I hate it when the Government gets it so, so wrong...

"When disagreements or fights develop, the presence and the use of the knife turns the encounter into something lethal that has absolutely devastating consequences for the victim, the victim's family and our society," Justice Asher said.

"Somehow the message has to be imparted to young people that it is unacceptable for knives to be carried in public places."

This statement is crap as read. I've underlined the relevant bit; the USE of a knife is the problem when it comes to violent conflict. Posession itself is not an issue, and yet the second sentence is problematic.

The problem is not the posession, it's the intent and the use.
Some knives are designed as weapons first.
Some are designed as tools.

What about moving a knife between two private places, transiting public places? Do you get nailed then?

What about a swiss army knife or similar, on a person who regularly has cause to use such a thing - or who simply want's to be prepared?

"We need to make sure our laws are sending a message to young people that it's totally unacceptable to have knives in public places and that there will be consequences if this happens."

Sigh.

The article goes on to quote:

The Summary Offences Act (s13A) provides for a penalty of up to three months in prison or a fine of up to $2000 for possession of a knife in a public place without reasonable excuse.

The Crimes Act (s202A) also makes it an offence to carry a knife in a public place without reasonable excuse, an offence which carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.

The emphasis is mine. What construes 'reasonable'?

Yes indeed. Started with a bang at about 0430 with Benjamin demanding a feed, which was duly administered. Unfortunately as has been par for the course lately, doing so (and the burping, etc), ran to over an hour and even more unfortunately, I began to suspect his ability to deal with the nasal drip he's been coping with as a byproduct of his allergy. This caused me concern enough to wake up Liz at about 0600 and for us to together, agree shortly thereafter that a visit to the Afterhours (Accident and Emergency at Hutt Hospital) was on the cards.

For those unaware, our son Ben (born in December) has been exhibiting the same symptoms as our daughter did 4 years ago, with regards to an allergy to Dairy. Rash, irritability, and other symptoms abound, and in essence its been getting harder and harder to feed him and settle him afterward. Over the last few days, sleep was getting harder to come by (we estimate his hours of sleep in the time to Midday Saturday was in the order of 2 hours for the previous 36.)

We've been working the system as we're meant to, to get Ben's situation addressed. A visit to a (private) paediatrician recently didn't help much, as it appears he doesn't subscribe to the kinds of problems our Son is facing. With serious concerns for his wellbeing, the only way to accellerate our getting help through the public system was to visit A&E. So we did this; we were there by shortly before 0730 this morning.

Fortunately, given that it was early on a Sunday, the ER was quiet. We were seen relatively quickly and after briefing the registrar, then a junior Paed doc, we waited for the Paediatrician. Ben moved between quiet, and loudlyuncomfortable, while we waited. And waited. I must recognise, though, that the staff at the ER were excellent, friendly and helpful - they checked on us regularly and made sure we were well looked after. Biggie ups to them! The chief delays are around waiting for doctors/specialists.

I lived there. Sadly, this is pretty typical..

"Banked for Treaty Settlement". AKA, dead idle, and open to vandalism. Sad, sad stuff...

So lately i've managed to attend a couple of geek-conferences (Kiwicon late last year, LCA2010 this year) and the appeal of smartphones is starting to wear me down.

I've steered away from the smartphone world, mainly because I was able to get away with a very basic handset and still have access to it while at work.

The rules have changed, I'm basically not allowed my mobile on me at all times now @ work, so that side of things is now moot; i'm left considering my situation when i'm not at work.

Thus i'm currently rocking the Motorola K3:

Which being a Motorola Flip, is fairly reliable. It has 3G, which means i can actually surf the web from it (no javascript support!) and send/receive email (if you can be bothered with using a number pad data entry style). Unfortunately it's not much good for either in any great volume.

It does have a 2MP Camera; it does Bluetooth. And those are the main things I do with it, aside from SMS and Telephony. I also have one of these...

... being the Palm Z22, as my 'current generation' Palm Pilot (i've had PalmOS devices since my Handspring Visor...) - the Z22 basically is a diary and phonebook for the stuff I can't do on my phone. I'm also not meant to have the Z22 at work, either...

(I have a work-issued Blackberry from which I use the calendar (because it tracks my professional appointments as well as the relatively small number of personal ones I use) and because it's permitted to carry it on me in more places - but I rarely use the work phone for personal reasons (I have to refund the cost of doing so) and my personal cell number has been with me a lot longer than my current job.)

So what I'd really like, then...

.. Is a Bigger Screen,
A more flexible web browsing experience via 3G or Wifi,
A QWERTY Keyboard,

Just received an obvious Spam; it was directed to an email address used solely for domain name management (i.e. it was plucked out of a domain 'whois' output).

That was the first sign of trouble. Plenty more...

Next we have a firm offering a special on aerial photography of NZ. I should be grateful they got my country right, I suppose?
Then you keep reading.

Embedded links point to a .co.nz (aerialimpressions.co.nz) - it appears to have valid, if limited, registration details (registrant = Aerial Impressions, address in Australia (City, no state given, though it appears it's in Victoria).

A look on the Australian ABN Lookup tool for 'Aerial Impressions' reveals that it is a Trading Name for a company actually known as DGB Technologies Pty Ltd.

I apologise profusely to DBG - the legitimate, South Australia Registered firm who appear to be unrelated to DGB.

Just for entertainment, feel free to compare their entries in the ABR:

DGB Technologies (Trading as Aerial Impressions)

and

Funny how the media (even the social media) can play things up for their own benefit.

Yesterday I saw a tweet by none other than WhaleOil - yes, that notorious blogger - supporting a video published by 'joegreenz' that's now in the view of the New Zealand Herald.

Infact there's several rebuttal points:

- the 'Drifting' referenced doesn't seem to exist. There is no drifting I see in that clip - perhaps folks should actually investigate what drifting is, before throwing the term around.

- Yes there was some driving fairly close to a bouncy castle and other such things. The speeds being travelled when in close to the bouncy castle are not that unreasonable.

- A large open field was being used, with the two cars keeping well away from eachother. The vehicles were under the full, positive control of trained drivers (Police actually undergo professional driver training; how many regular folks do?) - and the speeds weren't that horrific.

- I'd like to draw comparison with the concept of a 'Grasskhana':

The above images (sourced from http://toyspeed.blakjak.net/grasskhana) go to show that i've done the Grass thing before, at least. I wonder if any of those posting negatively about the 'offending' video clip have done so?

My first response to the video and a coupla tweets was to post on the Youtube clip that I thought the reaction was OTT, for the above reasons.

This morning not only has it hit the Herald, but the Youtube comments left by both myself and several others have been deleted, and the feature disabled.

Why, just because the majority of posts (as at ~1am this morning) were supportive of the cops, and in agreement with my view?

Sorry but this doesn't wash. You can't hide from opposing view, especially a majority, in order to make your sensationalism 'play' more to the public. This is yet another 'nothing' being blown out of proportion by a vocal minority, for publicity and hype. Even the NZHerald Tweet "Video: Film footage of two police cars skidding on a schoolground within metres of a children's bouncy castle" is OTT - was there actually skidding of any significance in proximity to the bouncy castles? Or when we talk 'metres' do we meantens or hundreds of?

Yeah, I didn't find these, but they were damn funny so why not (continues after the jump):

NASA's One Man Stealth Plane

This is cooooool stuff. Just imagine the possibilities...

Who woulda thunk it?

My eyes are rolling!!

Nevermind that I still see folks flouting this law; I will be seriously interested to see if NZ has seen a reduction in cellphone related accidents.
Actually, i'm also interested to see if said accidents are accurately reported; expect that with the new law, folks wont be admitting it!!