Hi guys the slide deck for the Mon 14th NZ DNUG ASP.NET Lecture are here....

If you're a townie, fomer high flying corporate lawyer and member of parliament.... the last thing you want to do after buying a 2027 hectare 'pig hunting' block is to infer that your neighbours are a pack of 'theiving dope smokers'...Law and Order spokesperson or otherwise, it's just not the done thing.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2939790a10,00.html

Also.... this sort of stuff just screams of desperation...

If you did not get ballot papers, or receive this message after its too late to vote I would like to hear from you.  Let me know at doreen.leacock@parliament.govt.nz.  I will get an idea of the numbers from your responses.  It would not be consistent with a secret ballot but if you joined on 3 or 4 June, and you did not get ballot papers back in time, and have not voted by fax, and wish to indicate how you would have voted I will report those numbers to the caucus during its deliberations over the weekend.

...

Stephen Franks

Our ASP.NET course made it into the press this week.

http://idg.net.nz/news.nsf/UNID/AC7D8502C42007F2CC256EAA001E878A?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,auld

Federated Farmers has launched a campaign to highlight the fact that farmers are being screwed by local govt. rates.

Federation members wanting to join the 10K Rates Club will have an opportunity at Mystery Creek Field Days on June 16-19. Members who bring to the Federation's stand a copy of their general rates demand which shows rates in excess of $10,000 a year will be given the official club mug, which is emblazoned with the club motto "I'm A Rates Mug". The Federation's site is in the main pavilion at PB71 and 72.

Whats more we are now in a situation in this country whereby, in may cases, absentee landowners are denied a vote in local body elections.... It's been a while since I've been to the fielddays... but they are great fun.... well worth a visit if you are in the North Island.

From Hard News.... for those unfamiliar the Maxim Institute is a loony tune bigoted, 'family' centric, bible thumping, conservative right wing think tank outfit....

Tim Michie pointed that the Maxim Institute is running a tertiary student essay competition - six lucky winners will get to work for Maxim in the holidays. Six? These people have money. The suggested text for the essay topic is C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, one of the sacred tomes of the whole hell-in-a-handbasket movement. (You can crib and buy an essay on that.) It's fairly obvious that an essay which does not accord with the Maxim worldview will not be a winning one, but if anyone wants to enter such an essay I'll be happy to consider it for publication here after the contest has closed. We might even be able to manage a prize of our own

I've got $50 towards a competitive prize and challenge all of those liberal (in the classical sense of the word) readers among my throng to do the same.

Pledges in the coments please.

http://www.microsoft.com/nz/teched/tracks/smartclient.aspx

- First Look at the Australian Microsoft MapPoint Location Server (MLS)

Please repeat after me.... OH HELL YES!

BTW...

9th June - ASP.net Architecture.ppt (1020.5 KB) 

http://blogs.tonygoodhew.com/tonyg/archive/2004/06/04/326.aspx

So if someone can be a hard core democrat (ie left wing) but not be a communist/marxist then can't a right winger not be a religious nutter?

*nods*... It's called being a libertarian *G*...

I personally prefer the compass dial approach to political orientation rather than *wings*.

After you take the test look at the analysis too.
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/analysis.html

Can you spot the area that is sorely lacking!?!

Specialize in quickly becoming a specialist.

Bill and Casey are having a bit of a blogversation here, here and here about the trouble with being a specialist. Particularly when it comes to MS exams.

It's interesting to watch because I've yet to do these exams (have been meaning to for a while) and the same sorts of things concern me- Remoting (bleh!... an API just waiting to be deprecated), Printing  (urm XML->PDF or SQL Reporting Services for me please) and so forth...

But at a more fundamental level these guys have got me thinking. To some degree I am now an employer (of contractors) and when the guys ask me what sort of skill are important a specialist skill is the last thing that I would say. Instead, I think that the most fundamentally important skill in the IT industry is being able to quickly upskill yourself into any given specialty. When I look for potential contractors I'm generally going to look more for self starters who can quickly bring themselves up to speed on a piece of technology. Maybe this is a symptom of being in New Zealand where our limited labour pool makes this sort of JIT learning a necessity. But, I think it's a pretty good approach to take. If I wanted to be a deep level subject matter expert I would have been an academic.... can you say BORING!

Now there is some irony in this. Because, in the case of Casey at least*, the guy seems to have the most profound ability to upskill himself to a pretty detailed level of knowledge over a short period of time Just look at his articles- it's like 'oh.. this week I'm gonna learn Neural Nets' and then he plugs into the matrix and out comes an article...

What we really need is some metric/test/whatever that indicates a persons potential to be 'switched on'... maybe like an IQ and EQ test put together. I actually think being a Jack of All Trades is pretty important provided you can become an expert at light speed when necessary...

*I shall reserve judgement on Bill until after he has purchased me an Imported New Zealand Lager @ MVP Summit 2005.....

What the paper can't comprehend is Richard has also endorsed Ken, Muriel and Stephen and the Herald clearly thinks ACT should pick its leaders in secret. Such leaders have no mandate. Helen Clark struggled and Bill English failed. ACT's new leader will have the mandate that comes from a nationwide democratic vote.

From 'The Letter'... the weekly ACT party mailout. Tuesday 08/06/04
I'm just posting this for posterity in case the party decide to do something wholly stupid........

This looks pretty cool....

Weedshare is a file sharing system with a paid component that benefits both artists and the people who shared the file.... and REAL money too. 50% for the artists and also money for the sharers up three levels.

Looks VERY cool...uses windows media for the DRM.

I'm gonna start by taking a look at this guy....
http://www.weedtunes.com/index.php/a/av/artist/59

Now this is a cool idea.

Using RSS to dish up Hansard (the official Parliamentary proceedings for you non Westminsterites).

You can subscribe to specific MPs and see what they've been saying in the house.

From Gizmodo

And Gizmodo also has other droolworth stuff...... I might look for one of these in Singapore later in the month.

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/philips-key019-shipping-with-016-inch-lcd-015686.php

Here is the slide deck for tonights session.

01_languageprimer.ppt (152.5 KB)

and

Audio

Not one of the really expensive Masticating Juicers but quite a nice Breville Centrifugal Juicer. Works pretty well and with 85 cent per KG Apples available makes VERY nice apple juice.

Will be sure to blog more on my juicing experience.

Save for Ronny and Barbs 'War on Drugs', the Regan years were pretty good. Pretty early in my lifetime though too

Rodney points @ Jim Peron (who must be about the worlds most prolific writer) on the matter.-Goodbye Ronnie.

OK.... so it's probably pretty common knowledge by now that Rodney Hide leads the pack when it comes to being a techno-politician..... His website has gone mad over the past month with the comments and the general level of interactivity.

But it's really cool to see others getting in on the swing of things. For example his recent post on Archbigot Vercoe's little outburst gets a comment from National Member of Parliament (with a bright future) Katherine Rich... is blogging going to be the great leveler in politics? Where the people and the politicians can interact freely on the same plane. I think it is fantastic to see two politicians, from different parties, having free and frank conversational type communications in the blog space. This is the sort of conversational blogging that would make Scoble have kittens!

Here

Bill is a Christian so he has some interesting things to say on the banter that we've been kicking around....

He wades in on the 'whole Gay thing' with some good argument, does Porn, mentions the Darwinian fish....

These Bible beaters are making Christianity a laughingstock and doing more to destroy it than all the strip clubs, bars, and gay people combined.  Their obsession with trashing people different from them is sickening.  And do you really think they don't take money from Adulterers?  Or Drunks?  Or just about any other politically correct sinner category.  There's wayyyy too much house cleaning needing done to be pointing fingers about trivial nonsense like this.  No one is sin free, the bible says so.  So why focus on other's sins instead of your own?  That's why I can laugh at all the mockery, b/c I agree with it.  It's not mocking Jesus, it's mocking the clowns that have coopted Christianity, and THEY DESERVE TO BE MOCKED!   They're the blasphemers.

All good.