Comments on: Dear Internet Censors

By: Charismatic Enigma

Charismatic Enigma — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:48:46 +0000

NP, you rule SO hard.

By: Lemphek

Lemphek — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:59:52 +0000

move to texas.

or Australia

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:45:03 +0000

Stay away from NZ, it’s nothing but gun-toting maniacs who hate authority…

By: 1LT Los

1LT Los — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:57:00 +0000

Just what exactly is the purpose of posting Huynh Ut photo of a Napalm Attack in Trang Bang South Vietnam? What is the purpose? DO you know and does Ut know that the airplane that dropped the napalm was ARVN – This is an example of liberal cowards who had no balls of their own face an enemy so they created an enemy of the USA. This entire Operation was South Vietnamese coordinated, ordered and executed — USA had nothing to do with this event occurring. The young girls nakedness exposes the posters nakedness – to me – you have no point nor strategy as to why you post this – especially when the truth regarding the incident in far from you! 100% South Vietnamese Operation. Trang Bang was an area heavily infested with NVA and Viet Cong — hence the air support. Months later all was back to normal in 1968 Trang Bang was bombarded by heavy mortar and missile fire until nothing remained — She is lucky she got the hell out of there when she did or did she?
Ut you gotta tell the truth along with the photography~! Ut Call me! 1LT Los c,carlos.ramos@gmail.com

By: Alex P.

Alex P. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:08:04 +0000

I’ve seen this image before, It’s of South Vietnam during the Vietnamese war. I think 1971?

By: hugh g rection

hugh g rection — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:10:09 +0000

member of nambla, are ya?

By: Nyree

Nyree — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:20:54 +0000

Holy. That’s insane, that all pictures of naked children would be considered porn, no matter the context. Also I love your captioning of this picture.

By: Arokan

Arokan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:03:45 +0000

Internet in New Zealand does get painfully slow, and is far more expensive than it needs to be. As a rule though, if you are awake at midnight, you speed will skyrocket in the urban areas (im using telstraclear) and get speeds of ~250kbps normally, but up to 2mbps at night. Be prepared to wake up and be on dialup for a day or so though.

The NCEA system that is used for Highs Schools in New Zealand is utter crap. Physics especially follows an obscure marking system that even our teachers don’t fully understand at times. I think it involves sacrificing someone . One of my friends sat lvl3 physics last year (final year of high school) and got 85%. And failed the paper. Whereas in another paper he got 40% and passed with excellence (highest mark. Numerical score doesn’t matter at all)

It is getting to the point that no institution pays any attention to NCEA, it is so pathetically easy and offers no distintion between a genius or a mediorce student: all there is is a certificate saying “This student 1) Failed 2) Passed 3) Passed with Merit 4) Passed with excellence.” Excellence for the entire year is achievable by only doing art. Someone could fail every english paper, every maths paper, every physics paper but get all of their art papers with Excellence, and pass the year with excellence, getting a end result indistinguishable from the student who gets every single paper in the year with excellence.

The website with all the papers on it is here: http://nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/index.html
Physics papers are located here (level one): http://nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/assessment/search.do?query=physics&view=all&level=01

Gripes about the education system aside (i’m disliking it because im currently sitting it) NZ is a wonderful place to live. As long as you avoid Auckland Physics teachers are in pretty high demand, and i can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that Wellington College still has a physics vacancy.

Concerning internet filtering, as far as i can tell, there is none: our government isn’t as stupid as the Australian one (no offense).

By: wellington_grey

wellington_grey — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:54:23 +0000

Wow, Jim, thanks for the great, first-hand reply.

I do have concerns about latency as my parents who live in the Confederacy have gotten quite used to video chatting — but I assume with the slow speed and high latency that won’t be practical.

The science page is interesting, but vague. I don’t suppose you or your science teacher friend know where I could download the equivalent to GCSE-level tests?

Thanks again.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:18:28 +0000

The NZ curriculum is online of course … http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/the_new_zealand_curriculum/learning_areas/science will show you what is in “Science”. I also know a couple of secondary teachers, including one Science one, so I can ask around with any specific questions if you have them. Generally permanent jobs are advertised in October, for a February term one start.

The Internet in NZ is not too bad, as long as you don’t depend on individual low-latency high-bandwidth connections overseas. I can get anywhere in NZ for <100ms, but nowhere overseas for <250ms (on average). Makes most online games difficult, however VoIP federated through a local provider is OK. Straight download speed from a random international location can be slow (75kbps) but content delivery networks like akamai are present onshore so you can often get full speed. The worst aspect at the moment is that the two largest ISPs basically refuse to peer with anyone, so being a content provider can be tricky. However, there are always ways to maximise what’s available.

NZ is not a religious stronghold; the 2006 census records 55.6% claiming “a Christian religion”, down from 60.6% in 2001. “No religion” has increased from 29.6% to 34.7%. (source: Statistics New Zealand http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/5F1F873C-5D36-4E54-9405-34503A2C0AF6/0/quickstatsaboutcultureandidentity.pdf )

Becoming an NZ resident requires some work with the Immigration department, http://www.immigration.govt.nz/. It’s probably easier to go to NZ House just off Trafalgar Square and talk to the office directly. However, I guess you’d be looking at the “Skilled Migrant” category .. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/skilledmigrant/ – you’ll get extra points for not moving to Auckland; I agree with that! But then again, I’m much more a fan of the South Island anyway …