MUSH (municipal, university, school, hospital) networks work best when they're set up by non-telcos. I spoke with Bill St Arnaud from Canada about this a couple of years ago at a TUANZ event - he said the regional councils gave the money to the companies that owned diggers. They laid the fibre, cutting deals with MUSH participants to give them free internet access for life. It works like this - when you lay a fibre bundle in a trench, the fibre is often the cheapest component in the network. So instead of putting in five fibres, you put in an extra one and simply give that to the school/hospital/whatever for their own use. A single fibre would give any school more capacity than it would ever need.
In fact, some schools would then lease unused capacity on their own fibre strand back to the network manager who would on-sell it (along with the remaining strands) to businesses. The schools would, in some instances, actually make a profit from having broadband!
I think the TelstraClear thing is simply leasing capacity on TC's existing network. While TC has a lot of fibre spare between the main centres, it's not as good a deal in the long term as buidling our own fibre network.
More on Bill and his MUSH here at Computerworld