Stuff are on the ball with the news that most of us were probably expecting anyway.

In short:

* Driving Age Minimum 15 -> 16; (in the end, a move of questionable value)

* "Requiring novice drivers to have 120 hours' supervised practice before driving alone" (I for one want to know how 'novice' is defined and how on earth this'll be managed/scaled/audited);

* Introducing a zero drink-drive limit for drivers under 20; (how it should be)

* Better education; (HELL YES!)

* An investigation into vehicle power restrictions. (requires very careful implementation.)

"A second package to address alcohol and drug impaired drivers would go to Cabinet next month. It included compulsory alcohol interlock devices and a zero limit for repeat drink driving offenders." Sounds good to me.

Important point to flag: "He said Cabinet would consider changes to the give way rule later in the year and public input would be sought. "

So the right turn rule for which NZ is notorious, is to be changed - but not immediately and there will be consultation which is of course, horrendously important.

So whilst I can imagine there'll be uproar in some circles, i'm in wait-and-see mode. Most of the above changes actually seem quite logical. I'm not entirely convinced that the change to the driving age will be a big benefit (the problems with driver inexperience are just that, inexperience... age is a limited factor and infact starting younger probably improves your experience levels?!) but the drinking law change is a given (existing limits so low as to not be worth risking anyway) and of course, improved education for those working through the drivers licensing schema is an excellent move. Kiwi drivers are notoriously poorly educated on a world scale.

Let the knee-jerking begin??

As heads roll, there's outrage amongst Telecom XT Customers - but there's similar frustration from a strong minority of folks who don't see why folks are letting themselves become so vulnerable in the first place.

We have the slant being taken, that the XT outage is serious enough to cause risk to life and property due to the inability to call 111. The example given is a kid who was bashed at a Mall in Christchurch and how folks couldn't call for help...

- What, no other cellphone networks were available amongst the folks in the neighbourhood? At the moment we have XT and CDMA (both Telecom, but seperate), plus Vodafone, and 2 Degrees. Seriously, noone around had a non-XT handset?
- What, no landlines handy? You were in the urban area of one of NZ's main cities and you couldnt find a payphone or a building with a landline?

Another point; Noone's noting the fact that Cellphones were never sold as 100% reliable in the first place. There will be coverage failures from 'time to time'. (Admitted, XT's woes are pretty unreasonable if you're throwing money at them and theyre broken more than is 'reasonable').

For those complaining they're losing business; why don't you have a plan-B? Landlines? Cellphones on other networks? A backup plan could simply be an old handset on another network with a prepay connection. I still have my 027 CDMA Prepay for this reason, despite having been a Vodafone customer for ~11 years.

And with number portability, there really is little excuse for the final point; vote with your feet applies!! If the network you're a customer of is not cutting the mustard, change to a better one. Ultimately that is the way to demonstrate your satisfaction (or not) - it's the way that businesses listen (with their wallets).

Fundamentally, i agree with everything said here.

People pirate media because it is a) convenient, b) cheap and c) rapid. Having media directed to your home PC, delivered for $0 in the space of hours - and as soon as it's available - I understand the desire.

The content deliverers (movie theatres, followed by retail stores and rental outfits) need to move with the times. DVDs are relatively fragile compared to digital media, but at least they're readily accessible to most folks. What keeps people renting is that they are accessible, and relatively inexpensive.

As bandwidth costs drop, the inexpensive part is less relevant. Anything, at all, which makes renting less convenient is going to have piracy as a byproduct. This is a given. Industry should be looking at ways of providing content to end-users for reasonable cost, without all the stupid restrictions. Otherwise folks will continue to bypass said restrictions, and not share their money with the content-makers.

I happily buy DVDs for movies and TV series that i'm particularly keen on, and visit movie theatres and rent movies for newer content (as opposed to getting the MPAA all riled up) but I can fully appreciate the frustration of some.

At least DRM seems to be slowly dying, which is a boon for those who run open platforms that can't use proprietary DRM decoders. That's another major fall-down point...

Athiest Bus Campaign canned by NZ Bus Company.

"NZ Bus stated that they have received a number of complaints from the public about the proposed ads..."

Oh come-on... athiests vs non-athiests?! Why should one win out over the other? Freedom to choose guys... !!

In principle I have serious concerns about the trend this sets; I hope NZ Bus intend to reject all religious advertising going forward - in the interests of fairness!

(It is of course their perogative to reject advertisers. I just hope it's even-handed.)

By now Youtube regulars will have heard about "My Speed" functionality - Youtube now plot video performance data based on a fingerprint of IP and browser headers.

Mine just go to show how poorly TelstraClear are performing when it comes to Youtube:

They also publish a 'test video' which has plotted onto it, realtime performance. Mine wasn't great. (This test, btw, is from my Ubuntu 9.04 box, a P4 2.4Ghz machine with 512Mb ram i.e. not a speed demon (we know how flash under Linux is problematic)...

I'll do some tests under Windows next time the opportunity arises. Meanwhile I'll keep monitoring Geekzone's 15 Page Thread with TCL users discussing how Youtube is for them, a major issue - and that TCL are 'working on it'...

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'?

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

[EDIT: IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW]

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.

IMPORTANT UPDATE ON THIS BLOG ENTRY!
When I used Google to search for "DGB TECHNOLOGIES PTY LTD" (copy/pasted from the ABR Site), they 'automagically' provided me with DBG Technologies - note the B and G are transposed! - as the first hit, along with several more. I didn't notice this until I was contacted by a helpful reader - and by one of the directors of DBG, seeking to clarify!!

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.

I watched the video and formed my own opinion; in no way is what transpired, as bad as is being made out. In fact I can't help but think that the 'anti-police' sentiments are tainting folks viewpoint, a little.

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?

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!!