What a coincidence to come across a letter from composer, arranger, conductor and former TVNZ bandleader Terry Gray, dated May 25, 1991, after I blogged about him on (nearly) the seventh anniversary of his passing. Here it is for others who may be interested in a little slice of Kiwi life. It looks like ITC Garamond Book Narrow here, though the resolution doesn’t make it very clear.
There was an Epson bag hanging from the back of my bedroom door, hidden by larger bags. I opened it up to discover brochures from my visit to a computer fair in 1989 (imaginatively titled Computing ā89), and that the bag must have been untouched for decades.
I’ve no reason to keep its contents (if you want it, message me before Thursday, as the recycling comes the morning after), but I wanted to make some scans of the exhibitors’ catalogue for nostalgia.
Let’s start with the cover. It’s sponsored by Bits & Bytes. Kiwis over a certain age will remember this as the computer magazine in this country.
You can tell this is a product of the 1980s by the typesetting: someone couldn’t be bothered buying the condensed version of ITC Avant Garde Gothic, so they made do with electronically condensing Computers and Communications. In fact, they’re a bit light on condensed fonts, full stop, as they’ve done the same with the lines set in Futura.
While the practice is still around, the typeface choices mark this one out as a product of its time.
Inside is a fascinating article on the newfangled CD-ROM being a storage medium. Those cuts of Helvetica and Serifa are very 1980s, pre-desktop publishing. It should be noted that Dr Jerry McFaul remained with the USGS, where he had been since 1974, till his retirement. The fashions are interesting here, as is ITC Fenice letting us know that he’s speaking at the Terrace Regency Hotel, a hotel I have no recollection of whatsoever. I can only tell you that it must have been on the Terrace.
The other tech speakers have a similar look to the visiting American scientist, all donning suitsāsomething their counterparts in 2018 probably wouldn’t today. In fact, the suit seems to be a thing of the past for a lot of events, and I often feel I’m the oldster when I wear mine.
The article itself makes a strong case for CD-ROM storage, being more space-saving and better for the environment: it’s interesting to know that the ‘depletion of the ozone layer’ was a concern then, though 30 years later we have been pretty appalling at doing anything about it.
The second article in the catalogue of any note was on PCGlobe, supplied to the magazine on 5Ā¼-inch diskette. Bits & Bytes would have run the catalogue as part of the main magazine, and did a larger run of these inner pages, back in the day when printing was less flexible.
It’s a fascinating look back at how far we’ve come (on the tech) and how far we haven’t come (on the environment). Next year, we’ll be talking about 1989 as ā30 years ago,’ yet we live in an age where we’re arguing over Kylie Jenner’s wealth. Progress?
I taught 180 people at tertiary level in 1999ā2000.
Gutted that a second has passed away.
Most of them were kids when I taught them. Lost one to a brain bleed in 2015, just lost another to cancer.
Look after yourselves out there, and live life to the full. Tell those whom you love that you do.
I sincerely hope Iām wrong when I say that the passing of Kiwi composer, arranger and conductor Terry Gray went unnoticed in our news media.
I only found out last month that Terry died in 2011. As a kid of the 1970s and a teenager of the 1980s, Terryās music was a big part of my life. Before we got to New Zealand, he had already composed the Chesdale cheese jingle, which Kiwis above a certain age know. He was the bandleader on Top Dance, what New Zealanders used to watch before the localized version of Strictly. Terryās music appeared on variety shows and live events (e.g. Telequest, Miss New Zealand) through the decade. Country GP, The Fire-Raiser, Peppermint Twist, and Daphne and ChloĆ« were also among Terryās works. In the late 1980s, Terry released an album, Solitaire, which was one of the first LPs I bought with my own money as a teen. By the turn of the decade, Terry hosted live big band evenings at the Plaza Hotel in Wellington, sponsored by the AM Networkāuntil the AM Network could no longer fund the fun, regular events and the radio network itself, eventually, vanished. Terryās Mum used to attend in those days, and I must have gone to at least half a dozen. I also picked up a Top Dance cassette at one of the evenings.
I still have a nice letter from Terry somewhere, thanking me for my support, in the days when he lived in the Hutt. I learned that he eventually moved down south, to Dunedin, and died of leukemia on July 8, 2011.
On (nearly) the seventh anniversary of his passing, I want to pay tribute to Terry. Here he is in action in Top Dance, hosted by Lindsay Yeo, in 1982.
Now the PM and her partner, Clarke Gayford, have shown off their daughter to the world (video at the end of this post), it reminded me of my own experiences in the maternity ward many years ago.
Iām not a parent at the time of writing: Iām talking about the 1980s when I visited Wellington Womenās Hospital (as it then was), to wait for my Mum, a postnatal midwife, to finish work.
The 1980s donāt seem that long ago to me, and all these memories are still very clear, but when you relay the story, you realize decades have passed.
Mum shifted to WWH in 1980, when it first opened, and I still recall having a preview tour of the building before it opened. New carpets, new fixtures. Hand-held buzzers hooked up to the wall where you could call for a nurseāhow modern! The 1980s had well and truly arrived, and how lucky of those patients, because this place was like a hotel. We really did think it was that flash in 1980.
And it was a nice place to visit. I finished school at St Markās at 2.45 p.m. and the bus would usually get to the hospital by around 3 p.m. There was a long walk to the building at the back, taking an internal route, and walking through a basement tunnel with painted stripesāit felt like a science-fiction movie. Iād get to Ward 15 and I was expected to wait in the TV room.
The TV room was next to the āday roomā, which really meant the smoking room, where new Mums could pop in and have a fag. Every now and then, youād get a naughty new mother whoād take an ashtray into the TV room, where Iād be waiting, but we are talking the early 1980s, and the term secondhand smoke had not entered the vernacular.
Of course, we youngsters werenāt allowed to change the channel if adults were watching. Unfortunately, in the days of two state-run channels, most new mothers would watch Prisoner, and I donāt mean The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan. I meant the Australian soap opera Prisoner, set in a womenās prison, and known to British readers as Prisoner: Cell Block H. I could never comprehend why anyone would watch the sheer misery of the storylines about a womenās prison, but I suppose in the early 1980s, these ladies were thinking: āNo matter how tough things are for me, at least Iām not in Wentworth.ā I would wait patiently for 3.30 p.m. to tick by, and Lynne Hamilton singing āOn the Insideā (itself a depressing, haunting theme tune) and the Grundy logo were signs that relief was coming. However, to this day, I still know this blasted song, and can play it by ear on a piano. Without checking online:
On the inside the roses grow,
They donāt mind the stony ground.
But the roses there are prisoners, too,
When morning comes around.
Only once do I remember a Mum offering me control of the TV during the Prisoner hour to watch whatever channel I wanted, and of course, that meant the childrenās programming, eventually an after-school show imaginatively titled After School, hosted by a cheerful Te Reo-speaking man called Olly Ohlson.
Mum would be another 15 to 30 minutes, so my time in front of the telly was fairly limited. Weād walk home to Newtown in those days, and my memory of that journey home was that it was often sunny. Of course, that couldnāt have been the case, as I have equally strong memories of below-zero temperatures on the radio in the morning in 1981, and very grey weather watching Springbok tour marches (including fights between protesters and police officers) outside my window growing up. Those may or may not be the subject of another blog entry, as Iām not traditionally one to post childhood reminiscences on this blog.
Thatās it for ānet neutrality in the US. The FCC has changed the rules, so their ISPs can throttle certain sitesā traffic. They can conceivably charge more for Americans visiting certain websites, too. Itās not a most pessimistic scenario: ISPs have attempted this behaviour before.
Itās another step in the corporations controlling the internet there. We already have Google biasing itself toward corporate players when it comes to news: never mind that youāre a plucky independent who broke the story, Google News will send that traffic to corporate media.
The changes in the US will allow ISPs to act like cable providers. I reckon it could give them licence to monitor Americansā traffic as well, including websites that they mightnāt want others to know theyāre watching. As Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, puts it: ‘We’re talking about it being just a human right that my ability to communicate with people on the web, to go to websites I want without being spied on is really, really crucial.’
Of course I have a vested interest in a fair and open internet. But everyone should. Without ānet neutrality, innovators will find it harder to get their creations into the public eye. Small businesses, in particular, will be hurt, because we canāt pay to be in the āfast laneā that ISPs will inevitably create for their favoured corporate partners. In the States, minority and rural communities will likely be hurt.
And while some might delight that certain websites pushing political viewpoints at odds with their own could be throttled, they also have to remember that this can happen to websites that share their own views. If it’s an independent site, it’s likely that it will face limits.
The companies that can afford to be in that āfast laneā have benefited from ānet neutrality themselves, but are now pulling the ladder up so others canāt climb it.
Itās worth remembering that 80 per cent of Americans support ānet neutralityāthey are, like us, a largely fair-minded people. However, the FCC is comprised of unelected officials. Their ārepresentativesā in the House and Senate are unlikely, according to articles Iāve read, to support their citizensā will. Hereās more on the subject, at Vox.
Since China censors its internet, we now have two of the biggest countries online giving their residents a limited form of access to online resources.
However, China might censor based on politics but its āGreat Wallā wonāt be as quick to block new websites that do some good in the world. Who knew? China might be better for small businesses trying to get a leg up than the United States.
This means that real innovation, creations that can gain some prominence online, could take place outside the US where, hopefully, we wonāt be subjected to similar corporate agenda. (Nevertheless, our own history, where left and right backed the controversial s. 92A of the Copyright Act, suggests our lawmakers can be malleable when money talks.)
These innovations mightnāt catch the publicās imagination in quite the same wayāthe US has historically been important for getting them out there. Today, it got harder for those wonderful start-ups that I got to know over the years. Mix that with the USās determination to put up trade barriers based on false beliefs about trade balances, weāre in for a less progressive (and I mean that in the vernacular, and not the political sense) ride. āThe rest of the worldā needs to pull together in this new reality and ensure their subjects still have a fair crack at doing well, breaking through certain partiesā desire to stunt human progress. Let Sir Tim have the last word, as he makes the case far more succinctly than I did above: ‘When I invented the web, I didnāt have to ask anyone for permission, and neither did Americaās successful internet entrepreneurs when they started their businesses. To reach its full potential, the internet must remain a permissionless space for creativity, innovation and free expression. In todayās world, companies canāt operate without internet, and access to it is controlled by just a few providers. The FCCās announcements today [in April 2017] suggest they want to step back and allow concentrated market players to pick winners and losers online. Their talk is all about getting more people connected, but what is the point if your ISP only lets you watch the movies they choose, just like the old days of cable?’
I see thereās an opinion piece in Stuff from the Chamber of Commerce saying the Wellington City Council should sell its stake in Wellington Airport, because it doesnāt bring in that much (NZ$12 million per annum), and because Aucklandās selling theirs.
Itās not too dissimilar to calls for the Council to sell the Municipal Electricity Department a few decades ago, or any other post-Muldoon call about privatization.
Without making too much of a judgement, since I havenāt inquired deeply into the figures, itās interesting that the line often peddled by certain business groups, when they want governments to sell assets, is: āThey should run things like households, and have little debt.ā
This never applies to themselves. When it comes to their own expansion, they say, āWe donāt need to run things like households, we can finance this through debt.ā
The same groups say that governments should be run more like businesses.
However, their advice is always for governments to be run like households.
Has it escaped them that they are different beasts?
I wouldnāt mind seeing government entities run like businesses, making money for their stakeholders, and said so when I campaigned for mayor.
Doing this needs abandoning a culture of mediocrity at some of those entities. Some believe this is impossible within government, and there are credible examples, usually under former command economies. But then there are also decent examples of state-owned enterprises doing rather well, like Absolut, before they were sold off by the Swedish government. If you want something current, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. is one of the most profitable car makers on the planet.
The difference lies in the approach toward the asset.
But what do I know? I come from Hong Kong where the civil service inherited from the British is enviably efficient, something many occidentals seem to believe is impossibleāyet I live in a country where I can apply for, and get, a new passport in four hours. Nevertheless, that belief in inefficiency holds.
Change your mindset: things are possible with the right people. Donāt be a Luddite.
And therein lies why Stuff and I are on different planets.
As you saw in the previous postās postscripts, it is possible to upload videos of longer than one minute to Instagram, but Instagram may or may not let the public see them. If you want people to see your videos for sure, then keep them to the standard minute. But if you want to chance it, so far my experience is 50ā50, and there’s no correlation with length. Like all things Facebook, there is no consistency, and you are at the whim of the technology and its questionable database integrity. Here are the ones that have worked, the first at 2ā²50ā³, the second at 4ā², the third at 3ā²51ā³, and the fourth at 7ā²03ā³ (this had to be uploaded twice as Facebook hid the first attempt).
PS., April 28, 12.37 a.m.: A few more tries and the odds of a video lasting longer than one minute being visible to other Instagram users are definitely 1:2. The latest is this, at 7ā²53ā³.
Don’t be surprised if these record zero views on Instagram. I believe their stats only count full views, and no one’s going to sit watching a video there for that long unless it’s particularly compelling.
P.PS., May 4: I attempted a 9ā²03ā³ video. No joy. Instagram will allow the upload but the actual process takes an incredibly long time. The progress bar goes back a few times. Eventually it says there is an error. In theory, I think it’s possible, but right now I haven’t managed to exceed 7ā²53ā³.
Since Facebook bought Instagram, itās been getting buggier, of course.
Iāve complained about Instagram uploading a series of posts in a totally different order to what I had (which, on ANZAC Day, made it difficult for anyone to follow the story I was trying to tell on my account when the order is 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 6, 7).
Video (2) was an interesting one, because Instagram allowed me to post something that was 2 minutes, 6 seconds long, which it had never done before (or since).
I thought it odd at the time but given that it was twice as long as normal, I didnāt complain. It allowed me to show more of the Air Force band performing ‘Au e ihuā (Soldierās Hymn).
I did complain about one particular video featuring our national anthem which Instagram would say was loading, then on checking again, it would vanish. I made three attempts over a two-hour period before it āstuckā (video no. 3 in the sequence above). I had to wonder if Instagram was picking up the music and flagging it as a copyright violation: after all, YouTube flags static as copyright violations (hat tip to Retrorechercher).
Above: Instagram says these two are loading, but the one featuring our national anthem (the top one) kept vanishing. It never made it on to my account without three attempts.
This morning, on checking the stats, I noticed that no one had viewed the longer video, and, after asking some friends on Twitter, learned that Instagram blocked anyone from seeing it. Itās like shadow-banning on Twitter: you can see your own stuff, but no one else can. Try it for yourselfāhere’s the link Instagram claims it’s at.
Look at the eighth post down. On my account (top), I can see it. When logged in as someone else (above), I can’t. Instagram’s version of shadow-banning?
I can still play it straight from Instagram on the web and on my phone.
You can give the MP4 a shot here (and note the URL, which is an Instagram one, and the duration). The thumbnail is here.
However, I canāt embed the video the normal way, and any link that it lets me share results in a 404. It all feels very familiar, because this is the sort of bug that Facebook used to cook up, e.g. on days when you couldnāt post, like, comment or share, or tag yourself in a photograph.
I might save the two-minute-long video separately in case thereās a way you can tell that it was edited inside Instagram.
To sum up: Instagram will not load content in the same order you do (we already know this); it will permit much longer videos that exceed one minute, but if they let it through, no one will ever see it except you. We also know that Facebook will pump through any advertising on to Instagram, even in categories you have expressly asked not to be shown.
There you have it, Instagram in 2018.
PS., April 25, 1.19 a.m. GMT: I’ve just tried a 2 minute 50 second video, and it appears it is visible. For how long, I don’t know. Check it out here, or, if the embed’s visible below, have a look.
P.PS., 1.59 a.m. GMT:Looks like four minutes is fine, too. While the first one is still invisible, it does appear Instagram has lifted the one-minute limit, and that’s not something I can find documented anywhere. Still, I’m grateful, because it makes far more sense to show two- to four-minute vids.
P.P.PS., 8.54 a.m. GMT: Just tried one at seven minutes, and it’s hidden. Seems Instagram is very inconsistent on what it shows and what it doesn’t. Link is here (it won’t work) and the MP4 is here.
