Strangely relaxing

Don't press the big green button

There was a big fuss a month or so ago about the new email service from Google called GMail. They provide 1GB of storage which is much more than yahoo, hotmail or most other email providers offer. The GMail interface is pretty nice too. Gmail is still in beta and the public can't sign up yet. You have to have an invitation from Google employees or associates to open a test account. For some reason I was invited and signed up without thinking much about it. Over the last couple of weeks however, I noticed loads of people in newsgroups and forums asking and begging for someone to give them their account. Some people are offering tech support, trips around Cape Town or Tokyo, a flower named after you, cakes, digital cameras ... and all just for a free email account. There's even a site set up for those desperate souls to visit in the hope they have something a GMail account holder may want ... so if you've got a gmail account, and you didn't sign up with a very personalised name (like I did, d'oh) - see if there's anything you'd like.

... since I last blogged anything and it's been a good few weeks. Laura picked up a dining table from trademe which makes the front room look much better. Her wisdom teeth are now all out (must be a craze at the minute) and she is recovering slowly and hopes to be back to work on Tuesday. She got lots of flowers so the house now looks and smells good ... cool.
We both went to see a stage play of "Once were Warriors" with Angela, Richard and Colin a week or so ago and it was very impressive. We had the best seats possible - front row, centre ... we weren't even spitting distance from the musicians, I could have coughed up a loogie and dribbled it in the conductor's ear if I'd really wanted. It was wicked being so close anyway. It's not often I head to the theatre but it's made me want to go more often and there are loads of little places around the town ... so I'll go again soon ...
Works been good although just after I joined, about 10 people decided to hand in their notice for various overseas adventures and unfortunately that included my SAP trainer, my mentor and my manager .... with loads of other people heading off to or returning from secondments all over the world, the office is a constantly changing environment. It's fun pressure.

It's a mini adventure ...

Why you should never put your picture on the Internet ... Photoshop !!

On April 30, 2002 the NASA Hubble Space Telescope released an image captured from Deep Space. According to this site it shows Jesus Christ, crowned by a sparkling ring of thorns as stars. It's all rubbish of course, everyone from Ireland knows that images of Jesus and his Mum show up in hills, mountains, photographs, bread rolls, crisps, cheese, meat products, stained teatowels, clouds, rocks and melted candles - not in space - that's crazy talk. Of course it's not only deities who are spotted in crisps.

Pac-Manhattan is a large-scale urban game that utilizes the New York City grid to recreate the 1980's video game sensation Pac-Man. This analog version of Pac-man is being developed in NYU's Interactive Telecommunications graduate program, in order to explore what happens when games are removed from their "little world" of tabletops, televisions and computers and placed in the larger "real world" of street corners, and cities.
A player dressed as Pac-man will run around the Washington square park area of Manhattan while attempting to collect all of the virtual "dots" that run the length of the streets. Four players dressed as the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde will attempt to catch Pac-man before all of the dots are collected.
Using cell-phone contact, Wi-Fi internet connections, and custom software designed by the Pac-Manhattan team, Pac-man and the ghosts will be tracked from a central location and their progress will be broadcast over the internet for viewers from around the world. Check out the photos and videos.

A very shy girl .....

Strange couple of days recently, Helen Clarke the PM has been having a barney with some Maoris recently. She's often been given a hard time over the last few years by the Pakeha for her insistence on Maori rights so it was a surprise to find that she's getting grief from the other side this time. She went into hiding as 20,000 Maori's decended on Wellington yesterday and marched to Parliament where they protested for most of the day. I work only a 100 metres from Parliament so I could hear the shouting, chanting and singing all day. It was an amazing sight. The whole argument is over who owns the foreshores and seabed of New Zealand. It's a confusing and difficult argument which I don't know nearly enough about to comment. It was fun watching everything going on though. It's been many years since the country has ever seen anything like what happened yesterday and it will probably be many years until it happens again. I was disappointed that Helen Clarke did not even come out to meet the protestors when it's plainly obvious how strong their feelings are.

“Since 1940 it has been private owners, exploitative commercial enterprise and government agencies rather than iwi and hapu, who have denied public access to the foreshore and seabed. Tangata Whenua have not excluded others, provided wahi tapu are respected and natural resources are not damaged or depleted.” – PMA
If Maori have customary rights over land below mean tide, how are they going to impede open access to coastal land and beaches?
Maori representatives have put together some awesome proposals, such as covenants of access and non-saleability. These have not been acknowledged by the media or considered by the crown.
The government did not consult Maori. They didn’t even consult their own Maori MPs.
“If a ruling came out about the exclusive property rights of Pakeha with riparian ownership rights, or even the claim to ongoing rights by Pakeha who have built baches on Crown land, would there be such a national uproar?” – David Williams

There is no agrement which is going to please everyone and there is no decision which will make up for injustices in the past. The two factors in almost every conflict around the world. Oh well, at least here nobody's shooting anybody else.
Laura and I are fine. She's got a glowing review from work, bought a new coat, watched and loved Kill Bill II and found out that the insurance company are going to pay for her wisdom teeth extraction later this month. She's got a month to recover as the snow season starts on 25th June at Mount Ruapehu and coincidentally that's also the day that my company are taking us away for the weekend. (It's also my birthday). We're going up to Taupo on the Friday evening and on the Saturday doing a driving activity (all the info we have) in the morning and then in the afternoon we had a choice of activities ....fishing, golfing, jet boating, cycling ....Laura and I decided on Gravity Hill, New Zealand's first and only purpose built Mountainboard Terrain Park. A snowboard ... with wheels ... on gravel ....... I can feel the bruises already. Looking forward to it. Hopefully we'll survive that and be able to spend the next couple of days on the snow .... at last.
I'm feeling a lot more comfortable at work at the minute. I'm starting to learn SAP security as well as the hacking stuff and being amazed at how tricky it really is. I'm finding it interesting though. I splashed out $90 (£35) on two computers, two monitors, keyboards etc .... good deal :o) and have set them up in the front room - one with Debian Linux and the other with Windows 2003 Server. Now, I've got my own test lab to practice hacking. Hooray!! Laura says that it looks like the deck of the Starship Enterprise ...... and I don't think she means it in a nice way either .... she's wrong anyway ..... it's obviously the Millenium Falcon.

This is perfection. Apparently it took the people at Wieden & Kennedy advertising agency 606 takes to get this 2 minute long, domino effect video clip of the Honda Accord's disassembled parts. The Daily Telegraph report on it explains just what it took to make it all work. It's really worth the download if you haven't seen it ......

.... the penguin is back .... best score for me so far ..... 3870.53 ...

After a long drawn out Law degree and then months of examinations during Profs .... Amanda has gone through a rigorous interview process with a Law firm from New Plymouth. Colin was asked to be there too and found it tough going but he must have impressed because she found out yesterday that she has got the job and Colin and her are now moving up north to start a new life, get a new house and Colin's going to become a surf bum. Means I'll have to find another golf partner :o(
Congrats to you both - you really deserve it !