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As I combed the web for Net-related news stories this morning, it became very apparent that this industry is still incredibly US-centric.

Most of the tech-news sites from which I usually collect the headlines and links are still carrying the same stuff they were last week -- and of course that makes my job a whole lot harder.

It seems that when the US stops, so does much of the content we have become so used to finding fresh and new every day.

Of course countries such as the UK and Europe don't observe Thanksgiving Day but the amount of Net-news coming from that part of the world is tiny when compared to that originating from the states.

Likewise, our own scene has been in gradual decline for some time now and I don't envy the guys over at IDG or the NZ Herald as they scrape around for local story ideas to help fill their column-inches on a regular basis.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) A due column!... - Dominic From Yesterday... Wellington... - Paul Wellington, county... - Rob You have gnomed the map... - Arthur NZ's newest expansion... - Intrepid Have Your Say

Looking over the ditch at Australia can often be frustratingly unrewarding too.

It seems that just about the only things that happen in Australia are that another shonky domain name reseller scam pops up, Telstra exercises its monopoly, or the government fouls up in some way or another.

Is this dearth of interesting stories originating outside the USA simply statistically consistent with population distributions?

Do we have fewer things worth writing about here in NZ simply because we have fewer people?

Possibly -- but I tend to think it's possibly because the rest of the world is still hugely reliant on the USA for much of the technology, content and innovation on which the Net is now so reliant.

I wonder if this will change any time soon?

At Last -- A Tivo-like PC Project Update
There's new stuff in the Tivo-like PC project section as of right now.

The latest update has a review of the very interesting Hauppauge PVR-250 tuner/capture card with hardware MPEG encoding, plus a comparison of the pro's and con's between using a smart capture card (like the PVR-250) and a plain-vanilla card (like the Pinnacle PCTV).

I've also be posted some sample video captured with each option so you can draw your own conclusions.

Another update will be posted in a couple of days. This will provide some pictures, screenshots, more video samples and reviews of some third-party PVR software.

Still Clearing The Closet For Christmas
As well as the Norinco .22LR rifle I advertised yesterday, I'm also selling a couple of used pulsejet engines that are now surplus to requirements and my jetkart.

What better gift for Christmas than something the whole neighbourhood can enjoy -- whether they want to or not ;-)

Any reasonable offers considered.

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