Everyone loves customizing new toys and making wallpapers for your phone is probably one of the easier ways to do it (a lot easier, for example, than trying to find an inexpensive yet good-looking protective case!). I took a selection of images from Project Koru are turned them into three thematic wallpaper sets for my iPhone using this great Photoshop template.
Continue reading 'iPhone wallpapers for homesick Kiwis'
Archive for the 'New Zealand' category
As reported by Ars Technica, the New Zealand House of Representatives passed a bill on 8 April 2008 reforming copyright law for the "digital age". Most netizens even outside the US will have come across the American DMCA: any mention seems tainted by the taste of bile. The DMCA criminalises circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) technologies and access controls—many folk argue at the expense of "fair use". Do the NZ reforms provide workable compromise?
Continue reading 'New Zealand progressive on fair use laws'
Apple recently posted a tour of the forthcoming iPhone. Watching the presentation I was surprised to see one of the default wallpapers is the face of a tiki (a wood carving of the human figure).
Continue reading 'iPhone features Maori carving wallpaper'
Inspired by seeing Wellington's Hurricanes win against South Africa's Bulls, and in fulfilment of Simone's wish to see the All Blacks perform the haka live, we went to see New Zealand face France last night. I'm not a rugby fan, but I sure felt patriotic and shared in the excitement of seeing the national team thrash France 61 to 10.
Continue reading 'Rugby, anthems and patriotism'
Do you recall what is was like to eat home-baked food? Food that didn't contain E numbers? For pre-ADHD delights, try the Edmonds Sure to rise cookery book. There's a complete copy in PDF format for download on the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre website (1914 edition).
Continue reading 'Bake like it's 1914'
I've always enjoyed the myth concerning the origin of New Zealand's North Island, said to have been hauled out of the Pacific by Maui and his brothers. This story is one of several so wonderfully captured in an illustration by Dittmer, reproduced in a book belonging to my grandmother, which I still have and recently re-discovered. But this myth has become something of a legend in itself, evolving throughout prehistory and during the cultural transition of colonisation to become a story that belongs to all New Zealanders regardless of ethnicity. The modern version was enacted before our eyes in Wellington earlier this week in the show Maui: One man against the gods.
Continue reading 'Maui's fish and the origin of myth'
