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Archive for the ‘Outside’ Category

Google Maps now higher-res than Zoomin, smaps

Tuesday, August 8th, 2006

After a little discussion about Trade Me and their new smaps online map system (which seems to be powered by the same engine ZoomIn is using, but with no satellite imagery), I took another look at Google Maps and their aerial photography of Wellington.

Turns out Google Maps is now higher resolution than smaps or ZoomIn. You can get down to the level where cars are blobs of pixels. Also, Google Maps has more up to date photography — you can see the work on the Inner City Bypass (same location on ZoomIn, smaps).

To be honest, I’m glad that we’ve finally got some decent competition in New Zealand’s online maps — Wises was sucking ass ever since I saw the original ‘ajax map’ maps.search.ch from Switzerland — long before Google Maps was around.

Posted in Internet, New Zealand, Outside, Photos, Software | 2 Comments »

Late night conversation-friendly cafés in Wellington

Thursday, May 18th, 2006

Tim Haines is looking for quiet cafés/meeting spaces:

I’m looking for a quiet cafe/meeting place where we can find a bit of space, hang out for the whole afternoon, buy good coffee (to enjoy AND compensate the cafe), and use Cafenet. Of particular interest is being a few meters away from anyone else – so it’s not noisy, and you won’t be easily overheard.

He mentions Olive Café, and while I haven’t been there, walking past it, it doesn’t feel gritty enough for me

A great meeting place I enjoy regularly is Katipo Café, which is upstairs from the 1-2-3 Dollar shop on Willis St, near New World Metro. It has good food, decent coffee, and my style of music — but not so loud you can’t hear the person next to you, unlike Espressoholic

Espressoholic has CaféNet, but it’s WAY too loud there at times, especially when it’s packed. It’s good for working by yourself though.

Unfortunately, they don’t have CaféNet at Katipo, but if you can get a seat near the window, you can get enough of a signal from somewhere near by.

…

From my point of view, quiet cafés in Wellington, especially those that are open late night, are far and few between.

A thought that has crossed my mind is there is definetely a niche for a quiet designer/geek café in Wellington. It might focus on CaféNet and good coffee and food, but also be a venue for public geek meetups and seminars: have a projector and sound setup, recording speeches and putting them up on the café’s podcast…?

Posted in Food, Internet, Outside, Work | 2 Comments »

Do the Famine!

Monday, March 13th, 2006

The 40 Hour Famine is on this weekend, so I’m gonna join with my youth group and do the whole 40 hours without food and without technology. No eating, internet, phone, ipod, or psp. I might watch a movie, or read a book or three. And I might take some photos with my digital camera for proof.

And hey, you can help! I need people to sponsor me to make it all worthwhile. This year’s famine is about stopping child labour. For every $300 raised through the famine, World Vision will help a family in India to start a business so they can support themselves without needing their children to work in bonded labour.

And I’ve discovered that you can even sponsor me online! World Vision have set up a system that lets Faminers register their famine books online and get people to sponsor them online! It’s pretty neat.

So you can go pledge your sponsorship of me here:

https://secure.famine.org.nz/glutnix/

Even if you only give NZD$2, that little part will go towards helping children from more than twelve countries worldwide. $10 will provide a family of five with a health checkup and basic medical supplies in India. $150 will provide seeds for one Tanzania primary school so they can provide daily meals for their students for a year!

It all adds up! Sponsor me and help change the world!

Posted in Christianity, Events, Life, New Zealand, Outside | 1 Comment »

Blanket Man has a Posse

Friday, March 3rd, 2006

I was stunned and amused to overhear some of my collegues say that Blanket Man has a wikipedia page. Turns out his name is Ben Hana.

Wow. This is pretty awesome, because while a lot of people don’t think he should be on the street, he is, so the least we can do is learn more about his reasons.

Posted in Internet, New Zealand, Outside, Reading | 17 Comments »

Brisbane Day 4 – Fight!

Thursday, December 29th, 2005

I just got in from Brisbane and boy are my feet sore!

After purchasing what I thought would a BigPond prepaid internet set up pack, and discovering that it was instead a prepaid internet recharge code at a local IGA store. Since that didn’t work, and I wanted to get on the internet that night with my mactop, Mum and Neil signed up temporarily for a 7 hour dialup account. Cheers guys!

I tried taking the code back this morning. I get there around 10am and the IGA manager tried to get it refunded from BigPond, but couldn’t, and said I should try a Telstra store and get it sorted there.

So off on my little feet I went, trekking into the middle of Brisbane to find a Telstra store. They said if I’d have bought the code at their store, they’d be able to refund me easily. They said I should try going to the nearest IGA store and tell them the story.

So I stepped out to the Information Centre in the middle of Queen St, and asked where the nearest IGA was. Brunswick St, about the same distance as home to where I was, but in the opposite direction. Oh well, why not.

Around 12:30, I find this store, and ask them for a refund. No good — they tried talking to BigPond too — but in the end, they couldn’t refund it either, and told me to go back to where I bought it… DAMMIT.

So about a 2 hour trek back to the first IGA store, and about 20 minutes of waiting for the manager to sort it out, and BigPond said they would credit the AUD$9.95 to the post-paid account. Not the most ideal refund, but it would do — I was going to pay Mum and Neil back anyway.

I got home about 2pm.

. . .

It’s 36 degrees out here. I’m using my mactop on the picnic table on mum’s balcony. I’ll be dialing up soon to post this to my blog. My blisters have blisters. I don’t think I want to do any more walking. Going home to New Zealand tomorrow!

Posted in Outside, Rant | 1 Comment »