Bear's Blog New Zealand (Beta)

About ... Ihug

Ihug is one of most recognisable telecommunication brands in New Zealand, possibly just right after Telecom New Zealand.

About it's service... it is declining, but still good. Its email service went nuts for quite a few times in the past years, but it didn't had any impact on me ... I never use ISP email boxes.

However, we may need to say goodbye to ihug soon. Its owner, Vodafone New Zealand, will shut down the brand and merge the current service to becone part of Vodafone New Zealand around April this year.

I guess this is possibly a good news to current customers like me, except...

I was very happy with ihug's old brandband plan I'm on (2mb plan which gives 4 gb allowance, 2gb for peak time and other 2gb for non-peak time).

I don't need a fast speed so I was reluctant to move to the new 7.5mb plan for quite a long time. And another reason I liked the plan, well, you can see it below:

You can sort of guess out how I did it by just look at this picture, and I can swear to you that except normal log in process, there's absolutely no illegal tools/hackings involved.

But I recently received a pretty and polite (but not nice) letter from ihug - they will switch my broadband to a new plan from March(of course, by force) from March, which I don't want to have.

Without the 'extra' data allowance which Ihug kindly provided to me for the last year or two, Ihug's service is not as competitive as other ISPs like Orcon and TelstraClear.

I'm seriously considering switiching to another ISP, after being a 4 year loyal Ihug customer.

Sir Edmund Hillary's State Funeral + photos

I watched today's State Funeral on TV ONE. It was quite amazing. Thousands of people, despite of occasional heavy rain pour today, lined up in Auckland Domain, Newmarket, Parnell for hours just to see Sir Ed for one last time. When the hearse finally arrives, people from all walks of life quietly clapped and some throwed flowers.

Despite the absent of royal members in the service, there was an appropriate, and impressive range of people including memebers of the original expedition team, Sherpa people, and Son of Tenzing Norgay attended the service. It was particularly moving to see that with the help of his friend and Sherpas,  Sir Ed's achievement on helping people in Himalayan Mountains lived on to today.

And ... did any one notice that, despite the bad weather in Auckland for several days, there were actually sunny periods at the time when the service starts and when Sir Ed's casket leaves the Church.

It was quite sad that I could not be one of the people line up along the road to see him for one last time . However, I did took time to have one last look last night in Holy Trinity's Lying in State.

It was absolutely amazing to see the amount of people gathered there. I arrived about 11 pm, but when I finally get into the cathedral, it was around half past one, and there was still a long line behind me.

There is no doubt that Sir Edmund Hillary is the greatest mind ever lived in our generation, and we won't be able to see another one of his kind, ever again.

He'll be forever remembered.

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About ... How we remember Sir Edmund Hillary

I don't quite like the idea of create a new national holiday for him. It is very appropriate that we can have a day every year to remember Sir Ed's achievement and reflect on ourself. But the reality is, in those days every holiday we got will eventually become commercialised ---Sir Ed Day sale on now!

If the holiday is really the way to go, all commercial activities must banned on that day.

Rename Auckland International Airport is a better idea. It is very symbolic - with every departing and landing aeroplane, Sir Ed's name and spirit fly with them, high above Mt Everest and the sky.

Also as Auckland is the gateway for most visitors to New Zealand, rename the Airport could help the country to introduce its best to the world.

We can just follow the New York JFK Airport, rename Auckland report to Edmund Percival Hillary International Airport, airport code EPH.

If rename of Auckland Airport isn't possible, we could look at other things such as a mountain or a river in the country.

By the way, his state funeral will be held tomorrow in Auckland, it will be broadcast live on TV ONE. more details here.

The statue of Sir Edmund Hillary gazes towards Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest Mountain.

(Photo Copyright: Jonathan Keelty, released in Wikipedia under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)

Conquerer of Mt. Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary passed away earlier today, aged 88.

Regarded as one of the greatest New Zealanders in country's History, his story and spirit inspired countless fellow New Zealanders to follow their dreams.

He passed away 9 am NZDST today in Auckland Hospital, surrounded by his family members. The news broke out around 11am, flood of tributes from New Zealanders and people around the world soon followed.

This is truely the sad day for the country. A National Day of Mourning should be arranged if possible.

news update

Bill Gates' last full working day at Microsoft

This video clip is from 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show.  Whether you like Micro$oft or not, this one is quite fun...

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.