July 1st, 2009
Filed under: Life, Rants | Tags: cell phone, telecom, vodafone
Bloody Cell Phone Companies
I hate cell phone companies. If I could, I would not have a cell phone at all. But I don’t have a land line number, so a cell phone is pretty much a must.
In New Zealand there are two major cell phone companies; Telecom and Vodafone. I personally use Vodafone because they have cell phones that use sim cards unlike Telecom which allows me to use the same phone I use in Taiwan, Canada etc.
Both companies offer similar plans and charges for their users, for instance they both have a best mate number which you can choose which allows you to call one number as much as you want for a month for $6, and 2000 text plan where you can send up to 2000 text messages for $10 a month. The difference is that both companies only allow you to call and text other phones on their network for the special plan, otherwise you have to pay normal charges.
As you can imagine this means that you usually choose a company based on what all your family and friends use. For instance most of my friends are on Vodafone, so I text them whenever I want, but the few friends that I do have that are on Telecom I don’t usually text because it costs me $0.20 per text on top of my $10 2000 text plan.
Up until recently it was pretty easy to tell who was on which network because all Vodafone numbers began with 021 and all Telecom numbers began with 027. I say up until recently because they have started to allow users to keep their numbers while switching networks now.
This resulted in me wasting a bunch of money, as one of my friends changed to Telecom without telling me. I continued to text them thinking it wasn’t costing me anything all the while I was slowly but surely spending a lot of extra money. Of course I didn’t find out until weeks later when I ran out of money on my phone, much to my surprise.
That is just another reason why I hate cell phone companies. Bastards.
June 23rd, 2009
Filed under: Rants | Tags: big brother, cameras, christchurh, new zealand
Surveillance Cameras
About a month ago, the Christchurch City Counsel spent close to a $1 million on “new crime-fighting video cameras” that police say will help reduce criminal activity and violence in central Christchurch.
The 25 cameras, almost triple the coverage of the 13 existing cameras which were already on Christchurch streets.
Last year the cameras helped with almost 80 arrests, located 27 missing people, seven witnesses to a homicide and helped identify and locate the suspect in a stabbing. Although those stats sound good, I still feel like we are giving up a little too much of our privacy to see these results.
I have been thinking about it for a while and the more I think about it the more it freaks me out that I am constantly being recorded during my day to day life. The key word in that sentence was “recorded”, I realise that these camera’s are in public places and that we are seen by random people all the time when walking around town and I’m fine with that. It’s the recording that unnerves me. I would be a lot happier if the camera’s watching me were doing just that, watching not recording me. It would be the same as any other random person on the street being able to see what I was doing.
This would still be advantageous to police, as they could have one officer watching multiple cameras, thus giving the police a greater presence in the community. The police officer viewing the camera feeds could keep mobile officers up to date to help stop crime on the streets.
One argument against this would be that evidence of crimes being committed would be lost. To this I suggest that the officer viewing live feeds should also be able to be used as eye witnesses for crimes in court, the same way any other officer would be able to if they were standing where the camera was when the crime was committed.
I would really like to hear your thoughts on this subject of Big Brother encroaching into our privacy. Do you mind being recorded? Do you think my idea of only allowing live feeds from the surveillance cameras is stupid? Have you got any other ideas? Hit those comment boxes people.
June 6th, 2009
Filed under: Rants | Tags: sleep, spooning
Who is the big spoon?
This is a question that has been on my mind for quite a while now. When you snuggle up with your loved one at night, which one of you is the big spoon?
Most of you will automatically say the guy (or girl) snuggling at the back is the big spoon, because they are usually the bigger person in real life. I on the other hand, believe that the one in the front is the big spoon. Just hear me out on this, if you look at the picture it seems pretty clear to me that the legs of the people represent the scoop of the spoons and their bodies the handles. If this is the case then the bigger scoop therefore the bigger spoon would be on the bottom of the pile which would be the person getting cuddled.
Let me know who you think is the big spoon in the comments!
May 11th, 2009
Filed under: Rants | Tags: baking, cooking, english, math
Apple Oat Loaf and Sultana Cookies
There’s a lot of guys out there that are scared of the kitchen. I’m one of them. I have never been very good at cooking anything more than sausages or cheese toasties (grilled cheese sandwiches, for my American readers). The whole cooking thing has always daunted me and the more I think about the more I believe it has to do with my general way of thinking.
Ever since I first started to really think about things, I did it in a logical way. Seeking out truths and definite answers. Unfortunately not all things work that way. For instance, in school I’ve always been top of the class in maths. I love maths. With maths there’s always a right and a wrong answer. On the other hand I’ve always sucked at English. It’s all in the interpretation, there are no right and wrong answers.
The same rings true with cooking. There’s no right and wrong answers. If you like spinach, go ahead throw some in. I can hear you saying now “What about recipes?” Have you read a cooking recipe lately? It’s full of phrases like; pinch of this, touch of that, add to taste. These are all undefinites that run havoc in my head.
Baking on the other hand, that’s a mathematician’s game. Everything is measured out to the gram or ml. It’s like a nice big equation. 125 grams of butter + 180 grams of sugar + 25 grams of vanilla essence + 1 Egg + 500 grams of flour + 25 grams of baking powder + 125 grams of chocolate chips = 35 Yummy Cookies!
So if you’re a guy or dating a guy that hates cooking, try suggesting baking. He might not be able to make you dinner, but he might just be able to fix you up some desert.
Just to note. The cook at school was on vacation today, so I was in the kitchen for the day. I put the cooking to the side and made an assortment of egg, cheese, cucumber, tomato and ham sandwiches. But to save face I also baked some sultana cookies and an apple oat loaf.
May 7th, 2009
Filed under: Rants | Tags: cell phone, disgusting, sms, texting
Text Messaging
Ever since texting hit the scene, people have taken to it like sailors took to tattoos. At first is was great, a wonderful way to communicate with your friends and colleges. Then sum people started to abuse the power of texting. They would text in sick for work to avoid faking a cough, tell friends they were too busy for a night out when really they just didn’t like them. The complete lack of face to face contact or even vocal communication made texting a perfect way to deal some pretty harsh blows without any real risk of conflict. That’s when we all started hearing about friends getting dumped via texts or people getting text bullied with an onslaught of particularly nasty messages.
Up until yesterday, those were the worst things I’d heard being done via text. But all that changed when Ivy told me about a text one of her classmates got at college yesterday. It read “Hey ***, sorry to have to tell you this, but we just can’t afford to keep you on at **** anymore. Sorry 
“. That’s right this poor individual just got fired by text! And if that isn’t bad enough, turns out she had been working in this job for nine years. 9 FUCKING YEARS! Can you believe that shit? Nine years and the bastards don’t even have the heart to fire her in person or the very least over the phone!
I am astounded.
What’s the worst text you ever had the pleasure of receiving?
May 5th, 2009
Filed under: Rants | Tags: internet, lists, youtube
It's All About Lists
Apparently if you want to get a bunch of readers to come to your site you need to write a list. Lists are all the rage people, everyone is doing it. Just check out
Digg or
Delicious or any popular blog. So I thought what the hell might as well right a list of my own. So first I have to pick something to write a list about. Well right now it seems popular to do lists of video’s, so I’ve decided to go with a
You Tube list.
What type of You Tube will I do? That’s a bit more tough. I don’t really want to spend any time actually researching and making a list, but then again I can’t just do the top 10 You Tube videos because that list is already available on You Tube. Then Ivy gave me a great idea while she was looking at video’s on You Tube. She was wondering how the auto-complete search bar worked. I told her it keeps a track of every ones searches and just displays the most popular searches that begin with what you have typed so far. This, plus the fact that I am a Kindy teacher made me come up with my idea for a list.
So without further ado, my list The ABC’s of YouTube!
March 15th, 2009
Filed under: Rants | Tags: facebook, myspace, spam, web
Spam
I recently got this message from one of my myspace contacts.
Myspace system is getting too crowded!! We need you to forward this to at least 20 people. I know this seems like a large number, but we need to find out who is really using their account. If you do not send this to at least 10 Myspace members, we will delete your account.
WARNING!
We want to find out which users are actually using their Myspace accounts. So if you are using your account, please pass this email to every Myspace user that you can. IF YOU DO NOT PASS this letter to anyone we will delete your account.
Sorry for this inconvenience.
-Tom
Then I got this one on Facebook:
Facebook is going to clear facebook accounts if ..
We all know that Facebook is an extraordinary social network where you can talk to friends, find old friends, and so much more.
The Facebook team is well aware that Facebook is getting over populated due to the fact that registrations have increased 50% since February 15 2008. At their signing in database, it shows that more than a quarter of the members of Facebook havn’t logged into their accounts in over a month.
So where is this leading to you may ask. Facebook is clearing their entire data base and deleting users who have not sent this message to their friends. If you are one of the these people, you will get your user account wiped and would have to re add all your friends. So send this message to as many of your friends as you can, I know you don’t want to start all over from scratch so send away, show your pride for members Facebook!
- Irin rayiz
Can you say spam? It seems so obvious that this is spam and yet these messages have been forwarded through hundreds of people before making it to me. Not only that, most people that forwarded this message on added a note saying “I think this is bull shit, but just in case.” It’s the scare mongering that seems to make people pass these spam messages on to their friends and family.
The recording is also needed because:
1. What is spotted on one camera is often seen better on another camera.
2. Viewing is not always done at live – as the wages to do so are very expensive and even when their is some live viewing, the individual cannot view all the cameras simultaneously.
3. When an incident is reported, the viewing of the tapes often involves slow motion viewing and zooming in for details.
Having said that, I, too, share your fear of the “big Brother” state. Would you feel more comfortable if the tapes could only be stored for 40 (?) days with the exception of those segments needed as evidence?
The problem I see with any type of recording is the ease in which the recording can be copied, stolen, sold or uploaded to the internet. With video analysis programs progressing as they are you would be surprised the number of companys that would like to analysis these types of videos for markets purposes.
Has the overall crimerate decreased since the invention of the video camera?
Just to make sure I’m not misunderstood. I’ve got nothing against private buisnesses putting up cameras within their premisis and recording it. My problem is with cameras that are recording public areas like streets, parks etc.
We’ve just installed about 14 camera’s at work and security gates which only open when you swipe your card over them. Most of our camera’s cost $1500, the one that we can rotate and is located at the 150 level of the stack cost $5000
How does it make you feel knowing that you are almost always being recorded while at work?
well It’s a bit intimidating when one is doing government work, but after all on facebook millions of people could theoretically be looking at the pictures you’ve posted.
Not so good while I am doing government work. However when you think about the people who could be looking at all the pictures on your blog, it’s mind boggling.
Yes but this is selected footage that I choose to share myself, but also you are right. We are entering an age where personal boundaries and private information is shrinking by the minute. I guess it just up to how we let that information define us now.