Category: General

I literally chocked on the Coke Zero I was drinking when I read this. Don’t have the direct link, but quoting from Trevor Cook:

If ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù and it is a big if ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù Labor were to secure the 58 per cent national two-party preferred vote suggested by the polls at the next election, my election calculator says Labor would win around 111 of the 150 seats.

Like hell Labor will win 111 seats out of 150.

Absolute BS.

Anyone stupid enough to believe that 58% 2pp applies to all seats equally should be shot…ok, maybe not shot, but they shouldn’t be making these sorts of predictions.

Do I believe that the swing is on. Yes. Do I believe that the final tally could be as big as 58% 2pp ALP across the country at the next election…well, maybe, it’s not unreasonable. But do I believe that it will be applied equally across all seats, that the Coalition will be all but wiped out: NO.

Word to the wise: swings are NEVER uniform. Firstly they tend to be bigger in the seats with the party on the positive side of the swing currently hold, ie: ALP seats will see huge swings to the ALP: you’ll see 10-15% margins blow out to 20-40% margins.

Polling currently also shows that the Coalition vote is still holding up in the West. 2.7% unemployment and AWA’s equaling huge pay packets for all does that.

I believe, after many years heavily involved in politics and the State and Federal level (now retired) that all politics is local, and literally the size of the swing will depend in large part on the local member. Yes, a good portion of people vote for the party and not the candidate, but good local members switch the equation to being more about them and not the party. People can and do vote candidate first, Senate voting paterns should be enough proof of that.

Here’s my prediction 6 months (or thereabouts) out: I’d say Labor by 10-15 seats (25-30 seat majority), maybe 85-90 max out of 150…there’s a high hope in hell that will see the ALP with 111 seats because simply, the swing wont be uniform, and it will be called on a seat by seat basis. Having said that it could be tighter, as much as I think the Government is on the nose (least thats the feedback I get from the punters) Howard is bound to be holding a rabbit in his hat, he always has before.

Wired tries to do some investigative journalism into the whole Kathy Sierra OMG death threats meme, and doesn’t come up trumps.

If the whole thing was a legal case, would it be thrown out for lack of evidence?

It even appears that at least a good portion of the defendants in this case have now been either forgiven and/ or protected by the alleged victim. Yes, you read that right, the accused have now mended fences…which begs the question: if it was all so bad to begin with, why the silence, why hasn’t the accused been bought to justice (literally, given it was potentially said to be illegal behaviour)…and I’d note, the commenters, not the other victims, Rageboy et al.

I smell fish. Rotten fish in the state of Denmark 🙂

There’s one thing for certain, the words storm in a tea cup and Kathy Sierra will probably go down in history together for many years to come.

The Paul Scrivens owner Wisdump is on the market at Sitepoint. Bidding from $15k with a BIN of $30k.

He hates the blogosphere, but it’s fairly clear we won, because Dan Rather has been reduced to doing guest appearances on Martha Stewarts TV show talking about….wait for it….Exotic Plants 🙂

What goes around comes around I guess, a lesson others should prepare themselves for, because I know a couple of people due a bucketload of Karma Kick Ass 🙂

If you’re a games developer and you didn’t back the Wii, guess what?

Your profits and sales are down whilst your competition is seeing increasing profits and sales.

Officially.

Dare I say to EA as a Wii owner: sucked in 🙂

Looks like the Scobles have fallen out with Dave Winer.

I don’t know much about Maryam because I don’t read her blog, but I’ve observed Robert’s behaviour long enough, he’s a “you’re with me, or against me” sort of guy, one who takes a disagreement as being a personal attack, a declaration of war if you like, very much in the same way that a spoilt small child with a chip on its shoulder can’t take constructive criticism either, or agree to disagree civily.

Winer is right, hypocrisy was the only winner. The alleged wronged not only milked the whole threats/ death meme for everything they could, they reacted by trying to incite a mob against good folk such as Rageboy…making them just as bad, if not worse, than the original commenters that started this whole thing. Best still, Winer get its. He gets that two wrongs don’t make a right. He gets that the accused wrong doers have now become the victims, and that someone needs to stand up for their rights as well.

And for this Winer has been condemned by Maryam Scoble, and now Robert doesn’t want to be his friend anymore…sort of, at least he’s now trying to lecture Dave on wrong and right because, OMG, Winer commented publicly on being castigated by Maryam Scoble for not joining a lynch mob.

What more can I say other than: grow up.

From a Wired Report on TV:

“According to Nielsen, the average consumer [in the United States] now has access to 104 traditional TV channels”

Lets see. I’ve got 10, and only because I live on an estate that rebroadcasts a couple of free to air satellite channels across the estate

SBS,ABC,Seven,Nine,Ten,GWN,WIN,Now,Bloomberg & ABC 2.

The average Australia would have 5-7, my first 5 + Community Access Tv (31) + ABC 2 if they had a Digital Receiver (I get ABC2 in the analogue rebroadcast).

Of course, the real difference is in subscription/ pay TV, and yet Foxtel doesn’t provide 100 channels….and it’s prohibitively expensive if you want them all vs the US where Cable is cheap and plentiful, and you get a pile of different options.

First thing the Australian Government should do with PayTV: drop the Australian content rules so Foxtel can just import 100’s of extra US channels, the capacity should be there now the broadcast is digital.

Secondly the new “Broadband 2” network both parties are promising MUST be free of Telstra: a Telstra free network could/ would also provide TV to Australian homes, the tech is already in use in places in Hong Kong.

Third: the Government needs to push against the US copyright/ broadcasting laws so that US and other foreign operators can set up shop here and broadcast at will via satellite/ cable/ broadband…Foxtel is essentially a monopoly that needs to be broken, freeing up supply is one way of doing it. Imagine a “global TV market”…why not?

SMH: WA takes lead as heaviest taxer

Absolutely disgraceful. When I moved here nearly 10 years ago WA was one of the lowest taxing states in the nation, if not the lowest. Unfortunately the only way to avoid taxes here now is to not undertaken any transactions that involve paperwork: for memory our stamp duty bill on our last house buy was in excess of $20k, if we were to sell it would be double that, even more today. How is it but a state with record low unemployment (roughly 3% and getting lower) and a record level of investment and wealth growth could possibly be the highest taxer in the land? Imagine if we were the lowest today, growth would be higher again, unemployment would be pushing 0% (ok, that’s impossible because some people just refuse to work…but it would be lower) and people would be queuing at the border to come here.

Latest US sales figures via El Reg:

“According to market watcher NPD, some 335,000 Wiis were sold in the US in February. Microsoft sold 228,000 Xbox 360s and Sony 127,000 PS3s. Nintendo was just 20,000 units short of outselling both its rivals put together.”

Overall figures to date:

“Americans have bought around 5m 360s, to 1.86m Wiis and 1.1m PS3s.”

Note though that the XBox 360 has been out 1 year longer than the other two. Nintendo must be laughing all the way to bank!

Attended Capelfest yesterday, one of the biggest local annual fairs held in the South West of Western Australia.

The Liberal Candidate wasn’t in attendance. Pure stupidity, Forrest might have a 10% margin but she won’t have the advantage of incumbency and if the swing is on the seat could easily be tight…even lost.

The ALP candidate however was clever enough to have a stall, right near the main entrance as well, so exposure would have been huge, I’ve got no idea what the attendance figures would have been, but I’d guess maybe 20,000 people, certainly at least 10,000, there were people everywhere.

The stall was decked out nearly exclusively with anti Work Choices stuff, everything from portable 2.5m full colour banner displays, stickers, flyers etc… I didn’t take the camera and forgot to grab a photo on the mobile, I should have.

She who must be obeyed said to me that it wasn’t a professional layout in her opinion, but we’re both seasoned at this sort of stuff and in years gone by, from shopping centres to country shows we’ve got a ton of experience at these sorts of things, but we shouldn’t really be the bar to which all such displays should be measured + her analysis ignored an important point: the stall wasn’t there as an information booth, it was there so the ALP candidate could play meet and greet with as many people as possible. And indeed, in the couple of times I walked past it there was always a pile of people around the stall, a sure sign that not only was it working, but it was serving its purpose.

Given the quality of the anti-Work Choices material it’s as clear as day to me that the 2007 Federal Election is going to be about WorkChoices….and as long as the ALP can keep on message Kevin Rudd will be the next Prime Minister of Australia, after all, general support for WorkChoices is minimal in the electorate. If 2001 was the Tampa election, 2007 looks like being a referendum on WorkChoices, and it’s a vote the Government cant win.