As my life draws ever closer to middle age there are a relatively modest number of things that make me act with childish glee. Buying new CD’s is one of them; I love popular music and it shows I have a room stacked with the stuff. So with much anticipation and more than a hint of nostalgia I got home this afternoon with my faithless greatest hits cd ready to re-live some miss spent youth of the late eighties and early nineties; the glow sticks, the gloves, the luminous jackets, the whistles, yeah yeah yeah I was there right from the days when a rave was a couple of hippies turning up in a field with a PA rigged on the back of a flatbed wagon and a couple of coloured torches. Yes, it was really like that and I did manage to dance for eight and a half hours straight without any intoxicants in my bloodstream (though I couldn’t speak for the guys with the bug eyes n stuff). I settle down slip the CD into my PC; which is rigged to my HIFI ready for that blast from the past. But wait a minute, this can’t be true oh no oh f**k the damn thing won’t play. A second glance at the box reveals two clues as to why: Clue one; the box has been opened and re-sealed, clue two there is a Sony BMG logo on the back. I might add there is no copy protection info on it though. Educated guesswork leads to the conclusion that this is a return because of another piece of bungled copy protection by Sony. Now I’m really F****d off but here’s the funny bit. I can’t play it directly but when I use a very familiar PC tool (EAC) I can rip the lot to MP3 and the whole thing can be played clear as a bell. Back to the glow sticks then ? Hell yeah but with a note to self to have my own rant on this matter before I die. So here it is.
I know because I was there;
When; to get an A&R man to turn up at a gig you had to make sure you had a bag of Charlie at the ready, preferably two.
When a couple of fools called radio DJ’s at the time went to play Frisbee with the new CD format of the time on in a park to show us how much better than LP the new music format was gonna be.
When they told us how the new format gave us music not like for a few years play like albums, not for a lifetime either, these baby’s were supposed to go on forever (not true). Aaaaand they sound sooo much better (only on cheap gear as we found out later). Yeah the music is exactly the same as on LP (errrrm it can’t be CD’s are digital - LP’s are analogue).
CD’s did sound good and they were more forgiving than LP’s they also cost almost twice as much as LP’s which meant I stopped buying music for almost 10 years. I just plain couldn’t afford the gear or the medium. LP’s quickly disappeared and those that remained cost the same as CD. The record industry at a stroke almost doubled their revenues, as did the retailers. What was better was a legion of mugs went and re-bought their existing collections on CD. Yep people bought what they already had at a higher price (how dumb am I !).
At the same time two other things happened; the indie labels started to struggle ‘cos they couldn’t compete with the new money or the new format and bankers etc. saw the music business as a means of making money rather than losing it in a dodgy fashion.
Record companies got bought out by businesses with proper accountants; at the same time the lists of artists signed got culled. For a while all music really did sound the same. Coincidentally Sony in this period made a mint out of selling the then ubiquitous walkman and later the discman. The strange thing was that your average walkman contained a tape that was probably copied from a mate somewhere somehow. The music industry didn’t die despite dire warnings that home taping was killing music, indeed it boomed. Sony wasn’t too fussy about what got played or where it came from in those days.
I lived in the UK at that time and got ripped off royally because of the record industry cartel at the time which meant that your average CD or LP cost almost twice as much as it did in the US hmmmmmm. Still does I believe.
Needless to say when a rep from the majors comes on RadioNZ today and talks about how ripping and file sharing is killing small acts and the guy from the indies tactfully points out that his business has never been better I have to smile. When Sony who made so much money off the walkman scores another own goal over copy protection I laugh. When DRM and digital copyright law come up I smile some more. I wonder how the Sony rep explains the whingeing in the context of having to pay out a $10million settlement for a payola charge in the US.
I sit here confident of two things:
No amount of DRM will stop me from copying and sampling music for free (thanks to other determined and like minded souls). This will not trouble my conscience in the knowledge that new artists make more out of merchandise and direct sales than on their early recordings with a major. Established artists tend to worry less (except for the f***wits in Metallica). This and my first MP3 player really did get me back into BUYING music. Which brings me to my second certainty.
I will in all probability buy a legit copy of just about everything I have ripped or borrowed over the years. And if I can I will replace all my LP’s (well perhaps not the Mel and Kim stuff) but this is difficult because not all releases get ported to CD because they don’t make enough money. At the moment I have 2000 LP’s and about 600 CD’s. This amounts to nearly 8,000 tracks some of which are already covered by an LP copy and a CD copy.
Dear Sony - and other greedy people who now own record companies. If you can’t make enough money out of music – pack up and p**s off - you weren’t welcome in the first place. I’m not interested in your shareholders; I am interested in Artists and real music. If you intend to hang around, get used to the idea that not everyone is prepared to pay twice or indeed three times for something they thought they bought the first time and thought they would only need once. If you want to make more money then add more value; if not then accept the rule that unchanging commodities go down in price not up and no amount of whingeing, bribery or dodgy legislation will get round this. In fact carry on as you are and you will end up with less than you started with. Which is, in humble my opinion what you deserve.
BTW – All my music is held in MP3 on my hard drive…..la la la la la !
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
More dead people on the way...
I was quite sad to hear about the bomb in Tel Aviv; Because
i) more people got killed.
ii) even Hamas must be sucking their teeth over the PR disaster that it represents.
iii) it will cost the PA and therefore the Palestinian people money they can ill afford.
iv) above all it will give the Israelis yet another excuse to avoid proper negotiation.
But I do wonder what I would do if shelling in response to some pretty feeble rockets was killing roughly one of my civilian countrymen a day……
i) more people got killed.
ii) even Hamas must be sucking their teeth over the PR disaster that it represents.
iii) it will cost the PA and therefore the Palestinian people money they can ill afford.
iv) above all it will give the Israelis yet another excuse to avoid proper negotiation.
But I do wonder what I would do if shelling in response to some pretty feeble rockets was killing roughly one of my civilian countrymen a day……
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Hill and Mallard put up, shut or p**s off
Thank you to all of those who have given up so much to represent New Zealand at the commonwealth games. However because you haven’t met our expectations we’re going to say you are not good enough. Doesn’t sound very nice does it ? Enough to make some athletes take up a “proper job” perhaps ? I wouldn’t blame them.
It seems a rum old deal when Trevor Mallard and Nick Hill describe the New Zealand CWG team as lacking in mental toughness. With quotes like: "New Zealanders tend to be too nice." or they lack: “ruthlessness” and a “cut throat” attitude. I at least am left in no doubt as to who the gutless ones really are. They were careful of course not to say gutless themselves.
Mallard is an ex –teacher professing an interest in rugby and mountain biking who deservedly may be described as a sporting never was. Hill is an ex electricity exec who got as far at Otago U20 rugby so we might call him a nearly has been. Can’t see what about these two really qualifies them to talk about the difficulties and the issues surrounding modern international elite sport.
Hill does sit at the top of SPARC it must be said, but he doesn’t actually run the high performance program. He is probably far to busy working out performance based funding formulae and medal expectations for 2008, which appear to have no correspondence in reality. Can a team of athletes really be described as lacking in toughness when they fail to achieve goals that apparently they didn’t even set themselves ? When the head of SPARC blames a formula and the athletes for the failure to achieve an apparently uncontrollable if not arbitrary gaol; I start to question whether he has any grasp of sporting reality at all. I certainly doubt whether he should really have influence on New Zealand high performance at any level. My earlier point remains you don’t damn athletes because they failed to meet your expectations however well calculated.
Mallard is easier to explain; he clearly feels that NZ have underperformed and that this reflects poorly upon him personally, hence his expert analysis and conclusion that NZ athletes lack “mental toughness”.
Phrases like lacking 'killer instinct' or “mental toughness” reflect exactly the unarguable platitudes that are referred to by the inept and intellectually bankrupt who are unwilling to take responsibility for failure. However if anyone is interested at the bottom of this section I have put the dimensions of “Mental Toughness” as researched and published by Jones, Hanton and Connaughton of the Uni of Wales in 2002, who took the time to ask elite coaches and athletes what they thought mental toughness was. Note the absence of phrases like not being too nice or indeed cut throat/killer instinct. While you are at it see how many of those 4th places can actually be attributed to lack of these qualities. And if you have time read the more sensible and measured response of Dave Currie our very capable chef de mission.
I too am disappointed to see that NZ didn’t do a well as on previous occasions and there may be room for improvement in many areas. But to be honest my first step would be to sack those in authority who appear to want to either grandstand at athletes expense or are unable to take responsibility for their share of failure. Such people are in my opinion of no use or value to a team. Say something positive or constructive or shut up. Better still go join act and then we know not to take you seriously.
1. Having an unshakable self-belief in your ability to achieve your competition goals 2. Having an unshakable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents
3. Having an insatiable desire and internalized motives to succeed
4. Bouncing back from performance set-backs as a result of increased determination to succeed
5. Thriving on the pressure of competition
6. Accepting that competition anxiety is inevitable and knowing that you can cope with it
7. Not being adversely affected by others’ good and bad performances
8. Remaining fully-focused in the face of personal life distractions
9. Switching a sport focus on and off as required
10. Remaining fully-focused on the task at hand in the face of competition-specific distractions
11. Pushing back the boundaries of physical and emotional pain, while still maintaining technique and effort under distress (in training and competition)
12. Regaining psychological control following unexpected, uncontrollable events
(competition-specific)
It seems a rum old deal when Trevor Mallard and Nick Hill describe the New Zealand CWG team as lacking in mental toughness. With quotes like: "New Zealanders tend to be too nice." or they lack: “ruthlessness” and a “cut throat” attitude. I at least am left in no doubt as to who the gutless ones really are. They were careful of course not to say gutless themselves.
Mallard is an ex –teacher professing an interest in rugby and mountain biking who deservedly may be described as a sporting never was. Hill is an ex electricity exec who got as far at Otago U20 rugby so we might call him a nearly has been. Can’t see what about these two really qualifies them to talk about the difficulties and the issues surrounding modern international elite sport.
Hill does sit at the top of SPARC it must be said, but he doesn’t actually run the high performance program. He is probably far to busy working out performance based funding formulae and medal expectations for 2008, which appear to have no correspondence in reality. Can a team of athletes really be described as lacking in toughness when they fail to achieve goals that apparently they didn’t even set themselves ? When the head of SPARC blames a formula and the athletes for the failure to achieve an apparently uncontrollable if not arbitrary gaol; I start to question whether he has any grasp of sporting reality at all. I certainly doubt whether he should really have influence on New Zealand high performance at any level. My earlier point remains you don’t damn athletes because they failed to meet your expectations however well calculated.
Mallard is easier to explain; he clearly feels that NZ have underperformed and that this reflects poorly upon him personally, hence his expert analysis and conclusion that NZ athletes lack “mental toughness”.
Phrases like lacking 'killer instinct' or “mental toughness” reflect exactly the unarguable platitudes that are referred to by the inept and intellectually bankrupt who are unwilling to take responsibility for failure. However if anyone is interested at the bottom of this section I have put the dimensions of “Mental Toughness” as researched and published by Jones, Hanton and Connaughton of the Uni of Wales in 2002, who took the time to ask elite coaches and athletes what they thought mental toughness was. Note the absence of phrases like not being too nice or indeed cut throat/killer instinct. While you are at it see how many of those 4th places can actually be attributed to lack of these qualities. And if you have time read the more sensible and measured response of Dave Currie our very capable chef de mission.
I too am disappointed to see that NZ didn’t do a well as on previous occasions and there may be room for improvement in many areas. But to be honest my first step would be to sack those in authority who appear to want to either grandstand at athletes expense or are unable to take responsibility for their share of failure. Such people are in my opinion of no use or value to a team. Say something positive or constructive or shut up. Better still go join act and then we know not to take you seriously.
1. Having an unshakable self-belief in your ability to achieve your competition goals 2. Having an unshakable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents
3. Having an insatiable desire and internalized motives to succeed
4. Bouncing back from performance set-backs as a result of increased determination to succeed
5. Thriving on the pressure of competition
6. Accepting that competition anxiety is inevitable and knowing that you can cope with it
7. Not being adversely affected by others’ good and bad performances
8. Remaining fully-focused in the face of personal life distractions
9. Switching a sport focus on and off as required
10. Remaining fully-focused on the task at hand in the face of competition-specific distractions
11. Pushing back the boundaries of physical and emotional pain, while still maintaining technique and effort under distress (in training and competition)
12. Regaining psychological control following unexpected, uncontrollable events
(competition-specific)
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Cars and me
Okay lets make something clear.....
I love cars, I was brought up in a car town. The kids I grew up with worked in the factory until they closed it down. Crikey I used to have a compendium of cars, models and stats in my head just like all the other kids. Cars are in my blood they were an indivisible aspect of my growing up. Had my first proper kiss in a car, got laid for the first time in a car, had a birthday party...yep in a car. Once filled a car with birthday balloons just so that I could romance a beautiful girl. So much of the beauty, pain anguish and excitement of my life has been framed by a motor windscreen. Even now when I get behind the wheel of my cheesy Nissan, the Bogan, the Kev whatever.... screams to get out. When I'm on the road with the stereo loud you can see the years (and the common sense) just flow away from me. Get the idea ? There will always be some part of me that will so so so looooooove cars, driving and the illusion of freedom they bring.
So why have I chosen to walk to work ? I'm a selfish bugger I don't want to give up my car......
The problem is that as I have grown older I've learned to look beyond, bonnet, mirror signal manouver. Every time I drive I know I am doing a bad thing. Me I'm bad; not just the other guy driving next to me, or the guy I am passing on my left or the Mum driving her kids to school...no I really mean me. I am as bad as everyone else and especially bad when I am the only one in the car.
That fact bothers me... but not as much as the fact that it has taken 23 years to figure this out and think a little differently about the issue. I'm worried that there may not be enough years left for everyone else to figure this out and more importantly to think so differently as to change the way we live; which is what is necessary in order to save the future. This is my responsibility as much as it is that of anyone else who gets behind a wheel.
I'm tired of ruining the lives of people I have yet to meet........The difference between my parents and I is that the truth and consequences of my actions are inescapable.
The equation I keep in my head is this.....Millions of years ago trees and plants were more abundant than they are now - they harvested Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere and released Oxygen, keeping the Carbon. In so doing they created conditions essential to allowing mammals and in turn me to exist. While we were evolving, the trees and plants died and the Carbon they harvested went to earth with them. It made coal and oil.............All the time we burn these as fuel we reverse this process. Logically if we do this for long enough we will eliminate the vary conditions that allowed us to exist at all.
I like many others I am concerned about the fact that we have no means to re-capture the carbon dioxide and the elimination of important life giving conditions is set to take place awfully soon. How do I come to feel this....I look around and notice that this fuel we is starting to become costly because it is no longer in abundance. If this fuel is scarce then we may assume we have made considerable inroads into reversing natures carbon dioxide harvesting process. This should worry us all not just the Americans or the Alaskans or the Chinese but me too.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Apple's slice too big ?
The question needs to be asked; has Apple fallen out with someone big in the music industry ? Has Jobs had a standoff over the cost of ITunes ? Because in response to potential French legislation requiring the interoperability of DRM.......Apple are squealing....
"If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers."
Not true, in fact the reverse may be argued:
No-one is talking about the French calling for the removal of DRM technology far from it.
However in the current situation as I see it; If for some reason I don't like IPods i.e. because they sound c**p (partially true IMHO) and want to buy a superior competing device (fill name of any other device in here). Having quite possibly invested $thousands in ITunes(quite possible), I have limited options......
i) Burn all ITunes on to CD and then rip them to non DRM MP3 – Not very legal and likely to add the the probability of piracy due to the proliferation of non-DRM protected material.
ii) Use either an existing player like Winamp or some freely available software to achieve the same aim. Also not very legal blah, blah, blah.
iii) Go and download my entire music library from existing pirated sources. Don't see that being too popular either; especially if I see other stuff I like and don't have to pay for.
iv) I could of course buy all the music again from a compatible service. I think most business men begin to see the customer starting to look a bit pale and poor.
v) I guess I could just buy another IPod and suffer c**p sound.
From a distance it becomes clear that the only gang who benefits from ITunes is Apple when things are viewed in this way. They (Apple) stand to lose a lot if they allow interoperability of DRM. Most of the commentary on the topic has acknowledged this. What has been made less clear is this argument that ITunes with its restrictive approach is damaging the DRM cause. Something that I suspect hasn't escaped the notice of the big DRM gangsters that run the digital copyright racket. In truth I suspect they have known this for some time.
Far be it for me to say that French politics is corrupt, but like the rest of Europe they are quite responsive to the voice of the DRM Gangsters (music companies and existing exploiters of copyright)....hence the present draconian and non-sensical digital copyright legislation which can be operated as a racket to make people pay more for less....rant rant rant.... My point being, I don't think such a challenge to Apple would have come about without the backing of someone other than the consumer. Someone somewhere wanted this to happen it seems likely that the consumer was not considered here. This legislation only really damages Apple. After all, as far as I can gather (not reading in French) the rest of the package looks like your usual don't use ripping or cracking software gumpf. Which would explain why M$oft, Yahoo and others are not squealing.
Was this just the right time for a well targeted challenge to reopen a shrinking uncompetitive market or was this in fact just the right bit of legislation at the right time ?
Well you know what I think.......(he said slipping a legit CD into his PC for ripping to the hard drive in an unprotected format). Don't love DRM or the Music industry but boy do I want to know who Apple p****d off.
The bit that does make me chuckle is the probability of another copy protection own goal. I suspect after the current round of publicity, more people will know how to get round ITunes protection than did before, hence the pirates gain allies.......Thanks Apple - Greedy Greedy Apple........
"If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers."
Not true, in fact the reverse may be argued:
No-one is talking about the French calling for the removal of DRM technology far from it.
However in the current situation as I see it; If for some reason I don't like IPods i.e. because they sound c**p (partially true IMHO) and want to buy a superior competing device (fill name of any other device in here). Having quite possibly invested $thousands in ITunes(quite possible), I have limited options......
i) Burn all ITunes on to CD and then rip them to non DRM MP3 – Not very legal and likely to add the the probability of piracy due to the proliferation of non-DRM protected material.
ii) Use either an existing player like Winamp or some freely available software to achieve the same aim. Also not very legal blah, blah, blah.
iii) Go and download my entire music library from existing pirated sources. Don't see that being too popular either; especially if I see other stuff I like and don't have to pay for.
iv) I could of course buy all the music again from a compatible service. I think most business men begin to see the customer starting to look a bit pale and poor.
v) I guess I could just buy another IPod and suffer c**p sound.
From a distance it becomes clear that the only gang who benefits from ITunes is Apple when things are viewed in this way. They (Apple) stand to lose a lot if they allow interoperability of DRM. Most of the commentary on the topic has acknowledged this. What has been made less clear is this argument that ITunes with its restrictive approach is damaging the DRM cause. Something that I suspect hasn't escaped the notice of the big DRM gangsters that run the digital copyright racket. In truth I suspect they have known this for some time.
Far be it for me to say that French politics is corrupt, but like the rest of Europe they are quite responsive to the voice of the DRM Gangsters (music companies and existing exploiters of copyright)....hence the present draconian and non-sensical digital copyright legislation which can be operated as a racket to make people pay more for less....rant rant rant.... My point being, I don't think such a challenge to Apple would have come about without the backing of someone other than the consumer. Someone somewhere wanted this to happen it seems likely that the consumer was not considered here. This legislation only really damages Apple. After all, as far as I can gather (not reading in French) the rest of the package looks like your usual don't use ripping or cracking software gumpf. Which would explain why M$oft, Yahoo and others are not squealing.
Was this just the right time for a well targeted challenge to reopen a shrinking uncompetitive market or was this in fact just the right bit of legislation at the right time ?
Well you know what I think.......(he said slipping a legit CD into his PC for ripping to the hard drive in an unprotected format). Don't love DRM or the Music industry but boy do I want to know who Apple p****d off.
The bit that does make me chuckle is the probability of another copy protection own goal. I suspect after the current round of publicity, more people will know how to get round ITunes protection than did before, hence the pirates gain allies.......Thanks Apple - Greedy Greedy Apple........
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Killing in the name of……
This is a blog best known for misplaced and mis-timed irrational outbursts. Watch this though. The images really do speak for themselves. For the first time in a loooong time I cried for real at the sheer hate and anguish caused. How can anyone feel that they are being justly represented by people who would condone and do such wrong……
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1730817,00.html
I think when you see things from day to day you don’t for one reason or another feel the full impact of it all…
It makes me ashamed to speak the English language. Can we ever put right and make peace with those that we treat in this way ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,1730817,00.html
I think when you see things from day to day you don’t for one reason or another feel the full impact of it all…
It makes me ashamed to speak the English language. Can we ever put right and make peace with those that we treat in this way ?
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Smokocar ?
I’m sure this must seem both evangelical and absurd but in many respects drivers are the smokers of the 21st century. They occupy an extraordinarily protected and expensive place in society. Just as smokers of the early 20th century were allowed to light up where and when they wanted, so drivers are allowed to drive wherever and whenever they wish. Roads are in many respects both metaphorically and sometimes literally the ashtrays of our age.
The fact of the matter is that driving is a health hazard for those driving and those around them. This can be illustrated in terms the levels of activity associated with driving, the amount of activity that is subverted by roads-unreasonable driving and the effects on the environment. Please don’t try and convince me that vehicle emissions are somehow unlike passive smoking. There is a clear and indisputable health precedent for the reduction of vehicle use (some would argue there is quite a compelling economic one as well). This is a key battleground for health in the coming century. In the post war developed world the same precedent was established with respect to smoking. Replace the phrase “big tobacco” with “big motor” and you have a grasp of how some people feel about the issue. Taking bikes off roads is the same, as saying non-smokers can’t stand in a room where someone is smoking. Indeed the issue should be reversed, just like smokers; motorists should be forced to occupy a decreasing space in society. Actions like this can and should be driven by the knowledge that it will benefit the health of everyone involved.
The fact of the matter is that driving is a health hazard for those driving and those around them. This can be illustrated in terms the levels of activity associated with driving, the amount of activity that is subverted by roads-unreasonable driving and the effects on the environment. Please don’t try and convince me that vehicle emissions are somehow unlike passive smoking. There is a clear and indisputable health precedent for the reduction of vehicle use (some would argue there is quite a compelling economic one as well). This is a key battleground for health in the coming century. In the post war developed world the same precedent was established with respect to smoking. Replace the phrase “big tobacco” with “big motor” and you have a grasp of how some people feel about the issue. Taking bikes off roads is the same, as saying non-smokers can’t stand in a room where someone is smoking. Indeed the issue should be reversed, just like smokers; motorists should be forced to occupy a decreasing space in society. Actions like this can and should be driven by the knowledge that it will benefit the health of everyone involved.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
We the little people vs. Auckland transport planning
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10370426
ARC announces a funding gap of $700m and declares that the public transport wishlist is in the freezer. Absent from this declaration is any suggestion to cease road building and road improvement so we may assume that this is business as usual in cartown. And the already f****d up public transport system can rot again. Well how bad can it be ?
It takes my wife 80mins to get from Auckland hospital to our door at peak times a journey that can’t be more than 15k (a fit adult on a bike can do this in half the time). At sparrows fart the trip to work never takes less than 50mins (nb. There are no viable really early buses from where we are as we found out when we tried to catch an early plane). But now the fun starts - we cannot afford for my wife to take the bus-ride from the stop at the top of our drive why ? Because that route is owned by a different company to the one that runs the majority of routes into and around Auckalnd central connection of these services for the regular commuter would require a ‘special pass’. To buy a linked annual pass for this purpose would cost another $1000 on top of the $1400 we already pay. So to go from door to door using the bus service from the shore would cost a minimum of $2400p.a.. If my wife wasn’t a student I suspect it would cost closer to $3000. I dread to think of the cost to someone who has to use three services to get to work and doesn’t buy an annual pass. At these prices cars are starting to look really good value for money.
But here’s the best bit, my wife renewed the bus pass (that only she can use) at a cost of $1460 using the provided internet portal. The site declared that the pass would be delivered within four working days. It wasn’t delivered so two days before the expiry date she had to phone them to find out where the pass was. My wife was told that she would have to go to and collect the pass from a someone involved at Auckland Uni who was to be found at enrolment. If we had not have phoned how long would it have taken for them to tell us and did they propose to do it in writing ? After 45mins of queuing the pass was obtained with the accompanying excuse that the passes kept on getting stolen in the post so they wouldn’t send it. This is a lie defeated by the fact that the passes can be de-activated on request and therefore useless to the thief. The second reason given was altogether more truthful, so few passes had been requested they basically couldn’t be bothered to sort out postage. How lame is that ?
Despite considerable subsidies from ARC, the incumbent service provider still fails to open its books to public scrutiny, fails to provide a service that in any way really encourages all but the most determined commuter and has yet to buy its predominantly agreeable drivers a decent wage; But! they still pay shareholder dividends of course. Just how f****d up can this be………………
And no the alternatives for those of us on the shore are not good…..
Both my wife and I stopped cycling to work, why ? because Auckland drivers have no regard for anyone but themselves. We have collectively cycled in Beijing, Shanghai, London, Geneva, Paris, of all these places Auckland remains the worst. So bad in fact that it scared us off the road.
That said you really don’t want to walk in a town where the only safe place for cyclists is the path and consequently there is no safe place for pedestrians. This is also the town that cannot be a***d top put pavement on both said of many roads so getting to work on foot is a trial of lights that seem to take forever. Which is necessary because you have to cross and re-cross the road to find the pavement that will get you anywhere. Don’t bother running unless you want to spend a fortune on orthotics and physio either. The camber of many paths here is just silly…..
When I first got here I wanted to run from my house to the skytower over the Auckland bridge I have given up hope, but the idea still gets a few laughs along with the excuse that no paths were added to the bridge because the gradient was too steep….go on tell me that this rumour is true…..
ARC announces a funding gap of $700m and declares that the public transport wishlist is in the freezer. Absent from this declaration is any suggestion to cease road building and road improvement so we may assume that this is business as usual in cartown. And the already f****d up public transport system can rot again. Well how bad can it be ?
It takes my wife 80mins to get from Auckland hospital to our door at peak times a journey that can’t be more than 15k (a fit adult on a bike can do this in half the time). At sparrows fart the trip to work never takes less than 50mins (nb. There are no viable really early buses from where we are as we found out when we tried to catch an early plane). But now the fun starts - we cannot afford for my wife to take the bus-ride from the stop at the top of our drive why ? Because that route is owned by a different company to the one that runs the majority of routes into and around Auckalnd central connection of these services for the regular commuter would require a ‘special pass’. To buy a linked annual pass for this purpose would cost another $1000 on top of the $1400 we already pay. So to go from door to door using the bus service from the shore would cost a minimum of $2400p.a.. If my wife wasn’t a student I suspect it would cost closer to $3000. I dread to think of the cost to someone who has to use three services to get to work and doesn’t buy an annual pass. At these prices cars are starting to look really good value for money.
But here’s the best bit, my wife renewed the bus pass (that only she can use) at a cost of $1460 using the provided internet portal. The site declared that the pass would be delivered within four working days. It wasn’t delivered so two days before the expiry date she had to phone them to find out where the pass was. My wife was told that she would have to go to and collect the pass from a someone involved at Auckland Uni who was to be found at enrolment. If we had not have phoned how long would it have taken for them to tell us and did they propose to do it in writing ? After 45mins of queuing the pass was obtained with the accompanying excuse that the passes kept on getting stolen in the post so they wouldn’t send it. This is a lie defeated by the fact that the passes can be de-activated on request and therefore useless to the thief. The second reason given was altogether more truthful, so few passes had been requested they basically couldn’t be bothered to sort out postage. How lame is that ?
Despite considerable subsidies from ARC, the incumbent service provider still fails to open its books to public scrutiny, fails to provide a service that in any way really encourages all but the most determined commuter and has yet to buy its predominantly agreeable drivers a decent wage; But! they still pay shareholder dividends of course. Just how f****d up can this be………………
And no the alternatives for those of us on the shore are not good…..
Both my wife and I stopped cycling to work, why ? because Auckland drivers have no regard for anyone but themselves. We have collectively cycled in Beijing, Shanghai, London, Geneva, Paris, of all these places Auckland remains the worst. So bad in fact that it scared us off the road.
That said you really don’t want to walk in a town where the only safe place for cyclists is the path and consequently there is no safe place for pedestrians. This is also the town that cannot be a***d top put pavement on both said of many roads so getting to work on foot is a trial of lights that seem to take forever. Which is necessary because you have to cross and re-cross the road to find the pavement that will get you anywhere. Don’t bother running unless you want to spend a fortune on orthotics and physio either. The camber of many paths here is just silly…..
When I first got here I wanted to run from my house to the skytower over the Auckland bridge I have given up hope, but the idea still gets a few laughs along with the excuse that no paths were added to the bridge because the gradient was too steep….go on tell me that this rumour is true…..
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Lange, Bush and Thatch
Well I’ve been away and now I’m back. There are bits of the far South where I can testify that the sun will burn you (and make you sad, sorry, sore, peeled, cancerous ?). Apologies to the poor soul who bumped into this blog by accident (I presume it was so) - thanks for not complaining.
I can also announce that I am still a geek at heart having derived childish pleasure from being conversant with a statistical technique called structural equation modelling (don’t ask).
And here’s my tale for today:
The CIA is morally indefensible. Well at least kidnapping people and then transporting them to compliant allies in order to torture them certainly is. As for Condosleezy Rice trying to sidestep and gamely defend such activities it makes me ashamed to hold a PhD. It appears the lesson here is with academic achievement does not come moral enlightenment (look at me ha !). I cringe though for those in the US who I am sure, feel bitterly ashamed to be represented by such nasty f****rs. Good news the bushboon has admitted that the intelligence he used to argue the case for war was wrong and that going to war was his fault. What I couldn’t see was whether Dick n Don were running the autocue…….. A subtext to all this was the ‘discovery’ that the republican Govt has been buying press coverage (as if Fox news wasn’t helpful enough !) which worries me and brings forth the only original thought of the day.
I was there in 1985 when David Lange gave his speech on nuclear weapons being indefensible. I lived under the yoke of and in the plain knowledge that a four-minute warning was not going to save my life given my location and circumstance. All through my school days the quiet desperation of those thoughts dragged at my soul. This and a few friends changed my life and gave an angry young man a sense of moral direction and purpose. Above all I realised the importance of free thought and an abhorrence of propaganda. It was interesting to re-read David Lange’s speech some twenty years later. Two points stood out specifically. The first was that before giving that speech he was allowed to tour unhindered throughout the US debating this issue. Quite clearly from his delivery he felt that he had been given a far crack at it too. It is difficult to imagine anyone being allowed such freedom in the contemporary democratic joke that is America. The best one could hope was that any message would get lost in the mire of passing news not relevant to America, at the worst one might be stoned by Christian Fundamentalists and misreported by the right wing press. This might be a caricature, but the sentiment is real I genuinely feel that this highlights just what the world and America in particular has lost. Though I am unable to grasp how things got this bad. My second point rests with a reference that Lange made to Margaret Thatcher, my interpretation remains that he, like many saw her as intimidating (which in my opinion was an understatement). Part of that formidable façade was operated through the media. Not the comments in the Guardian about Thatch’s knighthood for the disgraced media warlock Conrad Black and realise that media manipulation was then as it is now. I believe we still cannot see the TV footage of Miners vs. Police at Orgreave colliery (I was there too). The interesting sideline may be that at least then the BBC might have complained these days it does what it is told and shuts up shop in Europe to set up a broadcast rival to Al Jazeera. Now in who’s interests is that, and what exactly is it worth do you think.
Thatch has been on my mind a lot recently, not least because it appears that she is finally losing her marbles. I don’t know for how much longer she we live but these thoughts burn in my mind;
I want to out live her long enough to be as indifferent to her death as she was to the plight of the working men and communities that she ruined for generations under the banner of rationalisation.
I wish to be as crass and arrogant as she was when she sent British Servicemen to war in order to win an election.
I want to be as utterly heartless as she was when she opted to sink a ship full of Argentine sailors who need not have died at all in a war that could so easily have been avoided.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
The painful politics of ignorance and education.
It seems that the bile is poring out of me at the moment, I’m not bitter……..honest (yeah right!). This issue to do with Te Wananga o Aotearoa (TWAO) is stunning - yes it has appeared before but the quote from Susan Cullen had me asking to for permission to use the C word.
What does all this tell us ?
That if this amount of profit can be generated, then clearly the governement is paying too much for education and in particular Maori centred education. (erm not ! I do hope no one is really thinking this)
People in education cannot run their own affairs.
That Maori under the banner of Maori interests will grab what they can get and stuff their kin.
Tino Rangatiratanga once more scores a magnificent own goal.
I do hope the pepole on these courses did learn something useful otherwise it would have been a truly tragic waste.
Susan Cullen is an immoral and reckless a grifter working New Zealand’s conscience for all its worth. This hands all the ammunition needed to those who maintain a less the flattering cultural stereotype for Maori. But the real criminal of the day has to be the fool who put the finance model in place that allows this to happen. Susan Cullen and TWAO only took what was made available to them. How the F**k can this happen in a modern world ?
Oh of course this will almost certainly mean that some pointy head in Wellington will create another piece of paper work for me to do next year.
P.S. TWAO if you do read this, please note that your intranet seems to be running a mirror for slashdot japan..........
“God sends waves and you have to learn how to surf them.”
”I would do the same again if given the chance.”
All this from someone who made $30 million net profit in five years out of education. I do hope she is as philosophical if she ever gets mugged, robbed or conned. This trite bitch deserves it.
The wananga went from approximately 6000 funded enrolments to more than 34,000 in three years. According to rough funding calculations the government should have given $180,000,000 dollars in 2003. Check out the figures here and here.
The total scam runs to over $74 million. Mahi Ora the main course involved is a simple school level course in how to get a job, its free, it can be done at home and here’s the clincher your kaiako (teacher) can be contacted on an 0800 number using the mobile provided. Oh and there’s a noho marae (learning weekend). So my guess is the bulk of the teaching is done by workbook/video/ audio tape and trusty phone server.
Fortunately for Susan Cullen she was not an employee of Te wananga. Had she been TWAO would have saved approximately $10 million a year. I can only wonder as to whether she ever has been an employee. The $30million made in profit could easily have bailed out Rotorua's Te Wananga o Aotearoa that apparently needed a $20 million subsidy.
The $74 million given to Cullen would have been enough to clear most if not all the debts for HE institutions in New Zealand or employ roughly 1100 teachers; the profits ($30m) from this venture alone could have employed close to 500 teachers on its own. That doesn’t take into account the extra $20m for TWAO Rotorua. In a country where most schools and tertiary/higher education providers are struggling to make ends meet and provide real bums in seats education; it seems absurd that any institution of any credibility could generate that much profit let alone afford to give it away. I would looooove to see the enrolment/pass ratio and please someone send me the curriculum now. This I have to see - the course that actually teaches itself requiring minimum resources. Well bugger me, strangely no one else in the country can do this in fact no one else in the world seems to be this good at education, that is apart from the internet Universities.
All this from a tertiary education provider that champions the concept of Maori values/methods in education and also claims to be a University when it isn't. Forget how much Brash and his mates will enjoy this dish and try and figure out if NZ Maori should laugh or cry.
Don't forget $30 million is the equivalent of $50 for every Maori in New Zealand. Better still about $150 dollars for every Maori kid. But get this, I reckon I could put an internet ready PC in every Maori household for $74million and still have change for a shed load of internet access - perhaps a years free dialup.
Just in case you missed this cuzzes and neffs, Susan Cullen won't be shelling out for any hangi for Tangata Whenua either. Most of the profits are tied up in holding companies and luxury properties no doubt where she wines and dines such lunminaries as...... Donna Awatere-Huata ?
What does all this tell us ?
That if this amount of profit can be generated, then clearly the governement is paying too much for education and in particular Maori centred education. (erm not ! I do hope no one is really thinking this)
People in education cannot run their own affairs.
That Maori under the banner of Maori interests will grab what they can get and stuff their kin.
Tino Rangatiratanga once more scores a magnificent own goal.
I do hope the pepole on these courses did learn something useful otherwise it would have been a truly tragic waste.
Susan Cullen is an immoral and reckless a grifter working New Zealand’s conscience for all its worth. This hands all the ammunition needed to those who maintain a less the flattering cultural stereotype for Maori. But the real criminal of the day has to be the fool who put the finance model in place that allows this to happen. Susan Cullen and TWAO only took what was made available to them. How the F**k can this happen in a modern world ?
Oh of course this will almost certainly mean that some pointy head in Wellington will create another piece of paper work for me to do next year.
P.S. TWAO if you do read this, please note that your intranet seems to be running a mirror for slashdot japan..........
Friday, December 02, 2005
George Best my Dad and Me
Sooner or later I’m going to have something nice to say….but at the moment I will reserve all the niceness I can muster for those I love.
When my dad died he did not look pretty, he did not look well, in fact drowning in your own blood from a perforated liver is a pretty shitty way to die. Yup you guessed it my Dad was an alcoholic (some of you may be way ahead of me by now already). I saw a picture of him when he married my mum, he looked like a film star (sadly I don’t). He didn’t look like a film star when he died. At the time in fact he looked to me like a drunken thief. He had stolen the youth from my sister and I, squandering the best years of my mother’s life on the way. On top of that he drank away the profits of a business to which we all sacrificed some part of ourselves. It says a great deal that my sister and I haven’t spoken for five years passed and my mum and I despite our best efforts rarely communicate. My dad has been gone close to 8 years. Though I’m quite sure that our lack of family cohesion is not entirely his fault the lack money certainly was. In death the greatest tragedy is felt by the living.
With the death of an alcoholic we might expect some respite from an ongoing tragedy, but in truth the misery rarely stops there. So it is with George Best. I will not endorse this media canonising of an alcoholic. My father was a nice bloke but it will never make up for the things he did and didn’t do. George Best was a great football player but it will not dismiss the charming deceit of the celebrity alcoholic. This is a man who made a living out of his tragedy and that which he forced upon others. If some good has to come of this, we need to recognise that you can call a spade a spade and in turn an alcoholic however talented, a bad person. If we continue to romanticise and covertly endorse alcoholics particularly those like George Best, we don’t help Alcoholics or their numerous victims.
It is quite simply unacceptable for the media to come out with lines like “remember the great football players he was”. It’s like me sitting here trying to remember my film star looks dad, it is a denial of the truth.
The line we miss is; I’m an alcoholic, I am a bad person and drinking will not make this better, not drinking just might though.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Students and my education.
Today was one of those days that sucks the very soul right out of you. I spent my time dealing with the consequences of failing students in a paper that I teach.
The bottom line is that higher education in the developed world has entered a phase of denial. In order to dance to the governments tune Universities take in more students and magically maintain their pass rate whilst teaching them for diminishing amounts of money. We might call this increased efficiency, we might call it better teaching. Some of the time this may even be true. However there has also been a tendency to coerce lecturers towards passing students who should perhaps not be at University at all.
This is not a reflection on the students; they are as ever bright kids many with a great future ahead of them. What has become clear to me over the years is that a number of those who attend University have made conscious decisions to invest in activities other than education. These decisions have been made quite often before they get to university and consequently these students have achieved in line with the effort they have expended. Good on ‘em I hope it is worth it. They should enjoy the mobiles, games and other stuff they buy with the money they earn whilst not attending to their education. That said they shouldn’t be encouraged to go to university with the expectation that they can, work have the goodies, have fun and get a degree as a sideline. Because students pay fees that does not give them an automatic entitlement to a qualification. Achievement is linked to effort and consequently earning meaningful qualifications demands effort. No effort = no ticket.
The problem is that governments like the one in New Zealand also want educated kids without paying for it. So we have less effort, less money and more students. Go figure.
I have no problem supporting and teaching anyone who is prepared to make the sacrifices required to achieve a valued goal, particularly and educational one. But the majority of students that I teach have no grasp of this concept and vastly different expectations. Something I blame on schools, parents, educational establishments and above all the government. University education requires hard work at some stage or other, if we let students in expecting anything else we are lying to them and we are lying to ourselves. The consequences are either that the students fail (rarely) or that in fact they don’t receive the education consistent with the qualification they receive. Follow this to its logical conclusion and you have cereal box degrees of no real value to anyone.
This is the situation in the US, hence the need for the graduate record exam. The GRE may not be a measure of anything other than a students willingness to work in order to achieve valued goals. Hence proper university education should consign this Exam to irrelevance. It doesn’t because Uni ain’t what they used to be. And boy don’t I know it.
What has this to do with today ? Well I spent most of the day doing the mountain of paperwork necessary to fail students and then did another mountain trying to set up means by which they can have another go. This raises two issues:
i) My employers will never tell me that I cannot fail a student, they will however set up a system that makes it sooo much easier when you just fix things to pass as many as possible.
ii) Some of these students can barely write in English (yes there are people who write worse than me) and consequently should not pass until they can.
But here’s the scary soul destroying bit. Some of the students I have failed and will now have to re-assess, are overseas students with English as a second language. Some of them are not. When marking their work it became clear to me, that excepting the rather obvious names at the tops of the papers, some of the work was so bad from the English first language students as to be indistinguishable from the foreign students. That is pretty bad. How do these kids graduate school ? How do they get let into University ? What damage will this do to education and consequently society as a whole in the log run ? I don’t know the answers to this. None of what I have written here will come as a surprise to many others involved with higher education. This has probably been written elsewhere.
What kills me is that Higher Education caused my re-birth as a capable and occasionally useful human being. I became an educator in order to offer the same opportunities to others. I did this in the belief that I was doing something of use and value. It fills me with aching bitterness after a day like today to realise that I am struggling to achieve these aims. It will become impossible as time progresses because neither the students nor the institutions will be set up to do this. Yet the students will leave university in the belief that they hold the same qualification that people valued so highly in years past. An opportunity will be lost, damage will be done, and I will be part of a larger lie. I’m not sure how long my conscience will put up with betraying my personal values and the students I teach, many of whom are a pleasure to know. I’m even less sure what to do about it.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Food labels and corporations.
I read with interest today that New Zealand has opted not to go with Country of Origin labelling (cool) of food. This I find disappointing for two reasons:
i) The protocol has already been adopted in Australia and therefore New Zealand goods have to be labelled accordingly so our biggest trading partner can engage in the sort consumer choices, (protectionism) that we are denied. I get the feeling New Zealand loses out here.
ii) I’m peeved because I won’t be able to choose local produce, which I have done since settling here. Worse for me is the thought that I would end up buying US or Israeli fruit which I have boycotted for years.
The NZ government’s view is summed up thus "Mandatory COOL is potentially an unnecessary barrier to international trade.".
Others said: The FSANZ labelling plan was criticised earlier this year by Wellington economists as having the potential to add costs without adding "significant consumer value".
I clearly Disagree with consumer value where it seems only to represent price/profits.
I can only imagine in the absence of any useful reasoning in favour of this act (which seems to contradict economic and green reasoning for buying Kiwi Made) that NZ is bound by some free trade deals with a big partner.
I was more encouraged by this post by Pax. Its good to see peolpe in the states still fighting for the soul of the America we thought we trusted. After the second world war Tommy (british soldiers) came back and voted in a government for social welfare, which though battered has been a cornerstone of british life for nearly 50 years.
Then I remind myself that the Labour government I first voted for before I left was supposed to be different from the Tories . It wasn't and I was already leaving anyway. But Pax makes the point that this is what we should expect becuase its no longer about goverment and opposition but about people versus the needs of corporate share capital. How much mony do they need and can we make them quit ? Or is it true about greedy bastards who won't give up.
Why I will never support the AB's
On the whole I like the guys over at Public Address but just recently they have let me down. Russell Brown appears like many NZ rugby lovers to be making a dive for another fig leaf in response to the dissonance many New Zealanders feel about that tackle. Well not even about the tackle really; Rugby is a professional game, people get targeted and sometimes they get hurt get over it. But the unrepentant nature of NZ media in support of an equally unrepentant All Black team to this, bugs the s**t out of me. Just front up and be nice....boys. When people get that injured you are messing with their living and their dreams. No the offer to talk about it over a beer later will not do. Which brings me to trying to explain this outburst.
Describing this as merely gracious is one thing, to then cite a small passage out of another equally generous analysis and find another from which to launch a dribble of snot about hypocrisy is as false as it is low. The response to these minor issues is to point out that professional sport is professional even at international level so there should be no doubt that border crossing and nationality is becoming a grey area. Notwithstanding the fact that the British Isles provides gameful employment and a finishing school for a number of NZ rugby coaches and players.
Just what is it that is getting to these guys ? The fact that the UK press can come out with almost as much garbage as the New Zealand press ? or is it that the discomfort caused by international media is unbearable on top of the endless own goals scored by New Zealand media against many potential stars and New Zealand sport as a whole.
Thoughts to bear in mind.......
i) No I'm not English......
ii) I will probably devote my best working years to New Zealand sport (who's the patriot here ?)
iii) Linford Christie good though he is, may not in fact be UK's most celebrated track athlete (Anyone remember Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Kelly Holmes ?) and besides this is about rugby not athletics.
iv) Stuff like this is why I would rather shout for Wales anytime.
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