Posts by Alastair Thompson
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Emma Hart,
Yes. The electoral address issue is a non-issue, and yet it seems its being made into the primary one. Looking back from overseas at this tempest in a teacup I just feel a sense of despair. There is something terribly wrong with our political discourse. Sanctimony on steroids.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Russell Brown,
Well yes. Group think.
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Nail on head. Pitchforks.
NZ public discourse is prone to pile-ons. NZ's political cadres seem - especially on the left - to be willing to capitulate to narratives advanced by the other side.
Take the Barclay debacle. Did the Nats break ranks and start calling for English to apologise/open up on the subject.
In this case there seems to be in plain sight evidence that the Minister of Social.Welfare herself is similarly compromised. Certainly she has been taking legal action left right and center to shut down inquiry - which looks more than suspicious.
As pointed out above being registered at the wrong address for electoral.purposes happens all the time when young. Students can elect where they vote and overseas voters get to vote where they last lived even though they don't livee there.
Under MMP it matters not a jot in any event and under FPP it arguably mattered even less. That leaves the mother being the flatmate.... since when did having your mother living with you as a flatmate make any difference to DPB eligibility.
This is yet another example of self-righteousness in the context of a political sideshow getting the better of the larger picture. Unfortunately in NZ'S tiny pond there are always a bunch of people who would like to see anyone who sticks their head above the parapet taken down a peg or two. Tis a shame, but what is done is done.
As for Gower. Seems to me it is his natural tendency towards moral certitude for the sake of heaflines that often sets the pitchfork battalions marching.
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Was the WordCHCH panel recorded?
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This kind of forecast bias is due to the methodology of forecasting. Since Crystal ball gazing is considered unscientific the forecast is always for things to return to where they are normally. So in housing's case that means pre-housing inflation madness... (and there is plenty of evidence that NZ housing booms do eventually stop) .... and for Dairy Prices that means long run norms.
The consequence of higher than expected house price inflation is likely to mean a stronger than expected Auckland economy. The consequence of the Dairy price overestimation a weaker rural one. In the end these two things may roughly cancel each other out.
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Phew!
Well I will stop worrying about that then.
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Sacha,
Google Doubleclick for Publishers aka DFP is a Google Product which is wonderful and provided for free to publishers - and one which saved us a lot of money when it was made free. Google provides a heap of wonderful free tools notably Analytics which Scoop and countless other news organisations use.
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to BenWilson,
While I think a per GB communications tax is a poor way to fund NZ culture I do think that some form of Government action is required if NZ culture is to survive in a digital age. Some kind of per household connection tax - ala the broadcasting license fee - is definitely a proven and tested way to address this issue.
Arguably since the broadcasting licence fee was was abolished in the 1990s we have gone backwards a long way.
Dismissing other people's solutions is easy.
Proposing workable ways to address this issue is what is need.
Neo-liberal economic views on the dead weight of taxation are highly debateable and expressions like...
"Jesus, could communication be one thing that doesn’t have the government’s finger right up it?"
... are not really helpful to a serious deliberation about the subject. Nobody wants the Government communications propaganda to replace independent news production - however in the absence of some positive government intervention this is precisely where we are currently headed. And we will all lose as a result. Economically and culturally.
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Vivid,
We respectfully disagree :)
Our view is that a Press Release is a special kind of publication from a copyright perspective. It is effectively a communication issued under a commercial reuse is allowed basis, with derivative works being granted their own exclusive copyright. We regard our copies as derivative works as we curate them, tag them and add typographic layout.
But even if we do not have an exclusive copyright to our version of a press release (which we believe we do), then we unquestionably have copyright to our "collection" of press releases as well as to our "typographical" arrangement of the press releases. And for our content licensing approach to work from a legal perspective these are all we need.
Al
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Vivid,
Wouldn’t “new approach to licensing content” be a better descriptor as large part of your content is copyrighted to the organisations that wrote the press releases.
We are licensing our copyright to the content. Which is news content. So I think both descriptors work. More importantly though the approach to news copyright which Scoop has adopted is not limited to use with Press Releases. It can in theory be adopted by all news content publishers and in doing so could potentially provide a significant source of revenue for our major news companies.