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On Thursday I presented my submission on Software Patents to the Commerce Select Committee of Parliament. It was a fascinating experience, and one which is open to all New Zealanders.
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Today on Radio New Zealand National I talk about stargazing, and how you can use cheap or free technology to help you understand what you’re seeing when you look into the night sky. I’ll be on after the 11am news.

Read on for my speaking notes, or after the broadcast you’ll be able to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talk about the deranged world of software patents, where someone can claim that an idea they had five years ago suddenly means that entire industry owes them a fortune. I’ll be on after the 11am news.

Read on for my speaking notes, or after the broadcast you’ll be able to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

This is a Lockheed SR71 “Blackbird”, displayed on public view at the air museum in Duxford, England. The Blackbird was a high-altitude supersonic spyplane used in the later part of the cold war. The Americans started using the Blackbird after Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR in his U2 – the SR71 flew higher and faster – but pensioned it off after it became clear that advances in missile technology meant it was at risk of shooting down from the installations it was sent to observe. Now, of course, we all use satellite technology thanks to Google Earth. As a kind of postscript, the U2 is still flying over Iraq and other hot spots, long after the aircraft designed to replace it has gone to the museums.

The Blackbird flew at over Mach 3, at heights of over 75,000 ft. It took off and landed – of course – at sea level, so its engines and airframe needed to be able to deal with low speeds as well as its cruising altitude. The engines would only burn subsonic air, so the inlets of the engines had to be complex and vary in shape to slow the air enough when the plane was going fast. That’s the purpose of the cones pointing forward out of the engines – the cones moved in and out depending on the aircraft speed. Even so, the SR71 would sometimes suffers what the US military quaintly called an “unstart” while at cruising speed and altitude. Both engines would go out, meaning that the aircraft would have to descend and decelerate while trying to restart the engines nearer sea level. That’s not something you would want to have to do over enemy territory!

Even so, not a single Blackbird was lost to enemy action. But 12 out of the 32 that were made crashed in accidents. It’s not technology that you’d want to use in airliners.

But I still think it’s a wonderful, if strange, looking aircraft.

As I said on the radio last week, I recently changed my iPhone from Vodafone service to Telecom’s XT network.

I did it primarily because Vodafone’s coverage at my house in Wellington was so poor. Every time the mobile rang I would have to run upstairs with it and get out onto the deck to hear the caller. Vodafone say they are going to do some more “infill” of their urban Wellington coverage next year; I can’t wait that long.
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Today on Radio New Zealand Natonal after the 11am news I talked about the why and the how of setting government information free so that we can all benefit. There’s been a lot of work done on this in many countries, including New Zealand, and some useful things are starting to happen. In a few weeks time a bunch of folk in New Zealand are giving up their weekend to attend the first ever New Zealand Open Government Data Barcamp and Hackfest.

You can read on for my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

…especially about the future. This week on Radio New Zealand National I’ll be talking about old technology predictions that didn’t turn out so well, and making a few of my own.

I’ll be on after the 11am news tomorrow, Thursday 23rd July. You can read on for some of my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

“Without us, the Internet would be empty.”

That ludicrous statement is Ant Healey of APRA talking to the Dominion Post. Apparently he expects us to believe that the content industries as he calls them are the sole contributors of information on the Internet. Cue the Tui Billboard!

Let’s just pause for a moment and celebrate a few of the things that people get over the Internet. Wikipedia. Twitter. Email. Hubble Space Pictures. Skype. Travel Bookings. Banking. News. Maps. I could go on, and I’m sure you could too.

By saying something as stupid as this APRA is showing that it really doesn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us. It thinks we are all just consumers of its members’ copyrighted materials and the only difference between us is whether we pay it or not. This is just plain wrong. Really, it looks as though APRA is contemptuous of what you and I do on the Internet.

The question is, once we have all finished laughing, what do we do about this attitude? Answer – laugh some more. The best thing is to just keep pointing out how silly it is. Derision is the best response. Just laugh at them!

A bit over a century ago, when a different new infrastructure was being introduced, the business people who felt threatened by it got a law passed against it. That law didn’t last. Neither will any backlash against the entire Internet. The Net’s just too useful to too many people for it to be killed to suit one group. And resorting to ridiculous assertions like APRA’s one here shows that.

I’m just about to leave Atiu, an island in the Cook Islands. I’ve had a fantastic few days here, and I’ve also had an insight into life in a small isolated community in the Pacific.

Atiu has less than 500 permanent inhabitants, plus at the moment 12 vistors. Put another way, visiting with my immediate family has increased the number of people on the island by a percentage point.

The people are very welcoming. I’m staying at the Atiu Villas, run by expatriate kiwi Dr Roger Malcolm and his wife Kura Malcolm, who is from Atiu. Everyone greets you as you pass them, and people are uniformly friendly. Nobody locks anything, and keys are normally left in vehicles. People all seem to be bilingual in Cook Islands Maori and English.
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Cows. They’re good for a lot of things. You might not think that money is one of them. But that’s where you’re wrong. Cows are the ideal form of currency and I believe they should replace the New Zealand dollar in the near future.
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