He says Mr Dotcom is not a flight risk, although he has access to helicopters and private jets and has passports in at least three nationalities under different names.
On The Eve of The SOPA Blackout.
On the eve of the US SOPA blackout campaign, maybe it’s worth reflecting on our own situation in NZ with respect to our equivalent legislation.
Most will recall the social media blackout campaign here well over a year ago, which initially caught the attention of politicians, and resulted in the bill being abruptly shelved, pending review. Then, a few months later, out of the blue, it was back on the books, this time under urgency.
Sneaked in shortly after Christchurch, New Zealand’s 2nd largest city, was destroyed by a massive earthquake, riding the coat tails of an urgent bill giving birth to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, an organisation with pretty much the power to do anything and more or less unaccountable to anyone.
The Copyright Amendment Act was passed into law after the most disgusting display of wilful ignorance I’ve ever witnessed. A simply horrific display of total ineptness from most all of our elected representatives, a failure to grasp the concepts of which they are creating laws around. That night was surely a low point in this country’s parliamentry history.
So in my view, the SOPA blackout will change little. The bill will be passed more or less unchanged. Piracy will still occur. Media companies will keep trying to manage content in their old school, piracy incentivising ways. They will continue to make more money than they ever have, while still failing to truly maximise their profit. They’ll continue to piss off consumers by trying to dictate, when, where and how they should consume their content.
Cynical, I know, but these idiots will never get it.
Layton
Crunch Time.
Anyone in Christchurch in their 20s or 30s who’s really concerned for the future of downtown Christchurch, utterly disillusioned with those in control, & wanna try something completely insane to create a city people want to live in. Something concrete and enduring. Email me. I have a crazy idea. layton@polarbearfarm.com
James Blake - A Case of You
Hero - Miguel Endara
A spectacular artwork created by 3.2 million dots from a Micron pen.
I could describe a litany of failures that have combined to drain away what is the lifeblood of a community in recovery and that lifeblood is hope for the future.
Turning disaster into opportunity – Hon Lianne Dalziel
This is exactly how it feels to me, and many, many people have it much worse off than myself in this city.
A Message To Christchurch City Councillors
As you digest the submissions to the Draft City Plan, please keep one thing in mind:
It’s OK to not compromise.
One of the traps of soliciting widespread feedback from different groups, with different motives, different levels of understanding, is that you try and appease them all, often by compromising others values. It’s the design by committee trap. Try to please everyone, and you’ll end up pleasing no one.
The most important thing you need to make sure is that all aspects of the plan are coherent. I’d much rather a plan which is not to my taste, but coherent, than a plan which is incoherent in attempting to appease polar opposite interests. The coherent plan will have a demographic who will absolutely love it. The incoherent plan will only have critics. Your role is to try and see the forest for the trees, and to make sure that every piece of the plan works as a whole. Make sure that restrictions aren’t arbitrary, but have good LONG TERM rationals, not temporary band-aids.
I’ve been following the submissions and can see there are polar opposite views expressed. The ones which annoyed me most were those who had failed to see how the rules proposed in the draft fit into the bigger picture of the plan, the ones who seamed miffed that the pre-earthquake status quo wouldn’t resume. I’ll single out Hamish Doig’s submission as being firmly in this category.
It’s OK to not compromise the plan for the sake of these people.
Ultimately your job is to set the fundamental framework to make sure Downtown Christchurch is not rebuilt as an uninspiring tilt-slab dump, but a city where interesting people want to come live.
Layton Duncan
73 plays
Steve Jobs on intelligence, experiences, innovation, and the paths to success from 1982 (a year before I was born).
Source: http://www.achievement.org/newsletter/audio/jobs-aud.mov
Some Perspective On Christchurch
I was driving around the CBD Red Zone cordon this morning. It’s a sorry sight. I thought I’d try and put what’s happening here in Christchurch in the context of other countries.
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