Chris

Goodbye, Nanny State! Hello, Big Brother…

The governments proposed amendments to the Criminal Investigations Act are, quite simply, chilling.

The police already have powers to store your DNA but under very strict circumstances – under Judicial allowance or after being convicted of serious offences (rape, murder and some other). The Government wishes to change that so the police will have the authority to extract and store your DNA for simply being suspected of a crime.

This idea is at ends with the New Zealand Bill Of Rights Act (BORA). The governments Attorney General, Chris Finlayson, has reported back to the government this fact and it’s looking like it’s going to be ignored, and National will ram through more legislation under urgency totally bypassing the select committee submission process once again.

This is ridiculously scary stuff. Especially since similar movements to allow police fishing expedition in the UK are now under investigation for breaching the European Bill of Rights.

11 Things Worth Knowing About The Financial Crisis

Joe, from 2parse shares the 11 Things He Learned While Trying to Figure Out the Financial Crisis.

A very, very interesting read and I highly suggest that you take a look at it. My favourite ones include:

2. The Martingale. Wall Street fell for a 400 year old sucker bet, the martingale. You always win in this betting game – as long as you can cover your losses. But once your losses are too great, this “double-or-nothing” game leads to catastrophe. The formula to understand this is simplified as:

(0.99) x ($100) + (0.01) x (catastrophic outcome) = 0

In other words, playing for $100, there is a 99% chance that you will make at least $100 dollars playing this game. But there is a 1% chance of a catastrophic outcome. If you never stop betting, the catastrophic outcome is inevitable.

A very succint, but not quite accurate way of looking at things. It’s much more delicately laid out in the Slate article he links to but a very interesting fact indeed.

7. The Shadow Banking System. Existing alongside the regulated banking system is what is called a shadow financial system – including money market accounts, hedge funds, investment banks, and countless other financial creatures. This system was invented in order to avoid government regulation of various sorts. This crisis has been mainly but certainly not exclusively in this shadow system – and those regulated banks have been the big winners in all of this (aside from Goldman Sachs.) Even the remaining independent investment banks – Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have chosen to be subject to greater regulation. Nouri Roubini speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations explained that the shadow banking system is on the verge of collapse because of their lack of transparency and because they took risks they would not have been able to if they were subject to regulation.

As usual, we have those trying to circumvent the rules for peoples happiness and safety screwing it all up for everyone.

And don’t miss his #11: Damn it feels good to be a banksta!

Gameplanet Store Evolves – Mighty Ape Launches!

Gameplanet Store, one of New Zealand’s last 100% NZ owned independent player in the gaming industry, has just launched the next generation of their store and undergone a complete rebranding.

The new store is called Mighty Ape and has expanded it’s already impressive product range, going from Games, DVD’s and Music to include Toys and a massive section of over 800,000 Books.

For those familiar with Gameplanet Store service, you’ll be happy to know it’s the same shareholders with the same team (with a few additions, myself included!). So have a look around, see if there’s anything you like or any products you would like to see and let us know

Happy Shopping!

Disclaimer: I am a long time Gameplanet Store customer and Web Developer for Mighty Ape.

Car Free Day – 22nd September, 2008

Next Monday is International Car Free Day. The title I hope is self explanatory…

Ride a bike, Ride a bus, Ride a skateboard or just walk it! In New Zealand it’s just a fun thing passed on by word of mouth. In China, they’re actually enforcing it by closing streets to vehicles, allowing only pedestrians and cyclists from 7am to 7pm.

It’s a shame in Auckland we’re divided by the large, vehicle only bridge but it seems that some people are finding ways to still have fun regardless.

Also, don’t forget this Friday… International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Yarrr!

To Do: Die (maybe)

photo credit: poluz

Reminder: Have Sex, Don’t do your home work, because the world ends tomorrow.

Remember CERN’s Large Hadron Collider that probably won’t form a black hole and envelop the Earth? Yeah. They’re turning it on in less than 24 hours…

So prepare for the end, prepare for physics class to get a whole lot easier under the Grand Unified Theory or prepare perhaps to see relatives from the far future. Nobody’s really sure…

Update: So I woke up today in normal space and time. Wondering what had gone wrong (or right) I see that the apocalypse has been postponed until October 21st. As you were.

Balloon vs. Camera

From BoingBoing:

William Lamson’s art-project is delightful: a helium balloon artfully positioned so as to blind a CCTV. This could be a lot of fun for real-world shenanigans or for a piece of fiction. Just got to hope for a windless day.”

CCTV vs Helium Baloon

Cool, but in the comments is a much cooler story…

In the UK we have long been playing with ways to disable CCTV. We have had people use climbing equipment to shin up poles and cover them with black plastic bin bags. We have experimented with running up a daisy chain of helium filled mylar balloons on a collar around the post and I even know of one instance when a couple went along to a car in full view of the cameras with one of those cans meant for holding small amounts of petrol, poured it all over a car in the street and stood back laughing and lighting smokes till they heard a siren and diligently started a random act of kindness and washed the car with the water they had poured over it. Street theater still has the best style.

THAT IS AWESOME!

Blind Faith

Do you ever get the feeling, while browsing some news sites, that you should be looking at The Onion?

From the Article:

At least 50 people have lost their sight after staring at the sun hoping to see an image of the Virgin Mary, according to reports.
…
Forty-eight cases of sight-loss, allegedly caused by photochemical burns on the retina, have been recorded at St Joseph’s ENT and Eye hospital in the region since Friday.

Despite warnings, and the potentially harmful effects of their actions, believers are allegedly still flocking to a hotelier’s house in Erumeli near where the divine image is said to have appeared.

Might just be one of those days…

Southern Amp 2008 Lineup

Morphyoss has the first lineup announcement for the Christurch music festival, Southern Amp:

• The Living End
• The Dandy Warhols
• The Potbelleez
• Gyroscope
• Tiki
• Testament
• The Jordan Luck Band
• Autozamm
• Goodwill
• Concord Dawn
• Little Bushman
• Dimmer
• Die! Die! Die!
• Fur Patrol
• Goodnight Nurse
• State of Mind
• The Valves
• Pitch Black
• The Exiles

NICE! It’s due to kick off November 9th. Looks like some party! If the second announcement is anything like this one, I might have to be there!

iPhone and Vodafone Data Plans…

and the rip-off that they entail.

As you might know, if you try and use an existing youChoose connection with iPhone, Vodafone will tell you to sign up to the iPhone-only data plans with a mandatory 24-month term. Not really surprising for a company who will start charging prepay customer $1 to call the customer care help center.

That is, even if you already have their Mobile Broadband (200Mb/1Gb) plans assigned to your account. With these “mobile broadband” plans it’s possible to pay slightly more per month, $10, to not be locked into a term.

That option isn’t available with the iPhone mobile data plans. And Vodafone will also tell you there’s no way to use your iPhone on the “mobile broadband” data plans.

They’re lying.

With that site it’s possible to configure your iPhone to use the generic mobile data APN (access point) and not the iPhone only plans. You can use the casual data rate or any other data plans you want. It’s also completely reversable and seemingly undetectable.

Vodafone do not want you to have a fully functional iPhone without signing a 24-month contract. Too bad!

Happy Hacking!

Narrow Collision

A woman was watching the late news when a breaking news bulletin comes on:

“There is a car currently driving the wrong way up a Wellington highway. People are urged to stay off that road until the situation is resolved”

The woman, knowing her elderly friend Harry Spencer is on the road tonight gives him a call on his cellphone in advance…

“Harry, look out, the news said there’s a madman driving on the wrong side of the motorway! Be careful!”

“One madman? There’s fuckin’ dozens of them!”