Bear's Blog New Zealand (Beta)

I think this just never ends

Burj Dubai under construction in UAE, as of July 15, 2007

Emaar Properties claims Burj Dubai as world's tallest building

July 22, 2007 - Wikinews (cc-by)

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) developer Emaar Properties has claimed that their Burj Dubai commercial and residential tower currently under construction, has become the world's tallest building, reaching a height of 512.1 metres (or 1,680 feet) and 141 storeys.

The current record holder, Taipei 101 of Taiwan, has a height of 508 metres and 101 storeys. When the Burj Dubai is finished, it is expected to reach nearly 700 metres in height, with approximately 160 storeys. The final height details have been kept secret by the developer.

Taipei 101 will maintain the official "tallest building" record for some time to come. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat sets the criteria for achieving height records for buildings. Emaar Properties is confident that the Burj Dubai will meet the criteria, but it won't be evaluated until some time in late 2008 when construction is complete. Read more »

Nightmare for NZ exporters

The exchange rate as at 21 July 2007. Kiwi dollar is close to US 80cents, a record high.

Except dairy farmers.

But good news for importers and money spenders like me ....

I just ordered some books on Amazon. The price plus the US $13 deliver fee is still cheaper than buy them in New Zealand.

With the current trend like this, I believe NZ$ can easily go over US 80c in sometime next week. However, it won't stay on this high level for very long as this exchange rate is not correctly reflecting the real situation of New Zealand economy.

So why not make the most of it now?(vodafone:)), the bubble blast is about to coming and the recession is not far away (some predict 2010).

Enjoy while it lasts.

World’s largest LAN is just about to form

Recent news from China showed a worrying trend of declining internet freedom there. Started from 16 July, Chinese email service providers discovered that a vast amount email failed to reach the oversea addresses. Some of them reached the intended recipients, but body of the message got manipulated to non-senses like “aaazzzaaazzz”.

Most ESP in China blamed an ‘unknown outage’ in Internet environment, but as far as I understand, there is no such an outage. Noticeably there is one ESP explained to their customers that ‘there is a system beyond normal SMTP system caused this to happen.’

Tests confirmed that there is something in between that changed normal emails to “aaazzzaaazzz” in China, and the only ‘thing’ that has the power to do that, is Great Firewall of China.

Most people now suspect that the Great Firewall of China is the reason behind this. Not necessarily start blocking emails, might be just some tests.

China already censors large amount of foreign website such as Wikipedia and BBC. Thankfully it just recently lifted the ban on Wordpress, so Chinese audiences of my blog can get in and start to appear on that little clusters map.

Most Chinese people now get used to Internet censoring, and know the “skills” to overpass the wall. However, things such as email censoring that directly invade normal people’s privacy is just something very unacceptable and I believe it’s a direct act of human right abuse.

Rumours dated back as far as more than 4 years agao suggests that the Chinese government was planning to build world’s largest LAN, which in another way, means that they want to isolate the Chinese internet community from the rest of the world so there is no connection between the two and every link with the ‘outside world’ can be monitored, managed, and ... ‘stopped’ if it is 'inappropriate'.

That rumour seems to be quite true today, first is the HTTP, then HTTPS (Great Firewall of China gained ability to block most HTTPS access), now it’s the private EMAIL that they want to have the control on. Can you imagine to live in a countrythat your every incoming and outbound email is censored and if there are any ‘sensitive word’ inside, your mail will be destroyed.

Only thing I'm hoping is that later news can rule out the effect of GFW. Otherwise, this would be the tipping point of Chinese internet censorship, once this point is passed, there is no going back, and the communists can censor everything they want and have nothing to worry about anymore.

I actually don’t know which kind of outcome I’m hoping.

PM to fly blacklisted airline

In March this year, the same flight carrying Australian diplomats and reporters crashed into a field, 23 people died.

And our brave PM is just about to take the same flight ... fingers crossed for ...

Are we getting a tunnel or what?

I'm pretty tired to see all sorts of consultation, public hearings from local and central government regarding the Auckland transportion issue. Few days ago they were backing on a tunnel option from Tank Farm to Northcote, and less than a week, it is in doudt again and a somewhat foolish councillor thinks that the traffic can "manage itself". So what we need the council for? Fire all transport planner and engineers then, oh, yes, and don't forget to vote this councillor Robyn Hughes out of her office: we don't need her anymore since everything can manage itself.

It is true that the traffic on Harbour bridge has been decreased, but it comes with the price: imagine how many businesses suffered opportunity and economic loss since their employees want to avoid communte peak time and finish work early? If we let traffic to "manage itself", the harbour bridge will only have no cars at all: we all moved oversea, MS. Hughes, happy?

The Harbour Bridge is a bottleneck that would have serious effects on region's future. Not to mention the fuel wasted and pollution created on the current bridge, without a expedite channel between North Shore City and Auckland City, both cities will struggle on their economic growth.

We may not need the second link now but we will need that, in the future. Transit New Zealand reacons that time is year 2020, but I believe it will be much earlier like early 2010.

Auckland's spending on its traffic will be a well-worth investment for region's future. We cannot try to save money from this issue now or we'll just pay more in the future, no matter a tunnel or second bridge, something has to be done now.

People are tired to the debates just go on and on and on ... why can't we have a local referendum combined with the coming local body election? Put up all the options, and let the public who voted "manages itself" councillors to decide which option is best, tunnel, bridge, or the one I support: buyback Auckland's Public transportation system and control the price to "a dollar everywhere".

Facelift

If you missed this season premier laster night, here's a chance to catch up some of its funniest moments. But there is one missing ... they should put the first A.S.S. (Anti-Smacking Squad) one online ... Oh, and, it's rated Adult Only.

This excellent TV ONE political comedy seriess usually on air just before the late night news. Strange enough, for me, I always feel that the familiar politician faces showed up in the night news immediately after the comedy just look as funny as they are still in Facelift.