David Farrar has been told that "all blogspot blogs" are being blocked at Parliament with a Websense filter. It actually appears that not all such blogs are being blocked, but a number of political blogs, including No Minister and Michael Earley's blog are. But why are grown-ups being denied access to anything that's not outright pr0n?
These things are usually the doing of over-eager IS administrators who have turned on a bell or whistle that didn't need turning on. Perhaps someone in authority should have a word with them, because it's really quite embarrassing.
Update: Reader and man about the House Felix Marwick reports that the IS people say the problem "was caused by a database update. Apparently an exploit threat was detected on one blogspot site and that's where issues have stemmed from. Definitely nothing sinister or deliberate." Jolly good then ...
Front of the Box, producers of Eye to Eye, the World According to Willie and JT and quite a bit more, have launched Gogglebox TV, a site for both their programmes and user-uploaded video. It's really nice-looking, but, unless I'm missing something, offers no way of linking to an individual clip. D'oh!
So I can only point you to the Gay Goggle page to find a nice interview with Edward Cowley about becoming Buckwheat.
Also in what suddenly seems to be a popular space, Kiwitube, run from a rural address in Northland, has a lot of motorsport and outdoorsy clips, plus this one of Peter Chaplin demonstrating the preparation of terakihi and salad with the assistance of his cherubic son.
Check out Che Tibby's meaty-tastic guide to how to make a terrine and tell me that man doesn't deserve a cooking show. Can't some of you Wellington web wankers take a break from invoicing for our tax dollars and sort the big guy out with some IPTV goodness?
Thanks to Brenda Leeuwenberg for pointing me to the revamped TED website. There's just so much there: nearly 150 video "talks" from TED conferences since 1984: technology, science, culture, design and more.
From the still really, really lame YouTube.co.nz (where the same, mostly irrelevant "featured videos" are displaying more than a week after launch): a new Wellington International Ukelele clip: at the 2007 Nelson Arts Festival, playing 'Weather With You'. Nice.
There are interesting developments at TVNZ ondemand, which announced yesterday that it will be selling (Windows Media DRM, etc) day-after downloads of Disney-ABC programming, including Brothers and Sisters and Daybreak. The day after it screens here, that is.
Elsewhere on ondemand, the TVNZ 6 culture show The Gravy is worth a look. Ondemand is also hosting some CTV8 programming in Mandarin: a game show, a news bulletin and talkback show called I Love New Zealand, which has very dramatic theme music.
The lovely Laura Cantrell, whose work is neither Nashville gloop or boring alt-country, has a WMFU show called Radio Thrift Shop, for which she "scours the bargain bins, church bazaars and yard sales for those forgotten rekkids of all RPM. Often scratchy, swingy and stringy." You can listen to it here.
Kiss on the Paul Lynde Show Halloween special, 1976. Hilarious.
From the Japanese TV show Fountain of Trivia: the world racewalking champion is pursued by sword-wielding samurais. Will he run?
Speaking of running Stephen Colbert takes another step towards running for President -- as a Democrat!
And finally, at the Fundy Post, Mr Litterick finally breaks his silence on the terror raids, and he is very droll indeed. See: The war against intelligence.
PS: Feel free to post your own diversions in the discussion for this post. YouTube URLs embed automatically as long as they have "www" in them.