More good economic news for the US

In this video, the Associated Press reports that the unemployment rate fell for the fifth straight month—down to 8.3%, the lowest in three years. This comes hard on the heels of good economic news last month, namely that the US had experienced 22 months of job growth, and that 2011 was the best year for job growth since 2005 and the second best since 1999.

All of which is a good start—and good news.

SPLC Challenges DOMA

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has filed a legal challenge to the US’ blatantly unconstitutional “Defense” of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbids the US government from recognising same-sex marriages for any federal purpose whatsoever.

Currently, same-sex marriage is legal in six US states and the District of Columbia, along with many countries, but those marriages don’t exist according to the US government. What that means is that the US government is unconstitutionally treating different citizens differently.

This case involves the US military unconstitutionally treating the legal spouse of a service member differently on account of gender. The SPLC case is sound, and no one seriously doubts that if it’s not repealed, DOMA will inevitably be struck down. Sooner is better than later. Kudos to the SPLC.

Blogger confusion

Contrary to what some may think, I am not, by nature, a conspiracy theorist, anti-establishment moaner or even a full-time cynic, though at times I can be one or all three. Having said that, I want to throw a concern "out there" and see if anyone can help me understand something.

Recently Google made a change to its Blogger blogging platform (which powers this blog). It now takes the URL which normally ends in dot com and has it resolve for readers outside the US to the same URL, but with one's country TLD instead. So, for example, instead of seeing my blog as "amerinz.blogspot.com", New Zealanders will see "amerinz.blogspot.co.nz" and, I presume, other countries will see something similar (like "amerinz.blogspot.co.uk" and "amerinz.blogspot.com.au"—maybe folks in those countries can let me know if that's true).

My question/concern is this: What's the point of this if not to enable country-specific censorship? Is there anything even remotely beneficial to the blogger or reader in this change? I honestly can't see or think of a positive reason for it, unless Google is mirroring the blog locally, maybe, but I seriously doubt they are.

I first found out about this when all the comments on a Blogger blog I visit every day suddenly disappeared. It turns out, Google’s change wreaked havoc with blogs that use custom comment systems (like JS-Kit, for example). I can't see any comments left on a dot com Blogger blog that uses such a system—including my own comments I left before the change. I assume the change could also muck-up other customisations, too.

I’ve since discovered that using an anonymiser like Little Tunnel Bear (http://www.tunnelbear.com/) can get around this problem. I’ve also read that the IP blocker Hotspot Shield (http://hotspotshield.com/) does the same thing, though I haven’t tried it yet.

The point is, it shouldn’t be this hard, and it doesn’t really matter whether the problem lies with Google or JS-Kit: Location doesn’t mean anything for the users of the Internet, it only matters to certain content providers—and governments—who have a vested interest in restricting access. Also, Google lets you use the dot com or, in my case, the dot co dot nz version, so why don’t they allow that for Blogger?

I'm well aware that I could use another blogging platform or self-host as my podcasts are, but I'm not even sure I care that much. However, if it really is all about making censorship easier, that could be reason for me to abandon Blogger.

I hope that someone can shed some light on this.

I first published an earlier version of this post on Google+.

C is for City

Cities are as ancient as civilisation itself. As soon as we humans worked out that it was in our best interest to live together in settlements, it was only a matter of time until those settlements grew large, then larger still. Today, of course, cities are a very big deal—and today was an especially big deal for Auckland.

The United Nations estimated that by 2008 half the world’s population lived in cities. Other estimates suggest that three-quarters of the population of developed countries lives in cities, while only 44 percent of the population of less-developed countries do. [source]

The precise definition of what a city is varies from place to place, even within some countries (such as, different US states have different methods and mechanisms for creating cities). Nevertheless, at a minimum, a city generally refers to a specific geographic location governed by one government. That means it’s not a city’s metropolitan region, which is bigger in both area and population.

New Zealand has a useful definition to illustrate this, saying that in New Zealand, cities “must have a minimum population of 50,000, be predominantly urban in character, be a distinct entity and a major centre of activity within the region.” This is contained within the Local Government Act 1974.

Just today Auckland, my current home, reached a population of 1.5 million. It’s a very big deal for us and for New Zealand.

Auckland is by far New Zealand’s largest city. It has roughly a third of the entire country’s population—though that’s not enough to make the list of the 100 most populated cities in the world. The current Auckland Council was created by the New Zealand Parliament out of seven former city and district councils, and came into being in November 1, 2010. It covers 4,894 square kilometres (1,889.6 square miles), a fact that means Auckland is in the 20 largest cities by area (again, this refers only to cities and their specific geographic areas of jurisdiction, not to metropolitan regions).

The distinction between city and region is an important one, and not as obvious as one might think. For example, when a Kiwi talks about the population of, say, Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, they’re almost always talking about the region, not the legally defined city (until last year, the same would have been true if they were talking about Auckland; now, of course, city and region are the same).

This distinction shows up something that’s very different in North America and New Zealand: Suburbs. In North America, a suburb is an outlying town, not legally part of the city, but within commuting distance of it. In New Zealand, a suburb is a geographic area within the city—analogous to a neighbourhood in an American city. New Zealand suburbs are used by New Zealand Post for delivering mail and also by delivery companies.

I was born in a small city, grew up in suburbs, went to university in a small city, moved to Chicago, then to Auckland (twice—interrupted by a couple years spent in a small, rural town). I’ve learned through this that I’m a city boy. It doesn’t have to be a big city, and I don’t have to live in the heart of it, just as long as it has all the urban amenities a city has to offer. I particularly appreciate being able to get a service done or go get something in particular (like, for example, a part to repair something in the house) without having to drive hours or order online. I also enjoy the excitement and multi-culturalism that a city offers—that and all the entertainment and food options.

So, add it all up, and the city is best for me. I know plenty of people for whom that’s not true, though. So, what about you? Given your choice, would you rather live in a city, a small town or out in the country?

I took the photo at the top this post from North Head, Devonport, on Auckland’s North Shore, in 2006. You may notice that it’s also the background image for this blog.

A busy hiatus

I hadn’t planned on being absent from all my social media stuff, in particular this blog or my podcasts, but things got in the way. Actually, it was far more than that sounds.

We’d long planned some projects to the house this summer, chief among them, having the house painted. In addition, we’re making some small repairs, finishing a few projects and, while we’re at it, having a major de-clutter. All of which is far more involved—and tiring—than I ever could have imagined. On this plus side, I’ve lost a couple kilos over the first two weeks of this project, and expect I’ll lose more this week.

This huge project is nearly completed—just in time for real, real life to resume as I head back to work.

And that’s what I did on my summer vacation.

Miss Piggy FTW

From the video description on YouTube:

“Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy hit back at Fox News during a UK press conference following the London Premiere of their new film. Fox had publically criticized the film for supposedly pushing a 'dangerous liberal agenda' at kids.

“Kermit mocks their blatant and pointless fear mongering before Miss Piggy offers her own opinion on Fox News.”

So, since Kermit says Miss Piggy’s comment will be “all over the Internet”, naturally I have to help make it so. Plus, she’s right, of course.

Tip o' the Hat to Joe.My.God.

B is for Books

I love books, and always have. I love having them around, looking at them and sometimes even reading them. Mostly, I like having them around.

I come by this naturally: My mother was a book lover, too. My father, on the other hand, could easily throw books away. My mother and I thought that was sacrilege.

Over the years, I built up a pretty good library—twice. First, when I was living in the US and helped by inheriting books from my parents, then again in New Zealand, where I helped add to the library Nigel already had—but with very few from my US library, most of which I left behind.

I used to say that I drew power from having books around, until I realised that sounded a bit quasi-spiritual, which wasn’t at all what I meant. Instead, I meant that books energise me. When I see all my books in front of me, I think of all the ideas and words within them and become inspired to keep searching for a few of my own.

But things are very different now. I still love having a library of books, but having packed and moved them many, many times now, I can definitely see the attraction of a small library. That’s going far too far for me, though.

Instead, my biggest shift in attitude has been nurtured by the Internet and all things computer. It began when I started downloading free “plain vanilla” texts of classic public domain books from Project Gutenberg. It was a great thing, I thought, but frankly a little hard to read on a computer screen. So, graphics person I am, I tried turning a couple into real books and found it was much harder than I’d imagined.

And so it stayed for many years until the Kindle was introduced. At the time, I thought it was too expensive and failed the “bathtub test”: Drop a book in a bathtub, and you’re out around $40; drop a Kindle, and at the time it was many times that price.

Nevertheless, in July of 2010, I downloaded my first Kindle edition of a book, which I read on my iPod Touch. I found it easier to read Kindle editions once I had a iPad, but the darn thing was heavy. Then, Nigel gave me a Kindle for my birthday, and so far I love it.

It turns out, I’m in good company. Yesterday, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a report that found that over the holidays there was a huge surge in the percentage of Americans who have a tablet computer (like an iPad or similar) or an e-reader (like a Kindle, Nook, etc.): “The share of adults who own either device [nearly doubled], from 10% to 19%.” The overall percentages are still relatively low, but the rate of increase is impressive.

There are many things about them that are good, and they have many features that make them a great way to read books (chief among the benefits, in my opinion, is that readers can carry suitcases of books on the one device, which makes packing for trips much easier and with far less back strain).

Still, e-readers and tablet computers are not books. Books to me a special thing, far more special than merely a page displaying on an electronic device. I like having them around, after all. Turns out, I like having e-readers around, too.

Are you a book person? If so, is it ink-on-paper-only, electronic only or both?

The image at the top of this post is a Creative Commons licensed photo, “Old book bindings at Merton College Library” (25 August 2005), by Tom Murphy VII. It is available for download through Wikimedia Commons.

Three years ago today

Three years ago today, we had our civil union and became recognised as a couple under New Zealand law—not that it mattered then or now to the US Government (it may now be different in my home state of Illinois, for strictly state matters, of course). Similarly, the civil union we had three years ago today was made possible by a Labour-led government; the current prime minister, John Key of the conservative National Party, voted against it and refuses to say if he’d vote for it if the vote was held now.

But that’s all backdrop, the behind-the-scenes stuff that doesn’t actually affect us. On that hot day three years ago, we formally and legally pledged our lives together, even though at that point we’d already been together thirteen years. Even so, it was nice to be able to stand in front of friends and family and make that long-term commitment formal and recognised under law.

Tonight we went out for a fancy dinner at a local restaurant. We were celebrating not just that event three years ago, but the fact that we’re as strong as ever. Sometimes, love really does conquer all—even politics.