Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Russell: A lot of enterprise email systems, like Outlook+Exchange or Notes, replicate all emails from the server to a users local drive. Where they can easily be copied to a memory stick. For OL2003, this might be:
C:\Documents and Settings\drDon\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.ost.Gary: He did promise before the election that he'd move to Australia if the Nats lost. Maybe he'll be doing that now.
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50% Government, 25% Auckland City, 25% ARC
So I make that, based on a mid-point $750mln and assuming 2/3 of the population are taxpayers:
- $146 for each non-Auckland taxpayer
- $383 for each Auckland regional taxpayer
- $1,053 for each Auckland City taxpayerThat's rather a lot of money, don't you think? And Auckland City taxpayers are being rather leached off (compared to North Shore people who are getting an easy ride).
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"the Lions tour generated ~$130 million increase in revenue for New Zealand as a whole. It is not too big a stretch to expect the 2011 world cup to generate close to $1 billion in revenue for NZ."
Will eight times more people turn up for the world cup than the Lions tour? Where will they all stay? - they won't be spending much money if they're all sleeping in carparks.
Even if they did, that's only maybe $400million in extra tax revenue - so as taxpayers we're spending $600-1000 mln to make $400mln - doesn't sound like a very good deal to me!
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Andrew: Creative Commons licenses (like most open source licenses) can't be effectively revoked (see [http://blog.tph-lex.com/archives/weekly/week_2003_02_23.html#removing])
Because you've granted a perpetual license to whoever downloaded the work to copy *and redistribute* it, they're entitled to keep on redistributing your work - so any attempt to yank it back is futile.
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Or whoever has the emails could just walk into a city centre internet cafe, hand over a gold coin, post the emails onto a few dozen blogs, and rapidly retire to a safe distance...
On the much over-commented subject of the stadium, could I just point out one thing:
"three flagship op-ed columnists" - is it me, or is there a strong correlation between those who will get undoubtedly get complementary tickets for the 2011 world cup final, and those who are showing enthusiastic support for the new stadium. Most of the rest of us have maybe a 50:1 shot of getting a finals seat and will have to be content with watching an England/Fiji pool match. In Hamilton.
But we (the great un-comped) are still having to fork out several hundred dollars in tax for the shiny new stadium. It's a long way from user pays to "everyone except the user pays"!
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I think the government should be making as much information as possible accessible. The argument *for* charging for public sector data, of course, is that it costs money to collect/create, a minority will use it, so why should the general public purse subsidise that minority with free information (where have I heard that before?)
The US doesn't do this though - unclassified data has to be available on a copyright-free basis by law. So anyone can print their own marine charts using NOAA data, for instance - which makes US charts much cheaper than others.
What the government shouldn't be doing (as it's crap at it - see www.legislation.govt.nz) is actually hosting the content. Instead, they should leave it to other profit- and non-profit bodies to deal with that side. The approach with cadastral data is good (and I don't think $200 is unreasonable to produce and distribute media to a small group of people). Generally, if a format is documented and consistent, someone will create converters/importers pretty quickly.
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"There are some core responsibilities that you have chosen to buy into - they are, freedom, tolerance, democracy, equal rights."
Surely an obligation to "buy into" these "responsibilities" negates one of them - "democracy". In a democracy I have the right to hold any opinion, including the view that democracy (or freedom, tolerance and equal rights) is a bad idea.
And if these "responsibilities" only apply to naturalised citizens, then bang goes another - "equal rights".
I prefer the idea that we live in a state governed by laws. Everyone's responsibilities are limited to obeying those laws - which are mostly the same for a citizen of 800 years ancestry, or a passenger in transit at Auckland Airport. Both are *not* allowed to twoc the duty frees, but *are* allowed to argue peacefully for NZ to become a dictatorship of the proletariat / theocracy / feudal state.
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Comparing the size of the economies, the $500mln for the stadium is the equivalent of $3bln for the Aussies, or $12bln for the UK.
I don't believe the UK government would stump up that sort of money to get the rugby world cup (Twickenham was actually rebuilt using debentures raised by the RFU).
The IRB needs to pull it's neck in. Ideally, the corruption prone "bidding" process should go. Why not just have the Americas Cup / Eurovision rule - the winner of each cup gets to stage the next one, using whatever facilities they have.
Or just rotate amongst all the rugby nations in alphabetical order.
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Yes Tom. I think engineering the stadium precincts to be an "urban public space" that you might want to wander around is a challenge.
We might not even get any more access to the stadium area than we do to the wharves: Eden Park is locked away behind a fence when there isn't a game on.
And "extras" like public access are unlilely to happen fro two reasons:
- they'll cost money
- the RMA, which would normally mandate these things, is going to be bypassed by a Stadium Act. -
Aren't Tongariro National Park, Fijordland and the Southern Alps "great public spaces" enough for us? The Aussies need monuments to cover up for lack of self-confidence (not to mention that nasty little bit of nagging guilt that comes from living in a stolen country).
Anyway, I have a suggestion for funding the stadium. There are about 3 million electors in NZ, and the likely cost (above that which can be found from sponsorship, etc) is around $600 million.
So why not have a pledge system? Everyone who wants the stadium could sign up and pledge a minimum of $400. If a majority vote and pledge "yes" then that's raised the money and we can go ahead and build the stadium. Any surplus could go to build a giant Haka Man on top, new cars for the All Blacks ( or even kids rugby).
If we don't make the numbers, then we just have to go back to the IRB and tell them that we're sorry, but being a democracy we have to make decisions democratically, and people just said no. It'll be 40,000 seats at Eden Park for the final or you can go and play the world cup in North Korea or someplace that it's easier to get decisions made.