Posts by Paul Campbell
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I visit a few times a year at the moment, usually to/from Shenzhen - I like to stay in Kowloon - specifically the Jordan area, not so touristy, great street food, (relatively) cheap tiny hotels.
The subways are great, safe, cheap - to save money only take the airport train to it's first stop (Tsing Yi) and change to the subway
I don't do much touristy stuff but if you want to - visit the Kowloon Walled City Park, take the ferry across to downtown, ride the escalators to the top (in the afternoon when they go up) and walk down
-
Really you're not supposed to vote if you've been overseas for more than 3 years - in fact you're allowed to if you come back for a visit every 3 years - when I moved to the US in the mid 80s it was as if NZ fell off the face of the map - I voted in the SF consulate to oust Muldoon, then they closed the consulate down
I didn't vote for 20 years (anywhere, not even in California for dog catcher or school board) even though I came back to visit every few years, I couldn't have made an informed decision anyway (besides as a lefty voter in NZ's most right wing electorate, under FPP my vote was useless, roll on MMP)
Things are certainly different now, I'd argue that thanks to the 'net things have changed and one could keep up to date with what's going on (so long as there are still actual journalists doing real cutting political reporting)
-
Up Front: Reviewing the Election, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So with compulsory voting, you force the non-voters to attend the ballot and at least go through the motions of expressing a preference.
What is this meant to achieve? How is it different from declaring that the non-voters voted in the same proportion as the voters, and hence we have an imaginary 100% turnout.
It’s not removing disengagement, it’s just renaming it.
I think it depends - how many of those who don't vote don't vote because they really don't want to as opposed to those who just had something better to that day, but would have expressed a genuine preference should they have found themselves in a voting booth?
There are some New Zealanders who are under a real obligation to vote - my wife, who recently took NZ citizenship (after over 40 years), swore an oath to "fulfil her duties as a New Zealand citizen" which explicitly included voting
-
Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Sacha,
Fantastic result. I hope some political parties were taking notes.
I think that they have, it’s probably why Campbel is under fire
-
Kym: I'm all or paying for content - but what I wont do is pay two of you, twice, for content that is 95% the same - that's a waste of my money.
When you make an exclusive contract with a studio you are contracting away my choice, and I don't get a cut of the money you make, instead you get to (potentially) charge me more - there's something wrong here, after all it's my choice that is being bartered away without my say so, not yours.
You are trying to claim market share by creating small monopolies and then trying to leverage them, something that is illegal in New Zealand - that's far from "one of the most competitive marketplaces in the world" - it's more of a 1900s robber baron world view.
So I'm in the market for a digital provider, right now, I am your target market - I wont be choosing you so long as your company behaves this way, I wont be choosing Sky for much the same reason - honestly my only real choices for providers are off shore. Or, as someone who has 10 years of cable and SVOD engineering under my belt, maybe I should just roll my own ....
If you want to compete with the offshore sites provide the same service and the same price.
-
Seems to me that anyone pushing for a Fox News right slanted news sort of media world for NZ is probably making a commercial mistake - because you know that if they do, and labour and the Greens get back in, and they eventually will, they will retaliate not by making a competing lefty channel but by making a real independent public television network, probably merging it with Radio NZ - that's going to mean more, tax payer funded, competition for for-profit TV which wont be good for them in the long run
-
To be fair our politicians seem to on school holidays at the moment, it's probably hard to do political stories without politicians
-
Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to philipmatthews,
I’ve also been surprised at the number of entirely reasonable people who have said today that would stop watching 3 News if Campbell Live was axed. From the days of Ralston and Nightline on, 3 News always felt like the underdog and I think a lot of loyal people are feeling betrayed.
I'm probably one of them, I only ever watch the TV3 news because CL is on after it
-
Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
Serious question: who here regularly watches Campbell Live? And by that, I mean the full episode, live to air. Not occasionally watching a video someone has shared on Facebook.
I do, a few nights a week (if I'm home), it's a grown up's show, mostly, I despair when they do the soft news stuff and look forward to them asking the difficult questions of the day.
The thing is if they're not holding the government of the day to task they're not doing it right - if the real problem is that the current owners of TV3 don't like criticism of the Nats then they're becoming Fox News, they're not using the public airwaves for the public good and their broadcasting license should be taken back
I fear that if CL goes there will no longer be any daily current affairs asking the politicians the difficult questions - remember when it used to be that the only way a politician could get on TV would be to come on TV and be put to the question, now they do their best to avoid it - getting their mates to shut down the last bastion of hard questions is probably the latest Crosby Textor master plan for mediocrity
-
Access: Geoblocking, global mode and NZ…, in reply to Asinius,
why don’t Customs have a website and an online payment system?
They have. I think you’ll need to register as an importer with Customs first.
http://www.customs.govt.nz/features/charges/feepayment/Pages/chargesforunaccompaniedgoods.aspx
yeah but you have to be able to get the invoice (normally it's someone at Fedex et al who call you, and wants their $40 for the privilege, if it's NZPOST you end up having to call some 09 number and wait on hold for an hour). You can't become a general agent for yourself,it seems you have to become a particular type of agent (be qualified in 'cars' or 'dishes' or some such)