A fun sojourn in New South Wales…
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Off on the road
Wishing everyone a great holiday season. I’m off on a motorcycle road trip in NSW for about 10 days so blogging will take a break.
The Great Christmas Conspiracy
It’s been going on for years. Everyone is involved. Tens of thousands are conned each year, and we are all part of the grand conspiracy. It starts with the parents, is reinforced by the schools and assisted by department stores, grandparents, uncles, aunts, the media, the post office and even random strangers on the streets. …
As the housing bubble bursts in Florida
NYTimes has some food for thought from the post bubble impact in Florida. ‘They’ said it wouldn’t hapen there, or in DC, Sydney, or Auckland. ‘They’ say now it won’t happen in Wellington, in Perth or in Nelson. It well – economics always wins in the long run. If you have any, please do consider …
Guaranteeing Safety on the roads
A timely topic as we head out on the annual Christmas travel-fest. It’s dangerous on those roads, and we all need to do something about it. The NZ Government has come up with their list of measures to reduce fatalities on the road: Increased demerit penalties for crossing stop lights Increased demerit penalties for faster …
Anti Free trade: BNZ and USA
Why is it so complicated to wire money from the USA to NZ? I know the US laws are convoluted, but BNZ certainly isn’t helping reduce barriers to free trade with these instructions: Dear Mr Wiggs Thank you for your enquiry about transferring funds from the United States to Bank of New Zealand. In order …
Was Bookabach a bargain?
AA bought into Bookabach – so what are they getting and how much is it worth? I’m arguing they got a bargain, even though I don’t know how much they paid for what % or even how much bookabach makes. Here’s the reasoning and estimation: The site looks great – very well laid out and …
New Web Hotness
Get on to the latest new hotness: Dopplr.com You can share your trips with other folk. It seems. It’s the latest brand new hotness. apparently. But it’s also trivially easy to use – a lesson in UI.
New Trade Me blog
Michael Carney launches a pretty decent looking blog to coincide with the re-release of his book Trade Me Success Secrets. Check it out.
iPhone – passe already in Australia?
I hear from Sydney that the iPhone is becoming a bit, well, common in the tech community. This before a release date has even been announced in Australia. Personally I’m a fan of only buying Apple goodies within days of launch date – to eliminate any concerns that, say, mac fanboy Rowan gets some Apple …
eBay abandoning insertion (listing) fees?
The murmurs are that eBay is going to be dramatically lowering listing fees and increasing final value (success) fees accordingly. Bear Stearns was the first to come up with this, and others have said that apparently this will differ by category. Total rumour, but if true it is about time. The fees eBay charges are …
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Fantastic Air NZ promotion
What can you say – is there any other airline in the world doing this sort of stuff? Air NZ’s grab-a-plane promo is an excellent idea with superb execution. It won’t last forever, so I’ve grabbed some screenshots. Here’s the ad:
Deficit and housing
via calculated risk this chart – showing the huge size of the US Trade Deficit. Sure Petroleum is bad, but that red line is hovering around the the thirty billion a year mark. Meanwhile on the same blog we see that a major US apartment owner is in big trouble, risking default on $900m in …
The advance of VOIP
Via the economist this chart and shows VOIP taking about 20% of all international call minutes for 2006. Amazingly though regular international phone calls grew 10% between 2005 and 2006. I wonder how much was driven by falling prices, in turn driven by cheap and free VOIP.
A simple question..
Mega blogger Seth Godin asks How long has it been since you went through an entire day without buying anything at all? It’s a good question. About two times a week for me, as I go turn-about for buying lunch (a sandwich) at work each day. Another question could be: How many non-food/grocery/fuel items do …
Lance Wiggs 