it.gen.nz

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about the World Internet Project – a survey of how New Zealanders use the Internet, set in context by comparing it to other surveys around the world. The WIP was run in New Zealand by AUT University and partly funded by InternetNZ.

There are some intriguing results to the survey. Read on for my speaking notes or listen to the podcast.

(more…)

I’ve just spent a rapt couple of hours in one of my favourite places – Musée Rodin in Paris. I love Rodin’s work because he can evoke such intense emotions using lumps of stone and metal. Here is one of my favourites:

This is the Cariatide à la pierre. A caryatid is an architectural column in the shape of a human figure, and this caryatid has partly collapsed beneath the weight she is carrying. But she’s still struggling to get to her feet, even though she knows it’s hopeless.

The sign by the exhibit says that she represents humankind being crushed by the weight of destiny. It’s part of a larger Rodin work called The Gates of Hell, loosely based on Dante’s Inferno, which explores the extremes of suffering and pleasure.

I’ve just been to New Zealand’s most active volcano. It’s an amazing experience. (more…)

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about the impenetrable legal terms and licences that we are confronted with every day when we use software or even just read email.

Read on for my speaking notes.

Feel free to post your favourite examples of silly or unreadable email disclaimers in the comments!

(more…)

This week on Radio New Zealand National I talked about the core government web site at newzealand.govt.nz, how it’s starting to use some of the ideas of Web 2.0, and how the government is releasing the software that runs it as free software under the GPL. (more…)

Queen Charlotte was the George III’s queen, back in the days when the sole criterion for running a European country appeared to be coming from the correct extended family rather than actually being from the country you intended to rule. After all, she was born in Germany, and so was George’s grandfather George II. George III is nowadays famous for losing the American colonies and his marbles, and so giving us something to call the Regency Period while George’s son (also, of course, George) ruled in his place.

It was during George III’s reign that Captain James Cook visited New Zealand. Cook came here on each of his three big voyages, and on each he laid up his ship at a place now called Ship Cove in the Marlborough Sounds. Cook named that sound for his sovereign’s wife – Queen Charlotte Sound.

(more…)

And before modern communications technologies, rumours were all most people heard about foreign wars. Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about how that all changed with the reporting via telegraph of a disastrous military engagement over 150 years ago.

Read on for my speaking notes and for some really good links. (more…)

Sorry about the dreadful pun! I’m on my way to Geneva to represent New Zealand at a meeting of the International Standards Organisation, ISO.

Geneva was the home of the protestant reformer John Calvin. Calvin held that adherence to biblical precepts was far important more than any act of charity or kindness. These days, we’d call him a fundamentalist. And, like so many charismatic religious leaders, he got to define exactly how people lived according to those precepts. People who opposed him, or whose theology was a little different, tended to come to a sticky end. He gave his name to particularly dour branch of protestantism. There are echoes of Calvinism in a lot of modern Christian thought.

Anyway, I’m going to Geneva to attend a Ballot Resolution Meeting for a draft standard – DIS29500, commonly known as OOXML. New Zealand voted “no” on this standard last time round, as did sufficient other countries to prevent it being made a world standard on the spot. This meeting is to discuss the various objections that the different countries have to the technical quality of the draft standard and to see if changes can be agreed to it. Countries which have already voted, like New Zealand, then get 30 days to decide whether they wish to change their votes.

This will be a very solid 5 day meeting. Even so, at 6,000 pages with another 2,300 pages of comments the draft standard is so big that the meeting can’t possibly do justice to the whole thing.

According to ISO rules I’m not allowed to blog or broadcast about the contents of the meeting, which is closed to the public and the press. I’ll do my regular Thursday radio broadcast from Geneva (Wednesday night, my time) and I’ll talk about the process and about what it’s like to be involved.

I’m looking forward to the meeting, and I’m also looking forward to meeting some people I have worked closely with round the world, but have never actually met. Ain’t the Net marvellous?

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about mashups – a way of joining together songs or videos to make something wholly new.

Read on for my notes and links.
(more…)

I’m in Delhi at a meeting of ICANN, the body which runs the core Internet domain name and number systems. It meets three times a year in a different world city every time. I’m doing some work for ICANN as part of a review team; but I already know many of the people here from my days as president of InternetNZ.

I don’t think I’m going to have time to see much of Delhi, unfortunately. It’s also a lot colder here than I believed it could be – I’m far too cold sitting round in a business suit. Most people have winter woolies on!