Posts by Gary Hutchings
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You did sort of get the feeling that Radio NZ were laying it on a bit thick including a quote from a woman saying " well I was on the floor doing some yoga exercise and ......", well at least it wasn't pilates,
Although one of the others " I just thought it was her dad have sex in the room next door.." sounded a bit sketchy
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It always seems silly to me that the cost of paying off a mortgage is included in the CPI: that's not the cost of living but the cost of investing. When the Reserve Bank puts up interest rates in an attempt to slow down inflation, it's immediately feeding into one of the components of inflation itself!
Tom, I think you will find that interest costs for residential owner occupied housing have *not* been included in the CPI since 1999. I know that section costs are definately not included, as the land is not "consumed", and I am fairly sure interest is also excluded, only the actual cost of the dwelling being purchased is included,
The fact mortgage costs used to be in the CPI, was reason the reserve bank used something called CPIX as its inflation gauge in the 90s, to excluded such feedback
according to Stats NZ in 2001
The CPI was last rebased for the publication of the September 1999 quarter. Additionally, there was also a change in the goods and services included in the CPI. Interest costs and housing section prices were excluded, as an index excluding these items was deemed to be more consistent with the aim of measuring inflation, which is now recognised as the principal purpose of the New Zealand CPI. Information about the scope of this work can be obtained from the Statistics New Zealand website.
from stats NZ developments in Price indices
This followed the 1997 review,(in which there was alot of gnashing of teeth over this issue) another review happened in 2004 but I am fairly sure it did not change the treatment of this item
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do the people running TiVos locally have to manually switch Sky channels on their boxes in order to record the different shows? That's the most frustrating thought of buying a PVR - oh and the EPG problem.
Short answer, yes, longer answer, not necessarily if you are determined
You can stack up "booked" programmes on you sky box, and it will change the channel to whatever booked programme is due to play.
Granted it is a extra set of hoops to jump through, but this will change the sky channel if you are absent.NB this t runs on the clock not on any "start program" signal sky may or not send so you may get some "program notifications" before what you want begins
But as Russell says sky are quite picky about people republishing their EPG or scraping, ( mind you I think TVNZ and TV3 are about the same), they all know that the EPG is the key to the use of PVRs and diminishing ad revenue.
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Starter for 10, no conferring . . .
. . . so, how do you actually pronounce Wii . . ?
According to Nintendo it is the same as the english "We"
although I suspect there will a gradual lengthening in pronounciation and it will end up as "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" :)
hmm could cause some interesting conversations
"I'm going for a wee" etc -
You also need to let Mummy and Paul know if 'John' or 'Helen' or 'Rodney' or 'Winston' offer them sweeties or lollies out of a car parked in the street (or in Helen's case it might be moving quite fast) and Rodney is known to have some friends with a very yellow bus with big speakers on the roof and an oversized go-cart with a big picture of him on the outside.
They should also be aware that they might see large billboard sized posters of the aforementioned "electoral groomers" while they are coming home from school and they they should not be afraid to say that the words on the billboards make them feel bad, or that they do not believe what is written.
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Well at least the lawyers are happy :)
Suit Filed to Protect Cisco's iPhone(R) Trademark
Cisco(R) (NASDAQ:CSCO) today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple, Inc., seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco's registered iPhone trademark.
Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates to March 20, 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been shipping a new family of iPhone products since early last year. On Dec. 18, Linksys expanded the iPhone(R) family with additional products.
"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.
"Today's iPhone is not tomorrow's iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand," Chandler concluded.
With its lawsuit, Cisco is seeking injunctive relief to prevent Apple from copying Cisco's iPhone trademark. For more information on the Cisco iPhone product line, please visit www.linksys.com/iphone.
ENDS
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Now we have to wait til 2008 to get one in NZ.
Mind you they'll have most of the bugs out by then.... :/Although currently iPhone is only to be available as a locked handset on the cingular network in the US, until Apple start selling them unlocked a number of people will contiue to be annoyed, this will also restrict any grey-market importation..
Being GSM it will have to be a Vodafone release, and don't Vodafone have somesort of music store they are trying to nurture against competition from iTunes? ....
Although given they are not due for public release in the States till June, I think most stuff about them is probably worth classifying as "work in progress"
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The thing to remember is that the MySky box is not owned by the consumer, which means Sky can push software updates into the market any time they like. This means (for instance) they can require all high definition content to pass through a HDMI connector which is fully copy-protected, and they can switch on the broadcast flags that would not allow you to record content, or would impose other limits.
Which is exactly my point, Freeview will end up allowing people to have their own PVRs tied onto the digital FTA channels, This will change TV in NZ.
I agree that Sky have no incentive to offer you any freedom with MySky,(ala, the boxes refusing to let you playback recorded programmes when the bird when dark last year) but hopefully Freeview will offer the opportunity for something better,
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This new appletv box essentially appears to be an airport express for video, which while filling a nice niche, I am not sure if a something like a Mac-mini EyeTV hybrid combo would not be a better option if you were starting from the ground up,
Until AppleTV gives me a way to play my DVD collection either directly off the discs or via some form of media server, I think I will bide my time...
Also appears to only support upmarket Tv's (although the latter two requirements are bog standard PAL and NTSC)
TV compatibility
Enhanced-definition or high-definition widescreen TVs capable of 1080i 60/50Hz, 720p 60/50Hz, 576p 50Hz (PAL format), or 480p 60Hz -
Another problem they will face once Freeview gets off the ground, is that ppl will be able to use their PVR to get digital versions from FTA,
The effect of main-stream PVRs have not been felt in NZ due to TVNZ/TV3 being how shall we say"uncooperative" in terms of EPG provision.
With Freeview, I think a big chunk of what TVNZ hope to their download market, will simply grab them off the Digital broadcasts.
I am told the MySKy boxes have significantly changed many Sky viewers habits, so imagine that rolled out across the country combined with the ability to have much more control of the stuff you have on the PVR.