This site was originally a Forum for family / friends to act as an alternative to using Facebook, however never achieved adoption and subsequently evolved into a personal general blog (originally serving as my personal self-hosted surrogate to Facebook).
As of June 2026, This site is no longer actively being updated. Friends and family will likely already either be on my socials, have my phone number and / or meet up regularly in person any way.
Any views that have been expressed here are my own and (unless otherwise explicitly stated) I do not purport that any of my views to be factually correct and my opinions on any given topic are almost certainly subjected to change over time. The intended audience of this blog was Family and friends and the content here should be regarded in the same vein as a series of personal public Facebook posts as opposed to a fully-fledged blog.
Just gotten word from WordFence security plug-in there’s another critical bug with another plug-in I had. The errant plug in has since been disabled and removed, but it does highlight a wider issue with regards to website maintainability given this is (or was) just a personal / family site… (Continued below)
Auckland Domain Autumnal.
Combined with reading about a recently reported Linux Kernel “Copy-Fail” CVE, Have taken the opportunity to move this site back to managed hosting from unmanaged VPS, “Freeze” this site (as much as possible) in the backend and stop posting to it indefinitely. Consequently this means the comment facility has also been disabled. The site will likely remain like this until I can find better uses of the domain name.
Some closing thoughts…
As an otherwise ordinary random member of the public, I don’t feel like there is any value in me trying maintain this site let alone bother to air my personal thoughts in a publicly accessible setting. I don’t consider myself a proficient writer and while I’m in I.T / Software Development. Web development isn’t my specialty.
Given there are very few (if any) inbound links from other sites, I’m surprised at how some of the content here is supposedly appearing high in the SERPs of various Search Engines as these posts of mine are mainly just public thoughts rather than well researched articles.
This type of site, the “personal homepage”, is a relic from the time I was a wee kid in the 90s when almost everyone and their pet had a Geocities account or space at their ISP e.g homepages.ihug.co.nz/~userID. Most people have long since moved on to social media platforms.
As mentioned on the originally pinned “About” post. I had set up this site as a friends and family domain, but frankly it has outlived this purpose.
Email I got back from Fonterra Brands Customer Service regarding not being able to find the larger Anchor Probiotic+ yoghurt tubs…
Dear XXXX,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
It’s great that you enjoyed our so much and we’re sorry it’s no longer available.
Here at Fonterra, we want all our products to stand the test of time but sadly it’s not always possible. Occasionally there are circumstances that mean we need to discontinue a product.
Loyal customers mean everything to us and we understand how disappointing it can be. We don’t take these matters lightly and do our best to let fans know about any major changes.
Again, we’re sorry your favourite is no longer on the shelves.
Kind Regards,
XXXX X
FBNZ Customer & Consumer Services Team
As a aside, thinking of moving all the thoughts and posts off of this domain and putting them elsewhere. As it currently stands, this site is intended to be a collection of informal public notes and commentary and are certainly not intended to be formal articles or researched reports, but simply my personal reflections as an otherwise little-known member of the public based on available information and lived interpretation at the time of writing them. Admittedly, the domain peak.nz may unwittingly give these thought posts more authority than they ought to receive.
Piazza at Hamilton Gardens. Little / short roadtrip to get out of Auckland for a while to collect my thoughts + a short hike at the North end of Hakarimata ranges. Trails appear to be rather quiet currently.
Hamilton Gardens Piazza
In other news. Yes, to confirm the stories on the grapevine, I did indeed purchased yet another rental property earlier this year. (Why people seem to be so fascinated at this, I wouldn’t know…)
There’s little I can do to fix the state of the state of humanity or the world as an individual. Can only ever hope to look after my little part of it and “bear witness” I suppose. I’ve said my piece, and shall hunker down.
The world is changing, people are changing. I don’t necessarily agree with (nor understand) the way the world is currently headed, but other than continuing to express my views and concerns to elect representatives, “chewing the fat” with friends and family over the challenges facing society, participating in public consultations held by any government agency, discussing civics in a broader setting and continuing to partake in civic discourse, I otherwise feel powerless to effect any change as an individual.
Just another day out of the house… Someone causing a scene and getting arrested at Britomart.
In a way, it feels like some sort of generalized regression or devolution is slowly creeping in to the human species, but can’t put my finger on the root of it. Closer to home, It just seems some kind of ‘strangeness’ is happening. E.g. Everytime I head out, chances are very good that I will witness at least one incident of people losing their shit in a public freakout. People obviously under the influence smashing things, public shouting matches between groups of people, physical assault along with other public disorder incidents. In truth, it is beginning to feel like scenes out of a zombie movie at times as obvious drug use continues to increasingly grip society.
As my uncle said to me, you can’t save the world and you know what? He is 100% right. Going to be hunkering down, closing up a bit, sticking to my knitting as it were, and focussing more on taking care of the people who matter the most in my life. (Engaging Some sort of self defense mode as it were).
I’ve tried (and I shall continue to try – through continuing to engage in the civic process over issues such as housing affordability, inequality, infrastructure, public health, transport, public safety, among other social issues), but the reality is, there’s little else I can do and anything I do in the overall scheme of things has little impact on the prevailing. Embrace human imperfection, I guess. Even if any fix for any given social issue may seem glaringly obvious.
I’m also anticipating in due course, I will probably eventually stop updating this site entirely. I’m seeing little point in continuing to write and spell out my thoughts here.
“Night Glow” at Claudelands Event Centre, Hamilton for Balloons over Waikato…
Night Glow at Balloons over Waikato. Claudelannds Event Centre, Hamilton
Didn’t have a ticket (They’re Free to grab, but very limited in number), was passing through The Tron, so walked up and took some photos through the fence.
Part of a series on Disdain and Dividends where I document investing (out of existential dispair) in companies that I deeply dispise as a psychological analgesic due to public apathy and the institutions who are suppose to protect us legitimize these companies’ actions through inaction.
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The situation I feared almost two decades ago has materialized.
Facebook has begun and is already replacing having a website for a lot of businesses. Often when I do a search for a business, I find they now only have a Facebook page. The issue with this is that it effectively forces people to get a Facebook account to look at their page. (Scroll a handful of posts and FB now demands you login or create an account)
I will admit to buying shares in Facebook (now Meta Platforms Inc.) as a psychological analgesic to try and take the edge off of my high disdain towards the company. The stock price has now since quadrupled.
Despite my attempts to set up alternative self hosted platforms for friends to use (this site, peak.nz originally being one of them) to try and stop Face-borg taking over in this fashion, this was ultimately in vain. In hindsight and upon blunt reflection, I stood no chance.
The old web is dead. 15 years ago I was panned for being “Oh so pessimistic” for suggesting what has now eventuated today.
Admittedly, I really dislike the “new” Internet and have responded by drastically cutting down my personal use of it
