Posts by Kyle Matthews

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  • Hard News: Because that's how I roll,

    In the course of a longish support call with a pleasant Indian woman at Ihug (yes, I'm the kind of prominent CEO who makes his own tech support calls -- because that's just how I roll) we determined that the DSL connection was faulty, and that the Wired Country was working perfectly, apart from it just not working.

    As an IT support type person, people often ask me what ISP I use, and if they should use it. My response is always, "I use IHUG, and they're good, unless you ever want to talk to them or get useful help." I've been with them for 11 years now, quite happily, but I wouldn't recommend them for doing anything complex, or if you didn't know what you were doing. The couple of times I have had to ring them for technical support, I've felt like they learnt more out of the session than me.

    I was once trying to get a laptop with linux on it online, and it only had one serial port. That's fine, I unplugged the mouse, since it was served no great purpose in the version of linux I was using, and plugged an ancient 2400 baud modem into the machine. I phoned up to get the dialin number or something, and the person flat out told me that there was no point logging into the internet if I didn't have a mouse, as there wasn't anything I could do online without it. Argh.

    Before they put their accounts all online, I once phoned them up to tell them about my change of address. I was talking to the accounts person, and she told me to hang up, fill in a change of address card, and send it to them. Apparently her doing it over the phone was... I dunno. Tricky or something.

    So I don't give them an entirely bad unsolicited review, I find their downloads, accessible modem lines (when I used modem), and uptime really good. And they were often a price leader and they were big on flat rate when it was a new idea here in NZ.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    Have a look at this example of extreme civil engineering.

    Wow, that's messed up. Make a good site for tourism though. "Hey yes, some surf and fish and swim in our harbour. Created by five thermonuclear bombs!" Right up there with "Chernobyl: The quietest tourism destination on earth."

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Speaker: Legislating in the Twilight Zone,

    The AA have more than a million members in NZ, this bill classifies any amount they spend more than 12 cents as undue influence. Regulating a million New Zealanders to 12 cents expenditure is "heavy regualtion". How do you justify calling otherwise?

    Actually, I presume it regulates the AA spending to $120,000, same as my local Lawn Bowls club. It might work out at 12 cents a member, but the regulation pays no attention to membership size as one organisation is still one organisation no matter how many members it has.

    If an individual is a member of an organisation, that organisation can do their electioneering, and the individual could do their own electioneering, independently. Correct?

    If that's true, the only thing I'd be worried about would be 15 different versions of the 'fat cats club' with the same members all running similar campaigns.

    This bill is a heavily regulates free association and free speech.

    God that gets tiring. It regulates election spending, debate that. People can still associate with who they want, and they can still say what they want.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Cracker: Mo' Wellington,

    he'd rather spend time in afghanistan than wellington...

    According to George Bush, Afghanistan is s a tourist mecca these days. Peace love and democracy and whatnot.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • PA Radio: Bomber speaks,

    Cheers Russell.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    I'm not sure, but would this prevent TVNZ from broadcasting any of the parties' election advertisements? TV3 might not mind that, but I'm sure it wasn't intended.

    That would be a wee hiccup if you're correct ;)

    Increase TVNZ viewership next year though, everyone would switch over just to avoid the terrible adverts.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Meet the New Bob,

    And I can't disagree just his rantings may have an impact on innocent lives rather than meaningless BS he's known for.

    Yup. It's Bomber that's doing that, rather than, people who had what sounds like a reasonably open meeting at which details of what people had done were discussed. Not sure what legal advice that was based on.

    Or indeed, the actual things that people did/talked about which the police have recorded, that's not going to impact on their lives either.

    It's Bomber saying "this is bad shit, people are going to be pissed when they find this out." That's the incriminating evidence.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Meet the New Bob,

    He's sticking to a line that is defaming & damaging to people convicted of no crime who have a history of peaceful activisim. For that he's bringing it on himself.

    Defamation is a false accusation against someone. I haven't followed what he's been saying closely, but as far as I know, he hasn't gone and spilled a bunch of details of what people did, he's only said 'it' wasn't on and that middle NZ was going to be shocked. I'm not aware that he's said much at all about the details, nor am I aware that anything he has said is false. Most of what he's said seems to be opinion rather than fact.

    And damaging is all relative. What's been worse for the accused? 1. Bomber saying that some really bad shit went down, and it is disgusting and people are going to be pissed when they hear about it. 2. People hearing bits of it via the Dom Post. 3. Whatever was actually done that the police think they have evidence of.

    I'm thinking 2 at present, but 3 will be interesting to see.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Meet the New Bob,

    As far as I can tell, the prime purpose of the bill is to make me have to consult with three lawyers before telling anyone that they should vote for XXX and not YYY.

    Summary: Oh goody.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Speaker: Singing g against the E chord,

    So it's time to pull open the CD case, feeling the plastic ping open, and pop out the CD with its white, pixely/snowflakey design and put it in a stereo (not Walkman, computer or iPod, thanks)

    If you're putting CDs in your iPod, that's either bad for the CD, or for the iPod (or possibly both).

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

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