Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Campbell comes back

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  • James Green,

    It does appear that Williams may have been a little disingenuous, but especially in the light of Clinton's sniper-fire thing, I do wonder if we need to think a little more carefully about the fallibility of memory.
    I certainly don't remember the conversations I had yesterday verbatim, let alone last week. And one of things research suggests about memory is that every time you 'remember' something, you are actively reconstructing it, and likely changing it.
    It's entirely possible for people to vehemently believe in their 'memory', but for that to be entirely contradicted by objective records (ever more prevalent). I think the problem will be sometimes working out when the bastards are lying, and when their memories are genuinely at odds with the objective truth.

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    So can we add "who recorded the meeting and how did One News get it?" to "who leaked the Hollow men emails?"?

    It's already begun, just catch Chris Trotter's rather odd turn on yesterday's reliably fatuous edition of __The Panel. If we're drawing pop music analogies here, this toon comes to mind.

    Oh - stop

    With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
    Try this trick and spin it, yeah
    Your head will collapse
    But there's nothing in it
    And you'll ask yourself

    Where is my mind

    And surely you've got to have a meta-WTF? moment when Clark defends him in glowing terms like this:

    "Well, I've known him for a long time, but he can be a little loose and confused."

    Ouch... So this is the man you're quite happy to have holding a critical fundraising and strategic role in your campaign for a 'historic fourth term'? OK, that works for me.

    But here's the real lesson, boys and girls: Don't look a hack in the eye and tell them a flat out lie at the same time you're bitching about being the victim of a 'media beat up'. Especially when the hack concerned has documentary evidence that you're the one with bullshit breath. Audrey Young schooled John Key on that point as a blog debutante. Williams, OTOH, just doesn't seem to get it.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Stevens,

    And didn't Williams drop wild hints about tax cuts prior to the last election that never happened?

    He's certainly a loose canon.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 230 posts Report Reply

  • Lyndon Hood,

    ...and how did One News get it?

    They stole it, silly. They stoled his wordz.

    Actually it just struck me (too late?) that there was an extended lolrus series in the Hollow Men business

    Mah associates has informed me that you are in possession of MAH MAILZ!

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    Our friends at Scoop have announced their Election 08 section, which will be edited (and largely written) by Gordon Campbell. I think this is a great development, and one likely to enhance understanding of the campaign for all sides of the political battle.

    Coverage spanning all sides of the political divide, from Labour to the Greens to New Labour.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Coverage spanning all sides of the political divide, from Labour to the Greens to New Labour.

    Well, if you want something more right wing, you've always got The Listener...

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    Well, if you want something more right wing, you've always got The Listener...

    Whenever I want coverage of breast implants, suburban house prices or Princess Diana they're my first port of call.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    National is planning a massive public investment in broadband.

    Isn't that socialism?

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    National is planning a massive public investment in broadband.

    Colour me intrigued - very light (in fact, empty) on the mechanism they intend to use to deliver this, but this is basically the NZI broadband plan but presumedly sans a nationalised FibreCo...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Who will own the seems to be a deliberate vague point, which does concern me. Surely if the government is paying for it, the people should own it?

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    I/S - Agreed. At least the NZI take on it actually had a suggestion as to the vehicle for ownership and delivering. However Key refers to "intervention" and "harnessing private innovation" (or similar) so doubt they are angling for a Transit of Broadband, looks more like a government funding of private investors to do it...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    So a giant corporate welfare scam then. I should have known...

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    So a giant corporate welfare scam then. I should have known...

    Well I won't say that personally (due to the lack of any clarity around how it's to be delivered), and to his credit he claims one of the guiding principles will be to NOT line the pockets of existing players. But I could see it being one of their PPP infrastructure investments where a public company tenders to be the delivery partner and receives funding to make up the investment shortfall...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • Shep Cheyenne,

    "Isn't that socialism?"

    Yes, but of the best type, Socialism for the Rich.

    We pay our taxes so All Blacks don't have too (if some had their way); so rich corps can advertised on the sides of boats; so LOTR can make a bigger profit.

    And you thought it was for health care and education - that's what user pays is for.

    Since Oct 2007 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • John Morrison,

    Instead of the staid "He should be fired..." comment, I thought it would have been better for English to say something along the lines of "I hope Labour keep Williams as their president because he is confused and is gaffe prone". Yet another brain explosion by Williams.

    However, it does seem a little dodgy how a good quality tape-recording of a closed session at the Congress ended up in a journalist's hands who then didn't declare that he had it when interviewing Williams. I suppose journalists will say they are just doing their job and they get the scoop any way they can.

    Well, if you want something more right wing, you've always got The Listener...

    We have been subscribers to this magazine for decades, on and off. Unless the current editorial staff and/or APN depart soon, we will be terminating our subscription. BTW Stirling says Hansford was only on a short-term contract. Is that the reason for her to get rid of him?

    Cromwell • Since Nov 2006 • 85 posts Report Reply

  • Jarno van der Linden,

    How does bringing fibre to the home reduce the cost per bit? Do they also have a strategy on how to upgrade the national backbone and increase international bandwidth?

    For example, a million households at 100mb/s is roughly 100Tb/s of bandwidth. Currently the total capacity of the Southern Cross cable network is less than 1Tb/s.

    I'm slightly concerned this is going to lead to giving everyone a super-duper driveway, connecting to the main dirtroad.

    Nelson • Since Oct 2007 • 82 posts Report Reply

  • Dave Waugh,

    I'm slightly concerned this is going to lead to giving everyone a super-duper driveway, connecting to the main dirtroad.


    Sooooo, the opposite of what we now have?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 98 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    However, it does seem a little dodgy how a good quality tape-recording of a closed session at the Congress ended up in a journalist's hands who then didn't declare that he had it when interviewing Williams.

    Oh, so the issue isn't that Williams lied, but that he wasn't given a sporting warning that he could have been caught out? Anyone want to point out the flawed moral reasoning there?

    I'd respectfully suggest it wasn't Guyon Espiner's ethical responsibility to follow up with, "are you sure about that, Mike?" I never gave an interview subject a run down of my research or other interviews related to a story, and I don't know anyone else who would.

    As I said up thread, I was a little short of sympathy for John Key when he (to be blunt) accused Audrey Young and John Armstrong of making shit up and they had documentary evidence that said otherwise. I did think the language of Young's post was a wee bit OTT, but was perfectly entitled to be pissed off about being accused of the cardinal sin of journalism. Hacks get fired for fabricating quotes.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Don Christie,

    Whoah. What Craig said...I agree.

    (with stomach unchurned).

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1645 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole,

    Jarno said:

    For example, a million households at 100mb/s is roughly 100Tb/s of bandwidth. Currently the total capacity of the Southern Cross cable network is less than 1Tb/s.

    I'm slightly concerned this is going to lead to giving everyone a super-duper driveway, connecting to the main dirtroad.

    It doesn't work like that, though. At no point in the history of consumer Internet has the upstream pipe been even half the size of the sum of the connections it serves. If you're lucky, your ISP only over-subscribes the connection by 10:1, meaning for every 10Mb/s of connection speed they've sold to customers they have 1Mb/s of connection to their supplier. Suddenly your 100Tb/s is down to 10Tb/s, and that's if ISPs are over-sub'ing to a very, very low level. In reality the SCC could support 100Mb/s to every home in the country as it is now.

    Why? Three reasons:
    1) Not everyone will buy a connection that's actually 100Mb/s. Some will want only 10Mb/s, and pay correspondingly less for it. Far fewer users will want 100Mb/s than would be quite happy with 10 or 20.
    2) Not everyone saturates their connection. In fact, very few people do. Even fewer saturate their connection constantly. The reason over-subscription is viable is that most users don't use most of their connection most of the time. They use a bit of their connection most of the time, a lot of their connection a little bit of the time, and all of their connection very infrequently. And the bigger the connection, the smaller the period of time in which they use most or all of it because they get the data so much quicker.
    3) Akamai and other proxying services bring the content to NZ. You aren't connecting via the SCC to get stuff, you're just connecting to boxes on our shores, so the size of the SCC is irrelevant. Toss in peering, and there's actually a lot of content available without a single bit having to depart NZ. Fatter pipes encourage local content, which improves the ratio of domestic:international even further, encouraging more local content, rinse and repeat.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Far fewer users will want 100Mb/s than would be quite happy with 10 or 20

    Which begs the question, since one can get 24Mbit with current DSL copper technology, and VDSL2 is even faster, why do we need fibre to the home? Is this a subsidy for a small minority that want HDTV movies in the time in takes to make a cuppa?

    Not to mention that while copper seems to be very versatile, I'm not convinced that fibre can be upgraded as easily. It certainly seems that any upgrade would need new subscriber equipment in every home in an area. I'm happy to be proved wrong on that, though?

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Which begs the question, since one can get 24Mbit with current DSL copper technology, and VDSL2 is even faster, why do we need fibre to the home? Is this a subsidy for a small minority that want HDTV movies in the time in takes to make a cuppa?

    I honestly think applications will fill the space.

    And speed isn't the only thing that makes ubiqutious fibre better than DSL.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Could you be more specific?

    What applications are there that will use 24Mbit + bandwidth?

    What else makes fibre better than copper? The only thing I can think of is that most peoples copper cabling is many years old and was put in for 3kHz POTS, giving reliability issues, not to mention a lack of accountability (Telecom won't guarantee to any particular address). But wouldn't it be cheaper to make a clean copper connection the basic standard than to go to fibre?

    I've seen fibre come and go so many times. For a while high-end disks used fibre to talk to the computer then it largely went back to copper again.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Psycho Milt,

    Campbell comes back

    Cool! I recall his pieces in the Listener preceding the invasion of Afghanistan, warning that if we pick a fight with those guys we'd better be ready for a permanent engagement. How wrong he was, eh?

    Too bad he's not back at the Listener. Speaking of which:

    Whenever I want coverage of breast implants, suburban house prices or Princess Diana they're my first port of call.

    Danyl, you are so wrong. They do investment advice and current middle class health scares as well.

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2007 • 9 posts Report Reply

  • stephen walker,

    How wrong he was, eh?

    that's right.
    WE bombed them back to the stone age (again).
    haven't heard a peep out of them since.

    the whole of NATO is currenly holidaying in Ibiza at the moment, I heard...

    wanna buy a poppy?

    you can choose from RPG flavoured
    or IED flavoured

    have a nice day

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report Reply

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