Public Address

Field Theory: Rules

Hadyn Green — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:18:00 +1200

Here is a quick rundown of the new rules to be trialled by the IRB:

1. Law 16.7 (Ruck): The ball has to be used within five seconds of it being made available at the back of a ruck or within two seconds following a warning from the opposition forwards of "Fucking come on ref!" Sanction – Scrum.
2. 19.2 (b) (Quick Throw-In) For a quick throw in, the player may be anywhere outside the field of play between the line of touch and the seats where the players girlfriends sit. Fans may be allowed to throw the ball in if...

Capture: Eating Tim Tams with Tono and The Finance Company

Jonathan Ganley — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:35:00 +1200

Last Friday night we went to see Tono and The Finance Company play the final night of their 'Up Here For Dancing' release tour at the intimate Lucha Lounge in Newmarket. The music was great, Tono's lyrics are wry, funny and perceptive, and the audience gave them a warm welcome. I have taken photos at Lucha Lounge before, and knew the light would be difficult. Armed with the fastest black and white film I could find (Ilford Delta 3200), and trying not to get in the way too much, I managed to get some photos, the band illuminated by not...

Hard News: Disrupting the Television

Russell Brown — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:32:00 +1200

This week on Media7, we're looking at the curious case of Fyx, the retail ISP launched last week by Maxnet with a new pricing model and -- this is what got everyone chattering -- a "global mode" whose purpose, although the company was wary of saying as much, was to let customers defeat region-blocking on offshore video-on-demand services.
In effect, it opened up a world of film and television. Customers would be able to use (and where applicable, pay money for) Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer and other services. A growing number of more sophisticated New Zealand users have already been...

Hard News: Where do you get yours?

Russell Brown — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:53:00 +1200

According to Nielsen research that I can't be bothered digging up right now, you, dear Public Address reader, are notably confident about buying things online, relative to the general population. It's a fair bet that you're also pretty confident about where to get stuff that you're not actually buying too.
I was nattering with Pete Darlington on Twitter yesterday about places to buy music -- yeah, buying music, that's how old we are -- and he said he'd been using Beatport for dance and reggae music. I tend to prefer the British-based Juno, despite is quirky interface, for the same...

Hard News: " To prostitute yourself to media interests is not a good way to be"

Russell Brown — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:11:00 +1200

Last night's Media7 programme is online here -- and there's also a 20-minute extended interview with Bryan Gould. The programme is not entirely unsympathetic to its subject, Rupert Murdoch -- senior lecturer at Auckland University and former Herald editor Gavin Ellis noted the debt that everyone in newspapers owes Murdoch and speculated on what might befall Murdoch's papers if he was removed from command of his company.
But Gould, formerly a senior member of the British Labour Party's shadow cabinet and a colleague of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, was scathing of Murdoch's influence on British public life. He talked...

Capture: Two Tales of a City

Gudrun Gisela & Lilith Crawford — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:30:00 +1200

Introduction
Yesterday Lilith posted a few photos in the comments of our EQNZ Remembrance post, and it made me think we should take the opportunity to open another thread.
So here are two different depictions of life as it goes on in Christchurch, kindly provided by two Capture and PA regulars.
Lilith - Tale One
Sumner had a Street Party last Sunday, and it was teh awesome! Our 2 main streets were closed to traffic and filled with music, food, drink, craft and clothing stalls, stuff for kids to do… and about a zillion people with their children and dogs...

Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience

Graeme Edgeler — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:00:00 +1200

Yesterday - after a bit of effort - the House of Representatives held a conscience vote on the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill.
When the House abandons its usual practice of voting upon party lines, or at least when it has in the past on more controversial matters, there has been some debate over whether MPs should be exercising their consciences, or the consciences of the the people they represent. And for those who don't directly represent people - list MPs - some have raised concerns about whether they should be voting at all.
I have always considered the...

Muse: Postcard from Cologne: Willst Du Mich Verarschen?

Craig Ranapia — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:42:00 +1200

I've always found it impossible to walk past a bookstore, even if there's nothing in it I can read apart from the imported pornography (don't ask unless you have serious cash-money in hand).
But anyone who cares to explain this, seen eariler today in a bookshop in Cologne, will have my eternal gratitude. (There is a law of tourism that you can only do two museums and one department store, or three cathedrals and six department stores in a single day without mental gridlock.) Perhaps.

Yes, I should be feeling a patriotic glow of some description but the woman giggling...

OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.)

Keith Ng — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:04:00 +1200

To state the obvious: Student loans are loans. When you pay off a loan, you stop paying. So if repayments go up from 10% to 12%, graduatues won't pay more - they just pay *earlier*.
This impacts on government finances:

The government collects future revenue earlier, allowing them to "get back to surplus" earlier. This part is purely political.
Collecting revenue earlier means they don't have to cover interest on it. This is a real saving, but this is only worth a fraction of the "revenue increase".
It will marginally worsen default rates, because:

Graduates who don't default will pay...

Legal Beagle: Semi-Random election law thoughts

Graeme Edgeler — Tue, 08 May 2012 06:30:00 +1200

In advance of the tri-ennial Parliamentary review of the election, the Electoral Commission has released its Report of the 2011 General Election and Referendum.
There's some interesting reading in it: for electoral law nerd like me, but also of more general interest. The Commission notes, for example, some of the matters it referred to the Police:

two Broadcasting Allocation matters (plus the PM's hour)
63 cases of dual voting/personation
nine candidates for failure to file election expense/donation returns (which the Commission says should be upgraded to a corrupt practice)
12 election advertising matters
11 election day concerns, including: one delivery...