Friday, November 4, 2011

Prolonged Delivery

My Kindle arrived today. I'm very excited, but thought I'd share its painstaking journey across the World with you before I allow myself to enjoy it. The journey didn't actually take that long, 3 days less than expected in fact. What was painstaking was that for half the trip my Kindle was knocking about in the back of a CourierPost van while it ambled around Auckland.

I now present a graph to help convey my frustration to you, after which I will forget about the journey and focus on the destination.


Friday, October 7, 2011

Chpr Phn Plns Pls

We get ripped off in NZ. From All Blacks jerseys to dSLRs, we pay more than we should and it's hard to figure out why. Are we too far away, nestled down here in our island paradise? No. I recently bought a camera from a shop in USA, who made a profit out of the sale, had it shipped all the way down here and it still cost me $500 less than if I had gone to a store and bought it. I can't imagine how electronics suppliers, who buy things in bulk and get them shipped in bulk, can charge so much more than their foreign counterparts. I'm sure there are some complex economics behind it, but it doesn't make sense to me. 

However, one thing that we can't buy on eBay is a monthly mobile phone account. Sure, we can buy the phone's cheaper, but it's very hard to ship an ongoing service via USPS. So we come to the crux of this rant. The cost of mobile phone usage in NZ. Since I'm hell bent on finally getting an iPhone (in memoriam to Mr. Jobs, of course), I decided to do a comparison of the prices here in Aotearoa versus those in lands far away. Below is a table of the most comparable plans I could find for NZ, Australia, UK, USA, Canada and Germany. Why Germany? Because they always seem to be in the iPhone business, and I thought I'd branch out from the English-speaking elite. I've gone with the soon-to-be defunct iPhone 16GB on a 24-month contract, because that's what most company's websites, including Vodafone NZ's, still have up for sale. All prices are converted to $NZD (rates as @ 07/10/2011).


As you can see, we are light years behind Australia and the UK. In some cases the costs of the iPhone and the plans themselves are, literally, infinitely better than what we have on offer. Surprisingly, USA, Canada and Germany are relatively expensive. Still mildly better than us in terms of the cost of the iPhone and what you get for your monthly fee, but their plans cost more per month (except Canada) and they're way behind Australia and the UK. Sprint in the US offer a US$99.99 per month plan which gives you infinite everything. Reasonably expensive, but Vodafone NZ doesn't give us an option even close to that sort of potential usage. You wouldn't need a home broadband connection with a contract like that, you could just tether your iPhone to your home computer. The prices aren't directly comparable either, they're just a direct currency conversion. That doesn't take into account the average income, cost of living, chief exports or rising sea levels.

There is something that I should add though. NZ is quite rare in that nearly anywhere you go in this country, you can get reception. Other countries struggle to get coverage to rural areas, so we can consider ourselves lucky there. Still, we are clearly paying for the privilege. Compared with Australia and the UK we are very clearly getting the bum wrap. Compared with the USA, Canada and Germany we are still getting a raw deal, but not as much as I would have thought.

Of course, none of this is going to stop me getting an iPhone is the coming months (I have agonised over whether to switch to Android plenty; it wasn't a matter of blind loyalty, I promise you that). Therein lies the problem. If I want an iPhone, I have to go through Vodafone. Sure, I could spend $1100 and buy an iPhone outright from Apple, then get it hooked up to Telecom or 2Degrees. Believe me, I'd love to do that. It's just that I don't want to spend that sort of money up front. So I have to take what I can get and there's nothing I can do about it, short of bitching about it on the internet. At least soon I'll be able to bitch about it right from the phone itself.

Edit: I thought I'd add some pretty graphs. Everyone loves graphs, right?











Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Shedding Light

Something happened over the weekend; something wonderful. Something that many have been eagerly anticipating for some time now, and many will rejoice in for months to come. New Zealand was gifted an extra hour of sunlight in which to enjoy the evening. Oh sweet Amun, God above, your brilliance shall be basked in with added euphoria and duration. In short, I love summer. Nay, I despise winter. Perhaps that's unfair though, there are things about winter that I wouldn't want completely removed from my life. Wood fires crackling away while the rain sheets down the windows. Those crisp, sunny days when your dragon's breath hangs in the air as you wrap your scarf ever tighter. Snow gently settling on your skin as you try and convince yourself that it's not just regular sleet. There are some things that only winter can provide. However, there are things that I could do without. One thing in particular: a noticeable absence of daylight.
So it was that I found myself a week or so ago discussing the upcoming blessing that the Department of Internal Affairs was about to bestow upon us. I mentioned that I am always amazed how, sitting in the darkness at 7pm on a winter's night, it's hard to imagine a time where there is still light at 10pm. At some point during the fits of derisive laughter that subsequently surrounded me, I started to think that maybe those I was with didn't necessarily agree with my contemplation. It turns out they thought 10pm was a bit of an exaggeration. Never one to doubt myself in the face of unanimous doubt, I was convinced that it was, at most, an optimistic rounding error. Mostly because I clearly remembered thinking on one night last summer, at around 10pm, that there was still light where six months prior there had been none. I was unable to broaden their minds to the possibility, so it was dropped and the conversation moved on.
Not for me though. Never one to pass up an opportunity to procrastinate at work, I set out to prove, if possible, that the summer months ahead held more daylight hours than my disbelieving companions could fathom. Where else to start a search for such proof than the US Naval Observatory. If there's one thing the US do well, it's providing government websites that generate tables of data which can be openly interpreted to prove a point. I'd used such a service before when some insisted that sea temperatures had varied significantly since we were children (they hadn't; data not blogged).
Ferreting through the tabular possibilities, I chose to focus on three measures of 'light': sunset, civil twilight and nautical twilight. Sunset you should all know about already...I hope. Civil twilight can be defined as the limit at which terrestrial objects can still be clearly distinguished and outdoor activities can be carried out without further illumination. Nautical twilight is defined as the limit at which the horizon is indistinct, however ground objects may still be distinguishable. So, without further ado, I present to you a graph:


As you can see, 10pm may have been an optimistic rounding error. However, at the height of summer (light-wise, not temperature-wise), there is still enough light to distinguish ground objects at 9:53pm. I'd say that falls pretty damn close to my original contemplation. Good enough for me anyway. I can relax, safe in the knowledge that a little over 2 hours before we welcome in 2012, I will be able to walk outside, point to the ground and say, with absolute confidence, "that, my friend, is an object".

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Power of Graphs (and vice versa)

There's a bit of talk going on at the moment about the cost of power, switching companies and whether those companies use renewable energy or not. I hear people bandy around that this company is greener than that company, they generate energy from fairy dust, they use the screams of innocent children. What I don't see or hear is actual data, so I thought I'd have a dig around and find some.

This post is not about whether or not I think the renewable nature of the energy generated should take precedence over the cost of the energy or whether I think coal is the fuel of the Devil and hydro is liquid Jesus. I'm a supporter of renewable energy, but that's mostly because often it's new technology, and I love that. Burning coal to produce energy? What is this, the industrial revolution?! OK, it's now a little bit about what I think. From now on it's just the facts. What this post is really about is presenting some simple graphs that show how the top 5 companies generate their power. This post also isn't about cost, so I'd suggest visiting Powerswitch.org.nz to find that information.

I collected this data from the most recent annual reports available from each of the companies. The GWh produced might be a little bit out of date, but the percentages should be pretty accurate, and the general philosophy of each company definitely won't have changed much.

The first graph shows total energy generation by source. The second graph shows the percentage of the total energy generation that each source provides. 'Other' refers to biomass for Mercury Energy (which is actually Mighty River Power) and Swaption for Contact. What is Swaption you ask? I'm not really sure. Look it up. To make it all a bit easier to digest, I then present a graph that has been simplified down to two categories: non-renewable and renewable.

The next set of graphs are the pie charts. These show individual power companies and just the energy sources they each use. You can interpret this as either total energy generation, percentage of total energy generation or Big Mac equivalents. It's a pie chart, units are irrelevant. The whole pie is everything, segments represent parts of that everything.

Finally, I present one last pie-chart showing NZ's total energy generation. Again, units are irrelevant.

Keep in mind when perusing this data that no matter how a company generates it's electricity, it all gets fed into the national grid. That means that even if you choose the greenest power company imaginable, you still might be boiling your kettle with dolphin tears. That doesn't mean you aren't encouraging companies to use renewable energy sources by supporting them, it just means that you have no guarantees over the power you use. Since 81.6% of NZ's energy is classed as renewable, you probably don't have to feel all that guilty about it anyway. An 18.4% chance of dolphin tears makes for pretty good odds.

So, without further ado, I present to you the graphs.









Thursday, June 23, 2011

GMO you didn't!

Articles like this one from Stuff.co.nz irritate me. Not just because they blatantly get basic scientific principles wrong, TV and movies do that all the time. What annoys me is that in the case of genetic modification, all they do is perpetuate ridiculous myths about mad scientists toiling away in their underground lairs creating frog-potatoes that will devour us all. A basic understanding of genetics and the role of DNA would be quite refreshing in a lot of science reporting.

In the article mentioned above, there is one line that urks me, that is "...fundamental flaws in the monitoring of horizontal gene transfer from genetically modified animals disposed of in offal pits." This sentence conjures up images of DNA oozing through the soils and some cow licking it up and growing an extra udder or something. Horizontal gene transfer only occurs in bacteria and some fungi and yeasts. I'm guessing the genetically modified organism (GMO) in question here is actually some sort of bacteria in the cow's gut, not the cow itself. Genes can not spontaneously transfer themselves from one animal to another and instantly incorporate themselves into the DNA of every cell in their body. Viruses can achieve something close to this, but they're not the products of science. If animals could transfer genes by ingesting the tissues of another animal the vegetarians might actually have a valid argument. I'm not sure if the reporter's parents have had this conversation yet, but in order for animals to exchange genetic material, they need to have sex. For that to happen with GMO, first GE animals need to be produced, then they need to escape, then they need to fornicate with similar species, then the offspring need to do the same in order for the gene in question to be perpetuated through a population. To prevent that, it would be wise not to carry out this research in the animals natural habitat. However, cows tend to be reasonably well contained, so a GMO outbreak would require a lot of faulty number 8 wire.

Science reporters should really attend a primary school science class or two, or at the very least do a quick search on Wikipedia before submitting their article.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Non-News is S#@t News

I get my news during the day from Stuff.co.nz. Often they're more tolerable than NZ Herald, often they're bang on par. I just saw a news story titled World Cup advert 'unlikely to offend'. Granted, it made me look. On closer inspection I realised that this was another non-story, paraphrased from a press release.

The story talks about a complaint about the ANZ ad where a couple fire a giant party popper from the top of Ruapehu. It goes on to say that the complaint was rejected.
I visited the Advertising Standards Authority website and found that it wasn't rejected, it had 'no grounds to proceed'. That's the equivalent of someone bursting into the ASA screaming 'this ad offends me' and the ASA waving their hand and saying 'get this man out of my office'. It was barely even considered. THAT'S NOT NEWS!

There were 15 other decisions released yesterday, 10 of which had 'no grounds to proceed'. Why did they choose this one? Probably because it had all those great elements that get the punters clicking: "World Cup", "Pakeha", "Iwi", "Party Popper". They probably wanted us to get all full of national pride and say 'have they no sense of humour?!'. Well I did one better, I wasted part of a Friday afternoon blogging about it and directing traffic to the article.

By the way, if you really want to get all riled up about the lack of humour some individuals possess then visit the ASA website and read some of the full decisions. There's not having a sense of humour and then there's this.

Sincerely,
J. Milledge

Friday, April 15, 2011

Exactly like stealing cars

Big brother, draconian laws, corporate pandering, guilty until proven innocent and all that. Or maybe not so much. With the passing of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill it would seem that, like so many recording companies and movie studios, our government is refusing to move with the times and instead have decided to stand and fight the inevitable digital revolution. The new law might not be as big a deal as it appears on face value, but it still goes nowhere to addressing the issue of trying to stuff a digital world into a physical pigeon hole.

There was an uproar back in 2009 when an amendment bill (section 92A) was passed that allowed ISPs to cut off a person’s internet access if they suspected them of downloading illegal content, putting the onus of proof on the accused. One of the courageous acts of defiance prompted by this law change was people all over Facebook changing their profile photos to black squares (come on the internet, you can do better than that). This law sought to punish the downloading of illegal content without addressing the problems that caused it, such as hyper-inflated movie prices. To put it in physical world (‘meatspace’) terms, it’s like being arrested for stealing a television and then having to provide a receipt. Of course, it was never intended to be used on every individual who had a sudden desire to watch Joe vs. the Volcano but didn’t want to fork out $3 for a weekly rental (commonly known as a ‘Tom Hankering’). Laws like this are most likely designed to scare people into not doing things by promising more than they can realistically achieve, rather than punishing every possible individual until society has been cleansed.

The new amendment has seen section 92A scrapped and a swathe of changes made to make it slightly harder for people’s internet access to be cut off. A rights holder (Paramount, Sony BGM etc.) informs an IPAP (ISP redefined as an ‘internet protocol address provider’) that they have identified an IP address linked to a specific illegal download. The IPAP then issues the holder of the IP address a warning notice. These warning notices expire after a maximum of 9 months. After three non-expired warning notices an enforcement notice is issued by the IPAP. The IP address holder can then challenge it, in which case the rights owner is notified and can choose to reject the challenge. If rejected it then goes to the Copyright Tribunal and if the IP address holder is found “guilty” they can be issued with a maximum fine of $15,000 and can have their internet account suspended if the Tribunal decides that’s not a completely dickish thing to do.

So, in order to be fined you have to download enough content for the rights holder to take notice. A feat in itself given this country’s extremely low data allowances. You then must do that twice more within 9 months, not including the illegal downloading against the same rights holder within 28 days of the detection notice they issued because they aren’t allowed to issue two notices within that period. You can always challenge them and delay the process, bringing that 9 month expiry ever closer. Once you’ve been issued the enforcement notice and end up in court you’re in trouble. This is where the IPAP will demonstrate that your morally reprehensible acts of piracy have ruined the lives of countless children and are solely responsible for the degradation of modern society, at which point the judge will fine you the amount you saved by not going to the movies and force you to take up one of the other IPAPs offers for free connections and wireless modems. To avoid the horrific fate of having to deal with customer service every 9 months, here are some tips:

* Diversify - download from a number of rights holders so you’re never downloading enough from a single entity to arouse their suspicion.

* Change tack - if you get issued a warning notice, target the rights holder responsible like the rabid pirate they think you are for 28 days straight. Download their entire catalogue of music and movies and then avoid them for 9 months.

* Sleep around - If you really want to continue downloading so much material that every rights holder in the world is issuing you notices left and right, have more than one internet account. They can only target IPs; your details are never released to the rights holder. In fact, when you get sent that second warning notice, change ISP. After the next two warning notices, change ISP. You can pick your favourite two and flit between them every 9 months.

So, other than the fact that this sort of law does nothing to force the studios to rethink their distribution plan or lower prices of existing online content to reduce the need to turn to file sharing, it probably won’t harm the ‘casual pirate’. There may be concerns about rights holders submitting notices for every IP address they find on BitTorrent, but there is a fee associated with each submission payable to the IPAP by the rights holder. It wouldn’t make financial sense for them to target every IP address because they could quickly lose any profits they would hope to gain from legitimate sales.

Much like the amendment to section 59 didn’t see parents hauled off in droves for giving a light smack to a child, and was never intended to, this bill will not see you punished for your illegitimate collection of Bieber tracks. These high-profile bills are most effective in the way they raise awareness and make people second guess themselves before committing what they now perceive to be a crime. Unlike the amendment to section 59 however, which was a huge leap forward in the way society operates, this bill merely clings to the notion that a digital copy of a song or movie is exactly the same as a CD or a DVD. I’ve argued for years that ‘piracy’ doesn’t hurt the artists, it hurts the executives. Musicians make the majority of their money from concerts, so they benefit from more people hearing their music by any means. Those responsible for making movies, (actors, directors, best boy grips) still get paid enough money to make Powerball look like a meat raffle (maybe not the best boy grips, who would most likely still be happy with a meat pack). That might not be the case for independent movies I suppose, but the more obscure the movie, the more likely those that watch it paid for the privilege to do so.

iTunes is great for music, but it’s still only marginally cheaper than a physical CD, yet there are no specific production costs per unit sold (except for data storage, which is cheap but not free). Radiohead should have shown that people will pay for music even if they don’t have to. They made $3.6 million without a record company or even a pricing structure. At an average of $3 per album download ($7.5 for those who actually paid) they earned more than twice as much per album as most artists make through traditional CD sales. It might be different for new artists that don’t already have a fan base, but how many more albums would you buy if they were only $3? iTunes would also be great for renting movies if they weren’t only a dollar less than the video store and took less than 18 hours to download. I can download a movie from BitTorrent in about half an hour. If that cost me $3 each time I wouldn’t download any less. A great example of low price equals high profit is the App Store. At $1.29 per app I don’t know many people that hesitate to download something new on a regular basis. The developers get 70% of that. Angry Birds reached 50 million downloads in December 2010. At 90c per download, that’s $45 million they’ve made in a couple of years. That’s $61,643 a day, which is more than I earn in a week. There are plenty more success stories out there too. Maybe not quite to that extent, however if someone takes 6 months to write an app that reaches 100,000 downloads they make $90,000 and all it cost them was time. Many millions have been made out of people sitting on their couch with nothing good to watch on TV and $1.29 burning a hole in their bank balance.

The biggest thing holding back the music and movie industries from fully embracing this sort of pricing structure is that record companies and movie studios are scared of losing profits and becoming obsolete, so they fight to keep it exactly the way it is, potentially taking money away from the artists they claim to be protecting. They do this by working with lawmakers to produce such things as the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill. As long as these sorts of laws are perpetuated, digital media will be forced into a style of marketplace and pricing structure that was designed for physical items requiring production, distribution and marketing. All of that takes place digitally now. Rethink the industry to reflect the product; don’t change laws to force the product into the existing thinking. You wouldn’t hear of a law that prevented the development of alternative fuels to protect the profits of oil companies, or legislation that banned the sale of gardening tools to stop people growing their own food. Freely downloading digital media is not the same as stealing a physical item; I hope that in the near future the lawmakers will come to realise that. In the mean time, don’t worry too much about the new law changes. The copy of Twilight your daughter is currently downloading is just as unlikely to get you prosecuted as clipping her round the ear for watching it; and only one of those things is morally reprehensible.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Hypocritical Oaf

It's an often asked question: Is God responsible for tragedies, or if not could He have prevented them?

I'm not going to go into the existence of God here, however I will get into how much influence He has on the movements of the Earth. I find it silly that people would claim God has any control over natural disasters, in the same way I find it silly that fundamentalist Christians deny the theory of evolution.

If I was God, hypothetical of course, I wouldn't bother creating a universe that I had to monitor every single moment and control every single aspect. If I'm busy creating universes I'm probably a bit smarter than that. I'd do it more like someone might program a computer game. I'd come up with the concept, draw up some designs, then work on creating a number of algorithms that will allow the universe to go about it's thing. Of course I'd want to be able to alter things from time to time, no one wants to play a computer that has no user input. Hence, I would create physics to allow things to interact without causing too many errors, I'd install evolution to allow things to adapt to their environment and finally some jerks to make it interesting. Then I'd sit back and watch, occasionally collapsing governments or creating new mountain ranges if I was bored.

Now, what irritates me about the question is that people can't seem to decide whether or not He is directly responsible when disaster strikes. The answer to the question is largely based on the outcome of the disaster, particularly in relation to the loss of human life. Here's an example from Roman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch Barry Jones:

5th September 2010: 'Roman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch Barry Jones said in the wake of the earthquake many people were finding comfort in the church. "We just have to give thanks to God that there's no-one dead."'

24th February 2011: 'Bishop Jones reminded everyone that bad things happening was not God punishing people, despite the "tragedy that has unfolded in our city over the past 24 hours". "Such thinking is a mistake ... it's not about vengeance," he said.'

We should thank God that people were not killed in September, but can't blame Him when they were in February? You can't have it both ways Mr. Jones. Passive God or vengeful God. At least if it's one of those we know what we're dealing with. Unpredictable, erratic God? How is that any different to having no God at all? Oh, right...