internet

The continuation of a series of guest posts.

Yesterday Whaleoil kindly the first post in a series on the Mad Dogs of the Commerce Commission attacking Chorus through proposals to force down their copper wire pricing for broadband.

Today, I’m focusing on how the Commerce Commission is working against the interests of the National Government.

One of the main policy planks of National in 2008 and 2011 was the big step-change in ultrafast broadband through fibre-optic cable rollouts.

National proposed a hefty $1.5 billion taxpayer contribution to help accelerate the rollout. It was, and is a bold plan to make New Zealand a more advanced, productive and connected nation. The use of fibre to improve peoples lives through better connectivity would be profound.

That’s why the Commerce Commission’s proposal is crazy.

It is forcing Chorus to massively lower copper wire based broadband, when Government policy is to encourage people to uptake on fibre!

Now, I don’t know about you, but when $1.5billion of taxpayer money is being used to encourage people to use a better form of infrastructure, I don’t like it when another part of government is working to discourage the policy.

This absurd contradiction of official government policy by the regulatory arm of the state highlights a real challenge for the National Government?

Do they make the policy, and have the bureaucracy implement it for the good of the nation?

Or do they merely announce policy, and have the bureaucracy implement contrary actions?

Will the government go into the 2014 elections showing a piss-poor uptake of fibre, and then explain that taxpayers money got wasted because they failed to eliminate the contradictory proposals of their mad dog regulatory arm?

Or will they haul back the draft proposal and give a new set of guidelines to the Commerce Commission to prevent them from this kind of unexpected attack on businesses that NEED certainty in the regulatory environment.

The irony is, Australia has a more regulated environment. But the certainty around the regulatory environment is far greater than in New Zealand. Australian businesses don’t get nasty surprises from mad dogs like they do here in New Zealand.

ᔥ Ars Technica

Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the internet:

“Record labels have a very strong voice when it comes to arguing for their particular business model, which is in fact out of date,” he said. “The result is that laws have been created which make out as if the only problem on the internet is teenagers stealing music. The world is bigger than that. The internet is bigger than the music industry. The economic impact of the internet is bigger than the music industry.”

When I first started the Blog I did so under a pseudonym…I did it for a number of reasons. The main one though was that I knew that no matter what I said or did people would say it was my father speaking or that I was doing his bidding. Likewise I used the pseudonym so no one would hold him accountable for what I had to say or did. So when I started blogging it was under the pseudonym Whaleoil.

Eventually I registered a domain name and people then found out who I was and as I predicted the accusations started. To this day whenever there is something that I have said that upset the more sensitive types they suggest that my father put me up to it or that he somehow can control a 43 year old man who lives his own life with a family of his own. It actually says a great deal about their sad little life that they believe the father is the man or the man is the father.

Anyone who knows me and knows my politics knows that Dad and I are seldom in agreement, and haven’t been since I was able to voice an opinion….though I must say he has become more tolerant of my view in recent times.

Anyway I thought I would share that because I read a post about anonymous or at the least pseudonymous blogging:

There’s something freeing, to be sure, about being able to say anything you want. You can engage in unfounded name-calling, or intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, or just generally behave like a twelve year old. And no one will know it’s you. And that’s why I don’t read many blogs that are written by people who prefer to remain anonymous or who write under pseudonyms when there isn’t really any reason for them to do so. In fact, I don’t think there are any blogs I read on a daily basis whose authors are anonymous. The anonymous or pseudonymous blogs are often just filled with cruelty, name-calling, and bad arguments. Indeed, there are a great many people who choose to write under an assumed name because they want to harrass or offend others.

I thought about that…and realised that the answer to the complaint that many in the left wing have about myself and David Farrar being int he media a great deal commenting is that we are in the media precisely because we are known, and we are prepared to wear our beliefs and opinions publicly. An anonymous blogger can hardly appear int he media. It is perhaps the single biggest reason that there is so few commenters fromt he left appearing, mostly because they are anonymous cowards.

Which leads into the argument for anonymous and pseudonymous blogging:

We’ve created a space where you can actually think and be different, be free of the norms, hierarchies and prohibitions of the “real” world, and be able to imagine alternative horizons of possibility. If you would really be willing to undo all of that just to prevent people from calling each other names on a comment board, you should really take a look at your priorities.

Which of course is complete bollocks. This is the exact reasoning behind the majority of the Labour and Union flunkies at The Standard remaining anonymous. They believe their anonymity means they create better writing. It is a specious argument and one that largely leads to their blogs becoming echo chambers.

I believe that if more of them “came out” that there would be a better more honest, reasoned, political discourse in the NZ blogosphere.

↬ Andrew Sullivan

Often I sit at night reading blog after blog, news site after news night wondering just what I am going to post for my reader tomorrow. Sometimes it is almost impossible to see the twist, the thing that makes my readers come back. Other times it is easy. Sometimes inspiration hits the inbox, other times the feed reader

The more tired I am the harder it is…the less sleep I have had the harder it is, but there is always the nagging voice there that I need to find things my readers like. I need to post more, or better or faster, but always improving the reader experience. Blogging for me is a learning journey, it is finding out what people like and what they don;t and posting what I like too…but sometimes it is just bloody hard work…

And then there is a kind of synchronicity that happens, when you read a post or watch a video and it just clicks and there is a blog post. This video is one of those moments, and it is relevant to this post and these ideas.

Yesterday Duncan Garner is a fit of envy (I think) launched a nasty little attack on me. That post was used by a creepy stalker and Martyn Bradbury (both of whom seem to have a fixation with me) to launch more attacks. They, frankly are water off a ducks back….attacks that are like being gummed by a nana.

No matter. I am not going to address the shark-jumping of a so-called reputable journalist paid a six figure salary by a major network being so incensed over one sentence in a blog post on a blog he claims is read by only “dozens of followers” that he feels the need to write a special post on the 3News website.

In a sense he is right…on the day he posted his attack on me only 3237 dozens read my site. The day before 3633 dozens viewed my site. In any month your care to choose only 46731 dozens view my site. So yeah he is right when he says dozens of followers.

Someone asked me on Facebook what I was going to do about it. I told them that I was going to do nothing. The fact that Duncan Garner, a so-called professional journalist felt the need to post a petulant, nasty  and ill advised post simply means that I am being an effective blogger. I have already won the battle., it needs no more of my attention.

Duncan and I have since had a pleasant conversation about the issue. That conversation will remain between us. I hope he leaves his post up, it serves as a marker for the time Duncan lost his rag to a blogger with only “dozens of followers”.

I am going to post my favourite comment from the previous day each day…I haven’t yet determined what time it will be, but I will fix than down.

Feel free to drop me a line if you see a good comment. Also don;t forget to use the “Like” Feature in the comments system.

In the meantime here is one from yesterday that made me snort Mountain Dew out my nose. It is a shame it was made by an anonymous commenter.

A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log)[1] is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often are themed on a single subject.

Source: Wikipedia

Considering this is Whales “personal journal” on a “single themed subject” I am sure when he opens up blog topic requests like a fucking karaoke bar you will be the first person he contacts.

The monopoly provider of international bandwidth has dropped their prices now that competition is looming:

The operator of New Zealand’s only international internet cable has cut wholesale prices by 44 per cent as one of its potential competitors announced progress on a rival project.

The Southern Cross Cable Network runs between Auckland, Sydney and the United States and transports all the internet traffic coming in and out of New Zealand.

The company – which is half owned by Telecom New Zealand – said cable upgrades and lower costs had allowed it to almost halve what it charges internet companies for trafficking international data.

But despite a sharp drop in wholesale prices, commentators say it could be a long time before these cuts flow through to consumers.

InternetNZ chief executive Vikram Kumar said the lower wholesale rates apply only to new contracts and consumers will need to wait until internet companies re-sign with Southern Cross before prices change.

That is weasel words and excuses. It isn’t like they are shipping oil and need to deplete existing stocks here. It is light! The new prices are available immediately. This is nothing but feather-bedding and continuing to charge customers far too much.

Here is the thing though, if they can offer these pris now with no changes in existing infrastructure, foor how long then have we been ripped off by Southern Cross charging monopoly rents?

Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen agreed the cuts would take a while to reach the retail market.

“It’ll increase data caps eventually, but because the ISPs are buying capacity on a 10-yearly cycle – the contracts run for quite some time – the odds are you won’t mostly see much of anything in the short-term at all.”

I can’t believe Paul Brislen fell for that crap. The supplier can drop the amount they charge their clients anytime they please. He needs to be a little more strident in representing his clients.

There is a fair bit of commentary around at the moment about the state of blogging. to be fair most of it is in the tech world where there is a sort of consensus that the golden age of blogging, at least from a tech perspective, is over:

The reasons, in brief: many top blogs have sold out; staff turnover saw “star” voices slip off the radar; younger audiences like social networking more; and advertising revenue is increasingly hard to get at.

All the reasons given are true, but they’re not reasons to believe that a golden age has passed. They’re phenomena in their own right, each with its own story, and only the last presenting a barrier to entry for newcomers. Epochal change makes for an epic narrative, but all this adds up to a simpler truth: media is a tough game and you won’t get far by copying what other people did years ago.

I have always said that New Zealand lags about 5 years behind the rest of the world and blogging here is no different. We are just now catching up with the advent of bloggers commentators that has been prevalent int he US and UK for at least 6 years.

Some don’t agree that the golden age is over. I’m with them:

“There are still plenty of people who love to write– not just share, Tweet and comment– for a living, and blogs are still the best platform for that. In many ways, professional blogging is just getting started. It’s a time when new entrants are jumping into the field with bold, fresh ideas, standing on the shoulders of the blogging giants that came before, taking a second stab at reinventing the new media landscape.”

In the 6 years I have been blogging there have been many blogs and bloggers not many of us stick around. There is a reason for that, it is bloody hard work. Your critics are instantaneous and not many can take the constant criticism and especially the nasty hate mail. I keep every email and one day I will publish them all. It will make a book of hate all by itself. This comment at Boing Boing though sums up blogging for me:

There was never a golden age of blogging, just a golden age of mainstream interest in what it all meant. Don’t worry about it; opportunity does not knock but once. You need obsession, a work ethic, and an uncommon voice. That’s tough, but that’s all. The rest is counting the hours, and we’ve all got plenty of those.

So readers what do you think…Has blogging done it’s dash?

With the release of the Law Commission report focussing on blogging and whether or not bloggers are media, as is usual there is a certain amount of deus ex machina that an article about “blogging well” appeared in my feed reader.

Technology writer Dan Frommer  proposes 10 rules for better blogging, which match pretty closely to exactly what the Law Commission are talking about and the direction I have been moving this blog in over the past year.

Dan posts his rules as a reference but also to remind him to try to adhere to them. I will re-post them here too, and see if I can do the same as I think sum up where my thinking is at with the direction the blog needs to take:

1. Above all else, factual accuracy and attention to detail. That’s the easiest and best way to build and maintain trust over the long-term. If a fact is wrong, fix it and don’t be shy about it. If an opinion or prediction is wrong, learn from it and consider explaining how you got it wrong.
2. Write the site that you want to read. That covers story selection, length, frequency, style, vocabulary, attitude, humor, level of sensationalism, and more. Don’t publish anything you’re not proud of. Be yourself.
3. Be more skeptical. Companies and people have no interest in telling any side of the story but their own. Often, that side is flawed, invalid, or incorrect. Let someone else be the gullible one who looks silly later: Always question everything. (But don’t let it turn you into too much of a conspiracy theorist.)
4. Attribute well — the way you’d want to be attributed. Use names, link prominently, never plagiarize. Quote or paraphrase the part of an article that you need to make your point, but always with the goal of sending readers to the original site for the full story. (Some credit here to Henry Blodget, for Business Insider’s original excerpting policy in 2009. And to John Gruber, whose attribution activism is good for the web.) Aim to become as big of a traffic referrer as you possibly can — not only is that good policy, but it’s a great business asset.
5. Add context. Don’t assume people know what you’re talking about, especially if it’s obscure or technical. That doesn’t mean you need to rewrite five paragraphs of back-story for every new update to a news story — that’s usually a waste of time. But at least make sure that a good explanation of what’s going on is a click or two away.
6. Be critical, but don’t be unfair. You’re not a jerk in person. Don’t be one on the Internet. (Unless it’s funny, of course.)
7. Care about your writing. Spell things correctly. Write clearly. Avoid jargon or meaningless business-speak. Learn how to use apostrophes. It really is a reflection of quality.
8. Care about your design. Don’t make your site more complicated than it needs to be. Like editing text, you can often improve design by deleting. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have photos and illustrations, just make sure they’re adding to the experience. Try to keep load times as short as possible, and note that many readers may be using mobile devices (and slow connections) to access your site. Make the right tradeoffs between revenue, flashiness, and clutter.
9. Don’t be the 10th person to write the same thing. Say something that everyone else will wish they’d thought of. It takes longer, and it’s harder, but it’s worth it. When someone beats you to it, share their work if you love it — then they’ll want to share yours.
10. Try new things, all the time. Especially those that are a little outside your comfort zone. This is the Internet — don’t act like you’re writing for Time Magazine in the 80s. Stories can be pictures, charts, lengthy essays, numbered lists, or 140 characters. Measure how your experiments do, and take the results into account for the future.