Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

Electoral Finance Bill

Seems that some people are determined not to let the issue fade away from media.

But at least I think, this Bill is very democratic.

We all know the basic principle of democracy - "one person one vote". If you understand the "vote" in this principle as real "vote" you would be very wrong.

Why one person is just allowed to have one vote? This is to make sure that everyone, regardless of their gender, age, social class, have the same amount of influence on how the governing body should formed - for me, this is the real meaning of "one person one vote".

Then you should start to understand why this bill is very democratic. The spending cap is like, level out the "money" factor in the election game - make sure that each of us only have same amount of influence on media - which could indirectly influence the election; so money will not buy anybody any extra influence in elections, and this sounds more than fair to me.

Theoretically the bill does give neither major party an advantage, well if Nats are feeling disadvantaged, they should just think about open up the details of all their dodgy stuffs.

I didn't like anti-smacking bill, I didn't like a lot of bills from this government, but on this Electoral Finance Bill, I'm with Comrade Helen.

Another great franchise ruined by EA.

After C&C, it's SimCity's turn.

When I heard that Maxis got nothing to do with SimCity Society, the newest game of once a greatest franchise, I immediately know that this won't be something good.

When I heard that they abandoned basic elements of SimCity such as zoning and power networking, I start to think if they should name this game something else.

So I downloaded the game through BT to have a try.

And I'm glad I didn't put my NZ$90 to buy one. I'm utterly disgusted,  the game is just a load of craps.

All you need is just randomly put your buildings around the map. The "social energies" thing, once promoted by EA as a new twist of SimCity and encourage people to try, well I cannot see anything important on that - you got 50 creativity, so what? Don't know. The Sims in your city still move around like normal even if you created a hell.

The buildings are totally out of scale - it is a fairy tale world, not a real world. The high graphic details looks pretty, but that's about it. In other way, my 8800gts struggled to run the game on high quality and lags on medium quality when the city gets larger.

The whole game got no purpose. It's a just themepark building game for kindergareners. In fact, for me,  I don't think it is even a game - it's a WYSIWYG editor with loads of bizzare ideas.

For all SimCity Fans, dont' be fooled by the title, this game is NOT SimCity. Don't waste your money on it, stick with SimCity 4 or hope that Maxis will put their feet on SimCity 5 (if there will be one) after Spore.

Are we going too fast on battling Climate Change?

The New Zealand Institute issued a weird looking (at least to me) report today.Prepared by Daviding Skilling, the report suggests that New Zealand should be a "fast follower" rather than a leader in Climate Change, and delay meeting its emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol to 2020. That target deadline is currently set on 2012 and we are very likely to fail to meet it. Read more

It's Labour Day today...

... But do you know that this year's New Zealand Labour Day coincides with International Stuttering Awareness Day?

Started in 1998, this day is aiming to "recognizes the growing alliance between speech-language professionals and consumers, who are learning from each other and working together to share, give support, and educate one another and the general public on the impact that stuttering has on individuals' lives."

I'm very open about this. I suffered from stutter since the day I started to talk (in Chinese), and still, today, though significantly improved.

In early years I was laughed by nearly every people in my life, even my relatives. I never lable those laughters "discrimination" because it's not their fault: there was very little public awareness on stutter, and people don't treat it as a clinical disorder, especially in a Chinese society where most eldlies (including my grandparents) believe that give their children a slap on the face everytime they stutter will cure the disorder.

This sort of things happended in my life in just about 15 years ago.

I settled right here in New Zealand around 2003. What I really enjoyed about New Zealand society you feel far less discriminated because of your speech difficulty. Most people will wait quietly to let you to finish the sentence without any laughter.

But in most of the cases, people who waitted me to finish the sentence are not awared of that I'm a stutter; based on my Asian apperance, most of people thought that I just have a very bad English.

This International Stuttering Awareness Day is not well observed in New Zealand. Stutter happens only in less than 1% of population. In a small population such as in New Zealand, this 1% can be easily ignored.

However, I'm very grateful that I had the experience of being ignored and discriminated. Because of this, I treat every person in my life, whether they are physically or mentally disabled, fairly, and in the same respect that I would give to everyone else.

Eden Stadium funding

John Banks seems to be bit too excited about his re-election to Auckland's mayoralty. In the news today, he said that he would pull out ratepayers' fund from Mt Eden Statdium upgrade.

We don't live in a world where things just happens without cash, so who should pay for the 2011 World Cup?

I'm bit left, but I also like right wing sometimes: they do things on common sense, not "social values" . My version of common sense is that, people and groups who will benefit from the stadium upgrade should pay. Based on that, here is the list of people and groups that I think should pay, from the biggest payer to smallest.

Central Government -Rugby world cup and Mt Eden statdium are the issues of national importance. The cup will bring benefit to the whole country, and central government should come up with the largest share of funding to represent the benefit that it will receive (increased tax, tourism...)

NZRU - no explanation needed.

Businesses in Auckland - clearly, some businesses will benefit from the cup.

and, lastly, I cannot see any benefit that an average Aucklander can get from this. An increased wage? Possibly, but that also means more taxes paid. In fact, people are more likely to get annoyed by increased amount of car and pedestrian traffic.

If interests of people are harmed by an activity or a building upgrade, what is the proper way to compansate those people? You pay them.

That concludes my opinion.

Fair Go Ad Awards

Ads are the butter and breed of television stations in New Zealand. Although I always believe that TVNZ should be fully public funded, well, that's another point.

An advert can go either way, a boring way like "xxx for $19.95", or the entertaining way, like the ads I listed below.

This year there were actually quite a lot of amazing and memorable ads on telly. I ranked some of my favourates just before the Fair Go go on air (in order):

1. Genesis energy "pukeko" - really catchy song and a good point demonstrated by a really clever pukeko. I also like their online game. Genesis must have a great PR department.

2. Air New Zealand "Amazing Journeys" -

3. ASB Goldstein - ad campaign for what ... more than 10 years. This year has been particularly good to see the boss actually came to the Kiwiland.

4. Vicks "Attack is the best form of defence"

5. Vodafone New Zealand "Make the most of it now"

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update

Kiwiana has won the prize again... But I really don't see what is the good point in this Toyota Grizzly ad... If my memory serves me right, winners from last two years all had the same ingredients: kiwiana type ad from a Japanese automobile company.

While I share pretty much the same opinion as other NZers, I was quite surprised that the Air New Zealand ads didn't made into final 5. Compare with a bunch of Kiwi farmers jump up and down, singing stupid songs with strong kiwi accent, the Air NZ one is what I really called "art of advert".

You can view this year's best and worst ads here.