GAMMA>NET>NZ

Here is my response to Don’s music video post.

The beef and lamb maidens have been joined by another girl.

Over the last four years the Beef and Lamb board had an advertising campaign utilising the gold medal winning Evers-Swindel twins and Sarah Ulmer. Apparently their gratuitous meat consumption helped them to win Olympic gold medals. It was a simple premise but as the advertising campaign was getting stale they obviously wanted a new face. For this they required another young and female Olympic gold medallist. Obviously one who was successful in Beijing and wasn’t an Evers-Swindell twin; we already know about their love of meat.

Therefore, the only candidate was Valerie Villi, she was the only non-Evers-Swindel to get a gold at Beijing and the only NZ track and field gold medal, male or female, for aeons. She fits the other criteria of being young and female, I don’t think she’s a vegetarian or anything.

For some reason the Beef and Lamb Board saw it different and went for a BMX rider who got 0 medals at the Olympics. Hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder why, it sure isn’t because NZ is a BMX crazy nation, we all know that BMX racing is the lamest of all the pedal sports. Here’s a couple of pictures;

So what kind of discrimination was it; was she the wrong color, the wrong size, or not pretty enough?

I really think this was a sh*t call.

I was listening to a compilation of old electro tracks the other day and thought to myself, wow, some of this sounds like that awesome track on the cool breakdance video I taped off the Music show “the Tube” in 1984 (on c4 in the uk). Next thing the track comes up, I search for it on Youtube, and here we are, so without further ado I present Al-Naafiysh by Hashim

I was a bit late on the uptake but the radio service on Lastfm is now free in the USA, UK and Germany but 3euro/month for everyone else. Furthermore, the ‘big three’ get free access to whole albums and other enhanced features which you don’t get if you pay money outside these countries.

I can understand that lastFM is trying to make it commercially viable, which IMO isn’t necessarily bad, but the ‘big three’ get a service that’s vastly superior and free, while the rest get a downgraded service that they have to pay money for. Irrespective of the economics and politics that seems like a bad move, atleast make the charge service equivalent to the free service. I realise that a lot of this is down to the labels throwing their weight around and making licensing hard outside the three key markets. The lack of advertising dollars elsewhere is an issue that I can understand but this move locks the ‘other’ markets as nonviable for the advertising revenue model as all the local goodwill is gone or folk are paying for adfree content anyway. Has Lastfm just abandoned any hope of servicing the rest of the world?

I mostly just use Lastfm for scrobbling. It’s interesting to see what I’ve been listening to over time and it improves my radio experience when I’m fatigued with my own music and feel like hearing something new. This only happens once every few months as I have an OK supply of new and interesting music from elsewhere.

Now I’m not sure of the correct action;
delete account,
stop scrobbling,
find a fake USA/UK/German IP address.

Either way this news annoys me. Stupid monkeys.

Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation and forces the termination of internet connections and websites without evidence, without a fair trial, and without punishment for any false accusations of copyright infringement. We should speak out against injustices like Guilt Upon Accusation being done in the name of artists and protecting creativity.

National needs to listen to NZ citizens who want this section removed and not to Entertainment Industry Lobbyists.

The Bike Wise Battle is running this month in New Zealand. Basically its a competition to see which organization can get the highest percentage of its staff to ride at least 2km in the month. To compete all you have to do is ride 2km sometime in the month. As well as signing up for an organization you can also designate a department within your organization. During the month you login and record your km. We are having great fun participating at work, it looks like my department are going to clean up this year

There are also a lot of other organizations out there doing it, we are trying to get Catalyst into the top 10 for 100-499 staff organizations.

I was surprised that a couple of large organizations where I know people who cycle are not signed up at all, Datacom, NZRB, Ministry of Health … slackers!

The Wellington City Council in their wisdom have decided not to endorse this years go by bike day. Luckily we can still go by bike anyway, people are meeting in Civic Square at 8am on 18 Feb 2009. BYO breakfast this year.

This talk is a good explanation of how the current economic crisis came about.
In short, a big crash in the nineties was delayed by additional borrowing, now all that borrowing is catching up.

Its tomorrow! Great opportunity to get rid of some of that old junk without harming the environment quite as much as chucking it in the tip would.