Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Nine to Noon: 2 July 2009

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Listen to my 2 July 2009 appearance on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon show. I spoke about emotional robots, Kiwi web awards, and a new US government transparency web site. Below are my notes. I prepare a small essay on the subjects I'm talking about because it helps ...

Open New Zealand

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Glen Barnes and I have softlaunched opengovt.org.nz, an effort to do some MySociety-style projects for New Zealand. Glen's built a catalog for open government data, and there's a mailing list on which we're discussing the next project.

Nine to Noon: 18 June 2009

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Listen to my 18 June 2009 appearance on Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon show. I spoke about online dating scams, Twitter's role in the Iranian election protests, and would have spoken about Chris Knox but we ran out of time. Here are my notes: Online Dating Scams NZ Herald story What: Websites ...

Nat at Govis, May 2009

Monday, March 16th, 2009

I'm excited, I'm going to be at the 2009 GOVIS conference on Government and IT. I'm closing the event out on Friday May 22, but also running two workshops before it opens: Work With The Web, Not Against It and Planning for 2012. The conference happens in Wellington, ...

Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

The New York Public Library and Wired Magazine have collaborated to bring a set of evening lectures on how new technology is changing the economics of art with speakers Lawrence Lessig, Stephen Johnson, and the dude who did the Obama poster. I'd love to see something similar in New ...

Teaching Kids to Program

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

My OSCON talk on teaching kids to program is now available as an audio podcast on the ITC Conversations Network.

Radio NZ National: Transparency

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

I'm going to be appearing regularly on Nine to Noon on National Radio Radio New Zealand National. I'm every other week, alternating with Colin Jackson. After the show airs, I'll post my notes and a link to the audio. Here's last week's: I'm going to talk about a ...

NZ Broadband

Friday, January 30th, 2009

There hasn't been a lot of action from the new Government on broadband (or anything, really, yet) but this Economist article is food for thought about spending priorities: When it comes to promoting economic activity, it is easy to see why having broadband is better than not having it, but most ...

Submission on NZ IP law and a free trade agreement with USA

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

SUBMISSION ON THE TRANSPACIFIC STRATEGIC ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade Introduction This Submission is from Nathan Torkington, an author, musician, and software professional whose address is [...]. Summary I strongly oppose any proposals to extend the term of copyright, entrench digital rights management, assign investigation ...

National Library joins Flickr Commons

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Way to go, National Library of New Zealand! They're the latest addition to Flickr Commons!