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The funny thing is that everybody seems to want to roll out an oyster card system, but many places want to roll out their own oyster card system, and that leads to cost blowouts because (it seems) many organisations can't manage to do an IT project without falling on their face.
e.g. Auckland Transport with their AT HOP card.
myki in Melbourne, Australia which blew out by about $1 billion (on an original ~$0.5 billion cost). To quote from a report discussed in this article: ''Keane [who won the contract to make the card system] had no corporate experience in developing, implementing and operating a ticketing system Keane has barely demonstrated adequate capacity.''

Actually, the best question is in that same article:
"Another question is why, given the ambitions for the project, the company was chosen over smartcard specialists, including Cubic, which created many US systems and worked on Oyster, and the group behind Hong Kong's Octopus smartcard."
And why does everyone make this same mistake.

Although there is no excuse for lousy security, the "security hobbyist" did fail to mention in the article that the city was hit by an earthquake in February 2011, which mostly destroyed the central city. I suspect that might have more to do with Ecan's delay in implementing a new system, rather than just "they wanted a new flashy-looking website".

The most embarrassing thing about this (for me anyway) is that New Zealand is also complicit in this arrangement. As I understand it our Waihopai facility near Blenheim (attacked by activists in 2008, they were acquitted in 2010) is an important part of the surveillance programme. I expect to see a similar article about us in due course.

I jeered at the trio when I saw the original news item. At the time I called them Luddites, trespassers and vandals, unaware of the larger issue they were taking on. For shame! When the NSA scandal broke I suddenly understood what they were about and realised they were actually everyday garden-variety heroes standing up for something they believed in.

As funny as this is, it is also probably the truth. New Zealand is one of the five eyes nations. We have a couple of listening posts around the country. Our defense and intelligence policies are very much driven by obligations to allies Australia and the US.

The US also does take an interest in NZ laws relating to terrorism etc. Actually NZ is probably not special here, the US probably takes an interest in such laws around the world.

It's quite possible that our government was simply told that this law or something similar was required by their largest and most important ally, and therefore NZ public opinion was never going to matter.

OP here. New Zealand has a Proportional Representation based governement. This makes it less of a two horse race as every vote counts. Quite minor parties will have representation in government. There are also quite small spending caps for campaigning leading up to elections. For the most part it works quite well, and I still believe it is one of the most truely democratic countries.

This is what makes all of this so much worse, it is the first time in living memory there has been such strong public opposition to a bill and it has been passed anyway. A recent poll suggests 89% of New Zealanders oppose the bill.

There is more than meets the eye here, the way the Prime Minister is forcing this through is very fishy to me, it seems like he is being pushed into it. Here is a quote from a recent press conference:

“Prime Minister, numerous legal jurors have informed us publicly that they disagree with you wholeheartedly, that you are taking broad powers, which would allow you to invade privacyand you are saying that all those people are wrong” a journalist said to Key. “Correct,” the Prime Minister said before immediately interrupting the rest of the question by asking, “Is this a question buddy?”

So, the Human Rights Commission, the Law Society and the general population don't want the bill to pass, and yet it does (just).

I wonder if we can train fish to do the same, that would be more useful that loosing the nuts... http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/9031874/Testicle-eating-fish-warning

As a Kiwi I once heard some talk that the indigenous Maori were all for a New Zealand Constitution as it would enshrine the Treaty of Waitangi. However, someone pointed out that this would also limit the extent of the Treaty of Waitangi, whereas now it is kinda amorphous as to what it covers (Maori apparently had ownership rights of radio waves for TV and radio, and required compensation for the use of use). Note, I'm part NZ-Maori. I'm just pointing out something interesting I heard about the maneuverings of interested parties for a NZ Constitution and why one sector of society supported it and then dropped support. Perhaps what I heard was wrong - but it seems plausible to me.

I also heard that the multi-culturalists seem to think that Sharia is 'harmless' and should be recognized in a New Zealand Constitution. This is such a bad idea I'm surprised it had not been slapped down violently straight away - but the 'left' (Labour and Greens, in NZ political terms) is full of people who are staggeringly fact-free, and only think in the most 'woolly' of terms (let's hold hands and sing kumbaya with jihadis, eh?). Sharia has been trying to make inroads into NZ:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4366743/Sharia-decision-lets-baby-boy-into-NZ
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/6406555/Collins-dismisses-call-to-establish-Islamic-tourism
Sorry to wander slightly off-topic in my response to post about the NZ Constitution. I'm just trying to point out to fellow kiwis that 'Godzone' is as much under threat by the Cultural Jihad of stealth Sharia as anywhere else (US, Britain etc) except that we have even weaker Free Speech protections than elsewhere.

New Zealand Governments are generally benign. Putting in spying on citizens with very few legal protections and hoping that the Government will always be benign is stupid. Hopefully someone will have a bright idea on how to stop this (anyone?).

As a Kiwi I once heard some talk that the indigenous Maori were all for a New Zealand Constitution as it would enshrine the Treaty of Waitangi. However, someone pointed out that this would also limit the extent of the Treaty of Waitangi, whereas now it is kinda amorphous as to what it covers (Maori apparently had ownership rights of radio waves for TV and radio, and required compensation for the use of use). Note, I'm part NZ-Maori. I'm just pointing out something interesting I heard about the maneuverings of interested parties for a NZ Constitution and why one sector of society supported it and then dropped support. Perhaps what I heard was wrong - but it seems plausible to me.

I also heard that the multi-culturalists seem to think that Sharia is 'harmless' and should be recognized in a New Zealand Constitution. This is such a bad idea I'm surprised it had not been slapped down violently straight away - but the 'left' (Labour and Greens, in NZ political terms) is full of people who are staggeringly fact-free, and only think in the most 'woolly' of terms (let's hold hands and sing kumbaya with jihadis, eh?). Sharia has been trying to make inroads into NZ:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4366743/Sharia-decision-lets-baby-boy-into-NZ
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/6406555/Collins-dismisses-call-to-establish-Islamic-tourism
Sorry to wander slightly off-topic in my response to post about the NZ Constitution. I'm just trying to point out to fellow kiwis that 'Godzone' is as much under threat by the Cultural Jihad of stealth Sharia as anywhere else (US, Britain etc) except that we have even weaker Free Speech protections than elsewhere.

New Zealand Governments are generally benign. Putting in spying on citizens with very few legal protections and hoping that the Government will always be benign is stupid. Hopefully someone will have a bright idea on how to stop this (anyone?).

And there's another fucking wanker called John Key doing exactly the same thing in New Zealand right now, and getting away with it under the same banner of "Mum & Dad investors". Makes me fucking sick, repeating the same mistakes because we're too distracted to pay attention to even recent history.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4582922/John-Key-reveals-plan-for-asset-sales
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1111/S00245/john-keys-asset-sales-an-epic-fail-for-nz.htm
If we're REALLY lucky, that might get shut down by a citizen-initiated referendu,, but I'm not holding my breath.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8287236/Xtra-email-accounts-compromised

The company initially blamed a deluge of compromised accounts on a successful phishing attack, saying customers were tricked into clicking on scam emails, but has now acknowledged a "second attack" that was outside customers' control.

"We understand from our own technical investigations that the security of some YahooXtra email customer accounts may have been compromised, making it possible for emails to be sent from these accounts without the customers' knowledge," the company said in a statement.

Smallest in 10 years, you say?

Here's a story blaming the ozone hole for TOO MUCH ice

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/8267243/Too-much-ice-for-Antarctic-penguins

And with 'flavors' like "pristine Tibet" and "post-industrial Taiwan", perhaps slightly subversive humor as well.

They do in New Zealand as long as you don't pay them, and have no assets then yes.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3648818/More-fines-converted-into-community-work

The largest number of fines remitted by an individual in the past five years was 400 – totalling $40,000, remitted for 350 hours' community work in 2007.

that is $114 an hour after tax ($170 per hour before tax at 33%), not many people get paid that much.

And the German Army...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/8212207/German-soldiers-are-growing-breasts

I'm pretty sure everyone loves to hate the RIAA/MPAA so Kim Dotcom had little trouble rounding up support when they moved to shut down MegaUpload.

Unfortunately, he's now picking a fight with bigger opponent and possible a mass of small website owners who rely on their Adsense revenues to help pay the bills.

Kicking the RIAA/MPAA for their sins is one thing, taking money out of the mouths of independent content creators (by hijacking their ad-revenues to fund his Mega-services) is something altogether different.

I admire KD for what he's doing with the MegaKey service but I really wonder if he's got an oar out of the water in picking a fight with Google and the many websites who rely on that company's ad-revenue sharing.

BTW: I'm one of those sites and I'll be mighty pissed if Kim starts replacing the ads on *my* webpages that should be generating money to pay for *my* efforts -- because I have *nothing* to do with MegaKey so why should *I* be paying for it?

The base model of the Xi3 features a 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of flash storage, and retails for US$850 (NZ$1016).

Your 5 year old laptop has more processing power and RAM than this thing.

[source]

. Consumers are fickle. iOS is growing old, and people are becoming bored with it. Android might be popular (hey, the devices are cheap), but a lot of people with those devices aren't really enthralled with them.

My PCs run Windows and my phones run Android? Does that mean I'm 'enthralled' by the OSs? Not at all, the reason I use them is because there are a lot of software and hardware vendors that are committed to the platform. That means I've got a good choice of devices when I buy new one and good choice of applications to run on it. I.e. it doesn't really matter if the OS is a bit ugly or slow, because you can always buy a faster device and you spend time looking at applications, not the OS.

Before Android the most common OS was Symbian. Like Android it was widely supported by phone manufacturers. That tells me that if you want to take over from Android you need a similarly open platform. Windows Phone and iOS are not that platform. In fact Windows Phone has most of the downsides of iOS - a locked down environment - without the upsides - Apple customers slavish loyalty to Apple.

Killing off support for Windows Mobile applications meant that all their natural customers bought an Android or iOS device. Almost all of the independent software vendors that used to develop for Windows Mobile moved to Android and iOS too. So that means that they are dependent on the sort of people who are 'enthralled' by OS's. I.e. people that are sufficiently distracted by 'buttery smooth UIs' to not notice that they can't run the applications that run on Android and iOS. Idiot tech bloggers basically. It's actually funny how common the phrase 'buttery smooth' UI was in reviews of Windows Phone 7. Almost like Microsoft's PR people had said "if you use the phrase 'buttery smooth UI' in your review, we'll give you a free phone" or something.

Unfortunately these people are not a replacement for the people that used to buy Windows Mobile phones because they were dependent on a couple of apps, and those people have all moved to Android. No matter how butter smooth the UI is on Windows Phone, these people are not going to give up their apps to move back.

Also all the people who bought a Windows Phone 7 device got screwed when Windows Phone 8 came out because Windows Phone 8 applications will not run on WP7 and WP7 devices will not get an upgrade. Hardly the sort of thing you want to do if you're trying to promote Windows Phone as a premium platform with Apple like customer loyalty.

I.e. I'm not saying it is impossible that some platform will dethrone Android as the mainstream platform in the same way that Android dethroned Symbian. What I am saying is that that platform is not Windows Phone or iOS. My guess is that iOS will end up taking up the high margin/high end part of the phone market, rather like Macs do with the PC market. Android will take the rest. Windows Phone will struggle along with a couple of percent and the Windows Phone OEMs will bitch and need to be paid off regularly by Microsoft to stay on board. Or maybe Microsoft will make it's own phone and ditch Nokia, Samsung and HTC.

Something they've already discussed

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/7907888/Microsoft-plans-to-make-own-smartphone-sources

Chief executive officer Steve Ballmer introduced the latest version of Windows Phone software, available on devices including Nokia's Lumia 920 and the HTC 8X, to help his company win back share lost to competitors such as Apple. Microsoft has already demonstrated a willingness to build hardware, even if it means competing with long-time partners, through the creation of Surface, a tablet that runs Windows software.

"We are big believers in our hardware partners and together we're focused on bringing Windows Phone 8 to market with them," Redmond, Was

These intolerant Muslim people need to grow thicker skin. If they let everyone who thinks their religion is nutty nonsense get them riled up they are going to have a long unhappy time of it. They would be making better use of their time to protest the Taliban blasphemers who actively use Islam to justify shooting children in the head. http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/7824802/Taliban-claims-attack-on-schoolgirl-justified The blasphemous actions of the Taliban are a gross insult to Islam and make a joke of the Prophet Mohammad.

Apparently a recent study of this in NZ claims that since compulsory helmets were introduced cycling use has halved and cycling accidents increased by 20%.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6395656/Helmet-law-halves-cyclist-numbers

Banks is also a fundie old testament christian:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7596566/Banks-Old-Testament-beliefs-create-conflict-in-role

That would reduce the need to use your nuclear generator

It's a nice idea, but an RTG can't be shut down, as it works from radioactive decay heat.

I see a larger problem being the lack of the plutonium-238 required to make them. Some of the last of it went up with the Curiosity rover, and they had to scrounge that from the Russians.

Not scrounge, buy. It also wasn't the last of it. NASA has enough to last until 2022.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238

Anyway the reason congress keeps denying funding to try making more P-238 is they just want NASA to find a way of using P-239 instead. That will also solve the problem of there being tons of the stuff in storage we have no need for.

The only reason they use P-238 at present is because of it's shorter half-life and the fact that it only gives off alpha particles which are relatively easy to stop. I reckon it must be fairly easy to get power out of P-239, the only problem is that if it goes wrong it will go wrong in the most spectacular manner possible :)

That would reduce the need to use your nuclear generator

It's a nice idea, but an RTG can't be shut down, as it works from radioactive decay heat.

I see a larger problem being the lack of the plutonium-238 required to make them. Some of the last of it went up with the Curiosity rover, and they had to scrounge that from the Russians.

According to http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/7338332/File-sharing-has-dropped-researcher-says/ today, Waikato university academic has actually measured difference in traffic levels pre- and post- implementation of the 'SkyNet' law.

Corrupt politicians and senior police officers really need to be seen to be charged and swung in a noose.

Certainly not promoted.

While an offense can seem minor, I really feel its tip of iceberg. This case should see a career limited or terminated. Lying on a witness stand or planting evidence should be death.

Politicians not being honest with money matters...should face death.

Corrupt politicians and senior police officers really need to be seen to be charged and swung in a noose.

Certainly not promoted.

While an offense can seem minor, I really feel its tip of iceberg. This case should see a career limited or terminated. Lying on a witness stand or planting evidence should be death.

Politicians not being honest with money matters...should face death.

heya,

Well, in a bit of luck for the "little guy", it seems there may be good news for the champagne cork opener guy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6667488/Kiwi-inventor-wins-champagne-patent-battle
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10795728

If what's written in those articles is true, it sounds like the American companies were real dicks - asking for a sample to "evaluate", offering him a paltry $2500 for unlimited use, then when they got turned down going to find his Chinese manufacturer, and attempting to steal his product.

Cheers,
Victor

The Commerce Comission (equivalent of the ACCC in Oz, or the US FTC) in New Zealand is also considering the same action against Apple (and there are exactly zero 4G networks here)
Commerce Commission investigating Apple iPad 4G adverts after Complaint

They weren't sued out of existence, just asked to pay the license fee and stop using trademarked items.

That's what they are saying now, after Stephen Fry got involved. Beforehand I refer you to this article where, I quote:

Lawyers representing the Saul Zaentz Company (SZC) in California have told the pub it must carry out a complete rebranding before the end of May, or face legal action due to copyright infringement.

Since the story is that the actors' intervention has saved the pub I expect that the $100 licensing fee is something new. After all receiving a request for a $100 to license your use of the names would hardly be controversial and newsworthy would it?

you missed the one about the old geezer marrying an 8 year old and the recent story about the girl who was forced to marry her rapist

while you are at it how about some good news

you missed the one about the old geezer marrying an 8 year old and the recent story about the girl who was forced to marry her rapist

while you are at it how about some good news

While he got 30K US$ released for the next 3 weeks, he has asked for 180K US$ for "expenses" ;-). Not a shy guy...

"This sum included $24,000 for security, $29,000 for staff wages and $28,678 for general costs. Among the general costs was a monthly power bill of $8500 and $6000 per month in phonecalls." http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6501320/Dotcoms-expenses-through-the-roof

It was a surprise to that foreign millionaires resident in New Zealand were arrest for crimes in the US (when as far as I can determine, they didn't visit the US). I have to quote part of the police comments:

"Wormald says today's operation was a successful one despite a less than straightforward entry to the Dotcom Mansion. Police arrived in two marked Police helicopters. Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms.

While Police neutralised these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into. Once they gained entry into this room they found Mr Dotcom near a firearm which had the appearance of a shortened shotgun"[1].

This cop is a pretty laid-back type of guy (in a nation where even understatement is an understatement) to the point where he described the house entry with a straight face.

[1] Stuff, Friday 20th January 2012, http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/6288082/NZ-residents-on-piracy-charges-denied-bail

Can we get one of these to New Zealand.... stat! Check the news here

That is exactly the type of corporate centralism which has been flourishing in the U.S. for the past decade (though you can see it's roots going much deeper). The frightening thing is that the groups responsible for establishing the 'legality' of these martinet policies have also been attempting to push them into other countries, replacing their decidedly more liberal laws with their own. If this seems familiar, it's because these are the same cold war era tactics that have been going on for the past century. The same ones that were supposed to have stopped back in 1991. What's frightening about this type of action isn't so much that it is still happening, since it never really stopped, but who is perpetuating it. Namely, the companies that profit by holding the keys to an intellectual monopoly or the tools to extort money from others by claiming 'rights' of ownership over the other's products.

No longer does this insanity take place in the rarified atmosphere of internation politics. Now, with the RIAA and then MPAA[1] [2] lawsuits and the recent incident of a patent troll going after small businesses, this sort of thing is quite literally at your doorstep.

On a political level, both local and national, this plays out as aggravation of class struggle with McCarthyism and the "you're either with us or against us" mindset. On the streets, we've got good old fashioned union busting (carried out by our police forces no less). The political pundits in America are right about one thing, like the Communists and National-Socialists before, there are fascists/communists/terrorists in your midst but they aren't who you think they are.



/Godwinned in 3

It's the _total_ international internet traffic which is down 10%.

No, Orcon reported a 10% drop in P2P traffic not total traffic. And other large ISPs reported either no drop in traffic or a slight drop in traffic.

The only reporting I've heard that said 10% of total traffic was on Ars Technica and they misquoted the article they linked to.

I'll take the opportunity to re-state this: Global Warming is an accurate but misleading appellation. Warming a fluid system, such as a planet's atmosphere or water in a pot, results in more, and more vigourous motion. Weather will become more violent. Some places will get colder or wetter. Larger weather systems will mean, at times, more icy air will be swept from the poles into the temperate zones and similarly sweep warmer air to the poles. It will be disastrous and expensive. People who rarely see frost will get heavy snow, like us, today. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5443420/Major-weather-disruption-around-NZ

Erm... forget I said that. Go here. I'm really glad I was wrong.

It seems the media down under are more interested in the sideshow rather than the the riots themselves....

http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/5156730/Vancouver-hockey-riots-kiss-mystery

Environmentalists have a bad name because the industries that are doing all the damage find character assassination easier than actually cleaning up their mess.

Rigggght.... It's all a big conspiracy against environmentalists perpetrated by the big bad corporations. Environmentalists have never done anything to damage their own character

Survey says... Illegal downloads rife. Don't let this stop you from making a lame excuse for dismissing the survey results because they're inconvenient to your belief system.

Heres a local school being covered in The Southland Times, Invercargill's main newspaper:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/4070984/School-trialling-portable-devices-to-augment-students-learning

When trials were over, the iPad had absolutely destroyed any "competitors", the students loved them, they are "cool", they are CHEAP, they have MUCH better battery life, far better educational software custom designed for each device, often free, or 1.29 NZD.... , great quality screens, thin... did I mention they are also CHEAP?

I'll put it simply : where once schools might have given out "netbooks" - remember those? that little fad of shit quality machines for a few hundred dollars? -, now entire schools are given iPads, even in small, rural cities like mine, Invercargill, New Zealand.

Heres a local news story about the comparisons.... and the iPad won out by a huge margin. It was cheaper, better, "cooler" (by FAR), had more functionality via Apps... students would actually WANT to use it, to show their parents what they were working on, to use the device with their friends.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/4070984/School-trialling-portable-devices-to-augment-students-learning

Thats a few hundred sales right there, and thats excluding the consumer and business markets. "Digital" is the way of the future, and thanks to the iPad, the present, even in my area, at the bottom of the world.

We got 'em here in New Zealand right now.

There are other factors that affect how devastating an earthquake is. The Christchurch earthquake was 6.3, but had ground acceleration up to four times that of Japans 9.2 quake. That quake did significantly more damage than the earlier 7.1 Christchurch quake. NZ also had a 7.8 quake in 2009 and there was hardly any damage, and no deaths or injuries.

In Christchurch, on Tuesday, we had this:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4698487/Christchurch-quake-at-a-glance

A few seconds warning would I'm sure have made a difference to at lease some of those people.

the people involved must exist in a state filled with 800 pound gorillas

As a citizen of the state involved (New Zealand), I can testify that this is entirely true, except that they're more like 60 tons.

And you don't even want to know what kind of political muscle the other native wildlife species have.

Electronic Arts New Zealand is to close and the business will be run out of Australia henceforth, Gameplanet has reported.

EA cannot be reached for comment.

Electronic Arts is the world's second largest videogame publisher, next to Activision. In addition to its EA Sports franchises (NHL, NFL and FIFA, for example), it publishes many blockbuster development studios including BioWare (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Star Wars: The Old Republic), Visceral (Dead Space 2), DICE (Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Medal of Honor) and Respawn (the new studio of from Infinity Ward's former executives).

The only possibility I can think of that's even remotely like that is wholesale destruction of grain elevators.

How about wholesale destruction of railroad tracks? A strong earthquake will do amusing things to the rails.

It all happened in an instant.

When 19-year-old university student Feross Aboukhadijeh heard about Google Instant last week, he decided to build a video version of it - YouTube Instant.

Technology giant Google spent years building its new search Google Instant - which predicts what users are looking for as they type.

But in three hours, Aboukhadijeh had finished his YouTube version and posted the link on Twitter.

He soon received a reply from the head of YouTube, offering him a job.

http://ytinstant.com/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/4123430/YouTube-Instant-lands-YouTube-job

"Mr Williams placed one of the devices on Trade Me with a price of $250. The ad read: "Used government covert surveillance tracking. No police to bid on this ..."

A Trade Me spokesman said the listing was removed yesterday "at the request of the New Zealand Police". "

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/48059