Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

The T in CTO doesn’t stand for Talk

Tuesday, August 28th, 2018

Looks like NZ will get a CTO real soon now. It's hard to avoid the word "debacle" in describing how it came about: a false start at making an appointment, a whiff of impropriety in the appointments process that resulted in a Ministerial demotion .... This is a shame because ...

Proposed Changes to NZ’s R&D Incentives

Tuesday, May 29th, 2018

There's an open consultation about to end, on the changes MBIE would like to make to NZ's R&D incentives. In particular, they'll phase out the Callaghan Growth Grants and replace them with R&D tax credits. As the FAQ says, There are differences in the definition of eligible expenditure between the ...

On Moving to New Zealand

Wednesday, November 9th, 2016

Hello, American friends!  President-Elect Trump has given his speech and begun to redact his campaign website of the obviously illegal and impossible campaign promises, and you look up from your keyboard through an election-defeat hangover and want to move to New Zealand. First of all, consider staying.  America’s problems won’t be solved if ...

Citizenship

Saturday, August 2nd, 2014

"Digital citizenship" is a phrase I encounter often in my educational travels. Rather than merely teach how to use software and hardware, we should realize that students are citizens in an online world and teach them how to live in such a place. It sounds good on the surface, but ...

Copywrongs and Katherine Mansfield

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

Katherine Mansfield is New Zealand's literary icon: feminist, bisexual, incredibly gifted, part of the Bloomsbury circle of clever people pushing literary form before she died of tuberculosis. Her short stories are as moving today as they were when she wrote them almost 100 years ago. Her papers, and ...

Judge Harvey, Kim Dotcom, and The Press

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

Judge David Harvey has stepped down from the Kim DotCom case. At NetHui last week, he led a discussion of copyright where opinions from the floor were variously thoughtful, passionate, and novel. He was careful to watch his words, at one point saying "I'd better not say anything about ...

National Standards, Charter Schools, and a Pint on the Future

Monday, December 5th, 2011

tl;dr: Charter schools aren't a panacea, they don't appear to be compatible with the emphasis on National Standards, and this seems like the top of a slippery slope which will result in us all being as stupid as Americans. Background New Zealand introduced "National Standards" last year. In the past, the curriculum ...

Nine to Noon: 8 April 2010

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

You can listen to my Nine to Noon emerging technology slot from 8 April 2010 in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis formats. The links for the show appear below, followed by some notes I wrote beforehand to figure out what I thought and how to explain things like network neutrality. ...

NZ Doing Good in ACTA Negotiation

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is an agreement between countries around IP rights and enforcement. The negotiations have been happening in secret, with every country saying "well, we'd love to reveal what we're talking about but those other countries just won't let us". Fortunately there have been leaks, ...

NZICT Near Future Digital Priorities Paper

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

NZICT is an industry lobby group, representing the NZ ICT industry (software, hardware, services, networks, education, and training). They've just released a "Near Future Digital Priorities" paper. Here are my first thoughts. First, I have to applaud the industry getting together to try and figure out how it can ...