From NZ Herald:

A policewoman who worked as a prostitute to ease financial difficulties has been censured, Deputy Commissioner Lyn Provost said today.

Apparently, prostitution is incompatible with policework, despite it now being legal in New Zealand. The argument the police are giving is that underground crime syndicates own a lot of the brothels and whatnot, and if a policewoman working as a prostitute was found out by this lot, they could possibly blackmail her into igoring certain criminal activites, etc.

Personally, I know what it’s like to live in Auckland and how expensive it can be – if you have the time and the energy to get a second job to help cover that, then by all means. I’m not sure there’s any legal reasoning why you should have to declare to your first job that you’re getting a second job (correct me if I’m wrong though). And if someone wants to take up prostitution as their secondary job, so be it – it shouldn’t be anybody’s business but their own.

Brings a whole new meaning to “Fuck the Police” though.

After making it through the House and through the Senate, and being supported by the majority of the US population, the stem cell bill has been vetoed by Bush.

President Bush rejected legislation Wednesday that could have multiplied the federal money going into embryonic stem cell research, using the first veto of his presidency to underscore his stand on the emotionally charged, life-and-death issue.

The House then voted on overturning his veto, but failed to achieve a two-thirds majority (235-193 in favour of overturing the veto).

This underscores why the veto power is kinda ridiculous – a bill can be supported by the majority, make it all the way through the complicated legal procedure to make it almost successful, then one man can say “Nope, I don’t think so.” and it’ll be all over. Granted, this is the first time Bush has used his veto power, but you’d think he’d put his own personal viewpoints aside in favour of those of the populous he is elected to represent. He’s supposed to be there for them, not for his own agenda. One man should never have so much power that he can decide for a nation, against their wishes, just because he believes that it’s the right thing to do. It reminds me of a man named Adolf, really.

Commenting on it all, Bush had this to say:

“It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect.”

Ironic really coming from someone who, during his tenure as Texas governor, executed prisoners at the rate of one every two weeks.

…or at least the voice of God, on an upcoming Bible audio book:

Jackson was given the lead role because producers felt his deep, authorative voice was perfect for the role of God.

The audio book will feature the voices of a number of other black celebrities also – I assume they’re trying to appeal to a new audience by using black celebrities… whether it’ll work remains to be seen. I would’ve thought James Earl Jones would’ve been a better choice for the voice of God (does that make him the Metatron?).

I can just hear Jackson now: “Thou Shalt Not Kill, Muthafucka!”

And speaking of Samuel L Jackson, Snakes On A Mothafuckin Plane.

Details on what’s happening in Lebanon at the moment is all over the web, so I won’t bother going into it again here. But in my reading up on the situation, I came across this news story about a US student stuck there at the moment awaiting evacuation. I’m glad that the people being caught in the crossfire are being helped to get out, but this particular sentence shocked me:

Nucho said there was talk that Americans would have to pay a $300 evacuation fee and be left to sleep on the streets of Cyprus.

This is further confirmed in the article:

In statements e-mailed to Americans in Lebanon and posted on the embassy’s Web site, the State Department has stressed “that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need. For the portion of your trip directly handled by the U.S. Government we will ask you to sign a promissory note and we will bill you at a later date.”

This, to me, is horribly unacceptable. These are US citizens we’re talking about – you’re evacuating your own countrymen yet charging them to do so? The article goes on to say that once they’ve been evacuated to Cyprus, they’re on their own – no accommodation, no flights, no nothing will be paid for by the US government.

The US calls itself “the land of the free” – it seems freedom comes with a charge these days.

If you haven’t heard of this excellent series, here’s the skinny (from the official website):

Setting off in London in April 2004, Ewan and Charley travelled through some of the most beautiful, and at times dangerous, terrain the world has to offer. Crossing over into mainland Europe, they rode through France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada before arriving 115 days later at their final destination, New York City, USA.

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, taking the long way round the world from London to New York on motorcycles. The series (and the book) chronicle the journey from preparation through to completion, and is one of the most interesting shows I’ve seen recently, so much so that I bought it on DVD.

Now, being that Long Way Round was about travel, what better way to track it than with Google Earth? Finding some of the smaller stops isn’t easy though, but never fear – I’ve done it for you! Running off the DVD liner notes I’ve put together a KML file of all (barring one or two) the stops along the way, as precise as I could make them – numbering 75 in total.

Grab the latest version of Google Earth from their website, then grab the KML file and enjoy your tour!

I’ve transported most of my good and relevant posts over to here from karrderized for the time being, because as you may have noticed, the site is up and down, or rather has been down for some time. The reason for this is because it’s hosted on a box here at home, and I’ve moved flat twice very recently (and may be moving yet again soonish).

Until I find the domain a new home (any offers?) I’ll use this as my personal blog, though knowing me I’ll hardly ever post here.

Well, Theron tagged me, so here we go.

Four jobs I’ve had

1. Shelf stacker a supermarket
2. Tech support/office bitch at an ISP
3. Computer Technician
4. Radio DJ

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. Leon (aka The Professional)
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. Star Wars (any of em)
4. Anything by Kevin Smith

Four places I’ve lived

1. Whangarei, NZ
2. Costa Rica
3. Whakatane, NZ
4. Christchurch, NZ

Four TV shows I love

1. Lost
2. Quantum Leap
3. My Name Is Earl
4. House

Four places I’ve vacationed

1. Melbourne Australia
2. Fiji
3. Brisbane Australia
4. Auckland, NZ

Four of my favorite dishes

1. Pizza
2. Scotch Fillet Steak, medium rare
3. Whole fried fish
4. Sweet Kielbasa

Four sites I visit daily

1. Thought Mechanics
2. Gmail
3. del.icio.us
4. jarkolicious

Four places I would rather be right now

1. Disneyland
2. Costa Rica
3. Hawaii
4. Russia

Four bloggers I am tagging

1. MonStar
2. f4tty
3. token
4. RKD

Update: I can’t get this plugin to work. Typical, innit.

Handy little plugin, this. What it does is allow me to post an entry on my blog here, and it automagically reposts that entry on my Myspace account (yes, I’ve given in and joined the Myspace throng. Pity me). And here I was bitching a few hours ago about how I wished this were possible…

This got me thinking about interoperability. This, I think, is the Next Big Thing (TM) in the interweb gadget sphere. Sites that talk to each other, software that talks to sites, sites that talk to software, and the like is what I’m talking about, if the term “interoperability” is new to you. We all have a finite amount of time on this planet, and it stands to reason that we’d like to make the most of this time. Interoperability is a huge timesaving feature when implemented properly, allowing what you do in one place to be reflected elsewhere.

Savvy web developers are building APIs for their software to facilitate this interoperability. I can post here and have it appear on Myspace. I can post a link to del.icio.us and it appears on my blog (yeah, okay, this isn’t in yet, but it will be soon!). I can listen to a song in WinAMP, have its info sent off to Last.fm, and then have it appear on the recent tracks listing on my blog frontpage. I can take a photo, upload it to Flickr, and again have it appear on my blog frontpage.

While these may not sound terribly time-saving, they are, in a few different ways. It requires no interaction from me for these automated processes to take place. It also allows me to access that information from any internet-connected computer in the world, and others to access it also.

And while they may be rather trivial uses of the technology, they’re just the gateway to more sophisticated interoperability solutions. With the rise and rise of XML and other open standards, with open source growing in popularity every day, and with the internet becoming more and more ingrained in society and the workplace, it can only get better.

I finally saw Serenity last night. The Americans (hell, most foreigners) reading this might be thinking “But Serenity was at the cinema months ago…” – over there maybe, but here in good old New Zealand, which despite it’s many benefits has some glaring flaws (mainly in regards to things getting here late), Serenity only just started on Thursday. And since I was working over all the screening times on Thursday and Friday, yesterday was the first time I could see it.

If you’re not familiar with Serenity, here’s a quick run-down: it’s the distant future, mankind has outgrown Earth (referred to as “Earth-That-Was”) and moved out into space to colonise the universe. After settling and terraforming worlds to suit, two factions emerged, the Alliance of the central planets, and the Independents – mostly outlying colonies not willing to be under the Alliance’s influence. War breaks out between the two sides, and we enter the story not long after the Independents are defeated by the Alliance.

The story follows a band of miscreants under the leadership of Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) who essentially work as mercenaries, hiring out to anyone with coin to spare, who travel the ‘verse on a Firefly-class spaceship called Serenity.

If this sounds a little familiar, it is. It’s been done before – same plot, and same actors. This concept was originally a television series called Firefly, created by Joss Whedon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame). It ran for a season before sadly being cancelled by the network.

I was a huge fan of the series, having loved Buffy and its spinoff series Angel, and also being a science-fiction fan. The setting was interesting (being a sort of space-western), the writing was superb, the comedy was witty and droll (just my type) – my only complaint was there wasn’t enough of it! On hearing there was a movie in the works, I was both excited and apprehensive, as I’ve seen what movie conversions of popular shows/games/etc have done in the past (read: sucked). Then some lucky friends of mine (whom I still loathe to this day) saw the pre-screening a couple months ago and assured me that it was, indeed, the shizzle.

So it was with great anticipation I walked into that cinema last night. And two hours later, I walked out entirely fulfilled. Firefly was back, in all its glory, and in movie form! It was all there – all the actors reprised their roles, the dialogue was spot-on, the plot fit perfectly, the visuals were straight out of the series… it was everything I could’ve wanted from a film adaptation. My only real disappointment with it was that there was no sign of the Firefly theme song all fans can sing through in their sleep: “Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand…” But then, I guess we can’t have it all.

Of course, I’m not going to reveal plot spoilers here, suffice to say some major stuff goes down. It’s a movie after all, and as Joss Whedon said in an interview:

“I’ve actually said once or twice that the difference between TV and movies is that TV shows are a question, and movies are an answer. And so in this we had to have a definitive statement about freedom and humanity and what we need and what we should be allowed to have as people, which is all our flaws. And then I answer that. I make a definitive statement. I put a period or, hopefully, an exclamation point on that, as opposed to just sort of pursuing the question for years, which is what a TV show would do.”

If you’re a Firefly fan, Serenity is a must-see. In fact, if you were a true fan, you’d already have seen it, and know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’ve never seen Firefly, Serenity is easily watchable on its own – the first few minutes gives you enough backgrounder to get you started (and even taught me a few things about the backstory) and the rest reveals itself as the film goes. If it’s still playing in your part of the world, head along and check it out.

And while you’re at it, pick up Firefly on DVD. Worth every penny, especially for the extras on the DVD.

While most NZ ISPs are stuck with their 10gb/month caps, rate limiting to 64k when the cap’s exceeded, Actrix are doing something different which hopefully might push other ISPs to do the same.

It’s the same concept – once you hit the cap you’re rate limited, but instead of 10gb/month its 1gb/day on their 2mbit plan. This works out at 30gb a month or thereabouts, which is a much more realistic figure when your speed is that fast. Limiting users to 10gb a month while providing the speed to do that much transfer in a day is kinda dumb.

Ideally, we’d be in a world without data caps (or speed caps for that matter, but that’s a whole different issue), but realistically we’ll hafta deal with them due to the excessive cost of that bandwidth for the ISPs themselves. Until that comes down, I guess we’ll have to live with what we’ve got, or wait til replacement high speed data transmission systems are perfected.