Labor and jobs

Once Labor cared about jobs but now they are too dry for that.

Bill Shorten is happy for people to shop offshore, and Stephen Conroy is philosophical about the loss of jobs from the collapse of the REDgroup. He's right that in the case of the REDgroup that the reasons for the collapse are complex and not directly attributable to the growth of online shopping. He goes on to say that technology changes industries and new jobs are often created. He cites the example of Kodak, not mentioning that it is now a much smaller business than it once was. And he's missing the point about online shopping, deliberately or not, that there will be fewer of these new jobs and many of them will be offshore.

Where are the unions in this debate?

pissed-off consumer

I'm feeling discriminated against as an Australian. I wanted to listen to Tobias Wolf's This Boys Life (a Year 12 book) as an audiobook, but I was not allowed to download the file as I have an Australian IP address. I wanted to watch the movie but when I finally legally borrowed a copy it was coded for another region. And I read this, this morning: http://delimiter.com.au/2011/02/10/no-touchpad-for-you-hp-tells-australia/ My friend Brian, something of a computer guru (being in IT), says, "I hate DRM". Even though he endeavours to buy legally (and happens to be a huge fan of print books) he points out how easy it is to download anything you want from the internet if you want it enough. Frustrating the consumer so obviously legitimizes piracy. As a consumer, my response to this frustration is to say bring on a global market where I can buy what I see and what I know other people can buy.

Getting a book for sure onto my ereader (I hope)

I've been having a little trouble getting The Guardians of Ga'hoole loading onto my Kobo ereaeder via my Borders app. I did do a reset (aka a pin in the back) but that didn't help. I rang Borders and spoke to Kobo - those lines are blurry. And they said download a copy from my Borders account accessed via the webpage (not the application) and then click on the downloaded item which will then load into Adobe Digital Editions. I can then drag the file from ADE onto the icon of my ereader when I next connect.

The other advantage of this process is that I now have a copy of the file on my laptop, which is backed up, so if something happens to my reader and I can't access the web. I can still read the book.