Even before we’d moved in to our house back in 2009, Aimee and I knew we would have to renovate the kitchen. The current kitchen appears to be the original from when the house was built in 1989. It looks dated, the MDF doors have swollen from moisture over the years, there is only a tiny pantry and the orientation makes the kitchen look even smaller than it is.
Kitchen Paper Plan
So, we collected kitset kitchen brochures from a few places and started playing with the pop-out cabinet shapes, making a few designs up that we thought might work. One thing that we really wanted was a large pantry so that means we’d need to do some alteration to the window in the kitchen. The window is currently only around 450mm from each wall so to fit in a big pantry, it needs to be about 600mm smaller.
The next weekend, Placemakers had a kitchen expo on so we went down and had a look at what they had on offer and had one of the lovely ladies put our plan into their CAD Drawing program to mock up what the kitchen would look like from a bunch of different profiles. With a couple of small changes, adjustments and measurements, the dishwasher was able to fit closer to the sink without causing the hob and oven to be too far from everything else.
Kitchen Paper Plan
At this stage, we’re waiting on pricing for what we’ve designed so far, if the window renovation will cost too much or if it’ll be too hard to make the outside of the house look ok with the smaller window, we may have to revisit that approach and do without the large pantry.
The batteries recently ran down on one of our Apple Wireless Keyboards. I replaced the batteries but it wouldn’t turn back on. I replaced them with a known good set of batteries and still nothing, no lights turning on, not pairing with the machine either.
After Googling around for a while, I finally came across a fewpeoplementioning a problem many of them had been experiencing where the contact on the inside end of the battery tube would no longer connect to the circuit board in the keyboard. Their resolution was to make a small ball of foil or steel wool and put in inside the battery compartment before the batteries.
Out of curiosity, I decided to give it a go. I rolled up a small square of foil, about 1 inch square into a ball and placed it down the tube. Popped the three batteries back in and bingo, the keyboard lit up. What an odd little manufacturing fault.
I think this keyboard is probably around 3 or 4 years old now as a newer model that takes takes only two batteries came out in 2009. I think I’d probably have a bit of a mission on my hands making a manufacturing fault claim now, I don’t think I could be bothered following it through. For now, the keyboard works again so I don’t have a big problem any more.
One thing I just realised that I never blogged about are our two lovely kittens. We adopted them around March this year and they’ve fit into the house really well. They’re two very cute Burmilla kittens that’re about 9 months old now. Their pedigree names are Tobias Alpha Cornerstone and Nimbus Alpha Cornerstone and we call them Tobi and Nimbus.
Nimbus
Nimbus is the naughty and relaxed brother. He doesn’t have a problem socializing with other cats, loves to roll on his stomach but is consistently the one to be doing things he shouldn’t like getting into the rubbish bin or climbing up to try and get into his food bag.
Tobi
Tobi started off being a little too shy and we were a little worried about him. Gave him a week or two of cuddles and time in the house and now he is the confident, confrontation brother. Frequently found cuddling up to me, he loves the outdoors, time by himself and getting up in the face of any cat that he approaches him on his turf.
The two of them can’t stand being separated for too long, vet trips are taken in pairs so that they don’t spend the entire day looking for each other and they often snuggle up together on a bed or couch.
I’m glad they’ve both got over their obsession with needing to climb inappropriate things like the television and the net blinds, now they generally only climb onto laps, beds and couches, with the very occasional kitchen bench leap.
In true “Hamilton Winter” style, we had some fairly thick fog descend on the city earlier this week, after having to drive through it all, I decided to take my camera out and play with some long exposures.
The photos didn’t come out quite like I thought they would but they are still quite stunning to look at.
Someone asked me recently whether downloading TV shows that have been broadcast on TV is still copyright infringement so I decided to write up a little post about the very basics of copyright law. As most of the items people talk about, such as Films, TV Shows, Music are made in the US, I’ll try point out US copyright law as well as NZ law even though if it came to trial in an NZ court, NZ law would apply.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, if you’re not sure whether something you’re doing is infringing upon copyright, the best answer is to seek legal advise.
The Default
Above all else, unless the copyright holder has given you explicit permission to do so you may not copy, alter, modify, redistribute or similar actions anything that anyone has created.
Everything is copyrighted when it is made. You have no right to do anything with it unless you’ve been told you can.
Public domain
Certain items fall into public domain automatically. If an item is in the public domain you can do whatever you want to it. It normally doesn’t apply to any trademarks or logos contained within the item though.
Some of the items in this category are many documents released by the Government or its departments.
Fair Use
This terms is often used as a broad defense against copyright infringement and it only really covers a few cases. There are a lot of edge cases, these require you to seek legal advise about because it is a very complex part of copyright law. In general though, you may use a copyrighted works for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship.
Copyright Expiry
Copyrights expire on works after different lengths of time depending on when they were created, and for what purpose.
Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works; 50 years from the death of the author
Artistic works industrially applied; 16 years from when the work is applied
Artistic craftsmanship industrially applied; 25 years from when the work is applied
Sound recordings and films; 50 years from when it is available to the public
Broadcasts and cable; 50 years from broadcast
Typographical arrangements; 25 years from first publishing.
In the US, the terms change depending on when the item was created. For items created after 1978, the term is the life of the author + 70 years for things created by an individual. Work done for hire, for example created by a corporation it is 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shortest.
Written Permission
If the copyright holder gives you written permission, you may do with the works are described in that letter.
To answer the original question, modern TV shows are copyright, downloading copies of them is copyright infringement under NZ copyright law and you can be taken to court for downloading and/or redistributing copies of them. Just because you had the privilege to see it (or miss it) on free-to-air broadcast television, it doesn’t mean that copyright doesn’t apply anymore.
Remember, the TV station paid a fair amount to buy you that privilege, they only bought the rights to show you it on their station.
If you need any more detail on these points please have a read through these links. If you have any corrections or notice any major omissions, comment and I’ll update the post.
