As you will know, there is a lot of anger at the Government's decision to cut funding to night classes by 80% - a cut which will effectively mean the end to affordable, life-long learning in local high schools around NZ after the end of this year.

We have been fighting these cuts and thank everyone who has signed the petition, sent a postcard, written a letter or email and even visited their local MP to discuss the issue.

We are now marching to Parliament to show the Government the strength of feeling against the cuts and again ask for your support.

Please join us this Tuesday 4 August. The march will leave Wellington High School at 2.15pm, aiming to arrive at Parliament by 3pm.

The route will be from Gate 4 on Taranaki Street (by the pedestrian crossing next to the school gym - please assemble around the gym outside area), then down Taranaki Street, along Dixon Street to Victoria Street, then down Manners Street to Willis Street and along Lambton Quay to Parliament. If you can't be at the start, just join us along the way or meet us at Parliament.

Please spread the word - we need to show the Government that this is a short-sighted decision that will have an impact on all communities around New Zealand.

Please feel free to contact me if you need any further information - and apologies if this email has already been sent to you.

Regards
Robyn

Robyn Hambleton
Coordinator
Wellington High School ACE Centre
Ph: 385 8919
www.cecwellington.ac.nz www.stopnightclasscuts.org.nz

Colin Jackson has a good read on his blog on APRA's assertion that the internet would be empty without the content industries

Let’s just pause for a moment and celebrate a few of the things that people get over the Internet. Wikipedia. Twitter. Email. Hubble Space Pictures. Skype. Travel Bookings. Banking. News. Maps. I could go on, and I’m sure you could too.

By saying something as stupid as this APRA is showing that it really doesn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us.

Things i did tonight on the internet
# wrote 2 blog posts
# Reviewed a Drupal patch
# accepted a calendar invitation from a friend
# topped up my prepay cellphone
# paid my rent and credit card bill on internet banking
# checked http://identi.ca
# sent a merge request for unicode tags on laconca
# chatting about git stash with a friend
# read emails
# reviewed miniconf proposal for #lca2010
# read about the locomotive act on wikipedia
# approved a friend request on last.fm
# synchronised my digital pen with the cloud
# searched for creative commons photos on http://flickr.com
# commented on a Labour party blog post

I've pondered for some days writing a post being an woman working with and contributing to open source software for the Down under feminists carnival - such a post would include how awesome it is to work in this great field.

Such a blog post would also include the seriously negative sexist incidents that happen from time to time. Especially the high profile ones. (They're not the norm, and they happen infrequently)

In the past when I've reported on such negative incidents on my blog (3 times) I've received email telling me to stop pointing it out. Usually it's from open source project leaders and people I do respect in the open source community. The form of the email is usually a very very long essay explaining that describing what has happened to me or my friends at a conference is going to damage the community, the project, and is going to drive women away from the field. Please be quiet.

They ask me why I want to do such a horrible thing to open source as to blog about the things that happen. Very clearly I'm part of the problem by reporting it. Often they'll throw in something about me not understanding how open source culture works.

So on that note, I'm not going to write the post after all - I don't have the energy.

Instead I encourage you to check out the Geek feminism wiki

time to announce on my blog, that... ta da... i'm pregnant.

let the "congratulations" comments ensue (it's traditional)

It's a strange world i've found myself in -- in New Zealand everything is free in the whole pregnancy and birth stuff.. except it's overloaded and thus unavailable. free, but you can't have any.

Midwives are free - isn't that awesome?? except that they're all booked up, none available. I can hire an obstetrician, but, guess what, they're all booked out too.

Antenatal classes are free -- but they're all full. (and curiously: contact is via a hotmail address)

The GP should have been free, but my GP choose not to enroll onto the system, so it wasn't free. The nurse mentioned this was because the amount they get re-embursed dosen't make it worth it.. so FREE! but not available.

I have since changed GP, less convenient but free (except for the taxi ride). However, GPs won't do antenatal care like a midwife does -- I'm guessing this is because there's not enough money in it due to government setting the price.

Parts of the medical world runs like the 19th century. To get the list of midwives to ring (i rang them all) you need to ring a phone number run by ministry of health, then talk to a human, who snail mails you their "database" I asked if they had a website, but was told "no, nothing fancy like that". I asked if they could email it to me instead "no, we're not allowed to use email at work". - I almost expected it to turn up on horseback. or a morse code telegram. Might have been faster than waiting 4 days for mail.

musician Amanda Palmer talks about life after ditching her record label.  

Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » E-Mail Of The Day

i had to EXPLAIN to the so-called "head of digital media" of roadrunner australia WHAT TWITTER WAS. and his brush-off that "it hasn’t caught on here yet" was ABSURD because the next day i twittered that i was doing an impromptu gathering in a public park and 12 hours later, 150 underage fans - who couldn’t attend the show - showed up to get their records signed.

the times they are a-changing fucking dramatically, when pong-twittering with trent reznor means way more to your fan-base/business than whether or not the record is in fucking stores (and in my case, it ain’t in fucking stores).

twitter is EVERYTHING that you explain in your rants: it is a MAINLINE insta-connection with the fans. there is ZERO middleman.
my fans hung out with me all day on twitter today while i unpacked weird tour shit, fan art, gifts and paraphernalia that usually just ends up in my closet or in the trash and took pictures of it for them. 

Read the whole email

I got an email, looking like a classic email phishing spam

however the links all actually pointed to asb.co.nz. I was left wondering if there was some new bug in firefox that hide the address.

Or, perhaps, the ASB website is compromised and the phishers managed to put up their whole flash game

or perhaps it's a real PHISHING TRAINING email from genuine asb bank people. For seriously?

The text of the email:

Gobble a Grand today!

Feel like you're being chased by a bunch of bills? Simply login to
FastNet Classic between 17 November - 21 December 2008 and you could win $1,000 to send them all packing.

and a link to https://www.asb.co.nz/gobbleagrand

So, they're training ASB customers to read emails, believe they're from their bank, click a link, and enter in their internet banking credentials.

just wow.

New Zealand Political Parties and their ACTA position | coffee.geek.nzSource: coffee.geek.nzMark Harris sent an email to all NZ political parties registered for the 2008 general election.

Just got this email from our new receptionist:

Beer o'clock is on.

We do not have a mutant strawberry on display today, but something even
more odd.. that almost made me drop the pack of beer on my foot... like
a pair of candy pink panties found in Level 6 fridge.

Would the owner of this sophisticated piece of art work please come and
collect them...its wedged between the spring rolls and  the crackers.

...

I do this alot with my palm:
1. take photos with DSLR
2. put camera card into palm
3. send photo by email

This is the only method i've found for getting photos from my camera into my ipodtouch so i can email them..
1. take photo with DSLR
2. photos saves to Eye.fi
3. Eye.fi connect to wifi, uploads to https://eye.fi
4. the eye.fi server pushes to flickr
5. I go to my flickr account with my ipod
6. Save photo from safari
7. Send photo my email

alas this requires being online with wifi (the final email step queues for later sending on both palm and ipod)

I'm pretty much carbon bonded to my Palm TX - an aging palm pilot that has wifi and bluetooth and that's about it.

I keep all my calendar, todos, and such in Agendus. It's nifty too becuase i can attach jpegs to just about anythjing, and link meetings and tasks to each other.

I then use Agendus Mail - it pulls down my imap emails, and I can then turn an email into a Todo or a meeting or a memo.

I then keep projects in an app called BrainForest - which shows a rough tree outline with progress meters.

I place an order, and 2 days later i get this emailYour Lenovo order: Order # CA###### has been receivedFrom: lenovopc@au.lenovo.comTo: 1hooewl@my.lenovo.com, 1sahar@my.lenovo.com, empsale@au.lenovo.com, lenovopc@au.lenovo.com, brenda@catalyst.net.nzDate: 15/03/07 17:06  Dear Brenda Wallace,Order informationThank you for visiting Lenovo. Your order has been received and transferred to a Lenovo Customer Representative. This e-mail confirms receipt of your order to Lenovo.......

so, i signed up for "some" of google apps. I set my MX records there, and created mail accounts in their gmail-like interface.but, alas, no IMAP.... i just can't migrate the "users" (family, friends and in-laws) to google's mail offering without imap.their webmail interface rocks -- ajaxed, or plain html or xhtml-mp for your pda and phones.. AWESOME!I access my email from everywhere.. so do my "users". They keep useful emails in imap folders for handy access. Webmail is not so handy. For starters it doesn't "sync" to your phone's imap client.

Round the vines is on Sunday 18 March 2007.
We did this last year, and were so slow the time keepers had packed up and gone home by the time we got to the finish line.
The walk starts in Martinborough township, and then heads into the country. We'll walk through many many vineyards, who will offer fruit and wine (and sometimes beer) to sway us from finishing. Lets say they were very successful at swaying catalyst people last year.
So, Catalyst people, If you wann join us this year, send me an email.

i'm running out of gadgets to covet.

right now i'm looking at the Nokia bluetooth pens - - i've drooled over the idea of these many times - - but i've never seen one first hand. The idea is you write notes on paper using this pen, and some encoding of the image yoiu drew is sent to your nokia devices (assumably a cellphone) - where it appears as a png. you can then send that my email or MMS - - .
I brain storm on paper alot. I tried using pda apps, like Brain Forest or Thought Manager - - in fact i wrote a whole nanowrimo in brain forest (in the wrong month, but it counts).

i'm running out of gadgets to covet.

right now i'm looking at the Nokia bluetooth pens - - i've drooled over the idea of these many times - - but i've never seen one first hand. The idea is you write notes on paper using this pen, and some encoding of the image yoiu drew is sent to your nokia devices (assumably a cellphone) - where it appears as a png. you can then send that my email or MMS - - .