(Apologies for the “all about me” post. This sort of thing helps to motivate me for the year.) Early last year I posted a plan for 2008 – daring to call it a manifesto. I’d just turned down some very good corporate career options and dared to invest more time into smaller opportunities. How did …
Category Archives: Life
Burj Dubai
From Boston.com – the world’s tallest building – the Burj Dubai. More stunning Dubai pictures if you follow the link. It will be interesting to see how they weather the low oil prices and economic crisis.
The power of the internet
Oh the power of the internet – the 35 to 40 million or so people using it, the 386 computer, 8Mb RAM and don’t forget the 14.4 kbps modem so that you can capture the true multi-media internet experience. This video has it all…. Via Andreas Von Gunten from an original post from waxy.org. There …
Helping societies drink responsibly
In a not entirely unsurprising finding, a researcher in the USA has discovered that alcohol related deaths will fall if you increase taxes on alcohol. No kidding. We seem to have that pretty well figured out in New Zealand and Australia. I’d like to see a much broader international scale study relating the inputs to …
Rowan returns
I can’t imagine why Rowan left out this photo from his travels in Nepal post. Worth reading.
Proud to be American again
An American friend sent me this, and granted me permission to publish it. Stunning. To my friends around the world— A week ago today, on November 4, 2008, I cast my vote for the next US president. That day I woke up at 3 in the morning in order to be at my local polling …
We are living longer
It seems that we now have a longer life expectancy – 82.2 for women and 78 for men, up 1 and 1.7 years However there is still a substantial difference for Maori – with Maori newborns having life expectancy of 75.1 and 70.4 years. This is a key metric for New Zealand, for any country …
NZ Election winners now confirmed!!!
Here they are. In first place:Electionresults.govt.nz – updates every handful of minutes and is the official source. In second place: TVNZ. There is no rolling text commentary: But despite a tag saying video is only available to NZ viewers the video link actually works and I am now watching TVNZ’s coverage. It seems to have …
I almost purchased an apartment
Along with stocks we are also seeing a plunge in housing prices. The mortgage payment/rent equation is still wacko (it should be about 1-1) but 3 weeks ago I decided to place a tender offer on an apartment that I liked in Wellington. With tenders you place a binding bid into a box, and when …
Three Rules of Life – and why not to break them
I have a few rules of life that have generally served me well: 1: Never drink anything that is on fire 2: Never annoy people that cook or serve you food and never send food back Coogee Bay Hotel ‘served human faecal matter in ice cream 3: Tailor your message to the audience The man …
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Help us with Lingopal
We are still putting on the final touches, but Lingopal is looking pretty good these days. To check it out point your browser, mobile or other wise, at m.lingopal.com – and let us know what you think. Lingopal offers phrase translation over 43 languages – with the version you see at the mobile site for …
Saving New Zealand from the crisis
Mark Welden and David Skilling went to Davos, got back to NZ, clearly talked a lot over beers and came up with what I can only term a business first over-reaction to the current global gyrations. Good on them for the doing this though, and for the intention which they are following through of starting …
Grandads
One Grandad, Grev Wiggs, was an ad man at Inglis Wright – he even did the first NZ political ad. This is the other one – Lance Johnson – a new bio from the NZ rugby museum. He was quite the shot it seems.
Portfolio judgement month hits hard
It’s been a rough ride for everyone on the equity markets. I really have not followed my own advice and got out of my short positions far too early and went hard into Apple long options. I’m too scared to look at the money I left on the table by existing the Fannae Mae short …
Lotto online – lots of colour but some serious work to do
The good news for those that have only a tentative grasp of statistics and economics is that you can play Lotto online in New Zealand. It’s not bad, but a few fatal flaws need to be addressed before sales can really take off: 1: Don’t go to Lotto.co.nz – someone else owns it. Actually I …
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Lance Wiggs 