Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category

Proposed Changes to NZ’s R&D Incentives

Tuesday, May 29th, 2018

There's an open consultation about to end, on the changes MBIE would like to make to NZ's R&D incentives. In particular, they'll phase out the Callaghan Growth Grants and replace them with R&D tax credits. As the FAQ says, There are differences in the definition of eligible expenditure between the ...

NZ Herald’s “News” Is Shit and Lazy

Tuesday, April 12th, 2016

tl;dr: Today's NZ Herald drove me to this analysis/rant.  I'm giving the damn thing up and will get my news from other sites, Radio New Zealand and NewsHub.  You should too. I can't imagine how disheartening it is to work as a journalist in New Zealand.  Almost as disheartening as it is to ...

National Standards, Charter Schools, and a Pint on the Future

Monday, December 5th, 2011

tl;dr: Charter schools aren't a panacea, they don't appear to be compatible with the emphasis on National Standards, and this seems like the top of a slippery slope which will result in us all being as stupid as Americans. Background New Zealand introduced "National Standards" last year. In the past, the curriculum ...

100% Pure Chickenshit

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

New Zealand has, for a long time, marketed itself as 100% Pure. In the last year, this slogan has taken a beating. The climax seems to have been when BBC Hardtalk interviewer Stephen Sackur gave Prime Minister John Key a colossal roasting over the discrepancy between reality and ...

NZ Broadband Pricing and Network Neutrality

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

In this Ziff-Davis Australia article, the leaders of Australia's three largest ISPs declare network neutrality to be an American problem and explain why. It's an interesting argument, but I think there are some key elements unstated in the article. In America, largely for historical reasons, residential customers have "all you ...

Will, Systems, Distractions, and Irony

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Paul Graham, the creator of Y! Combinator, recently wrote an essay in which he said "Maybe in the long term the right answer for dealing with Internet distractions will be software that watches and controls them". The link on "software" was to Rescue Time, a web site that gathers ...

Travelocity are incompetent fuckwits suckled at Satan’s poisonous nipples

Monday, March 17th, 2008

I took a trip to ETech earlier this month. I initially attempted to book the trip using Travelocity but it turned into a massive clusterfuck of their making. I've documented it below in case you, my lovely reader, need any reason to avoid this dribbling shit trickle of ...

Zuckerberg Interview: FFS!

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

Now that Silicon Valley is slowly returning trickling back from Austin, I'd like to post something I wrote during The Zuckerberg Interview Soap Opera ... This is an example of the intellectuanal Ouroboros that hits Silicon Valley in waves. Let's see what's wrong with this intarwebs blow up, shall we? Who ...