So I’ve got a newish PC here that I want to setup with VMWare ESXi.
The down side is that I can’t seem to get it to boot off a USB CD-ROM drive, and I don’t have any SATA DVD Drives handy to pop in.
Thankfully, I’ve managed to find a relatively easy way to get ESXi installed and up and running!
All you need is Physdiskwrite (Dont bother with the GUI), the ESXi ISO, and something like WinRAR to extract everything.
The whole process should only take about 3-4 minutes.
So my last blog post got me thinking:
Why is tax one of the few things where the more you get, the more you pay?
Usually when purchasing things like PC Parts, food (such as meat), or things like Insurance, the more you get, the less it costs you. Quantities of scale.
Tax is different. Not only does somebody earning $100,000 a year pay proportionally more when compared to somebody who earns $32,000 a year, they in fact pay exponentially more due to the increasing tax rates! Yet the Labour party wants to increase that even more?
When I buy a 500g of Mince, it costs me $7 (Or $14 per-KG). When I buy 1KG, it costs me $12.
If I earn $32,000 a year, I’m paying around $5,300 in tax (Roughly, I can’t stand working out PAYE). However if I earn $100,000, then not only do I pay more because I earn more, but I’m being exponentially disadvantaged. I’d be paying around $26,000. That’s 5x more!
Now, granted a lot more of it is probably “surplus” over and above what is required to maintain a reasonable standard of living, but as somebody who has studied hard and worked hard to get to that position, shouldn’t that be my prerogative?
Now I don’t earn $100K, far from it, but it’s something I aspire towards.
But because those earning more money are contributing more anyway, wouldn’t it make sense for them to get a discount? Wouldn’t it be great for the IRD to say:
“Oh, you’ve already paid your dues, paid your fair share, so rather than carrying on at the regular rate, we’re in fact going to discount everything over $50,000 to only 10%, because you’re already bringing in more to the Govt coffers than those who don’t earn as much, we want to encourage you to earn even MORE!”
Food for thought…
I’ve recently come across an insanely annoying bug in VMWare.
I’m not entirely sure of the steps to replicate it. For me, I was lucky enough to have several VMWare Hosts & Clusters that I could test against at the time when this arose.
Basically, the general gist is the “Console” screen of any Virtual Host is white instead of showing you what you should see. Talk about a PITA!
It was odd, it only happened on a remote host for me, ones on our LAN were fine.
Anyway, the fix is thankfully dead simple.
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Disclaimer: I’m (apparently) quite a right-winged political supporter, though I’ve found that pretty much everything Colin Craig and the Conservative Party does seems to fit pretty darn closely to how I feel on social / political issues (Most of which my religion seems to heavily influence my feelings upon them also, as well as what I’d call ‘common sense’, but alas I digress). I voted National last year, just so you know …
NOTE:Â This doesn’t take into account prior broken promises from either party, I don’t really care about that right now. This is just a quick look at promises that are already “broken”, before they’ve even been made.
I’ve noticed some terrible misconceptions going around about this years election. I figure it’s worth quickly clearing some of them up and setting the record straight. Some of them are pretty stupid little oversights, others are just outright wrong and retarded.
The first and most appallingly obvious blunder is by the Labour party. Fact of the matter is it’s the total opposite from the truth:
Here they’re standing for a “fairer” tax system “for all”. What they’re really doing is appealing to the masses by promising cuts for the better majority of people, thereby hoping to win voters, even though they’re lying about what they’re doing. It’s not fairer for all. In fact it’s the opposite. It’s making those who already work their asses off and therefore pay more tax (Because they earn more) even more ‘punished’ because they will have to pay more tax under this Labour regime. Not only that but Labour are wanting to target family trusts and other things that higher income earners have used at times to balance their tax to the rate of 33%, and scrap that so more high-income earners pay even more in tax yet again.
Figures shown here on Kiwiblog show that under 10% of households are paying 70% of the nations taxes. Yet, under this Labour promise to make a fairer system for all (Presuming that fairer means that everybody pays the same percentage), they’re taking everybody for a joy-ride. It’s not going to be fairer. It’s going to appeal to the mass-suckers who take it at face value and hopefully will win them some votes. Clever, but not honest.
So it’s September 1st, the new law comes into effect today, but here’s a light-hearted look at a few interesting / fun facts that you should know about the new law.
This is a follow-up from my previous look into how you would get caught downloading via P2P / Bittorrent, and how the copright holders track you down.
UPDATE: Paul Brislen who is head of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) has done an interview with NZ Herald, similar to this article. It’s also well worth watching the reply of the interview : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10748747Â
- Infringements since the 11th of August count, so if you downloaded a movie on the 12th of August, you may end up with a letter (email) about it today.
 - It’s only the account holder who gets the notifications. From there, your ISP and the copyright holders don’t care. If your name is on the bill, the WHOLE internet connection is your responsibility
 - With the previous statement in mind, it’s worth noting that there are NO readily available and easy ways for the average consumer / household / small-business to easily monitor and control their internet connection
 - The new law was passed in a rush, but at the time it basically had support from both Labour (Who are now doing a dobule-take on their stance) and National.
 - No, the Internet is not Skynet from the Terminator movies. Jonathan Young was a moron for suggesting that.
 - The law is about stopping the “casual” or “opportunist” person who may try their luck to get away with it. The “real” or “big-time” infringers know how to get around the law. It’s about changing the culture and perception of copyright infringement.
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You see, I’m asked pretty much every single day by somebody about it. There is still *so* much uncertainty around this new law and where it’s going to leave people standing.
So, I thought I’d show people how they can be caught (This is exactly how “the big guys” will catch you), specifically if they were downloading copyrighted materials. I’ll also explain why some people who think they are “safe” are not.
Then I’ll summarize at the end with some other nuggets of information about the new law.
Lets download a file (Though this one is a fully legal file) and show you first-hand how to get caught, and how you can catch others!
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I was having a bit of a discussion with some people online eariler today and it got me thinking:
Has Telecom been screwed out of all this?
By “all this” I mean the broadband rollout across NZ.
Back in 2006, Labour Minister David Cunliffe approved a whole lotta jazz that basically meant that any Tom, Dick or Harry business could use Telecoms gear:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/?q=node/28055
In theory, reading that announcement, everything all sounds good. However looking at it from the flip-side (Because lets be honest, so many close-minded NZ’ers like Chris Barton suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome and want to cut down the likes of Telecom any chance they get), if you were in Telecoms shoes, you’ve basically just been royally screwed!
Yeah there’s a monopoly, there’s good reason for that. We’re only 4.5 million Kiwis, and we’re spread across a *ton* of land, not like Japan or Korea where they’re all packed in like sardines into their highrise buildings.
I found this article as well, thought it was a good (brief) one which takes a similar stance on things:Â http://www.libertarianz.org.nz/telecom-regulation-unjust-and-misguided/
Lets be honest, if there was a legitimate business case for ultra-fast broadband, and it was cost-effective, and there was money to be made, then somebody else would have done it. The TelstraClear Cable service would be available outside the likes of Christchurch and Wellington, IF it was cost-effective to roll out the access at decent speeds. If it was, why haven’t they done it to the likes of Auckland?
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So you’ve heard about Google+, somebody has been kind enough to invite you, now you wanna get your mates in on the action? Awesome!
Well, it’s not much fun using social networking if you don’t have any friends on there to be social with, so I’ll show you how to get a few friends on. This process is bound to change and will be different of course later on when Google+ gets out of its “beta” testing stage, so just keep that in mind.
Anyway, it’s not difficult to get some friends, and here’s how you do it without constantly spamming all your other mates with useless posts, and it’ll only take about 60 seconds.
WARNING: Trolling ahead – Don’t take this post too seriously
UPDATE 2011 10 03: Watch this after:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq-e0getf4M
Update 2011 08 24: Apparently they’re also bringing rounded buttons:
http://www.cultofmac.com/theres-a-cool-scientific-reason-why-ios-5s-round-buttons-are-awesome/109623
I’ve got that on my phone right now though on Android! (Click the picture below)
Before we begin, let me clarify: I think iOS5 is going to be great for iPhone & iPad users, they’ve needed many of the features for a long time, like a decent notifications system. It’s something that I now take for granted on Android.
So anyway, when Apple announced their new version of iOS, I couldn’t help but pick it apart when the very first thing the trailer says is:
“…and with iOS5, we’ve taken an operating system that was already years ahead and we’ve added over 200 new features to it that move it even further ahead”.
Pretty bold statement Apple, so I’m here to take a semi-serious, semi-smartass look at why I disagree. I’ll look and see if it’s “years ahead” or “just plain old catching up”!
You can watch the trailer here:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqvq3JN1Lf4
Or on the official Apple website  here: http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/gallery.html#video-ios
