RobiNZ Personal Blog

Traffic Light Thought – Road ‘Safety’ Camera?

I passed a Speed, sorry I meant Road Safety, Camera van on the way home last night. It was policing an arrow straight 100 km/h limit motorway section on a fine sunny evening. I presume it was set to nab those doing 5–10 km/h over the limit on a road that probably safely handle 150 km/h or more. Five kilometres down the road there is a long term interchange reconstruction underway. Lanes have been narrowed, flanked by concrete barriers, and a sensible reduced 70 km/h limit imposed. At that speed I watched cars and trucks fly past at 20–30 km/h... Read more →

Flashback? The 1984 Sony D50 Discman after 28 years

My first thought when I saw the “Friday Flashback” post on the Sony Blog was: “What do they mean, Flashback?”. My first CD Player is still in regular use, as good as the day it left the factory! Flashback Friday: The Sony Discman (1984) « SONY make.believe 1984: Ghostbusters made its ways onto the big screen, Los Angeles hosted athletes from around the globe and the first ever flight in space by a human untethered using jet back packs happened. What better way to rock out to all these 80’s milestones than by pulling out a Sony Walkman® CD player.... Read more →

Traffic Light Thought — Waitakere gets binned

This was actually a Doggie Walk Thought but occurred while waiting to cross the road. I watched a Refuse Receptacle Technician carefully installing something near a local bus stop. She’d finished & gone by the time I got across the road but I discovered it was the Auckland Council wiping out remnants of the former local authority. An older bin down the road still has the Waitakere City Council logo (below left) but I guess that crappy stylised Pohutukawa logo (which you may gather I hate) will be there soon. The Waitakere logo represents the Ranges and their native bush... Read more →

“Comfortably Numb”, cycling and @noozeeland

A tweet from @noozeeland today inspired this post. He shared a phrase which commanded only one response. I know the lyrics to Comfortably Numb quite well as I love the song itself, but also for another rather odd reason. When I’m cycling and feeling really tired it’s one song that often gets stuck in my mental playlist. “Comfortably Numb” is an admirable compromise to aim for when all sorts of bits ache but you still haven’t finished the ride! I change the lyrics a bit to so here is my “PsychPod” version, adjusted for cycling, presented with due apologies to... Read more →

iTunes Is Shit

I mean, all it has to do is sync files/data with a USB connected device. How hard can that be? Read more →

Why moderate blog comments? Read this!

Today my TypePad filter showed 1599 spam blog comments automatically blocked. One got through and I found it, word for word, on more than forty other blogs (2 seconds with Bing & Google). It’s stuff like this that makes me have moderation even though it’s not my preference. I’ve split the post but encourage you to read on & see the full extent of this rant. Apart from the break, caused by the post split, indent and italics it’s presented as received. Hi RobiNZ, Just a poor girl in a rich man's house (#####@#########) has left you a comment: Never... Read more →

The Amazing Invisible Undetectable Aura~Band

This is to announce an amazing new product: The Amazing Invisible Undetectable Aura~Band! This wrist band has magical benefits enhanced by additional invisibility and placebo properties. Best of all, other than feeling better you won’t even notice it’s on! What are the benefits of the Amazing Invisible Undetectable Aura~Band? Testimonials from users* mentioned increased happiness, social (media) interaction, reduced stress and increased general wellbeing. How was the Amazing Invisible Undetectable Aura~Band invented? It was a joint invention made possible through the power of social media aided by non-delivery of another band. ChrysStevenson Waah. Placebo band hasn't arrived yet. Hope I... Read more →

$30 Million for Hotchin's mansion? Worth it?

Ok, so the Paritai Drive location is supposedly Auckland’s best street and the thing covers several normal sections. The land alone would be worth a fortune, maybe ten million, but is this really the best house you can get for Thirty Million? I were spending that much I would want it to be “Sydney Opera House” spectacular. Given the site and the views, my photo is taken from the same road, it could have been. Have a look at the Herald photos & decide, hardly mind blowing architecture is it? Mark Hotchin's $30m mansion up for sale - National -... Read more →

Driver, not incorporated, and lousy treatment from Tangible Media

Recently the April issue of Autocar (NZ) appeared in my mailbox. I was initially perplexed as I don’t subscribe to it but then noticed a (printed) sticker with the words “incorporating Driver”. I have subscribed to Driver since issue one so that was the connection. A few weeks earlier I had already received the April issue of Driver and there was no mention of any planned changes. I’m not aware of the story behind this, sure there is one, but as a subscriber I’m not impressed with the way Tangible Media (Driver’s former publisher) have handled it. To be fair... Read more →

Message to Telecom NZ (Updated)

UPDATE 2010-04-20: Back to full speed broadband. How did we ever do anything with dial-up! Thank you to @VodafoneNZ for the 3G data (part of my iPhone plan) that kept me sane/going through the slowdown! This was tweeted but I’ll capture it here: @TelecomNZ Instead of "You've exceeded your data cap we may slow you down" msg why not "would you like more this month for some extra $"? I have quite a large data quota but this month, even before those Autodesk downloads!, have exceeded it. This results in an email from Telecom with: “As you are on a... Read more →