Posts by Rich of Observationz

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  • Speaker: Copywrong II,

    I think Clarke's pretty spot on if we continue with the model where a copyright holder is entitled to see a royalty (that they determine) from each and every user of their work.

    However, there is an alternative which may be more sustainable. This is to have a levy on media, bandwidth, content-sharing websites etc. and combine this with a relaxation on copyright protections. This already happens with commercial broadcast and performance - a broadcaster pays a license fee and gets the right to broadcast any music covered by the scheme. The collecting society distributes the money in proportion to the (statistically determined) usage of the licensed material.

    This would of course destroy Big Music if it became globally popular!

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

  • Hard News: Down in the Park?,

    Now I'm no lawyer, but one thing I have been told by lawyers in the past is that if you have a contract, and you can't execute part of that contract due to a statutory ban, then you aren't obliged to and it doesn't generally void the whole contract.

    So wouldn't that apply to the Sevens. The IRB and the NZRB are the parties and if the government decides to refuse visitor permits to Fijian sportsman, then that wouldn't void the contract.

    Or is NZ law actually subordinate to the IRB?

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

  • Yellow Peril: the identity game,

    The Highland Clearances were almost entirely conducted by the clan chiefs against their clansmen. Just because someone looks like you doesn't mean they're your friend!

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

  • Yellow Peril: the identity game,

    "Indigeneity is about being able to look up at a mountain and say that mountain is my ancestor"

    I don't know of any mountains anywhere that I could say that of. My ultimate ancestors evolved from apes somewhere in Africa - I thought everyone's did?

    If you're of Maori ancestry but you don't buy into the Maori cosmology/belief system, does that mean you're no longer Maori?

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

  • Yellow Peril: the identity game,

    The "Middle East" is a region which spans Asia and Africa. Syrians, Israelis, Turks (apart from Thracians), Lebanese and Saudis are all Asian. Egyptians are African. I can't believe that the ignorant idea that Asia stops at Calcutta (or Lahore) has been given official sanction.

    Can Stats NZ correlate censuses? E.g go back to previous years and see what people put? Or determine what their parents identified as?
    Would be interesting to see the comparison?

    (The other options would be to ask people where their mum and dad were born. And for the third generation and earlier, ask where their ancestors migrated from - most people know).

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

  • Hard News: Aggregate me, baby!,

    What does the aggregator actually do?
    Are they just a payment engine to save Apple from having to maintain accounts for thousands of people?
    Or do they do traditional record company functions like A&R, plying radio station people with gurls and drugs, etc?

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

  • Speaker: The Hollow Men: Initial Impressions,

    For an ISP employee to access email without good cause is almost certainly illegal (s216b, Crimes Act). Most ISPs would have procedures about that sort of thing. I'd suspect it would be harder to make a case against a Nat party person with access to IT systems - they could probably claim that their job included political chicanery and backstabbing and hence the email access was part of that..

    [Hamish: in the 1980's, it would have been right to say that email messages passed through numerous computer systems. That was because the Internet of that era was lashed together from various academic and other systems all forwarding data on an ad-hoc basis as well as doing pipe bending calculations or whatever.

    Nowadays, once a message is out of your home / company it's pretty much in telco-land until it hits the recipient's home/company. Hacking into those servers is no easier than opening up a Telecom wiring cabinet and attaching an iPoD to your telephone circuit]

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

  • Hard News: Awesome,

    U2 are in fact post-punk. They started in the early 80's and were actually credible for quite a time. I saw them at Lansdowne Rd (in Dublin) for the Zoo TV tour in about '93 - they were pretty good then and one of the first bands to put on a proper show in a stadium (as opposed to being tiny figures on a distant stage).

    I do notice that there is a definite disconnect between Russell's experience and Graham Reid's (the latter I'm guessing as a paying punter).

    The problems Graham notes with stadium gigs in NZ aren't likely to go away with any new national stadium (does anyone realise that once the naming rights have been sold it'll be the Emirates Stadium or the Halliburton Bowl?)

    - The queues to get in are intrinsic to having tens of thousands of people arrive for a fixed time.

    - The stadium promoter has a monopoly on everything to do with the event - and monopolies have zero interest in improving the customer experience. Hence they employ the minimum of serving and gate staff, sell one kind of beer they can get a discount on, make sure the bar areas have less atmosphere than the moon, etc..

    - The NZ liquor laws contribute to the whole 1970s eastern european style at large events. Limiting booze to a drinkers "leper colony"; making everyone queue and show ID to get into said area; selling the special Eden Park low alchohol brew; etc. Incidently sporting events seem to get a lot more slack than music gigs - they can sell booze at matches without making the whole area R18.

    (Pirongia Races seem to get away with all of this - booze allowed anywhere; BYO and bar sales both permitted; no repression of public drunkenness. Maybe they could cut the new / revamped stadium similar slack).

    Incidentally, does anyone have any idea on how the viaduct style bar & restaurant precinct we're promised for the new stadium environs would work on match days? Will the bars be shuttered completely, or will they switch to offering high speed fillups at half time?

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

  • Speaker: The Hollow Men: Initial Impressions,

    Ouch my possessives and plurals got so stuffed up back there!

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

  • Speaker: The Hollow Men: Initial Impressions,

    Robert: In theory.

    In practice email is highly unlikely to be read unless someone *really* wants to. It's a bit less secure than a telephone call, but not much.

    Your email typically goes to an outgoing mail server at your ISP, then via ISP/backbone routers to a mail server at the recipients ISP, then to the recipents machine. If one or other party is at work, it will also go through a company mail server. Most ISP's are quite security conscious (the one's with a telco heritage more so) and it's pretty hard to get unauthorised access to network equipment. Most companies do not read their employees email on a systematic basis, though I guess a few might.

    It's illegal to intercept communications (without a warrant) in NZ (and I'd think that internet email is covered by this.

    I suspect that Brash's emails were either leaked by his corresponents (someone who got cc'd a lot being an obvious candidate) or (since I assume like most aging business people he can't actually operate a computer) photocopied from the printouts he got given each day.

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

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