I am in New Zealand for the Kiwi Foo Conference and to do the Tongerara track.
The Flight Over As my Air New Zealand flight took off over the Pacific the stewardess announced that they would shortly be turning on the Entertainment System. She warned us not to press the buttons too fast or it would lock up. Interesting. I was dutifully vary careful and pressed the buttons slowly. Then I started to watch a movie. Bored 5 minutes in, I pressed the Menu button. Bang. My screen went black and I got a Windows CE boot up screen. About 10 minutes later it had come back up. By this time amused, I decided to actually hit the buttons at normal speed to find out what would happen. The system went crazy.
It turns out that Windows is also making its way into the cabin. The Airbus A380’s non-core avionics systems run Windows and according to someone at Foo Camp, there are photos of crashed Windows systems. Welcome to the future of flight.
Auckland
New Zealand has become very successful at attracting foreign students, mainly chinese speakers. My hotel in Auckland actually turned out to be a foreign student accommodation tower. The front desk did not speak English well at all. My check-in was finally accomplished by handing over my voucher. A China town has formed between Queens St and the freeway to the east – about 6 blocks. It sort of felt like being in Hong Kong, with lots of packed towers and high energy.
I gained some temporary respite by catching a live gig at an Irish pub a bit further down Queen St.
Warkworth
Driving north out of Auckland it is striking, to an Australian, how effortlessly green everything is. The area strongly reminds me of the Tillamook region of Oregon. Rolling green hills and bucholic bliss. Warkworth is a lovely town about an hour north. A freeway from Auckland is steadily making its way north. One day Warkworth may end up being a dormitory suburb for Auckland, but not yet. Warkworth is the home of Nat Torkington, OSCON and Kiwi Foo organiser.
The New Worry
New Zealanders lose people each year to Australia. A lot of them are men. New Zealand now has a sex imbalance and is becoming a bit matriarchal. At the conference the Mahurangi College has taken over the male staff toilet and turned it into a female one. So there are two female toilets side by side. The make toilet is outside across the courtyard in a converted store room.
The new worry though, is that with Australia rapidly drying out due to global warming, Australians might start migrating en mass to New Zealand. New Zealand seems blissfully unaffected by Global warming.
Internet
The Internet is expensive in NZ. Hotels do not offer it free. Hot spots are rare. I will never complain about the Australian Internet again. Fortunately for us we had our own Internet company sponsor. One satellite on the roof later and the conference was humming. Some of the conference topics reflected the frustration. One session was on how to use cooking equipment to create parabolic antennas to extend WIFI range. Another was on a commercial effort to create controlled hot spots using your own personal Internet service and WIFI card. DAS providers offer best service of this kind.
Apparently Google Maps does not do maps for New Zealand – yet. And google itself has been known to become inaccessible from New Zealand for lengthy periods.
