Posts by Chris Waugh
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Capture: Upside Down, Inside Out, in reply to Hilary Stace,
On the positive side it has made people much more aware of the need to have good processes and preparedness.
Yeah, apparently it had my Dad scrounging around for vessels to store water in. We never bothered with an emergency kit when I was a kid. Everybody knew the Big One would hit Wellington eventually and talked openly about the possibility, but I guess we were all just fatalistic about it.
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Capture: Upside Down, Inside Out, in reply to JacksonP,
I’ve seen a lot of photos which make me thankful it happened on a weekend, not in the middle of a busy working day.
Yeah, me too, it just reinforced a nightmare I've always had about the Big One hitting Wellington at lunchtime on a warm, sunny weekday. In so many ways Wellington is a crazy place to build a city, and yet, even if we were to move the capital we'd still need a city there. What alternative port is there in the southern North Island?
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Capture: Upside Down, Inside Out, in reply to Michael Bodle,
Yes! that looks nice.
I think you need to add a "very" to that sentence, preferably between "looks" and "nice".
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Hard News: Friday Music: Outwards and Upwards, in reply to "chris",
I think you may be over-analysing this. I saw Lorde's videos on Youku, thought she's probably not getting any money out of them when Youku's clearly raking in the cash from Pizza Hutt, which seems a bit rude, then learnt that actually, there is a way she could be getting at least a bit of money from Youku.
And yeah, I quite liked the songs I heard. Just for comparison's sake, I did a Baidu Music search for Justin Bieber, the only other teen pop star whose name I could remember, and very quickly closed that tab.
I don't know the current state of NZ music at all, but I do remember when NZ music sounded and just felt different from it's US, Aus, Canadian and UK cousins, and that was nice.
As for selling stuff to the Chinese, we certainly do need to diversify beyond milk powder, university degrees and the occasional bit of meat that keeps getting held up in port - especially considering Fonterra's inability to handle food safety issues properly.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Outwards and Upwards, in reply to "chris",
Of course it's a big if. Of the multitudes who try, how many actually do make it big in music, or any other artform?
I like the two songs of hers I've heard, in what I've read about her she comes across as far more mature, intelligent, learned and generally "with it" than I lot of adults I've met, let alone 16-year olds, and now there's a way she can get at least some money out of the China market, including from China's rampant IPR violations. So good luck to her.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Outwards and Upwards, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Yes, but South Korea only has 50 million people (North is irrelevant for anything online unless you enjoy watching KCNA), whereas China has more people on the internet than the USA has people. Judging by the number of Lorde videos on Youku, she's obviously being noticed by a lot of people in China. Now, if she can get the money from those videos on Youku, then I think she'll be alright for taxi rides.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Outwards and Upwards, in reply to Russell Brown,
That's pretty cool, especially if they get the choice of take down or claim. Although if Universal and EMI want in to the China market... I just tried to open www.vevo.com and was redirected to comingsoon.vevo.com which kindly informed me Vevo is not available in my region and gave me the option of www.youtube.com/vevo or www.twitter.com/vevo. Both blocked. I'm sure some people will go through a VPN, but if I can find the same stuff on Youku and I know it'll load quicker... And it's pretty much guaranteed that all the big names will be on Youku, whether they posted it there or not.
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Ah, that is good news. Thanks Russell and Simon. And Simon, do I understand you right? If I upload something I don’t have the rights to, the copyright owner gets paid anyway?
ETA: and via Russell's link to Tech in Asia I see Tech in Asia has a WeChat account. How big is WeChat in the outside world? I only know one other non-Chinese who uses it, and he studies here in Beijing. When I switched my phone to English, the WeChat app went from 微信 to Weixin - just a pinyinised name rather than the official English name.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Outwards and Upwards, in reply to "chris",
Yes, but it would be nice to see Universal’s lawyers send an email to Youku and the like with a list of offending videos thanking Youku for their assistance in promoting their music and politely suggesting Youku might wish to share a little of that advertising revenue. Afterall, Youku is not some hustler in one of Sanlitun’s back alleys hawking pirate DVDs and intellectual property rights are enforceable in China. How hard would it really be to set up an official Universal Youku channel to use to promote its music in China and share the revenue? That way Lorde might be able to afford the occasional taxi home. Sure, there’ll still be plenty of piracy, but China’s not a total black hole.
ETA: After all, Neocha's still going strong, although I do miss their Next player. If they can survive all these years, then...
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Hard News: Friday Music: Outwards and Upwards, in reply to "chris",
Yeah, I'd be surprised. But it seems to me the music biz is not easy to get into and very few Kiwi musos are getting rich. It would be nice if Universal sent someone to have a we chat with Youku (and, presumably, Baidu and other online suppliers of music with a history of not respecting copyright), particularly to help out those who are just starting their careers.