coffee.geek.nz

Chilling, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Urewera is a special place, full of rainforest, hermits, and Patupaiarehe.

Lake Waikaremoana, originally uploaded by RobAucklandNZ

I spent more childhood summers than I can count in the Ureweras, staying at the Hostel in Tuai. You're always a long way from "civilisation" and even further from a petrol station. The road enters the bush suddenly and you've got 3 hours of road just wide enough for one car, while you hope you don't discover a car going the otherway on a blind corner (though you seldom do see anyone else on the road). Suddenly the lake becomes visible from a high cliff top. I think it's the second largest lake in New Zealand, formed when a massive landslide blocked off a small stream. There's not much water going in or out so it's a very calm place.

Child beside Tuai lake wall, near the Hostel. Photo by Chris Thompson

Michael Geist is coming to town..

allow me have a little fangirl moment

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Here's the press release:

Michael Geist to keynote PublicACTA - InternetNZ

Media Release - 10 March 2010 - InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) is excited to announce that renowned Canadian law professor Michael Geist, a world authority on technology law issues, will be the keynote speaker at the PublicACTA event, being held in Wellington on 10 April 2010.

"We are delighted that Professor Geist is able to make it to New Zealand to contribute to the debate around the ACTA negotiations," says InternetNZ Policy Director Jordan Carter.

PublicACTA is being held the weekend before the next round of ACTA negotiations in Wellington, 12-16 April 2010.

ACTA is a plurilateral trade agreement being negotiated by the USA, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, aimed at increasing the control that intellectual property owners have over their products and ideas, and at reducing incidents of counterfeiting and illegal trade in goods. The negotiation phase of the treaty is intended to be finished in 2010.

Professor Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada, has written widely on the challenges of copyright and digital technology.

"His in-depth understanding of the ACTA process to date, and well publicised positions in favour of citizen access to the negotiation process, will add quality analysis and profile to the event," says Carter.

I'm willing to be challenged on this one, as I have only the basic details, but here's something that doesn't sound right going on in this tale.

Red Cross goes into Haiti following a massive earthquake - puts out the plea saying "send infant formula, we need it"

Across the Lactivist communities, (mostly) western white middle class women bloggers cry foul. Formula is evil, they need breastmilk, not formula. Don't send formula! boycott any charity sending formula!

and they're mostly right - the World Health Organisation STRONGLY advocates breastfeed exclusively because most of the world does not have access to a clean later supply. Haiti included

but - something feels wrong here. The Red Cross are there, on the ground, and they say that infant formula is what they need. It doesn't take much imagination to work out scenarios where formula is necessary. The mother being dead or missing comes to mind first.

Likewise, an island in Samoa recently asked for supplies, such as infant formula, to help them through the next cyclone.

I also ponder how much breastfeeding is a privilege. You need to be nearby a hungry child in order to successfully breastfeed, or have access to refrigeration, a breastpump, and sterilisation equipment. How many people in developing and impoverished nations have this access?

“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” the resolution said, “but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.”

Change the wording a little bit, and substitute “shit” for “carbon dioxide”, and it’s still just as true

Super happy dev house, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Super happy dev house, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Yeahs, i'm a hippy.. both an open source hippy, and a "made locally, with no child labour, and eco friendly please" hippy.

So, when finding clothes for our baby, that outgrows everything every 4 weeks, I'm looking for crafty craft people.

Tomorrow (6th March), is the Martinborough fair. It's about 75 minutes drive from Wellington and it's massive. The whole town is taken over by this ginormous fair. We'll be picking up bebe clothes, but also adult clothes, kitchen things, jams, pickles and who knows what else.
http://www.martinboroughfair.org.nz/

Martinborough Fair, originally uploaded by cristina.gherghe.

070203_017.jpg, originally uploaded by mEyegallery.

What a flurry of ACTA stuff today -- here's a press release from InternetNZ on their "PublicACTA" initiative.

InternetNZ to take public message to ACTA negotiators
Media Release
2 March 2010

InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) will assist the public in voicing its concerns about the controversial international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) through an open conference to be held next month in Wellington, New Zealand.

“We’re going to give the public the chance to have their say - in contrast to the secrecy of the negotiation process,” says Jordan Carter, InternetNZ Policy Director.

PublicACTA will be held on Saturday, 10 April 2010, two days ahead of Round 8 of the ACTA negotiations on 12-16 April in Wellington. The outputs of PublicACTA will be provided to the New Zealand government negotiators.

PublicACTA will be an open and public opportunity for people to critique the known and likely content of the ACTA proposals, providing a counterpoint to the secrecy of the negotiations.

“These plurilateral negotiations appear to extend well beyond the area of trade and physical counterfeiting to potentially cover non-commercial infringement of copyright material by ordinary citizens and digital rights management,” Carter says.

Despite the high level of secrecy surrounding the process, some of the proposals have leaked and demonstrate cause for concern.

Someone once defined a Compromise, as a Solution neither party is happy with...

New Zealand has a new section 92 of the copyright act -- or rather, the copyright bill. The first reading of this bill in Parliament was last week.

The core principle of the right to contest accusations, and to not receive punishment until after due process, is now in the bill. That is the one thing I'll never compromise on.

However we must remain vigilant. The injustice was not obvious in the old law, it only reveals itself when you think through how the law could possibly be implemented. I'm gonna keep following this closely.

Disconnection is still in there. It really shouldn't be. How many times do we need to say "Would you disconnect someone's power, water, gas, for breaking civil law? Would you deny them use of the postal service?". Why are we terminating a service vital to livelihoods, social and democratic participation and communication - all for the offense of copyright infringement? The punishment outweighs the crime, and is inventive and inappropiate.

Large scale commercial copyright infringement should be punishable with fines. Casual personal copyright infringement should also be punishable with fines.

as mentioned previously, once Casey sleeps all night, seven nights in a row, we'll open that bottle of wine in the fridge.

tonight is night FIVE.

here's hoping.

Update: counter reset to zero at 2am this morning.

oh Radio NZ -- oh let me count the ways i love you! no, there are too many to count

So of course i wanted to sign the petition to save radio NZ. I headed over to http://www.issues.co.nz/handsoff to do so.

but then... wait! WTF is that?

All for saving radio nz, but not gonna sign up to a "Labour all good, national all bad" publicity campaign by "Brendon Burns, Labour spokespersonman"..

Can we have a petition without his smiling mug on the side, please? Nothing against the guy, but this isn't a "Labour to the rescue" scenario. KTHNXBYE!

and now a baby photo: