I’m joining the Internet blackout today, and not just for my New Zealand friends who are combating this draconian copyright fundamentalism… I’m joining it because if this kind of legislation succeeds in New Zealand — who have a pretty good history of sticking it to The Man — it could succeed anywhere.

Here’s a great cartoon about the problematic legislation from Scoop which very neatly explains the issue:

Update: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has announced that S92A will go on hold until March 27, apparently hoping that an agreement will be reached on a voluntary code of practice. The legislation isn’t dead, but this is more than “just a flesh wound”.

Congratulations to the Creative Freedom Foundation for a well-organised, multi-facted and effective campaign against S92A… thanks also to Brenda and Nat, who worked tirelessly to hyper-connect Kiwis and their friends around the world.

The first was kind of disappointing. The rest have just been annoying: Getting up late with 05:14 flashing on the alarm clock, asking Pipka to set the time on the microwave (because I can’t figure it out — seriously) and working out which other devices didn’t manage to start properly…

This is where technology fails us. Not because the lights went out, but because there were only about thirty seconds between, “Huh, I bet the SNMP thingy in the printer can tell me its uptime” and having it beautifully graphed with Cacti.

… and now because I can see my laser printer’s uptime, I care about my laser printer’s uptime.

Well, I would. If it had any.

Update: It should be noted (mainly for California readers) that blackouts are an odd occurrence here.