It don't just rain... it pours....

Bob McNeill, who did some contracting for us at the end of last year has (once again) won the New Zealand Music award in the folk music section.... well done Bob!

RIANZ web site is STUFFED at the moment- some one please fix it for them!... So can't post a link to the award details....

If you needed any more evidence as to The Oneness of Brian Tamaki and Beelzebub this article from The Herald is it.

“I live in Mt Albert with my partner, very happily. I am a lesbian and have so far not suffered any grief from other people, until now. I woke up this morning to find a huge sign plastered in the neighbours' kitchen, aimed directly at us (see photo above).“

Kate, if you would like me to send you a hunting slingshot....

You've got to hand it to the Orewa Rotary Club.... one would guess they'll need a bigger room for this event next year.

The full text speech is here...

Now I can't say I'm inclined (or have ever been inclined) to vote National. Too many biggots and law and order crusaders (yes Mr Ryall and Mr Smith!) for me. But, I think in Don Brash they have a leader who might just be able to keep those elements in check... a man with at least liberal (classical) leanings...

But, a few quick notes to Mr Brash...

“National will fix the disincentives in the tax system by giving tax cuts to all working New Zealanders.  We are now focusing on correcting the incentives in the welfare system”

The only way to really fix the disincentives in the tax system is to flatten it.

“It should go without saying that that group includes those 65 years of age and over who are in receipt of New Zealand Superannuation – superannuation is not part of the welfare system. The next National Government will maintain Superannuation unchanged.”

Like hell it's not! We need to encourage savings- people shoould not be sponging off the taxpayer because they haven't saved. We need to create a taxation system that encourages saving, phase out national super over time and leave a basic safety net for 65+ers....

“Since 1975, a period over which New Zealand’s population has increased by some 32%, those on the Sickness Benefit have increased by almost 500%, while those on the Invalids’ Benefit have increased by almost 700%. 

Since 1999, New Zealand’s population has increased by 6%, while those on both the Sickness Benefit and the Invalids’ Benefit have increased by 40%.”

And I would guess that our per capita spending on health care is going up too..... it's as though we've been beset by some invisible plague... If I could ask one question of the Minister of Social Welfare it would be this above question.... it SURELY needs and answer and the ACT and National should ask it from the rooftops until they are blue in the face.

One of my former work mates is a Dad... Congrats guys... what a cutie...

Makes me feel old... fact I'm getting married next Sat doesn't help

Kiwi Expat Ben 'Firefox' Goodger has move to Google.

”

http://shrinkster.com/3dr

One of my company student interns, Mengqiu Wang, received a prestigious University of Otago International Scholarship.

Quite chuffed... he and some of the other members of the team have been working on a REALLY kick ass project over the past few months with .NET on an interesting new platform. Can't say much more than that as we're still under NDA.

Well done Mengqiu!

Before I write this article let me say that my libertarian leanings see me fundamentally opposed to any government intervention in what a company may be named...

But wearing my pragmatic hat....

Listening to nat radio this morning about the debate of this Wananga using the name 'The University of New Zealand. University is a controlled word (Education Act I think) as far as naming an institution. The Wananga claim that because University is a direct translation of Wananga that they should be permitted to keep using the word. Here is my argument. Given that a) Maori is an official language of New Zealand and b) University is a direct translation of the Maori word Wananga (e.g. Wananga o Otakou- Otago University)... then Wananga should also be a controlled word under the Education Act also. i.e. Organizations should not be able to call themselves either Wananga OR University without the appropriate approval.

There is much ado about a sheep on a recent postage stamp... Why on earth politicians like Katherine Rich (an otherwise generally intelligent polly) need to get involved I don't know.

But in that vein I've come to the concusion that the sheep stamp is the all but inevitable politically correct by-product of a United Future/Labour Coalition Govt.... it is a chemically castrated solo dad.

Here

He links to Scott Hanslemans great list of addins too.

Nic has blogged again about how much he likes Resharper.

We are a mixture of both here @ Kognition. Some are Resharper addicts I'm personally more of a CodeRush fiend. I love the templating features and code completion. It does piss me off sometimes by being a little too intelligent.

They now have a refactoring plugin that does most of the core Fowler refactorings and then a few more. But it does it in such a cool way....

Check this out... you just cut and paste!

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/Refactor/RefactorEMSPWalkthrough.xml

It's also worth noting that CodeRush and Refactor support VB.Net as well as C#.

So I fell off the blogging wagon for a few months due to too much work. I'm back in action now... watch this space.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/01/15.html#a9204

Scoble has been fanning the flames around the copyright nature of blog material. Wearing my techno-legal guy hat for two secs... how about incorporating some sort of license metadata into the RSS standard... that's what XML is for isn't it? It's eXtensible for a reason.

This would allow publishers to indicate to aggregators how their content may be used- it's almost like DRM but without the big stick. Like an advanced form of robots.txt. It could allow things such as a copyright/attribution notice to be appended and so forth.