Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Ask Jeeves is now ask.com
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Hard News: Friday Music: Both sides of…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Bruce wouldn't do that.
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Hard News: Drugs, development and reality, in reply to George Darroch,
5,500 tonnes [of production] at $US181 [/kg]
So a billion dollars would buy the whole crop? Cheaper than one Stealth bomber. Why doesn't the US just buy the lot and process it into morphine for pain relief in the developing world?
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most people still don't have a good way of watching web video on their televisions
That's an artefact of a couple of things:
- most people don't have a computer hooked up to their TV and need to mess with cabling rather than just pick up a remote.
- navigation amongst TV streaming sites is awkward and unstandardised compared to an EPGThe first will go away as TV monitors get more smarts and integrate Chrome or Android (particularly if the TV industry, which is a bit dark age, twigs that its actually a source of bundling revenue).
The second isn't hard. There's sites like http://www.tvcatchup.com/ (or tunein for radio). They need a bit of work, but it's not rocket science (and any winners in this field are unlikely to grow a monstrous business).
Telecom are trying to build an analog of the c. 1998 Sky TV model using IP instead of satellites. I don't hold out a lot of hope for them.
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Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Kumara Republic,
It's standard practice.
Much of the alleged "spontaneously user generated" stuff on the internet is actually produced by (badly) paid "content creators".
Those clever "viral" videos? They've usually been extensively seeded by marketing agencies who pay people in developing countries a dollar per thousand likes/views.
The pop charts? Chart rigging is so much easier without the expensive physical plastic - you just pay people a percentage to "buy" millions of downloads - and of course the record company gets most of the 67c back and adds the rest on to the artists ever-growing debit account.
And if the government and media feel there's far to much uncontrolled content getting out there and fancy locking the internet down a bit? Just hype up "cyber-bullying" and get your people posting heaps of fake nastiness to fuel the outrage machine.
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Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Russell Brown,
Even if he has to travel everywhere accompanied by a platoon of Ghurkas and a backup squad of heavily armed ninja warriors, he's still entitled to occupy the post he was elected to. John Key probably has a bigger security detail than Helen Clark ever needed - does that mean he should resign also?
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economic slump
Has Wellington had any more of a slump that the rest of the country? Sure, the governments been doing its level best to destroy quality public service, and that's had a bit of an impact, but we have a lot of growth industries as well (most of them under the radar of the council and media). I'm personally a lot better off with a nice house in walking distance of the CBD for the sort of money that in Auckland would buy you a shack in the ghetto.
I think for the Dom Post slump == their property developer friends aren't making enough rent on their buildings.
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Hard News: Bad Judgement, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It's Rusbridger. (If I'm allowed to correct a prefect's spelling under the rules)
Also, Boris Johnson moved seamlessly from the Daily Telegraph to the Spectator to parliament and then the London mayoralty,, overlapping as he went. He still writes a column in the Telegraph.
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Hard News: Bad Judgement, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I'm sorry Mr Head Prefect Craig:
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if [we] are unconnected with policy development or are not in a managerial role, we will usually be free to be politically active
Which is the case for nearly everyone, and quite right. You can't gag a huge percentage of the workforce like that.