Apparently Wellington’s going to be burdened with a rip-off of the famous Hollywood sign:

Wellywood — artist’s impression from stuff.co.nz.

A massive Wellywood sign celebrating Wellington’s success in the film industry will greet tourists as they fly into the capital.

But not everyone agrees on the sign, which will sit on a cutting above Miramar wharf in the seaside eastern suburbs. …

Sir Peter Jackson said … “It’s Kiwi tongue-in-cheek humour at its very best, but beneath the leg-pulling is genuine pride. ” …

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast said the giant sign would capture the essence of the capital.

[Via : A sign of success for Wellywood hills | Stuff.co.nz.]

How embarrassing: here we are a creative people in a centre of arts and innovation, and what we do is make a copycat sign to celebrate success.

I don’t see it as tongue-in-cheek humour at all. Referring to Wellington as ‘Wellywood’ is one thing, but ripping off an iconic sign is quite another. It just seems flat, stale and to suggest a poor imitation, try-hard wannabe.

Our film industry deserves much better.

A better idea is the Pillars of Argonath, as Mike Riversdale explains.

Update 11 March 2010 — there’s hope yet that the sign will be abandoned:

Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president and chief executive Leron Gubler says the staggered Hollywood lettering is trademarked.

“If they do that with the Wellywood sign then I would think that would be a violation of our trademark…I am checking that with our attorney,” he told The Dominion Post.

[Via : Wellywood sign could breach trademark laws | NATIONAL News.]

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For the past week or so I’ve been a bit under the weather with a chest cold. It started with an ‘odd’ throat, then went straight to a deep cough. After a few days of that I also had the ‘fuzzy head’, but am glad to say I missed out on sneezing.

Nevertheless, I haven’t been up to much for most of the past week. Which has meant I’ve been reading more fiction than usual.

Luckily I had quite a good stock of Elizabeth Moon (affiliate link) novels to keep me very well entertained.

I’ve been reading 2 series: Vatta’s War and the Serrano series.

Military in space

Moon’s novels feature strong and interesting women, in space, with a strong military influence.

The Vatta’s War series begins with the Vatta trading family, and moves into the formation of a quasi-military fleet whose role is to counter pirates. The lead character is Kylara Vatta, who at the start of the series has been thrown out of Space Academy for a rather trivial seeming wrongdoing.

It turns out that Ky develops into a cunning and strategic leader who deals to well-organised pirates, even though outmatched.

I haven’t yet finished the Serrano series, and have unfortunately missed the 3rd book altogether. It’s an entertaining and solid read though, like the Vatta series. The lead characters, again, are military women who prove to be excellent leaders.

Careful and interesting writing

I must commend Moon and her editors on a job well done. The novels hang together well, with good pacing and nicely drawn characters.

On top of that, I’ve noticed only 2 or 3 typos total in the 10 or so books. The editors have been paying attention. It makes for a feeling of quality where it counts.

The stories are engaging and immersive too. I haven’t been too thrilled to be feeling unwell the past week, but it’s been a great pleasure to spend time reading some very fine sci-fi. My only regret is that with one and a half books to go I’ve pretty much run out of the sci-fi this author has to offer.

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After I wrote Noooo! Sci-fi keeps women out of computing…, one of my very generous readers sent me a book. I’ve just finished reading that book: Seize the Moment: Autobiography of Helen Sharman (affiliate link).

Seize the Moment.

It tells the story of British astronaut Helen Sharman’s trip into space in May 1991, and what led up to it.

One of the things I loved was how Sharman made it clear that she was an ‘ordinary’ person, rather than ‘astronaut stuff’, from an ordinary town and family, with good but not medal-winning school scores.

In fact, she hadn’t ever dreamed or thought of space or being an astronaut, until one day when she heard an advertisement for the job.

My family background was stable and secure … At school … I won no coveted scholarships … I broke no school athletic records …In every street in every British town and village you will find someone like me.

— Page 48.

That’s the kind of thing that holds out hope for others who may one day find themselves in position to take on something remarkable.

Sharman also adds perspective on the job of astronaut:

What I learnt was that although the job can certainly be dangerous, and sometimes exciting, it is not at all glamorous.

— Page 49.

The chapters are nicely interleaved — a handy technique for maintaining interest. The book starts on launch day, and Chapter 1 takes Sharman into space. Then the next chapter describes her childhood (briefly) and how she came to sign on as an astronaut.

After that alternate chapters describe events of her time in space and return to Earth, or the selection process and her training.

I enjoyed reading the details of her time in space. Some descriptions particularly caught my interest, such as a reference to the size of the Pacific Ocean:

It would take us about five minutes to travel from Belfast to Hanover … twenty minutes to cross Africa; when we crossed the Pacific it often took more than forty minutes before we were over landmass again.

— Page 132.

She even mentioned New Zealand:

Vast areas [of the Earth's land-surface] are the reddish-brown of desert … Agriculture tends to look a dark grey, or a dull sage-green, whereas bare earth is fawn or brown, or a brick-red colour. When I was in space only two places looked green: Ireland, and the South Island of New Zealand.

— Page 133.

One other quirky thing really stood out for me: the foreword by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. He seemed to be missing something major when he wrote about the role of satellites in transforming our world:

… applications in meteorology, communications, position finding, resource management — and, not least, peace-keeping …

— Page 12.

That drove me to check the publication date: 1993. Of course, just before the Internet started to take hold in our global society. I know the Internet doesn’t rely on satellites, probably mainly using cables, but in my mind, at least, they are inextricably bound together.

This book was a good, easy and enjoyable read. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in space and astronauts.

Now I’ve finished it I’d love to pass it on to another reader. If you’d like it, email me with your shipping address. First in will receive it.

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It was March 2006 when I received the 15.4-inch: 2.0GHz MacBook Pro I currently use.

MacBook Pro on grey.

It feels longer than 4 years and I’m desperate for a newer machine. I’ve been desperate for quite a while, actually, but last year’s income was extremely tenuous, and the year before that was already thin.

There has been almost no new technology coming into the house — hardware or software — unless it was either very inexpensive or really necessary.

This machine’s had its problems. To start with, my finger slipped while doing a firmware update when the machine was still very new. I killed it dead. That was fixed under warranty, but involved several new motherboards and a replacement screen.

There have been a couple of new batteries, after suspiciously early failures.

These days the keyboard is very worn and I seem to quite often have suspicious and unresolvable problems with software. I guess I need to reformat the drive and reinstall everything, but I keep hoping a new model will be announced soon.

It’s a good machine still, but I maxed out the RAM at 2Gb, and I sometimes think that’s not enough. If I need to run WIndows XP (under Parallels) it seems to take a while to get going.

24 hour shipping.

I suppose it could be that I run Windows off an external drive, but then I don’t want to clutter up the internal drive with a Windows disk image.

Other software that needs grunt, such as Aperture, also gives the machine a hard time, as does exporting my weekly MacTips videos.

My pal, Mark Webster, seems to think new MacBook Pros may not be too far off, although the Apple Store shows 24 hour shipping on most models:

Constrained MacBook supplies hints at refresh: Constrained supplies of MacBook Pros suggest an anticipated notebook refresh is growing closer – one that could further differentiate the premium lineup from the low-end MacBook.

[Via : Hints of new Apple, Adobe.]

Although I’ve had a flurry of work lately, I’m still not really in a position to buy a new laptop. But I’m really starting to feel very frustrated when I try to do serious work.

Here’s hoping for stacks more work to build up my funds, and a revamped MacBook Pro coming down the line soon.

Anyone want me to make them a WordPress website, or provide some great writing?

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The other day I was privileged to interview Adam Greenfield on behalf of the NZ Herald. That interview has now been published in Webstock: Cheap as chips – your networked chair:

Adam Greenfield.

What would you say if I told you the chair you’re sitting on is reporting back to the network? It might not be happening right now, but the way Adam Greenfield sees it that scenario might not be far away.

He points out that computer devices are becoming ever cheaper and easier to use and connect. If the pattern of history holds true we’ll soon be connecting all sorts of objects around us into a network.

Go to the Herald website to read the full article.

I really enjoyed what Adam had to say, but was also somewhat ashamed that he wrote his book about Ubiquitous Computing 4 years ago and I was not at all familiar with the topic.

The idea is that we’ve seen how computer chips and networks keep getting cheaper, smaller and easier to use. We’ve already reached a point where any one person probably engages with several ‘computerised’ devices every day — cellphones, washing machines, and so on.

It makes sense to think that soon chips will be cheap enough to start embedding them in everything, even if we don’t yet know what we’d do with them.

As I walked down the street to the interview I was trying to imagine what a world could be like where every street lamp, every building, every rubbish bin might have a chip in it, sending information to a network.

My imagination failed. I just couldn’t visualise it.

But then I picture people 100 years ago. Would they have been able to imagine today’s world, where everyone carries in their pocket the means to instantly talk to almost anyone on the planet, wherever they are?

I’m sure that would have seemed not only impossible, but also ludicrous and entirely pointless. Yet look how cellphones have changed the world we live in.

Greenfield’s ideas about a totally networked future are simultaneously exciting and scary. I’m still trying to even start thinking about what it might mean.

Adam Greenfield’s book Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing is available in print and also as a Kindle edition that’s actually available in New Zealand.

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Picture people visiting your website. Really picture them: age, gender, ethnicity, the works.

3 Generations. Photo by lyzadanger.

I’d take bets that when you did that you pictured them sitting down. They were probably at a desk, or maybe using a laptop while sitting on a couch.

We all do it. We assume that our visitors are static, sitting down, at a computer.

It underlies all our assumptions about what information we’ll provide via the Internet, and how we provide it.

The landline phone

When I was a kid we had a phone at our house. There was one single phone, wired into the wall in the hallway. To make or answer a call you had to go into the hall and stand within a few feet of the phone base.

As a young adult I transitioned to a cordless phone that I could use in any room in the house. What freedom!

Cellphones have changed our lives

Then I got a cellphone, and miracle of miracles, I could make a phonecall when I was out and about.

Now nearly everyone has a cellphone. We think nothing of checking where a family member is, calling home to see what’s needed at the supermarket, sending text messages to friends to say we’re running late for a coffee meeting.

Cellphones have given us freedom and convenience.

Landline Internet

When we provide information over the Internet most of us are still thinking ‘landline’.

We assume, quite unconsciously, that the ‘user’, the ‘visitor’, will be sitting at a computer ‘wired’ into the wall. The computer, even if part of a wireless network, will be in a house or office. The user will have to make a special effort to use the laptop or desktop machine — at the very least, they’ll have to sit down.

Cellphone Internet

It’s not true any more. Smartphones, ‘cellphones with Internet’, are becoming increasingly popular. [See: Fact and fiction in the palm of your hand.]

This means that people are increasingly using the Internet while on the move.

Instant, live, information

What’s more, smart phones include applications — bits of software that do specific things, such as:

• show a weather forecast,
• display a labelled map of the night sky in real time,
• display tweets and let you send them,
• display a bus timetable for the stop you’re at,
• show you where you currently are,
• show you activities near where you are,
• display traffic information.

What can you provide in (near) real-time

If people want information ‘right here, right now’ what can your organisation provide them with?

• Do you still have places available for a course or event? Could you offer a 75% discount 1 hour before the start, and sell those final tickets?
• Has your event been called off suddenly because of weather or traffic? You can let people know.
• Are you mounting an emergency action in response to an unexpected community ’situation’? Call for volunteers to attend right now.
• Would you shape your existing static information differently if you knew people were accessing it ‘on the move’?
• Can you provide Google Map co-ordinates for your offices or rooms? Opening times (including public holidays)?

Ask smartphone owners what they want from you? Ask around to see who has smartphones — it’s not just ‘trendy geeks’. Even my computer-phobic hairdresser has an iPhone she loves.

Smartphones are changing how we go about our daily lives, in the way that cellphones have changed everything.

We need to start thinking what that means for what we do.

Written by Miraz Jordan for, and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, February 2010. This article has been modified for publication here.

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Take a computer that handles email and web browsing, runs games and useful software and make it small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

iPhone 3GS digital compass and maps.

Now add GPS and maps, a camera (still and video), and make it all work on both wireless and phone networks. Add in the ability to make phonecalls and do text messaging. Now you have a Smartphone, such as an iPhone.

According to one set of research, more than 90% of smartphones in New Zealand are iPhones.

A smartphone is a tiny computer

Really, the most important thing to grasp about a smartphone is that it’s a computer with Internet that can do phonecalls and SMS. If you think of it first and foremost as a phone you’ll almost certainly miss the point.

What a smartphone means

A smartphone is small enough to keep in a pocket — that means you’ll probably have it with you at all times: while shopping, at lunch, at parties, at work, in the gym, at the movies, walking the kids to school.

It has a web browser that works, along with a screen you can not only see, but zoom in on, and it has access to the Internet anywhere you can get a signal.

A device that you have with you all the time, and that makes a good connection to the Internet, means that a whole new world opens up.

At the Zoo

Muum, what’s a Capybara?

Well, according to Wikipedia, it’s the largest living rodent in the world…

At coffee

Fancy seeing a movie?

Sure, let me check what’s on nearby and what the reviews are like.

Last spike at Manganuioteao.

On the road

Well, the blue dot on Google Maps shows us moving away from our destination. I think we need to take that other road we passed.

Sightseeing

It says on this website that the last railroad spike on the North Island main trunk line was driven in at Manganuioteao by Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward on 6 November 1908.

A new world of information

The Internet has given us a whole new world of fact and fabrication. But for as long as it streams in to a computer sitting on our desk, it’s still an arm’s length, or an hour’s drive, away.

Smart phones bring the Internet into our pocket and hands. Now we walk around with it. If we allow it to, the phone even knows where we are and what the time is. That completely changes everything.

Written by Miraz Jordan for, and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, February 2010. This article has been modified for publication here.

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YouTube speed comparison.

The new YouTube Video Speed History feature provides damning evidence of TelstraClear’s shockingly bad performance with YouTube videos:

Your average video speed at this location from January 13, 2010 to February 11, 2010 was 1.13 Mbps.

While the world at large averages almost 3 Mbps, and New Zealand averages around 2.2, TelstraClear averages about 1.

Speed test.

This morning, while watching a simple movie I experienced 4 buffering pauses in the first 16 seconds, for example.

And that’s in the context of perfectly good download speeds. I have a 10Mb/s (maximum) connection, and that’s roughly what I get.

Telstra know about this problem — it’s been going on for months. They should have fixed it by now.

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This is an Apple Time Capsule. It’s a great device: it shares out an Internet connection via wireless, and it contains a hard drive for backups.

Time Capsule.

Backups happen automatically, courtesy of Time Machine. It’s great to know that if you misplace a file you can grab a copy from the backup.

We bought our Time Capsule in March 2008. It’s been quiet, efficient and effective.

Until last night when it quietly, efficiently and effectively died. One minute there was an Internet connection; the next there was not.

I messed around with it, plugging it into various power points. Apart from a momentary flash of green light occasionally as I jiggled the plug it was dead as dead.

Airport Express.

Luckily I still had an old Airport Express. After a bit of searching I located it, plugged it in and then had to find the correct settings for it. I finally found the information in a note I’d saved in 1Password. That got us back online.

The Airport express is no substitute for a Time Capsule though.

The upside of this hardware failure is that now we have a brand new Time Capsule.

These newer models have added features, such as Guest Access to the network — it uses a separate password and prevents guests from accessing the machines on your main network.

Set up a separate Wi-Fi network with a separate password for your visitors. Simply enable the guest networking feature, and your guests can use the Internet but can’t access other parts of your private network, such as your computers, printers and attached hard drives.

[Via : Time Capsule - 1 TB - Apple Store (New Zealand).]

Another new feature I anticipate enjoying is Simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi:

For maximum range and compatibility, Time Capsule works simultaneously on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, allowing all the devices on the network to use the most efficient band automatically.

I’m hoping that will mean that when I’m working in the kitchen and turn on the microwave I’ll still be able to get a signal.

I have yet to connect up to start a new backup. As I recall from the previous model the initial backup can take a very long time. I plan to do it via ethernet to hurry it up a bit.

I just hope this one lasts more than 2 years.

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A couple of years ago I bought an electric bike. It’s a tellow mountain bike with a motor powered by a rechargeable battery.

18 months down the track I’ve realised this was not the right bike for me. I’ve ridden it a bit — probably well less than 200Km in all that time — but I don’t really enjoy it much. I used to love cycling, but I mainly just dread getting up Mt Victoria, even with battery assistance.

Women’s geometry

Avanti Aria 1 bike on Oriental Parade.

If I’d done my homework better — or even any homework at all — I would have bought something like the Avanti Aria 1, with its women’s geometry.

Well, it might be 18 months late, but that’s what I bought the other day. My photos here show it standing on Oriental Parade by the harbour, and in the back of our rather small Honda Jazz (known as the Honda Fit in some places).

Apparently women’s bodies have different proportions from men’s bodies and that affects the ideal ‘geometry’ for a bike frame:

When it comes to cycling, on the whole women are different to men — especially physically! On average women have shorter torsos, shorter arms, and longer legs than a similar sized man. Shoulders tend to be narrower, hips tend to be wider and hands and feet tend to be smaller. And, yes, the sit bones are wider too!
These differences mean bikes for women need to be designed and made in a specific way to ensure good comfort, fit and performance – for all kinds of female riders.

[Via : What is WISE?.]

Avanti Aria 1 bike in Honda Jazz.

A sturdy mountain bike

My yellow mountain bike wasn’t designed for a woman, as far as I know. It’s sturdy and quite heavy, what with the motor and battery and all. And it has quite fat tires.

Fat, rather knobbly tires hold tight to the road, making it harder to pedal.

All of that means that the bike was too heavy for me, too reluctant to travel by my pedal power. And it was too heavy for me to lift into the car without fearing major damage to paintwork or me.

And that meant I always had to bike back up Mt Victoria, since we live at the top.

I’ve never been good with biking up hills. I grew up on the flat, after all, in Christchurch.

A fly-away bike

The Aria 1 is a road / fitness bike, designed for casual on-road use.

It’s so light I have no trouble at all lifting it in and out of the back of the car. I can easily manouevre it into position.

Yesterday I drove down to Evans Bay marina, parked by the Zephyrometer and biked North down to Freyberg Pool and back. My iPhone tells me that’s a 10Km round trip that took me 40 minutes.

Then I loaded the bike back into the car and drove up the hill to home. Ahhhh.

I loved it. I felt again that joy of cycling I used to have. The bike glided along easily — even a head wind or two round some of the bays didn’t worry me too much.

Gear changes are a dream. On the way back, with a tail wind I was in the highest gear, powering along, feeling that I can put effort into moving.

Achieving great heights

Today I’ve paid the price. Between the ride on the flat yesterday and the previous day’s attempt at a steep uphill I may have overdone things slightly.

Little by little I anticipate achieving further distances and greater heights.

Apollo eLation electric bike.

Before long I hope that instead of 6 stops in the space of 300 metres up a particularly steep part of Mt Vic I’ll need only 5 stops and travel 400 metres maybe. One day I may be able to cycle all the way to the top, rather than walking most of it.

Electric mountain bike for sale

I now plan to sell the yellow electric bike. It’s an Apollo Altitude XC, 24 Speed Cross Country Mountain Bike. It’s a great bike, it’s just not the right one for me!

Anyone interested?

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