thousands of them, but not the right ones.

3.14159262626262626262...

Tags: writer's block

Submission on the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill
To: The Justice and Electoral Committee

Submission:
I oppose the intent of this bill because:

1. A purpose of this bill is to retrospectively enable the use of video camera surveillance footage that was illegally obtained and is thus inadmissible (unless justified for a serious offence).

Such retrospective legislation undermines the principle that citizens are entitled to have certainty as to the laws that affect them. Any such legislation sets a damaging precedent. As a practical matter, it makes New Zealand unattractive as a country to do business in if laws can be retroactively changed to suit governmental convenience.

2. Video surveillance evidence obtained in contravention of current law is already admissible if the court considers the case sufficiently serious. As a result, this act will only affect the trial of relatively minor matters where the prosecution case is entirely reliant on illegal video recordings. This cases are both likely to be few and will almost by definition lack the seriousness to justify a precipitate law change.


Clause 6.
This clause specifically exempts the 'Operation 8' case which resulted in the Supreme Court ruling (Hamed & Ors v R).

Such an exemption for particular persons and cases is unusual. It is in effect Parliament intervening to direct the course of a particular case. This goes against the general concept of the separation of powers between parliament and judiciary.


Further comments:
A. This bill, which raises substantial issues regarding the rule of law, is being rushed through parliament under urgency. In my view, such urgency should be limited to measures needed to avert substantial damage to society, economic loss or loss of life. As discussed above, this is not the case here.

If Parliament feels the bill should proceed, it should do so through the normal legislative process with due notice being given and submissions taken.

B. In most overseas democracies, a bill such as this could never be passed for several reasons:
- the inability of legislatures to pass a bill under draconian urgency without a supermajority;
- the inability to pass a bill through two houses;
- specific constitutional prohibitions on search and seizure;
- specific constitutional provisions on retrospective legislation;
- specific constitution prohibitions on legislation specific to a particular party

In New Zealand, we have neither a written constitution, binding human rights law or a second chamber. I feel that in light of this, it is incumbent upon Parliament to consider whether legislation presented is consistent with general legal standards and expectations. In my view, this Bill clearly does not meet these standards.

Tags: politics

The Register used to be a good publication, with a pleasing level of cynicism that befitted being British.

Unfortunately, it's recently descended into climate change denial and tendentious nuclear boosterism "look, if people aren't vomiting from radiation poisoning in the streets of Tokyo, then the reactor is working as designed"

Now, their level of ignorance has reached things they might be expected to actually know about, like IT security:

The Sydney Morning Herald, ... decided to test how well householders in its home city secure their WiFi networks.

The methodology the Fairfax newspaper reports is a little vague: it says it tested networks in 20 residential locations (we don’t know whether it meant apartment blocks, streets, suburbs or something else) and found unsecured networks in ten of them.

(To test whether a password was present, wouldn’t the Sydney Morning Herald tester have logged into the networks, without the owners’ permission?)

Well no. As most people who have set a wireless router up at home might know, if you set WPA or even WEP, you *have* to provide a password/passphrase. If you choose to leave the network open, it shows up as open without anyone even trying to log in. There is no need to "try the door", it's obviously open or closed.

 They played this song on the radio this morning, it is apparently the anniversary of its being banned by the BBC. To celebrate, here are the lyrics with hyperlinks to what they are on about:

God save the Sex Pistols they're a bunch of wholesome blokes
They just like wearing filthy clothes and swapping filthy jokes
God save television keep the programmes pure
God save William Grundy from falling in manure

Ronnie Biggs was doing time until he done a bunk
Now he says he's seen the light and he sold his soul to punk

God save Martin Bormann and nazis on the run
They wasn't being wicked God that was their idea of fun
God save Myra Hindley God save Ian Brady
Even though he's horrible and she ain't what you call a lady

Ronnie Biggs was doing time until he done a bunk
Now he says he's seen the light and he sold his soul to punk
Ronnie Biggs was doing time until he done a bunk
Now he says he's seen the light and he sold his soul to punk

God save politicians God save our friends the pigs
God save Idi Amin and god save Ronald Biggs
God save all us sinners God save your blackest sheep
God save the good samaritan and god save the worthless creep

Ronnie Biggs was doing time until he done a bunk
Now he says he's seen the light and he sold his soul to punk
Ronnie Biggs was doing time until he done a bunk
Now he says he's seen the light and he sold his soul to punk
Sold his soul Sold his soul Sold his soul to punk

IE8 will ignore your session cookies under some or all of the following circumstances:

Tags: coding

 Long distance routing, running locally (as in offline on the device, not on a server) on an Android:



Just about managed to get it from blowing out of the 24M of available heap, or the 6M of external memory. Uses a modified version of Dijkstra's algorithm.

Tags: minispatial

 As some of you might now I've been toiling away at a software project for the last nine months or so.

It's now at the stage of actually bearing fruit.
  ( Click here for more )

Tags: android, software, wellington

Hello lazyweb!

I'm going to tack together a new computer shortly, mostly to run a Linux/Ruby/Rails/PostgreSQL stack as a test/staging server.

I've got an MSI965M motherboard (thank you Thomas!) and am thinking of adding the following:
- 2 x Transcend JetRAM JM800QLU-2G, 1x2GB, DDR2-800, PC2-6400, CL5, DIMM
- 1 x Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS Hard Disk Drive, 1000GB, 5400-7200rpm, 64MB Cache, SATA-2
- ViewSonic VX2433WM Monitor, 24" LCD, 1920x1080, DVI, Speakers, Black, HDMI

I was going to install Ubuntu Server 64.

Any thoughts on this, things that won't work or have a rep for unreliability? The controller says it supports hardware RAID, so I did think of mirroring the drives (for another $100). Not sure if that would slow things down.

Also, the manual says I can have 8G of DDR2-667 RAM or 4G of DDR2-800. Don't understand why? Would PostgreSQL work faster with more RAM and less memory bandwidth (on some fairly intensive database work).

Tags: geek stuff, questions

From this afternoon's Dominion Post: In Lower Hutt, a landslip has closed the southbound lane of State Highway 2 near Normandale.

I just drove down that road. It hadn't. There was no sign of a landslip anywhere on either carriageway. It would in any case be very hard for that to happen, as the southbound lane is the one furthest from the hill - the debris would need to have somehow leapt the northbound lane and landed on the far side.

I realise that a bit of heavy drizzle is the biggest thing that's happened in the lower North Island since Tuesday, but they could at least get their facts straight.

Should we believe anything else in the paper (answer: not without personal corroboration)?

Tags: dumb post bollox, emergency drizzle alert

(If I posted this on kiwiburnexcomlive, would they throw me off for snarking?)


1. Radical Exclusion.
Anyone can be a part of Kiwiburn, apart from those who have been banned. Should the event hit space limits, however, priority will be given to core participants. They are the important people, not you dreamy artists.

2. Reward.
Kiwiburn is devoted to work for reward. Work as directed, and you will be duly rewarded with patches, t-shirts, food, beer and cigarettes.

3. Consumption
. Kiwiburn is about playing with cool stuff. Golf carts, shiny tools and radios are all core to the true participatory experience. Sign up and work hard, and you may be allowed access to these wonders.

4. Radical dependency.
Kiwiburn is about being looked after. Bring only your collection of hardcore black clothes and a willingness to work as instructed, and you will be provided with all your needs in water, beer, food and cigarettes.

5. Radical contribution.
Kiwiburn is about teams working together to create spectacle under central direction. You can be a small part of such a team. We value your contribution to delivering our visions.

6. Communal effort.
Our community promotes social interaction through group cohesion. We value subordination of the individual to the group.

7. Civic responsibility.
We value our asses. Please not to be getting us busted.

8. Leaving no Trace.
We fuck the place up. Then we clear it. We value your knowing that we spent a long time doing that clearing, that you were the slack gits who dumped the trash, and that we spent hours drinking in the sun and minutes clearing "moop". Because self-righteousness is a better drug than coke.

9. Spectating.
Get back behind that line! You are here to watch the pretty fire and appreciate the efforts of the hardcore crew that built it. We work for weeks to create a spectacle, whilst you're sat in your offices earning cash for those tickets, costumes and disco biscuits. Worship us.

10. Immediacy.
Immediate experience is in many ways the most immediate value. Immediacy overcomes barriers (not the ones around the man, dickhead!) and gives you contact with a human world exceeding natural powers. Or something. So get out there and buy a ticket. Immediately!

Tags: burning man, humour, kiwiburn, snark