Ti Point Tork

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

December 7, 2008 – 11:20 pm
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 or enforcement powers to rights holders beyond those already in law, or otherwise use copyright law against consumers and artists. I also strongly oppose any interference with parallel importing. Submission New Zealand technology companies and New Zealand artists are all creative professionals attempting to sell their work in the world’s marketplace. To be successful these creative industries need: Open and ready access to markets overseas. Open and ready access to the commons of production. As little regulation and interference in possible in their production and distribution activities. I support extending the P4 agreement to other nations. The more markets we can freely compete ...

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NZ Healthcare

December 1, 2008 – 6:08 pm
At the New Zealand Open Source Awards, David Cunliffe (the then Minister of Health as well as of IT) literally tapped me on the shoulder and asked whether I'd be interested in serving on HISAC, the Health Information Strategy Advisory Committee. The health system in NZ, he said, might benefit from some of the open source and collaboration work that I do (he had been to Foo Camp the previous year and I think he pictures me as surrounded by a cadre of buzzing connected technophiles who do amazing things). "Sure," I said, and that's how I found myself in Wellington last week, attending the inaugural HISAC meeting. What followed was a day and a half of intensive high-speed learning. I've never worked in the healthcare industry, so I was scrambling to learn the acronyms and history. My fellow committee members are all experts in their field ...

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National Library joins Flickr Commons

November 26, 2008 – 5:18 pm
Way to go, National Library of New Zealand! They're the latest addition to Flickr Commons!

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Good one, National Library!

November 13, 2008 – 1:46 pm
My friend Aaron Swartz writes about the increasingly-evil OCLC: Not satisfied with controlling the world's largest source of book information, it wants to take over all the smaller ones as well. It's now demanding that every library that uses WorldCat give control over all its catalog records to OCLC. It literally is asking libraries to put an OCLC policy notice on every book record in their catalog. It wants to own every library. I'm on LIAC (a commission that advises the Minister for the National Library on matters digital), so I asked the CEO of the National Library of New Zealand, Penny Carnaby about this. She replied: We signed an all of country agreement with OCLC last year with the proviso that NZ would keep its own IP, i.e. OCLC does not own the new Zealand's National Union Catalogue the NLNZ does and therefore the crown on behalf of the people of ...

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Nine to Noon: 30 Oct 2008

October 30, 2008 – 12:19 am
Today I was on the National Radio show Nine To Noon. It was nerve-wracking beforehand, but fun once it started. The podcast of my appearance needs some context: she'd been teasing future segments, which featured a gentleman who took casts of people's bottoms so they could see it; Kathryn said "I'm sure many people prefer to think they have no bottom" and then introduced me. So that's a long-winded way of saying that when the first words out of my mouth are "I have a bum", it's not a total non sequitur. Links follow. Current affairs: The National Library is "harvesting" the New Zealand web. That is, they're visiting every .nz web site and many other sites hosted in New Zealand (e.g., aldaily.com). They're archiving the contents for posterity. See http://www.natlib.govt.nz/about-us/current-initiatives/web-harvest-2008 and http://librarytechnz.natlib.govt.nz/2008/10/2008-web-harvest-let-us-know-how-we-can.html. There's been some grumbling from the web site owners, some ...

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Ode to Auckland

October 27, 2008 – 9:26 pm
Auckland Even when I'm well stoned on a tab of LSD or Indian grass, you still look to me like an elephant's arsehole surrounded by blue-black haemorrhoids, The sound of the opening and shutting of bankbooks, The thudding of refrigerator doors, The ripsaw voices of Glen Eden mothers yelling at their children, The chugging noise of masturbation from the bedrooms of the bourgeoise, The voices of dead teachers droning in dead classrooms, The TV voice of Mr. Muldoon, The farting noise of the trucks that grind their way down Queen Street Has drowned forever the song of Tangaroa on a thousand beaches, The sound of the wind among the green volcanoes And the whisper of the human heart. Boredom is the essence of your death. --James K. Baxter (learned of it via The Road to Jerusalem, a documentary about Baxter)

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Plone in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch

October 16, 2008 – 5:41 pm
November 7th is World Plone Day, when the Plone community will run outreach events around the world to "promote and educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using Plone in education, government, NGOs, and in business". There will be activities in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Get out there!

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Two Posts On The Meltdown

October 13, 2008 – 1:22 am
In case you're interested but don't follow O'Reilly Radar, I've recently made a few posts there about the mortgage dramas: Effect of the Depresson on Technology The Connected Economy Torkington's Law

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Cybernetics Quotes

October 12, 2008 – 4:00 am
Reading A Curriculum for Cybernetics and Systems Theory, I found some thought-provoking and sometimes inspirational quotes. I've collected them below: "When we try to pick up anything by itself we find it is attached to everything in the universe." — John Muir "I throw a spear into the dark -- that is intuition. Then I have to send an expedition into the jungle to find the way of the spear -- that is logic." — Ingmar Bergman "Lovers of wisdom must be inquirers into many things indeed." — Heraclitus, 5th Century B. C. "You have about 10 minutes to act on an idea before it recedes back into dreamland." — Buckminster Fuller paraphrased by Stewart Brand "Tool: Something with a use on one end and a grasp on the other end." — Stewart Brand "If you cannot think of three ways of abusing a tool, you do not understand how to use it." — Gregory ...

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More on the bizdev shortage in NZ

October 11, 2008 – 5:28 pm
James McGlinn emailed me a great reply to my piece on the business cofounder shortage in NZ, and he's finally posted it. You should read it because I agree with everything he says.

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