SuperHappyDevHouse

This is not the Hamilton i remember growing up in:
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/6913352/hit-and-run-robbery-vic...

Passing motorists ignored a hit-and-run robbery victim left lying on the side of a Hamilton road last night, police say.

The 21-year-old man was walking home across Anglesea Street about 11pm when he was hit by a vehicle, near the Caro Street intersection.

The vehicle's occupants, believed to be two men and a woman, demanded the victim's wallet and took his backpack which had been thrown a short distance by the impact of the car.

In fact i'm hoping the victim has left something out of his account to explain this. I'm gonna be watching for more details.

The area was busier than usual as people made their way home from the international cricket match at Seddon Park, and police hoped someone may recall seeing the incident take place.

I've seen someone fall off pushbikes in central Wellington and be inundated in people trying to help. Hamilton isn't that much different to Wellington.

p.s does Cricket really run as late as 11pm?

and now a baby photo:

Michael Geist is coming to town..

allow me have a little fangirl moment

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Here's the press release:

Michael Geist to keynote PublicACTA - InternetNZ

Media Release - 10 March 2010 - InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) is excited to announce that renowned Canadian law professor Michael Geist, a world authority on technology law issues, will be the keynote speaker at the PublicACTA event, being held in Wellington on 10 April 2010.

"We are delighted that Professor Geist is able to make it to New Zealand to contribute to the debate around the ACTA negotiations," says InternetNZ Policy Director Jordan Carter.

PublicACTA is being held the weekend before the next round of ACTA negotiations in Wellington, 12-16 April 2010.

ACTA is a plurilateral trade agreement being negotiated by the USA, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, aimed at increasing the control that intellectual property owners have over their products and ideas, and at reducing incidents of counterfeiting and illegal trade in goods. The negotiation phase of the treaty is intended to be finished in 2010.

Professor Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada, has written widely on the challenges of copyright and digital technology.

"His in-depth understanding of the ACTA process to date, and well publicised positions in favour of citizen access to the negotiation process, will add quality analysis and profile to the event," says Carter.

"PublicACTA will be aimed at creating a constructive contribution to the negotiations being held in Wellington. Professor Geist's participation will contribute to that goal," says Carter.

Professor Geist is looking forward to participating in the event:

“New Zealand has emerged as a leading global voice on ACTA and I'm delighted to have the chance to participate in this important event.

“Many people around the world have watched with admiration at how thousands of New Zealanders have actively engaged in domestic and international copyright reform initiatives, promoting a balanced approach that meets the needs of all stakeholders,” he says.

Further information about Michael Geist is available at his website, which can be found at www.michaelgeist.ca.

People who are interested in attending the PublicACTA event should register their interest by sending an email to rsvp@internetnz.net.nz.

Further details about the Conference will be released on a dedicated website next week.

The fancy new version of statusnet rocks.

It's AGPL licenced, fully federated, and you can have you own installation for free.

head to
http://status.net/signup

And you can get your own statusnet installation. Mine is at http://shiny.status.net.

And cos it's all federated, anyone using another Ostatus compliant app can subscribe to you. You can subscribe to me by entering shiny@status.net, or br3nda@identi.ca -- you can subscribe to Google buzz users by entering their gmail address - and there are a handful of other apps out there that support ostatus.

It's a true open source, open data, open web solution - without any single point of failure. awesome stuff.

and now a baby photo:

p.s. Baby microblogs at caseyaroha@identi.ca

I'm willing to be challenged on this one, as I have only the basic details, but here's something that doesn't sound right going on in this tale.

Red Cross goes into Haiti following a massive earthquake - puts out the plea saying "send infant formula, we need it"

Across the Lactivist communities, (mostly) western white middle class women bloggers cry foul. Formula is evil, they need breastmilk, not formula. Don't send formula! boycott any charity sending formula!

and they're mostly right - the World Health Organisation STRONGLY advocates breastfeed exclusively because most of the world does not have access to a clean later supply. Haiti included

but - something feels wrong here. The Red Cross are there, on the ground, and they say that infant formula is what they need. It doesn't take much imagination to work out scenarios where formula is necessary. The mother being dead or missing comes to mind first.

Likewise, an island in Samoa recently asked for supplies, such as infant formula, to help them through the next cyclone.

I also ponder how much breastfeeding is a privilege. You need to be nearby a hungry child in order to successfully breastfeed, or have access to refrigeration, a breastpump, and sterilisation equipment. How many people in developing and impoverished nations have this access?

Breastfeeding rates in New Zealand are lower amongst those on low incomes, and lacking tertiary education. Many would like to breastfeed but are unable to because they work. (We only have 15 weeks paid leave, and it's very low paid).

Is it not the same in Haiti? Perhaps worse? Women don't have a choice but to return to the workplace, and there's no protected right have breastfeeding breaks or facilities for pumping.

My own conclusion is: If Red Cross say they need formula, then I will believe Red Cross first and foremost.

and now a baby photo:

The conclusions on a kiwiblog post really annoyed me. (yeah, i know, i shouldn't read that blog if i wanna keep my faith in NZ)

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/03/the_gender_pay_gap.html
quote:

I’m generally reluctant to conclude discrimination, and look for other factors, because discrimination is just so plain stupid. I can’t understand how anyone would think someone is more or less capable in a job because of their gender, and would pay them less. Mind you, I think the discrimination might be subconscious, rather than a conscious decision.

To paraphrase, the author thinks discriminating on gender is stupid, therefore gender discrimination probably isn't the reason women graduates are consistently paid less than men graduates with the same degree.

That logic just doesn't bare up to scrutiny, that because something is stupid it's therefore not what's happening.

Regardless, the study didn't find a difference in whether graduates gets employed or not. Both men and women graduates found jobs; but the woman was consistently given a lower starting salary than the man. The employer is not thinking "the woman can't do the job". They are employing women and paying them less.

There's two aspect to this:
1) Women doing the same job as men and getting paid less for it.
2) Jobs seen as "women's work" are paid less.

It's not because women take time off to raise children, because we're talking starting rates of someone who has just graduated from university.

The commenters did pick up on women not being aggressive negotiators; The commenters however haven't followed through to *why* women are weak negotiators.

This has been studied to death in recent years. Women who are aggressive getters of what they want are punished for it, with derogatory names, and avoidance. They are often considered selfish. Men who state clearly what they want and go for it are respected. This goes way beyond pay negotiations into all aspects of life.

Girl infants who are rowdy aren't encouraged, while parents will play much rougher with their sons. Girls learn very early that they are expected to be polite, simply because people around them correct their manners more, and their loudness, than they do for boys. Even a parent trying hard to not apply these differences to their children will struggle to stop grandparents, other parents, daycare, teachers, and other children defining their gender attributes for them.

Just as children today learn quickly that pink is for girls (and has been a girls' colour since only circa 1950), they quickly learn which gender they are in therefore whether they should be crashing trucks in the sandpit, or brushing a dolls hair in a circle with the other girls.

Girls who boast are not rewarded. Think of the women you know that have a high opinion of themselves, and how they are regarded by those around them - do they appear well liked? Now think on how many men you know with high confidence, are they disliked for this?

We need to undo this. Employers, and employees, need to question why they are paying women less. "She didn't ask for more" isn't a good enough reason if we're ever going to undo this. Teach the women graduates that they need to negotiate harder, and we should all examine our own prejudice against aggressive women. Negotiation skills are valuable in an employee.

Likewise, women ask your men colleagues doing the same job what they earn.

I hold no blame on women who choose to not negotiate harder. They do so simply because they are punished for being aggressive.

As for women's work being paid less - i don't know the answer, i work in an industry that is ~85% men. I suggest asking people working in those industries. Those observing from outside won't be able to see as clearly.

and as a last thought: In Open source 75% of women have experienced sexism, while only 15% of men have noticed sexism.

and now a photo of a baby driving a car:

“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” the resolution said, “but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.”

Change the wording a little bit, and substitute “shit” for “carbon dioxide”, and it’s still just as true

A UK Hansard Society report – Parliament 2020: visioning the future Parliament

asking first-time voters, parliamentarians and parliament officials about their visions for a future Parliament found that all groups wanted to see Parliament using new technologies to more actively engage with citizens.

(just ignore all the pro-labour stuff on there, the stuff is still interesting)
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2010/03/07/young-voters-demand-more-...

Sony Patents "feature erosion"
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/sony-patents-degradable-video-game-de...

USA's secretary of state says good things about the goodness of OLPC laptops in use in Haiti after the massive earthquake.
http://blog.laptop.org/2010/03/05/hillary-clinton-touts-the-work-of-olpc/

Goodnight Forest Moon - a downloadable book to assemble at home, is a mash up of starwars and goodnight moon.
http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Al9LbPPf6gg/goodnight-...

Ubisoft's misguided "uncrackable" DRM is cracked in 24 hours
Boingboing muses that giving gamers DRM is really giving them a puzzle to solve, and that's what gamers do, they solve puzzles.
http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/fHyD-O5t650/ubisofts-n...

The "blind" camera

What it does is tracks the exact time that the button was pushed, and then goes out and searches for another image taken at that exact time. Once the camera finds one, it displays the image in the LCD on the back of the camera.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/05/the-blind-camera-shows-you-someone-...

Nearly half of Nepal's children under five are suffering from malnutrition, a report by the Nepalese government says.
Folks living in the developed world have an average 22 hectare "footprint"... but there's only enough planet for 16 hectares per person.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/south_asia/8550503.stm

Apple versus Innovation.

The patent system is out of touch with the modern world, where today’s innovations are taken for granted in next year’s products

HTC has become real competition for apple's smartphones - so apple are suing HTC for patent infringment.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/Mises-Economics-Blog/2010/0304/Apple-s-su...

Cliff Chiang has created a great series of Star Wars Imperial Propaganda posters
http://www.cliffchiang.com/2010/02/22/armed-forces/

Gladiator fight in the amphitheatre at Te Papa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjY8arWlp24&feature=youtube_gdata

Green Party sound alarm at proposed policy change removing the second chance school leavers get at a university education.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2010/03/02/will-the-govt-deny-kiwis-a-second-c...

Picture of the massive earthquake in Chile.
http://feeds.boston.com/click.phdo?i=6dbc4c975e19c049cc0a8bb79ab8c9da

NZBus refused to let evangelical athiests advertise on their buses.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/03/the_atheist_bus_campaign.html

and now baby photos:

What we suspected for some time is real: TiVo sales in New Zealand are disappointing. The New Zealand Herald reports industry sources saying only 2,000 TiVo units were sold in New Zealand since launch, about five months ago. Hybrid TV, the local distributor, of course says this figure is not accurate but won't disclose the real numbers. At launch Hybrid TV planned to sell 120,000 TiVo within five years in New Zealand.

Compare this to Sky TV, which added about 6,700 new subscribers per month for the six months to December 2009. That includes having to pay a subscribption for the services, which are free with TiVo.

Now let's see the problems:

TiVo is only available through Telecom New Zealand stores. People don't buy TV sets or content boxes at Telecom stores - there needs to be a shift of tectonic proportions for this to happen. People go there to buy phones. Until Hybrid TV sells TiVo through HB Hi-Fi, Dick Smith, Noel Leemings, Harvey Normam there will be no chance for them.

Then TiVo offers Caspa, a legal movie download service. The service gives users unmetered download of purchased content. At 1.2GB for a two hour movie the unmetered download is a great idea. But it is only available if you use Telecom New Zealand as your ISP. Hybrid TV should offer Caspa to anyone and everyone. It will use 1.2GB of one's Internet connection to download a movie. Live with it. I do this all the time with Apple iTunes. If they can offer unmetered through Telecom New Zealand, fine. But don't limit consumers to that only ISP.

Next is the lack of Prime and Maori TV EPG. I don't blame Hybrid TV too much on that, it might be the people on the other side playing dead. I mean if I don't see Prime on my EPG I don't watch Prime. As easy as that.

Then comes support. From what read on Geekzone people have very bad experience with their support being inexperienced or not having answers. I can't attest to that, since I never had to use their support.

Lastly their desktop application. What an absolute piece of software (PoS). I have a TiVo review unit here, and I couldn't get any of my own content from my desktop or Windows Home Server into TiVo - either too slow to copy or not copied at all to the box. Worst user experience ever.

The TiVo experience on the TV is quite nice and I am sure users would quickly get used to that. But the whole package is broken and until Hybrid TV fixes these things TiVo won't be a third option between Sky and myFreeview|HD.

UPDATE Another thing that's wrong with TiVo in New Zealand: just read the comments below and you will see someone who doesn't know if TiVo is HD or not, and if it's DVB-T (Terrestrial) or DVB-S (Satellite). A lot of people probably thinks TiVo is a service on its own right, without realising it requires Freeview|HD coverage.

Super happy dev house, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Super happy dev house, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Super happy dev house, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

[  ] Apple iPhone
[  ] Symbian
[  ] Windows Mobile
[  ] Windows Phone 7
[  ] Palm Web OS
[X] Android
[  ] Maemo

Some comments:

- Windows Mobile is on its way out and nothing will really turn it around anymore;

- I haven't personally played with Windows Phone 7 but I don't like anything I've seen so far - Microsoft needs to give us a good surprise because my hopes are low;

- By the end of the year Symbian is going to power low end smartphones, or very high end feature phones;

- Palm is going to die very soon;

- Maemo gives me the impression of being is a good platform, from the little I've been playing with in the last few days - but lack of software will be a problem. MeeGo (Nokia and Intel) should get a lot of attention from the companies behind the effort (Nokia and Intel) but it will take some time to happen;

- Android is where things will be hot, but the fragmentation worries me - the platform may end up going the way of Windows Mobile with so many different models.

What do you see in the future for smart handsets? What platform you think will go up or down, and why?

Stay classy New Zealand, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

NZ looks down the path of eugenics.

Only last year there was talk of paying the poor to undergo sterilization.

One group of people calling for the forced, or sometimes rewarded, sterialisation of another group of people pops up all over history; Because that target group is seen as inferior, dirty, dangerous, or just plain different. It has been, and is still used against religious groups, racial groups, social-economic groups, homosexuals, transpeople, and against the disabled.

Some recommended reading:

Sterilisation in history and literature!
http://dimpost.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/sterilisation-in-history-and-lit...

Sanjay Gandhi’s forced sterilisation campaigns against Muslim’s during The Emergency, when the Indian Congress Party led by Indira Gandhi essentially declared martial law for eighteen months. Poor muslim men and women living in slums in South Delhi were forcibly given vasectomies and hysterectomies.

Officials had sterilisation quota to fill, people died due to botched operations, doctors who refused to perform the operations were jailed. The programme was abandoned when democracy and freedom of the press were restored.

It’s bitterly well remembered in India, where there’s still massive opposition to family planning and contraception because of the campaign...

Trans men still fighting mandatory sterilisation in [Western Australia]
http://hoydenabouttown.com/20100303.7295/quickhit-trans-men-still-fighti...

The Czech government has expressed regret over the illegal sterilisation of Roma women.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8375960.stm

Ottawa Columnist Argues for Forced Sterilization
http://radicalbookworm.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/ottawa-columnist-argues-...

Reproductive Justice Linkspam: A Starting Point
http://theangryblackwoman.com/2010/02/26/reproductive-justice-linkspam-a...

Yeahs, i'm a hippy.. both an open source hippy, and a "made locally, with no child labour, and eco friendly please" hippy.

So, when finding clothes for our baby, that outgrows everything every 4 weeks, I'm looking for crafty craft people.

Tomorrow (6th March), is the Martinborough fair. It's about 75 minutes drive from Wellington and it's massive. The whole town is taken over by this ginormous fair. We'll be picking up bebe clothes, but also adult clothes, kitchen things, jams, pickles and who knows what else.
http://www.martinboroughfair.org.nz/

Martinborough Fair, originally uploaded by cristina.gherghe.

070203_017.jpg, originally uploaded by mEyegallery.

Tomorrow is also Craft 2.0, out at the Dowse in Lower Hutt. Lotsa crafty wellington people selling their wares
http://craft2.org/

Goodie bag, originally uploaded by Cle0patra.

And on sunday, the Newtown festival. This has less craft, more made-in-china junk.. but there's entertainers and lotsa food, much of it fair trade.
http://www.newtownfestival.org.nz/

Newtown Festival 2002 - 053, originally uploaded by TELPortfolio.

and now a baby photo:

Earlier this week I went to Sydney to attend the Nokia Forum Developer Conference 2010, invited by Nokia Australia/New Zealand. I have to say it was my first event with Nokia and it was interesting to see 300 developers discussing the current state and future of Nokia's smartphone strategy.

Present at the event were Emile Baak, Managing Director Nokia Australia and New Zealand, Purnina Kochikar, Vice Pesident Forum Nokia and Developer Community, Jan Ole Suhr, Founder of Mobileways.de and developer of Twitter client Gravitiy for Symbian.

Being a developer conference the push was obviously about creating content and applications that get the customers to enjoy their devices - and buy those little bits of magic called software and content. Nokia says there are more than 1 million downloads every day from their Ovi software store, which is now available in 180 countries, with integrated mobile operator billing in partnership with 60 operators.

It is obvious Nokia is pushing the QT application and UI framework, seeing it's cross platform (Symbian, Maemo, desktop) which would allow developers to scale their efforts even more. The company also said their main commitments are "increase total addressable market", "commit to open source", "combine mobile and web technologies" and "lower entry barrier to developers".

Jan explained how a one man company created one of the most used Symbian software these days, #5 in the top apps in Australia. He recommended developers try their software in different handset models to get the real "feel" - which is interesting because Nokia gave one N97 Mini to a lucky developer, when I thought they should have distributed those to everyone in the room, like Google did at MWC with their Google Nexus One.

Nokia gave some numbers too. For example in the last quarter Symbian represented 44% of smartphone shipments in the world, with BlackBerry behind at 20%, Apple iPhone in third with 12.8%, Android with 7.2%, Windows Mobile 7.2% and then the rest - which I guess is Palm and other Linux-based smartphones we never hear of.

But really, the question in the back of my mind is "will Symbian turn into a entry level smartphone OS, or will it be sold as a upmarket feature phone OS?". Only time - and Nokia's efforts will tell. Nokia counts more than one million daily downloads from their online application store, but how many more people have no idea their phones are actually "smart"?

Here is an update from Nokia on this: "We have multiple platforms to serve different purposes and address different markets. Symbian is more successful than ever in bringing smartphones to the masses: it has more than 40 per cent of the global smartphone market. Symbian is our choice for smartphones and we in fact see it deploying even more widely as the technology required to run it trickles down through the portfolio."

The Nokia Forum is running the Calling All Innovators competition, now in its third year. Prizes are US$30,000 for 1st spot, US$15,000 for second and US$5,000 to third - this is for each of the four categories. So far there are 27 Australian entries and six New Zealand entries.

In the afternoon Nokia hosted a press event to introduce the press to a couple of things. First was the MeeGo initiative with Intel announced last month, that will see joint efforts from these companies to develop a product based on both Maemo and Moblin platforms. And then the Nokia N900 Maemo 5 smartphone/tablet computer release for Australia, which will see the device available in stores soon. There isn't a release date for New Zealand yet though.

Nokia couldn't say which operators would carry the device, but seeing the Nokia N900 is a 900/2100MHz 3G device it won't work on Telstra NextG network. And it won't work on Telecom New Zealand XT network either. This is a bummer because everyone at the press event received a loaner Nokia N900 and I mainly use Telecom XT. I am using the loaner device here in New Zealand with a 2degrees SIM card, and it works really well on that network.

Which also brings us to the "review" side of the thing. I got the device on Tuesday, and Nokia confirmed I have it for a couple of weeks. I can say though so far that it's a very clever device, fast and had quite some fun using it - installing new applications, finding some features, etc. It worked flawlessly with my Microsoft BPOS Exchange account and in a matter of minutes I had my emails, contacts, calendar all synchronised over-the-air.

Because I haven't had that much time with it yet, I suggest you read what other Geekzone users are talking about it - a few people in our community bought the Nokia N900 as soon as it was released in Europe and the U.S. a couple of months ago so there are some knowledge on how it works, what to expect, etc. Check this very good Nokia N900 review, and follow the discussion in our Nokia N900 users thread. I will post my own review later.

Now for the "facepalm" moment... Some "journalist" present at the press event commented after seeing the Nokia N900 is a combined touchscreen and slider device: "You [Nokia] have no presence in the smartphone market at all. It's been proven by Apple that people want touchscreen devices, so why do you enter the smartphone market with this device?"

In December last year, two Liip employees Brian King & I (Penny Leach) went to the Czech Republic for a week, for the first ever concentrated Moodle Developer Conference. There were 16 attendees from around the world, participating in an intense week of discussion about the upcoming Moodle 2.0 release, with a lot of decisions being made and work being planned. The session notes are now online.

After that, I had a 6 week secondment to Moodle HQ, working on improving the Moodle Networking feature for Moodle 2.0. This was my second secondment to Moodle HQ, the first was in 2008, to work on the Portfolio API. Moodle HQ is based in Perth Australia, but there are employees working all around the world in different timezones, so communication largely happens on our jabber development chat, and bug tracker, with the occasional skype video chat.

The first step was to evaluate the current state of MNet, which was added to Moodle 1.8, but needed a lot of work to bring it up to Moodle 2.0 compliance. I created a metabug with a number of subtasks representing the different areas that need work, and then linked all the existing MNet bugs to those. Then I created a whole lot more bugs for a lot of refactoring that needed to happen. Then I rolled up my sleeves and started work. I closed many bugs, some of which affected the stable 1.9 version of Moodle as well, and will be in the next stable point release.

Unfortunately there was more needing to be done than I had time to do, but MNet is now in a much better state to be able to be maintained by more people. I will be doing a handover meeting with David Mudrák soon, and also of course continue to help with bug triage and fixing during the Moodle 2.0 beta period.

Technically, I was tracking Moodle cvs with git, making branches for each bug I was working on, committing to git and then eventually rebasing and using git-cvsexportcommit to land the work into the relevant Moodle branch. This is a workflow that David has recently described in more detail, and works very well for me, a long time thoroughly convinced git user.

Working with Moodle HQ directly is always a great experience, although doing it in a European timezone, as I did in 2008, works better than doing it from New Zealand, which is where I was this time. Even so, I had as always great support from the other core team, testing and doing code review. I hope MNet users will be happy with the improvements in Moodle 2.0.

Tonight's sunset in Wellington, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

What a flurry of ACTA stuff today -- here's a press release from InternetNZ on their "PublicACTA" initiative.

InternetNZ to take public message to ACTA negotiators
Media Release
2 March 2010

InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) will assist the public in voicing its concerns about the controversial international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) through an open conference to be held next month in Wellington, New Zealand.

“We’re going to give the public the chance to have their say - in contrast to the secrecy of the negotiation process,” says Jordan Carter, InternetNZ Policy Director.

PublicACTA will be held on Saturday, 10 April 2010, two days ahead of Round 8 of the ACTA negotiations on 12-16 April in Wellington. The outputs of PublicACTA will be provided to the New Zealand government negotiators.

PublicACTA will be an open and public opportunity for people to critique the known and likely content of the ACTA proposals, providing a counterpoint to the secrecy of the negotiations.

“These plurilateral negotiations appear to extend well beyond the area of trade and physical counterfeiting to potentially cover non-commercial infringement of copyright material by ordinary citizens and digital rights management,” Carter says.

Despite the high level of secrecy surrounding the process, some of the proposals have leaked and demonstrate cause for concern.

"ACTA could affect everyone's rights on the Internet. Proposals from some countries seek to go beyond New Zealand's current public position. It is therefore very important that there is a forum for public discussion," says Carter.

"The aim of PublicACTA is to raise the public’s concerns, seek improvements to the Agreement, and provide an opportunity for people to connect and discuss the issues. The output will be an agreed statement that the public and interested organisations can sign up to, to be delivered to New Zealand Government negotiators and politicians."

The New Zealand Government today called for submissions on ACTA identifying the dates of the negotiations and outlining some specific areas they would like feedback on. InternetNZ will also submit on that document, which has a deadline of 31 March 2010.

Details of the programme of and high profile international guests at PublicACTA will be provided in coming days.

For more information contact:

Jordan Carter
Policy Director, InternetNZ
021 442 649
jordan@internetnz.net.nz

and now, a baby photo:

Today saw the biggest leak so far of ACTA info. Michael Geist has details on Internet and Civil Enforcement Chapters With Country Positions
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4829/125/
(discovered via boing boing)

Nathan Torkington has a summary of New Zealand's standpoint on various issues within the leaked document:
http://nathan.torkington.com/blog/2010/03/01/nz-acta-negotiation

NZ's Ministry of Economic Development has asked the public for ACTA advice

Tech Liberty NZ asks "Why do NZ citizens have to find out the NZ position in ACTA negotiations from leaked documents?"

When i get some non-work non-baby time, i'll write a real blog post on it, promise :)

Meanwhile here's the press release calling for submissions:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1003/S00028.htm

Submissions sought on Anti-Counterfeit Trade Deal
Tuesday, 2 March 2010, 2:50 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Government

Minister calls for submissions on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement

Commerce Minister Simon Power is calling for submissions on a
range of intellectual property proposals in the digital arena to help
develop the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
This is the third round of public consultations on ACTA, and New
Zealand will be hosting Round 8 of the ACTA negotiations in
Wellington from 12-16 April.
Digital enforcement measures will be one of the topics that will be
discussed by delegations from Australia, Canada, the European
Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland, Morocco, and
the US.
"Intellectual property rights infringement is changing in nature with
the development of technology. Therefore, enforcement measures
need to be constantly reviewed to ensure they remain effective.
"I encourage interested parties to provide submissions to help set a
higher benchmark for the enforcement of intellectual property rights."
The Ministry of Economic Developments discussion paper can be
found at:
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentTOC____425
82.aspx
Submissions about digital enforcement can be sent to:
trademarks@med.govt.nz.
The closing date for submissions is Wednesday 31 March 2010.
ENDS

and now a baby photo. \m/

Someone once defined a Compromise, as a Solution neither party is happy with...

New Zealand has a new section 92 of the copyright act -- or rather, the copyright bill. The first reading of this bill in Parliament was last week.

The core principle of the right to contest accusations, and to not receive punishment until after due process, is now in the bill. That is the one thing I'll never compromise on.

However we must remain vigilant. The injustice was not obvious in the old law, it only reveals itself when you think through how the law could possibly be implemented. I'm gonna keep following this closely.

Disconnection is still in there. It really shouldn't be. How many times do we need to say "Would you disconnect someone's power, water, gas, for breaking civil law? Would you deny them use of the postal service?". Why are we terminating a service vital to livelihoods, social and democratic participation and communication - all for the offense of copyright infringement? The punishment outweighs the crime, and is inventive and inappropiate.

Large scale commercial copyright infringement should be punishable with fines. Casual personal copyright infringement should also be punishable with fines.

The size of the fines for personal copyright infringement should be a true sting that makes legitimate purchase appealing, but also needs to be in proportion to the wrongdoing. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of penalties for a few songs is not okay, and that would only furthers the erosion of respect for copyright law, and respect for artists and publishers. The Bill includes a $15,000 limit, when using the Copyright Tribunal. If the copyright holder wishes to claim more, then they'll need to go to court. This still leaves us open to crazy big penalties in New Zealand, through the court system. I'm holding hope in our judges to not award the multi-million dollar amounts, for a dozen mp3s, that we've seen in other countries.

Last time we had a copyright bill, it was looking pretty good -- until the last possible moment: the final reading in parliament. It was then, after all the consultation and select committees, that the villian (Judith Tizard) added a Supplementary Order Paper which inserted section 92 - the Guilt Apon Accusation that worked out at ISP being forced to disconnect anyone accused of copyright infringement in order to avoid being liable themselves.

Could that happen all over again?