This line records use of a certain item by New Zealand population since 2000. Where do you think it will be in say 20 years time? The statistic went up, and then down, and so the best estimate to me would be a flat or downward trend. But rather strangely the authors of this chart determined …
Continue reading “When broken forecasting means billions wasted”
The nominee for the USA’s Ambassador to New Zealand is one Mark David Gilbert. Here’s the text from the Whitehouse.gov press release, 4 months ago: Mark D. Gilbert, Nominee for Ambassador to New Zealand, Department of State Mark D. Gilbert is a Director at Barclays Wealth (formerly Lehman Brothers) in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. …
Continue reading “Our new US ambassador has a tough act to follow”
<updated to clarify this is for Kiwibank’s Core Banking System> Fairfax Media report that Kiwibank is signing up to SAP as their “principal computer platform” provider for their core banking system. The core banking system runs the business of the bank – including real time transactions, interest calculations and payments., and it is unclear where the line …
It’s great to see the UFB project continue, with the Quarterly Broadband Deployment Update for December 2013 showing over 27% of premises passed to date. The real question is how we can increase the pace of actual connections, currently at 1.5%. I’m trying to connect myself and can confirm that the anecdotes I’ve heard to date about …
Continue reading “UFB progress at 1.5% – who wants other 98.5%?”
BHP Billiton created this deceptively simple chart on the skills and experience of their Board of Directors in their excellent 2013 Summary Review. I challenge all boards to do the same. The categories in the table are interesting as they show what BHP Billiton sees as important. They want deep experience across the table in …
Continue reading “What Board Skills and Experience do you need?”
Professor Robert J Shiller won the Nobel prize this year (with Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen) for his work on the analysis of prices of various assets. He repeated his Nobel lecture at the Yale School of Management today, and I grabbed a couple of screenshots from the livecast. His early work tested whether …
Last April Auckland Transport received a report they had commissioned on Why do Cyclists run red lights?” A decommissioning the report was an excellent move by Auckland Transport. Sadly the report is only available as a powerpoint presentation, but what we can see is excellent. They observed over 22,000 vehicle, pedestrian and cyclist movements across five …
Continue reading “What if you knew how to stop cycling deaths. Would you do anything?”
My partner rides a bicycle to and from work. Her town bike has a basket on the front and back, and she is small, wears normal street clothes and obeys traffic rules. This is what a ride home looks like. (She takes the long way home to get exercise). She’s fast right? You might have caught two …
Continue reading “A typically deadly commute – let’s fix it”
This is a piece received via email from Gloria Williams (@caniwiwilliams) that she has given me permission to post. I read your thoughtful column on cycling safety this morning and I thought I’d send along this photo which shows just how simple it can be to create protected bike lanes. This is Vancouver, a …
Continue reading “How simple it can be to create protected bike lanes”
Today I arrived very early on the scene of a cycle versus truck fatality in Auckland today. The sight of a person lying motionless in the street with mangled bicycle in the background is chilling enough. The sounds of grief-stricken people comforting each other, the shock on the face of the woman in the car …
I don’t know when, but this is a dreadful picture. The incident happened at Lyttelton Port of Christchurch on Saturday 4th January, 2014. It was a near miss to a fatal injury – the driver is lucky to be alive and was reported to be taken to hospital. Let’s hope that their injuries are …
Continue reading “When will the next fatality happen at Lyttelton, Port of Christchurch?”
Another tragic fatal injury from a work accident in New Zealand, this time on board a fertiliser ship berthed at Lyttelton, Port of Christchurch. My heart goes out to the family, friends and colleagues of the deceased man. What went wrong? Every accident is preventable, and there is never an acceptable excuse for placing any …
Continue reading “When people die at work it’s always a safety issue”
The short and light on detail Ernst Young Australia (EY) report on Chorus [thanks NBR] shows that while Chorus’s top line “$1 billion shortfall” statement was correct, it was also disingenuous. First of all, we already knew that the $1 billion gap is until 2020, which is 7 years away, which is an average of just …
In the first week of January I’m leaving a Software Engineering gig for a US defense contractor to move to New Zealand. It’s great that New Zealand attracts high talented people from across the world, and we certainly need more software engineers from local and offshore sources. Due to the expense of shipping, my wife …
Continue reading “NZ Customs Seizes Electronics – a full enquiry please”
Not many people wanted responsibility for fixing the Novopay school employee payment system, but credit is due for the results as we approach schools’ year end for 2013. Here’s a chart of progress by pay-run from a year ago. 68 Schools with issues is still too many, but it seems the vast bulk of the …
Lance Wiggs 