goodguy

animalstalkinginallcaps: THAT IS, AND I’M BEING SERIOUS HERE,...

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:59:51 +1200

THAT IS, AND I’M BEING SERIOUS HERE, THE SHITTIEST FAKE ID I’VE EVER SEEN.

Incredible meal at Depot last night, even ran into a couple of...

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:51:00 +1200

Incredible meal at Depot last night, even ran into a couple of friends waiting next door for a table as well so joined them - much better in a group there because you can all share a wider range of their food. Two different types of oysters (Tio Point were extraordinary), turbot sliders, snapper tortilla (possibly my new favorite dish of anywhere), pork hock, brisket, an incredible 8hr baked Sugar Pie that Al Brown had a great story behind, gingerbread with tamarillo. Finally an Auckland restaurant with decent wine on tap by the carafe. Al Brown was a great chatty host even given the packed nature of his place. There was even a great street vibe while waiting for a table - when the hell do we ever get THAT in Auckland? They also kicked the Prime Minister and his wife out to give us their seats ;)

Off the top of my head I can’t think of a better meal recently. New favorite for sure. And hey, I can go get snapper tortilla for lunch I think…

Great start down at Wynyard Wharf, now let’s hope they...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:32:50 +1200

Great start down at Wynyard Wharf, now let’s hope they push on with the overall plan and Waterfront Auckland don’t stop once they’ve got through RWC.

Urban Design Plan for the overall view: http://www.waterfrontauckland.co.nz/aucklandwaterfront/media/other_documents/2007-07-03-Urban-Design-Framework.pdf

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:27:37 +1200

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich:

According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends. I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.

Just for the next time someone claims taking a couple of points off the top tax rate will unleash economic brilliance.

Where should I send the bill for my creative?

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:24:42 +1200

Following the furor around Telecom’s (yet to be seen) All Blacks campaign, a billboard idea for Vodafone:

We’d rather root for the All Blacks, thanks…

Takeover bid for juice maker Charlie's | Stuff.co.nz

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:21:12 +1200

Takeover bid for juice maker Charlie's | Stuff.co.nz:

Well done to the Charlie’s investors, but why do we never build then KEEP these sort of businesses? Our success stories get to a medium point then sell on to large scale offshore organisations, without ever pushing on to be the large scale operation themselves. Capital depth is possibly one of the answers (divorcing management from ownership and “fracturing” that ownership across a diverse shareholder base removes on-sell of the whole business as the primary exit strategies I suppose) but it seems to be a mindset thing too…

Ralph Lauren’s private garage. Some absolutely gorgeous...

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:14:05 +1300

Ralph Lauren’s private garage. Some absolutely gorgeous stuff in there - the Mille Miglia and the Gullwing particularly. And that Bugatti is still one of the best looking cars I ever done seen.

A Vroom of His Own | Style | Vanity Fair

iwdrm: “My grandfather’s work was doodoo!” Young Frankenstein...

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:46:30 +1300

iwdrm:

“My grandfather’s work was doodoo!”

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Louis CK - People in Today’s Society Take Things For...

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:22:10 +1200

Louis CK - People in Today’s Society Take Things For Granted

At least Matt Nolan gets the whole "ETS is just another way of paying our Kyoto bill" stuff...

Thu, 27 May 2010 18:35:51 +1200

At least Matt Nolan gets the whole "ETS is just another way of paying our Kyoto bill" stuff...:

People see this and then they say “global warming isn’t real” or “we are too small to impact on global warming” and then they say “NO ETS!”. However, this isn’t the point of the ETS.

The ETS is a scheme to raise the funds to pay for our Kyoto Liability. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, we have a liability that is based on carbon emissions. As a nation, either people who produce the carbon pay for it – or everyone pays for it through higher taxes.

So here in lies the question – do we want higher prices for carbon goods or lower incomes because of higher taxes? Given that the liability is a function of the amount of carbon we produce, it follows that pricing carbon on the basis of this will lead to the “best” solution – no matter what political party you support. I know that National, Labour, and the Greens all understand this – so if you guys could like, explain it to the ACT party, and then like, explain it to the public, I’ll be very happy

Power price hikes blamed on ETS (aka ETS actually works!)

Tue, 25 May 2010 12:45:12 +1200

Power price hikes blamed on ETS (aka ETS actually works!):

Well look at that - even an insanely weak ETS is doing exactly what it’s meant to and reducing emissions:

The Government has given New Zealand’s energy sector strong encouragement to invest in renewable sources of energy.

Mercury Energy is the retail arm of Mighty River Power which has acted on those signals and in recent years has invested $1 billion dollars in renewable generation.

One effect of the ETS is the creation of an incentive to invest in renewables by deliberately transferring value from thermal generation to renewable generation.

“To put it simply, those who have invested in renewable generation will derive a financial benefit that others will not,” said Mercury Energy general manager James Munro.

Telecom ultrafast strategy "revealed"

Sat, 22 May 2010 13:10:26 +1200

Telecom ultrafast strategy "revealed":

Interesting…

I’ve always thought Chorus should be split off - particularly once the Government announced no player with a retail arm could hold a majority stake in any of the Crown Fibre stuff. Even before that I thought the investors and management skillset for a network asset management business very different from those for a retail telco business.

Reading between various lines, I suspect Gattung believed this too - I strongly suspect she pushed for full separation when the Govt was regulating, but Reynolds obviously convinced the Board during his job interview that he could happily create another Openreach that wouldn’t need it. I don’t know that it’s fair to say that Gattung had it right, as it’s really only been proven since Crown Fibre became a reality.

Great song, and fantastic performance. Not many people can get...

Fri, 21 May 2010 09:45:17 +1200

Great song, and fantastic performance. Not many people can get “caped” but she pulled that off for sure…

Janelle Monáe - Tightrope - Late Show with David Letterman

Want. Volkswagen rolls out foldable ‘Bik.e’ electric...

Sat, 01 May 2010 13:17:39 +1200

Want.

Volkswagen rolls out foldable ‘Bik.e’ electric bicycle concept — Engadget

Cream, get the money, dolla dolla bill y’all… via...

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:11:00 +1200

Cream, get the money, dolla dolla bill y’all…

via Dim-Post

It’s been almost a decade since I got out of the hi-fi...

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:11:00 +1200

It’s been almost a decade since I got out of the hi-fi industry. I still have a few of the trappings of that industry - mainly an insanely good pair of speakers and a relatively decent power amp - but they have been wasting away given that my entire music source these days is on iTunes on my laptop. That has been plugged into a (surprisingly excellent) PAL from Tivoli but it was a lonely life for the hifi gear.

I’ve used an Airport Express as my wifi router for some time, but its age meant I had to choose between a decent internet connection or wirelessly streaming music (it requires up-to-date firmware to stream from iTunes but that updated firmware slows the internet connection to a crawl). In a move that seemed a little wasteful, I purchased a new Airport Express to remedy this - while they look identical and share the same feature set, the internals and firmware are upgraded so can do everything it needs to happily.

My home setup is now iTunes on my Macbook Pro (and controlled via Remote over wifi from an iPod Touch) streaming over wifi to my power amp (via said Airport Express) and out through the Dynaudio’s. Radio is all listened to over the interweb. And it’s magnificent. Certainly, the source is doing a huge disservice to the speakers, as the Airport Express is doing the Digital-Analog Conversion - but you can run optical out from it, which would hand those duties over to a much higher-grade DAC should you so choose.

What amazes me is that I now have a multi-room (you can run multiple Airport Expresses off one iTunes/Remote combo) server-based music system for the cost of an Airport Express ($159) and iPod Touch ($299 I believe?). Basically Sonos for a hell of a lot cheaper.

I searched intensively but am yet to find what I believe would be the ultimate stereo for this - an optical-in DAC/power amp combo in a Bose SoundDock form. You could just plug one in at each room with an Airport Express and voila, multiroom audio with house-wide remote control ability (on your iPhone or just buy an iPod Touch for it). Hell, someone could potentially get Apple to let them licence the Airport Express trickery and build that into the unit as well. “Here millions of people what have iTunes, an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and a wifi network - plug one of these $699 units into a powerpoint in any room you want music in and you’re done” seems like a hell of a sales pitch.

Join the dots « The Dim-Post

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:15:58 +1200

Join the dots « The Dim-Post:

The simplest highlight of hypocrisy…

Reminds me of an excellent book that our Professor set us as the...

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:29:33 +1200

Reminds me of an excellent book that our Professor set us as the main course book for a postgrad research paper - How We Know What Isn’t So. Explores the fallibility of human “reason” when faced with statistical anomalies…

Clive Thompson on Why We Should Learn the Language of Data | Wired Magazine

Greatest apartment anywhere? The Perfect Loft Is Under the Sea -...

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:04:41 +1200

Greatest apartment anywhere?

The Perfect Loft Is Under the Sea - Hilton Maldives Resort Spa - Gizmodo

Squadt Store

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:34:13 +1200

Squadt Store