Scoble has the details here....

Dunno why the hell they changed it in the first place....

Ok... so Rob has re-ignited the flame @ http://robertlevy.net/ and the first post back he talks about his car... and his insurance... the man is insane... let me quote a little.

Getting screwed on car insurance.  Now that I actually have my own car I gotta start paying insurance and boy does that suck.  Right now I'm paying over 250/month...

This is just mad...US$250 a month == NZ$384 a month... To put that in perspective, that is NZ$4 more than I pay to insure my Subaru GT Legacy Twin Turbo 206kw Extremely Nickable For Ram Raiding 'Space Rocket With Wheels'....

And more importantly that's NZ$380 per year, not per month.

Eee youch!.... Should I ever take the red pill I'll sure as hell be joining Ericgu @ the LBS  and buying myself a shiny new bike... can't believe Eric doesn't like the color scheme on the Litespeed..... Titanium is like... so sexy!

...wow! I was Googling my own name (to find a recent photo of myself) and found that I had been quoted in the Chapman Tripp Tech Law newsletter. This is actually kinda cool as Chapman Tripp were the only law firm I applied to after finishing law school. I think they were keen to have me but it was still going to be a HUGE drop in earning from being an IT guy...

Sorry to all of those RSS subscribers out there.... the recent run on self congratulatory blog posts is becuase I've decided to make the news page on our new look company web site simply a tap off a category on my blog. That way it is harder for me to neglect the all important comapny news... like I have done in the past.

So. Going forward you will get the odd PRish post coming out of this blog too..... should make a nice change from some of the other ranting I do.

The Mobile Devices Division at Microsoft recently published a case study on an applicaton built by Kognition Consulting for Delta Utrilities Limited.

View the case study here.

http://idg.net.nz/news.nsf/UNID/221F2341D3B330A9CC256EFD001E6E5E?OpenDocument

The success of an initial online evening course on ASP.Net, coordinated by Dunedin consultancy Kognition, has laid good ground for the formation of regional .Net user-groups around New Zealand broadcasting their meetings in real-time to developers in the other regions.

http://idg.net.nz/news.nsf/UNID/CA2B98B8ABC54F3CCC256EFC00289B21?OpenDocument

Chris Auld, managing director of mobility software specialist Kognition, spoke to Computerworld earlier this month about Backdoor.Bardor.A, the first Windows CE Trojan. He says it wasn't a serious threat, but was a harbinger of more serious mobile worms and viruses that would come once virus writers started looking "outside the box".

http://idg.net.nz/news.nsf/UNID/B4D0FF30288C4E74CC256EF200263010?OpenDocument

Backdoor.Bardor.A, the first alleged Windows CE backdoor Trojan horse, isn't much of a threat, says Chris Auld, managing director of mobility software specialists Kognition.

I don't think I'm right-wing - I just think my life is mine to live pretty much as I please (provided it doesn't intrude on you) and I'd like you to extend the same courtesy to me, thanks very much.

Amen To That!

The M82 is a beast of a gun.  It fires the same rounds as the .50 cal machine guns that we use.  It's heavy and extremely loud.  You'll see what I mean in the movie below - it literally causes a shockwave that shakes the ground enough to raise a big cloud of dust for like a 4 or 5 foot radius around the gun.  I've used the rifle a lot in computer games like Ghost Recon, so I was eager to see how it handled in real life.  It's got quite a bit of kick, and of course the games don't do the noise or shock of firing it any justice whatsoever.  I'm sure firing it from anything but prone and braced position would knock me on my butt.

Army Steve gets to play with some cool war toys.

OK... so I should have better things to do with my Monday night than read bloody comments on DPFs blog... but... well.... you know.

So anyway... Loony Tune Bigot of the week for me is 'naki-gurl'... with such gems as...

If you got to the Destiny NZ (the political party) website www.destinynz.org.nz there you will see all there awesome policies on how they plan to put a halt to awful things such as abortion, rape, sex before marriage. Even stuff on the treaty, education, health, law enforcement.

Being a Naki Boy of sorts I was curious...

Now the funny thing is that we can find out a bit more about naki-gurl because, although she posted under a pseudonym, she used a variety of extremely non anonymous email addresses.

Now I can hardly start ranting as I NEVER really post anon. But then I'm my own boss so the buck stops with me... But I digress. Let's take a look at Naki Gurl for a bit.

Let's go through some of the email addresses.

• hinenui.bryant@tdhb.org.nz
  Started with a pearler.... nothing like posting with your Govt. employer provided address... hope she wasn't posting on Govt. (read my F%^*&%^ tax dollars) time!
• hlb4@waikato.ac.nz
  By about the 3rd post she had wised up... Wouldn't you know it, she went to Waikato University. Not an institution renowned for it's academic qualities and the literacy of this graduate (one can but assume graduation in this era of bums on seats) is case in point.
• naki@gurl.com
  We get a whole heap of posts under the Waikato Uni address until we finally a more anonymous address. This time an address from a leading online community and content site for teenage girls ... founded in 1996 at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and is now published by iVillage Inc... NYU!?! Hardly a bastion of conservative thought is it? Don't know how up with womens lib Destiny Church is... maybe it's me that's out of touch but I don't think Pastor Tamaki is super keen on feminists and their ilk.

She soon dropped back to using the Waikato address.

Lurker posited that this was her http://www.findsomeone.co.nz/chat-rooms/personal-ads-41577.htm but a quick check of ethnicity kinda rules that out.

OK.. so time for a bit more digging... public sources only of course :-( Though I could be tempted for a little subterfuge.... more to follow.

Destiny Church invaded DPF.....

Methinks some of them could do with a little tithe to the church of literacy sometime soon...

Lukas is blogging about the new HTC Blue Angel. I played with one of these a couple of months ago in Beijing.... very SEXY... will try and dig out some photos.... pity they didn't stick a nicer processor in it though :-(

Stephen D Taylor (serial Maxim Institute letter writing guy) wins the cunning linguist of the year award from me for using the term Fundaphobia in his letter in the Chch press today.

I think Fundaphobia must be a 'fear of fundamentalist conservative christitan bigots'.... but I could be wrong. Mr Google tells me is means a paranoia of conservative, biblio-centric Christians. What a cool ^*&%ing word. The next time some stupid #*^*%er down the main street asks me to listen to him ranting on about 'Jeezus' I'm gonna say 'sorry mate, I'm a fundaphobe!'