Stream of Consciousness Week 28th March 2022

Stream of consciousness and other personal thoughts garnered throughout the week and which will be added to as the week rolls on. These thoughts are unrefined, unquantified, unverified, and raw. Any of these may be either be edited, deleted or otherwise spawn out into its own separate post particularly if new information comes to light…

  • Can take these things for granted. Vector has been doing rather well in keeping the lights running in much of the Auckland region. Can’t recall when I last had a power cut in the Meadowbank / St Johns area. Rurally, may be different however.
  • Looks like Fonterra Brands has decided to discontinue their Symbio Yoghurt range. Been looking for it in Supermarkets for a good month thinking it was out of stock before realising something was up… a month is a little too long for something to be out of stock for. Visited their website and was confronted with a message saying they decided to discontinue it.

Older Stream of Consciousness thoughts can be found here.

Stream of Consciousness Week 28th March 2022

New direct .au domains in Australia available apparently but requires manual intervention to be made live

The AuDA (.au Domain Administration Ltd.) in Australia have enabled domains to be registered directly under the .au level (without the need for .com.au .net.au .id.au, etc) for eligible entities.

To be eligible, you need to meet some Australian presence test (which I don’t, so won’t) – The “Australian presence list” criteria can be found buried in their licensing rules and doing a text search in your browser for Australian presence.

The new domains apparently require manual intervention by Afilias to be made live and accessible with a few people finding their new .au domains failing to resolve and expressing dismay regarding the matter on twitter.

 

New direct .au domains in Australia available apparently but requires manual intervention to be made live

Looking for landlord insurance options to reduce frequency of inspections

Apart from AA landlord insurance / Vero, will be interested to hear what other insurers are also offering a reduced inspection interval requirement of six months or longer at least when tenants have been in a given place for over a year or two.

The current 3 month inspection I feel is a bit over the top if a tenant has stayed in a place for beyond a year and has kept the place in good condition in that time. One primary reason I hear for the 3 monthly inspection requirements is to pick up meth use or manufacture, however am unconvinced that more frequent inspections is likely to materially increase the chances of picking this up.

Looking for landlord insurance options to reduce frequency of inspections

Web Domains not for sale

I have been getting an increasing number of enquires recently asking to buy this and other domains off of me. Unless otherwise stated on the web domains themselves, none of the web domains I presently hold are up for sale.

As a side observation, at least up until very recently and for quite some years prior (since 2014), the newer .nz direct second level registration domain names were far less sought after, regarded, and recognized than the more familiar and consequently more trusted .co.nz domain names. Having a look at the recent statistics, this appears to be still the case where .co.nz remains more popular than the equivalent .nz with the number of new .co.nz registrations continuing to substantially outpace registrations of the newer .nz extension.

On the theme of domains, Australia are getting their direct .au registrations next coming week.

Web Domains not for sale

Stream of Consciousness Week 14th March 2022

Stream of consciousness and other personal thoughts garnered throughout the week and which will be added to as the week rolls on. These thoughts are unrefined, unquantified, unverified, and raw. Any of these may be either be changed, edited, deleted or otherwise spawn out into its own separate post particularly if new information comes to light…

  • Many of the courier services have remarkably been quite punctual in their delivery of any online shopping as of recent at least for the Meadowbank / St Johns area (Auckland Metro), May very well be a different story elsewhere. Lots of businesses are also now dispatching the very same day as the order being placed meaning many parcels arrive the following morning for cross town deliveries.
  • If just requiring a simple cheap laptop, a company called ‘CR Tech‘ on TradeMe appear to be offering 2nd hand laptops for reasonable prices. Please note many of them are ‘E-Waste’ grade so make sure to read the listing description and take notes of any mentioned faults (if any) – Many of them will simply be cosmetic. Some will have adapters missing. Some with cracked screens. Have bought a few of the better condition machines from them and they’ve been generally pretty good.
  • Admittedly I’m a bit over this warm weather. These 28+ degree days seem to refuse to end.
  • While my comments regarding Auckland Transport may have been extreme and while I understand the vision to reduce our car and fossil fuel use in order to fulfil our obligations with Climate Change, I still firmly feel that the way that AT are going about their Bus Lane enforcement particularly when advance on-road guidance and public education is so lacking (Sorry, I don’t consider a pamphlet drop to the immediate local area as anywhere near sufficient), risks deeply alienating the otherwise law abiding general motoring public who may not yet have access to viable alternative transport modes for their needs.
  • Read somewhere the government was mentioning that very few people have taken up the AstraZeneca version of the vaccine. As someone who was planning to take the AstraZeneca as my booster to mix it up a bit, it’s the perceived hoops one has to jump through in order to access it that eventually made me call it off and simply go do a repeat of a the Pfizer vaccine. Originally booked at a Pharmacy offering AstraZeneca, then got a text saying a few days later demanding that I produce evidence that I’ve received a prescription for it. Ended up aborting and just getting the regular Pfizer instead on offer. The issue here is that none of this was mentioned on the “Book my vaccine” website itself beforehand, nor did it make any mention at the time that getting a prescription was actually free.

Older Stream of Consciousness thoughts can be found here.

Stream of Consciousness Week 14th March 2022