I found the UI of the McDonalds App excrutiatinugly slow and even then it inexplicably hangs in a perpetual loop. Haven’t felt the effort was worth it for a discount off of their high prices for mediocre food offerings. This app I feel exhibits Bipolar-like behaviour and it’s a gamble as to whether the app will behave – half the time I’ve had to step out of the waiting line due to this app misbehaving.

Originally installed it and decided to try out McDonalds again after a long absence because they were running their weekly specials though it looks they’ve since stopped those and replaced it with some flashy but incredibly glitchy in-app game thing (their version of Monopoly)

Uninstalled the app. I feel this company isn’t respectful of my time nor appreciative of my custom (particularly if they are going to release such an obviously and incredibly unpolished app as this to the public) and I expect it will be a while before darken their doors again.

Unfortunately, I sense property prices may be on their (silent and sneaky) march upwards despite media reporting to the contrary and despite house prices still being ludicrous.

The real issue I have with inflated house prices is that it’s makes everyone’s lives difficult and apart from the issues faced with aspiring first home buyers (essentially whom we’ve failed to maintain the social contract with). It also presents issues elsewhere including

• For existing homeowners who may want to move to another property more suited to their current living arrangement, this includes (but limited to) when up sizing for a growing family, downsizing for when the kids have left home, when a marriage dissolution occurs, or moving to a place closer to their work. These costs include (again not limited to). Bridging finance, agents fees based off a percentage of the value of the property

• Takes money away from the productive economy. People will more likely end up prioritizing their spending towards keeping a roof over their heads.

Unfortunately, I can’t see this changing anytime soon. There’s still too much money flowing around that is looking for a home (pun not intended) born out from people who missed out last time, to investors trying to front run the market with the expectation of further rate falls, to increasing cost of compliance red tape surrounding corporates trying to engage in regulatory capture, Health and Safety, Anti Money Laundering and increasing provision to guard gainst all manner of increasing exposure to liablity events while we are trying to build new housing (everyone is mobilizing to arse cover).

I want the NZ National Party removed out of power. I didn’t vote for these clowns. I loathe to jump on the bandwagon, but after some thought pertaining to National’s policies and actions, I now have to reluctantly agree with the “Worst government ever” statement

The NZ National Party after having talked to the candidates in the lead up to our last election including through to their policies and actions to date are frankly the most uninspiring, disconnected and uninnovative bunch I’ve ever witnessed.

Crap traffic, crap transport planning. The thought of going grocery / supply shopping on a Saturday invokes a sense of CBF’d. You look at the traffic on Google Maps and know you’ll be dealing with congestion particularly the hassle of trying to negotiate a crowded parking lot with a one (or more) ton contraption.

Could do it on a Public Transport, but the thought of lugging all your groceries on buses is a hassle, particularly if they’re in large sacks. Plus you are effectively limited to going to one shop.

May be in this sense, the Dutch have it sussed with their cities. Mixed use zone planning. Be able to pop down the stairs and have almost everything you need within walking distance.

Yeah, I’m tired of this City (Auckland).

Personal opinion only as an ordinary consumer and occasional traveller.

I don’t believe there is a car rental ombudsman as such in Australia. There is the Australian Car Rental Conciliation Service run by AFIA (Australian Finance Industry association) which may be an option to take before lodging the issue with xCAT in your state or territory and prior to taking it to court.

AFIA I understand is an industry membership body and the Australian Car Rental Conciliation Service I understand assesses things according to their own “code of conduct” which may or may not necessarily align with Australian Consumer Law in all areas.

Read the ACCC PDF in relation to “Fair Trading in the car rental sector” to understand the rights and remedies available to car hirers under Australian Consumer Law.

It is also important to note car rental hire agreements do not override Australian Consumer Law provisions.

As an aside and to be honest, the car rental industry in Australia I feel in my opinion overall has not been overly upfront with some of their conduct. Some of these less than honest business tactics I feel are more pronounced with some of the independent franchises for some reason.

It is also important to understand that Car rental agents as friendly and helpful as they may appear are not your friends. Many of them are trained up as salespeople (coerced by management along with being offered monthly bonus incentives) to upsell extras to hirers and again the upselling aspect appears to be more pronounced with certain outlets run by independent franchises. It is important to carefully check the hire agreements to ensure they haven’t snuck on any unwanted adds ons.

Car rental horror stories examples (with a happy end for the car hirer concerned)…

• Post on Whirlpool – A case of a hirer involved with an at fault traffic accident where the car rental company tried to wiggle out of their responsibilities.

• Post on Reddit – SIXT Australia expensive windsheild replacement.

I’ve even had my own spat (though a lot more benign than the two examples above) with a large Dandenong based independent car rental franchisee (formerly Thrifty, now Sixt) whom I caught sticking on charges that were clearly outside of the written hire agreement and who I also caught writing their own 5 star testimonials.

Some of the stories regarding SIXT Australia I feel are pretty disappointing considering the network crows about being a division of the NRMA Motoring and Services group (I have my own thoughts about the NRMA brand and believe they’re now a far cry from their hay days having simply turned into another for profit focussed corporate these days, but that is for another post)

The Issue is that quite a few companies “try things on” in order to turn a profit (and hope people don’t challenge it or take it further) and rental car companies in Australia are no exception.

Many car rental companies I feel try to cut their headline pricing in order to get customers through the door and then attempt to turn a profit through upselling extra and at times with other less than upfront antics (suspicious damage claims). I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that quite a few car rental places turn most of their profit through damage repair fees, selling extra “peace of mind” add ons and other ancillary revenues as opposed to the actual hiring out of a vehicle.

Switching back to 100% growth focus (from balanced) because stonks (a meme spelling of “stocks” / “Shares”) only go up apparently.

I can’t make heads or tails of anything frankly as a lay person.

We’ve been in the longest ever secular bull market starting around 2008 Global Financial Crisis and don’t understand why there is so much overflowing optimism.

• Something bad happens stonks go up
• Something good happens stonks go up
• Nothing particular happens stonks go up.

Fundamental analysis is dead and meaningless.

I think some of it can be attributed to easier and cheaper access to the stock market adding additional money flow into the market.

As an aside, I learn that my Facebook shareholding (now Meta Inc.) which I bought to try and take the edge off of burning disdain towards Facebook has since quadrupled in price since I rage-bought them. Yes, may be I should feel good, but I don’t. I’m jaded, just incredibly jaded to see their stock price so high.

Picture of southern lights

 

Lanterns hanging from the trees

Robinhood in reverse. Slashing and burning essential public services in order to give tax cuts to the landlords.

The optics surrounding this are not good and do not at all reflect positively on this National party led government – and I say this as (confessingly) a Landlord myself.

I’m far more concerned with seeing policy to support us living in a cohesive society and struggle to see how the carte Blanche slashing of important services (and capping wages of those working in those services) is in any way conducive to this.

And it was the National Candidates in the run up to the last election whom showed complete disinterest (compared to other parties, even ACT) when I raised the issue of housing affordability and the negative affects it was having on our nation and our society.

Update 5th February 2024: Have now tested negative. Apart from sleeping for much longer and a dry cough, symptoms are largely gone. Overall, for me, felt like a longer acting but milder version of the flu.

Symptoms initially appeared mid last week sometime but daily Rapid Antigen testing only began showing positive 4-5 days after symptoms first appeared.

So far symptoms have been rather mild (so far). More like a mild / low grade influenza with mild fever for only a day and a tickly / itchy throat for the rest of it,

That said, it’s appears to affect everyone differently and quite vastly so. Have had APAC Development team members at work being knocked out for weeks at a time.

As previously advised. Have shutdown the services originally operating off of the domain mana.nz. Services terminated…

• NextCloud (Cloud storage)
• Matrix Synapse (Chat)
• AW Web

Witnessed an incident a few weekends ago, where I saw someone was walking out with tons of meat and alcohol. Tried verbally telling him to stop (Can’t physically put your hands on perpetrators it would seem these days), rang the police, but in the end, was told to just let him go. It seems petty thefts are no longer deemed a priority and there is nothing that any body can do to stop them. The little scrawny runt blurted out to the store staff “You can’t do anything!!” while he brazenly walked out with several expensive goods.

He then threatened to attack me, then ran away saying I would likely do far more damage to him. If the law wasn’t so slanted towards the rights of perpetrators, would have no hesitation in tackling the runt.

I’ve recently read around the place that petty thefts are now twice as common and have heard of further anecdotes of similarly being met with apathy when other members of the public attempt to ring in to report burglaries and thefts.

It gets harder to accept this situation when we see ordinary folk who accidentally drive a few metres too long in a bus lane are being slapped with $150 fines while perpetrators who do more social harm are getting off with merely a slap with wet bus tickets. The state has to be very careful about this because the longer this state of affairs continue, the state will lose the respect of the people whom they are supposed to be serving.

It looks like the saying “We have a legal system, not a justice system” is quite true these days.

A lower high and a lower low so far in 2023 Q3 (Right most shaded column at the right end of the chart) – Whether anything will come out of this, who knows.

All I feel is, things are a little odd. High interest rates, yet asset prices appear to be stubbornly high and all the economic and business news appears to be overly lofty and positive, but I digress, what do I know?

 

Update 14 January 2024: Would be fairly safe to say that the original concern has now passed and nothing ultimately happened. Seems economic sentiment is still positive and in some cases exuberant. Previously held convention wisdom has pretty much been invalidated.

I still struggle to understand the widespread optimism though. Very little of the reports make sense or actually corroborate. That said, have invested in TQQQ last year and will allow it to ride for the time being to take advantage of the current mass exuberance. I still strongly assert that the markets have detached itself from reality and seems to be operating under fabricated spin in the run up to the US elections and wouldn’t be surprised there is astroturfing involved by the power elite as really nothing is marrying up to me as a lay man.

Discovered that my Huawei was bypassing my Pihole and ignoring my DNS settings resulting in ads being servering up in some apps. Symptoms was that upon initial launch of apps, the apps begain serving ads after 30 or so seconds.

Had to set “Private DNS” to “dns.adguard.com” and this appeared to stop it. Who knows if this fix will still be valid a week later.

Temporary notice: Will be decommissioning any remaining services on kaha.nz and mana.nz over the next few months. This does not affect services (Predominantly mail) situated on nui.nz which I intend to keep running for the foreseeable future.

The NextCloud instance hanging off of cloud.mana.nz has been shutdown. I am supportive of the NextCloud project, but just couldn’t get it stable enough for the intended use cases unfortunately.

Full moon photo from Auckland’s night sky…