Monthly Archives: December 2009

Do you feel assured?

Posted on December 28, 2009 by

I imagine there is some ancient research backing up the use of the “be assured” strips across toilets in a certain class of accomodation. I for one feel it really is a waste of money, as not only is it … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Motorcycling | Leave a comment

No more Mojo for motorcyclers

Posted on December 21, 2009 by

I’m angry. On three consecutive visits to Wellington city for coffee meetings I received 4 tickets on my motorcycle. Here’s the chap that gave me the third one – he is drawing a diagram of the location of the bike. … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

Proud to be a Kiwi. Shame on you Australia

Posted on December 16, 2009 by

Today I’m proud of our Government in New Zealand, and horrified at the one they have in Canberra. After the concerted #blackout campaign earlier this year the NZ government halted the implementation of the Section 92A bill that dealt very … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Kiwibank’s Heaps – personal banking as it should be

Posted on December 16, 2009 by

I have no idea why it is called heaps, but Kiwibank’s new offering to personal customers looks superb. It really throws down the gauntlet to the other banks. The product lets you semi-automatically categorise your spending, and then track your … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

The need for sub editing still remains

Posted on December 16, 2009 by

An article on Stuff with an AAP byline (but not writer’s name) reveals a little about the state of news reporting today. The original article was published in Fairfax’s Melbourne newspaper The Age yesterday – and has an author (Nicole … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Don’t drink bottled water

Posted on December 15, 2009 by

via @samfromwgtn this marvelous graphic. There really is no excuse not to drink tap water, especially in the Western world. I have water bottles sprinkled around the place – stashed in my bike, car and house.

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Stop the spam Sky

Posted on December 15, 2009 by

Dear Sky Sports Please famililarise yourselves with New Zealand’s Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. There is also a handy guide for businesses. Then include a way for me to unsubscribe from your puerile badly photoshopped spam. include the name and … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Telecom XT Outage: Unacceptable

Posted on December 14, 2009 by

The other day I noted that Telecom seemed to be ramping up data use sources on the XT network, asking “Is Telecom really doing this?“ Commenters said I was being unfair (and perhaps I was) as the XT network is … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

Corruption and restrictive regulation

Posted on December 14, 2009 by

An interesting finding by the World Bank’s Investment Climate Department – the less procedures required to start a business, the less likely a country is corrupt. Note that New Zealand is way to the left and bottom of this chart: … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Persistent offenders will be prosecuted

Posted on December 13, 2009 by

Whaleoil does it again – making it clear who someone is when their name is suppressed. He is defending his actions: “I will not remove the series of images in question. The way I have acted has been entirely consistent … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Increasing interconnectiveness of the mediasphere

Posted on December 13, 2009 by

WordPress.com has just added another link to the increasingly interconnected mediasphere. They’ve added the ability to login, read and post to WordPress blogs using the Twitter API. What that specifically means is that we can now post blog entries using … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Is Telecom really doing this?

Posted on December 12, 2009 by

Combine three recent pieces of news: 1: Telecom got fined $500,000 by the Commerce Commission for offering “unlimited data usage and all the internet you can handle”, paying another $8.4m in compensation to customers. The offering was less than unlimited … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

51 in the top 500 – what does it mean?

Posted on December 11, 2009 by

The latest Asia Pacific Deloitte Technology 500 results are out, New Zealand looks pretty good, with 51 companies making the list. It looks even better on a per-head of population basis – with New Zealand demonstrating real strength. I’d hasten … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Tamiflu – does not work, costs a lot

Posted on December 11, 2009 by

A stunning indictment of Tamiflu by The Atlantic. A trail of false evidence and marketing led the US alone to spend $1.5 billion on stock piling the drug for pandemic preparation for things like SARS, and the whole world over … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Who is the biggest bookstore of them all?

Posted on December 9, 2009 by

I’d never heard of TheNile.co.nz – but via an advertisement in Geekzone I went there to find that they claim they are New Zealand’s largest bookstore. That seemed strange – until I noticed the link at the bottom to their … Continue reading →

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments