The Blog of Sheltron http://www.sheltron.net Anyway, back to me... Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:06:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 What If You Could Control Cinema Session Times? http://www.sheltron.net/2012/01/what-if-you-could-control-cinema-session-times/ http://www.sheltron.net/2012/01/what-if-you-could-control-cinema-session-times/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:46:32 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=620 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

I go to the cinema about 3 or 4 times a year.

The primary reason is that the pre-set evening session times are annoyingly inconvenient.

Movies that start at 6pm is no good. It’s too early because I’m starving when the movie finishes at 8pm. 8pm is too late for dinner!

And cramming dinner down before 5.30pm to get to the movie in time for the 6pm session is just as bad.

And a movie starting at 8.30pm is too late because my wife and I can’t handle getting at home at 10.30pm like we used to.

So the solution would be a cinema that can play the movie when I choose.

My ideal time would be 7.24pm which is after dinner, after the kids are in bed, and will finish at 9.24pm. Perfect.

What’s your perfect movie starting time?

Is there a way that we can all go to the cinema but we all get to choose our movie start time? (And it would be handy to pause when we need to go to the toilet too).

Perhaps the answer is to install aeroplane seats into cinemas!

6″ screens aren’t going to cut it of course so we’ll need nice 22″ inch HD screens in the back of the seat in front of you (3D capable of course).

We’ll need headphones too. Nice padded, high quality ones with a volume setting that you control.

One more thing – you’ll be able to order snacks right from where you sit, and they get delivered to you by chicks on roller skates!

To make this awesomeness happen I’ll need investment.

10,000 people investing $1,000 each should do it for starters. Are you in?

If so, make a deposit in my bank account right now, and I’ll start enquiries to buy old 737 seats.

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2012/01/what-if-you-could-control-cinema-session-times/feed/ 0 Piz Buin SPF30 Allergy 200ml Sunscreen Back In New Zealand? http://www.sheltron.net/2011/12/piz-buin-spf30-allergy-200ml-sunscreen-back-in-new-zealand/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/12/piz-buin-spf30-allergy-200ml-sunscreen-back-in-new-zealand/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:18:08 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=607 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

This summer I ran out of favourite sunscreen, Piz Buin, and to my dismay I found out that it is not sold in New Zealand anymore!

I even contacted SC Johnson (the importer) and asked why.

They sent me an email saying “sorry, we weren’t selling enough so we cancelled the product line”.

I couldn’t find a single bottle of Piz Buin in any NZ shops online or offline after a week of searching so I bought a few bottles from a UK website and they just arrived!

It’s my favourite sunscreen for 4 reasons:

  1. I trust it to keep me from being burnt. I’ve never been sunburnt using it (whereas I’ve been burnt using other sunscreen brands)
  2. It doesn’t smell terrible (like most sunscreens do), nor is it too perfumed
  3. It doesn’t turn your skin grey when you put it on (like some other sunscreens do)
  4. It really is waterproof (I spend the whole day in the sun and reapply only once)

Is it your favourite too?

Well this is your chance because I purchased a few extra bottles (to spread the cost of shipping) and now I’m selling them on TradeMe:

SORRY, SOLD OUT! http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=1603691 SORRY, SOLD OUT!

This sun screen is awesome. And I’m the only person in New Zealand that is selling it. So be quick, because I’m sure to sell out soon.

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/12/piz-buin-spf30-allergy-200ml-sunscreen-back-in-new-zealand/feed/ 5 What’s Your Favourite Way To Drink Coca Cola? http://www.sheltron.net/2011/12/whats-your-favourite-way-to-drink-coca-cola/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/12/whats-your-favourite-way-to-drink-coca-cola/#comments Sat, 03 Dec 2011 03:51:09 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=581 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Here’s a list of my 3 favourite ways to drink Coca Cola

  1. Coca Cola 250ml Glass Bottle Crown Cap
    • My #1 favourite because:
    • Glass keeps the coke super cold
    • The contour of the bottle not only looks elegant and sexy but is functional too because it pours the coke pleasantly down your throat
    • You need a bottle opener to get it open, and I like that because it restricts access to an elite club of people with an opener
    • They are expensive, about $3 each (=$15/litre). And rare, you can only get them from Cafe’s. Psychologically these factors make having one more of an experience
    • But: 200ml’s is just not enough. I need at least 2 of these
  2. Coca Cola 330ml Glass Bottle Twist Top
    • My #2 favourite because:
    • Glass keeps the coke super cold
    • Again, the contour bottle is great
    • But: 330ml’s is only barely enough, it doesn’t quench my thirst. Available from the supermarket in 4 packs which actually is a bad thing because it reduces it’s exclusivity
  3. Coca Cola 355ml Can
    • My #3 favourite because:
    • Cans are cheap: only $0.70 per can in NZ when you buy them in packs of 18 from the supermarket
    • I’ve had one a day for almost 20 years (that’s about 7,000 cans)
    • Because the serving size is quite small you can drink it within a few minutes so it’s fresh and cold and fizzy throughout the experience
    • The Can is reasonable at keeping the coke cold, but not as good as glass
    • On a side note; have you noticed that cans commonly have “Not for Individual Sale” printed on them and yet most retailers happily do so? Funny.

The 3 worst ways to drink Coca Cola:

  1. Coca Cola 600ml Plastic Bottle
    • My #3 worst choice because:
    • Probably the most widely distributed, available in every dairy on the planet. That’s why I hate it
    • The same contour as the glass bottle just doesn’t work when it’s plastic. It feels cheap in my hand. Yuck.
    • But to be honest, when faced with zero alternatives, I have purchased one a few times
  2. Coca Cola 2.25lt or 1.5lt Plastic Bottle
    • My #2 worst choice because:
    • Plastic is nasty to drink from
    • If the 3 options above are not available, the only way I could possibly tolerate coke from a big bottle is poored very slowly over a tall glass filled to the brim with ice. But of course most of the fizz has gone by the time you’ve finished this process.
  3. Coca Cola Post-Mix
    • My #1 worst choice because:
    • A huge revenue generator for Fast Food restaurants all over the world
    • It is pure evil. Who is the sick genius who created this abomination? Did you know it costs about 4 cents to fill a paper cup? One squirt of syrup, add water, squeeze in some Carbon Dioxide. Yuck.

I’ve heard about these 700ml glass bottles with Crown Caps in Brazil. Ohhhh yummy. I hope to visit in a few years!

Do you have different ideas for the order of the list? In what ways do you most like to drink Coca Cola?  Which ways do you loathe it?

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/12/whats-your-favourite-way-to-drink-coca-cola/feed/ 0 12 Reasons Why I Am Anti Smoking http://www.sheltron.net/2011/09/12-reasons-why-i-am-anti-smoking/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/09/12-reasons-why-i-am-anti-smoking/#comments Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:22:15 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=557 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Before I begin this rant, I want to be clear about something: It’s not just the act of smoking I find revolting, it is the people who smoke that I really hate.

Some may say “they are helpless victims under the spell of a powerful and addictive drug”.

To that I say:

  • “Do we all get to make choices in our lives?” Yes.
  • “Do we all have the power to change?” Yes.
  • “Are we all therefore choosing (through action or inaction) to be smokers or non-smokers?” Yes.

One more thing, I wanted to tell you that it took me a long time to write this headline:

  • I started with “12 Reasons I Hate Smoking” but I realised that that headline suggested I was a smoker and I hated the fact I smoked.  I am not.
  • I also considered “12 Reasons I Hate Smokers” but even though it’s true, I do actually hate smokers, most of the reasons in my list weren’t about the smokers, they were mostly about the act of smoking.
  • I also considered “12 Reasons I Hate Cigarettes” but the word cigarettes is hard to spell. Are there two “g’s” or just one? Two “t’s” or just one?

12 Reasons I Am Anti-Smoking

#1: Smoking Kills Fresh Air

When it’s a beautiful sunny day and I want to go to a cafe and sit outside, I can’t, because smokers are defiling the fresh air.

So I sit just inside the door so at least I can see the sunny day from there, but smoke blows in the open door. grrr

#2 Cigarette Butts Kill Seahorses

Why don’t smokers think that throwing cigarette butts onto the street or into gardens is ok? It’s not ok. It’s littering.

Littering is a crime against the community. Some poor sod will have to pick up a soggy butt that has been in a smokers mouth.

Furthermore, many of those butts flush out to sea, just think of cute little sea horses choking to death on them! Poor little buggers, why should they suffer?

#3 Smoking Employees in Uniform Kills Brands

Employees who loiter around the front door (or back door) of their work place wearing their uniforms sucking in their cheeks and blowing out toxic clouds looks nasty.

And have you seen the tin cans that are often used for collecting cigarette butts but are seldom emptied? And sometimes they get kicked over and the butts spill out everywhere? Gross.

#4 Smoking Kills the Hotness of Smoking Hot Chicks

There’s nothing worse then spotting a smoking hot chick at a distance, taking a moment to have a perve (as you do), and then seeing her bring a cigarette up to her mouth. Yuck.

It just ruins the whole perving experience.

It makes super hot chicks in movies look old. It makes hot chicks look barely better than average. It makes average looking chicks look ugly. It makes ugly chicks look…

Along those lines, I’m sure we all fantasise about kissing hot chicks, but the thought of kissing an ashtray mouth shatters that fantasy.

#5 Smoke Gives Killer Headaches

Perhaps I am more sensitive to smoke than most people because if I am unfortunate to be engulfed in a cloud of smoke I get an instant headache.

#6 Smoking Kills Family Members

Smoking killed my grandmother. She died of breast cancer, which is very close to the lungs so I think her many years of smoking is to blame.

She lived a shorter life on this planet because of smoking. My family would have liked to have her around longer.

#7 Smoking Kills Poor Peoples Financial Priorities

I hate to see people on the unemployment benefit (who get paid with my taxes) buy a $18 packet of cigarettes and then realise after that purchase that they can’t afford bread and milk for their kids for breakfast so the kids either get nothing or get to share $3 worth of hot chips.

#8 Stop Smoking TV Ads Kill The Mood

You’re sitting there enjoying your favourite TV sitcom when the TV ads start with a stop smoking “shock” campaign. Images of diseased lungs and hearts fill the screen. I don’t even smoke and yet these images are in my face. Not fair.

#9 Smoking Breaks Kill Productivity

Have you noticed that smokers take more breaks at work? They are happy to leave us non-smokers to keep working while they go outside for some “fresh air”.

#10 Smoking Kills A Positive Image

A smoker’s clothes stink, their breath stinks, hair, house, car, pets, you name it. And their own sense of smell is so deadened they don’t even realise!

In a job interview situation do you think smelling like smoke decreases your chances of getting hired? I’m sure it does.

Doctors who smoke are the worst. How could you trust a Doctor to look after you when they can’t even look after themselves?

I love meeting new people, but if I catch a whiff that tells me they are a smoker I can’t help but think less of them. I think I perceive them as weak because they are addicted and can’t control themselves. It’s unfair to them, but I can’t help it.

Furthermore, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been asked by a smoker “do you mind if I smoke?” (to which I reply “actually yes, please refrain, thank you”). Why do so few ask this question? Are they so addicted that they can’t be courteous?

#11 Smokers Don’t Care That Smoking is Killing Them

If you give a smoker a list of 100 reasons to quit, present them with irrefutable medical evidence that smoking does indeed kill, impose ever increasing restrictions on where they can smoke, even after all that they keep smoking. That’s just annoying.

#12 The Best Alternatives To Smoking Are Killer Clever

Have you noticed that the most popular “smoking alternatives” contain nicotine and they are therefore just as addictive as smoking?

This is no co-incidence. Why are companies legally allowed to create products that are chemically addictive to their customers?

From a business point of view this is a licence to print money.

Governments not only tolerate these products, they endorse them.

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/09/12-reasons-why-i-am-anti-smoking/feed/ 4 Why Is All Food Tasting Bitter? It Could Be Because You Ate Pine Nuts A Few Days Ago. Pine Mouth http://www.sheltron.net/2011/09/why-is-all-food-tasting-bitter-it-could-be-because-you-ate-pine-nuts-a-few-days-ago-pine-mouth/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/09/why-is-all-food-tasting-bitter-it-could-be-because-you-ate-pine-nuts-a-few-days-ago-pine-mouth/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:59:24 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=549 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

This one time I noticed that everything I was eating that day was tasting very bitter.

It started with breakfast. My cereal with fruit and yoghurt on top was tasting bitter. At lunchtime, my sandwhiches tasted bitter. That night, my dinner tasted bitter (even though it was chicken cooked the way I always cook it). I had a few lollies and chocolate too and even they tasted bitter!

Something was very wrong.

What had happened to my sense of taste?

Did I have a tumor that was pressing on the the parietal lobe in my brain (the part that controls taste and smell)?

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My wife was eating the same foods as me and she said they didn’t taste bitter to her.

The next day, the same thing happened.

This was terrible. I like my food (especially chocolate), and this phenomenon was depressing. Was that it for my life? Was this permanent?

I didn’t know what to do.

I turned to Google (why visit a doctor when Google can help me diagnose my problem faster than a doctor can?). I searched for “why does all food taste bitter to me?” and found lots of people asking the same question.

Many of these discussions talked about “Pine Mouth”. I had never heard of this before.

Pine Mouth is where a small proportion of Pine Nuts from China can cause a bitter, metallic taste in your mouth 2 days after eating them, and the sensation can last up to 2 weeks.

Wikipedia: Pine Mouth from Pine Nuts

And then it hit me. I had eaten a hand full of left-over pine nuts 2 days ago!!

It’s not something I’ve done before, but at the time I had thought nothing of it.

Unfortunately there is no treatment so I had to put up with the strong bitter taste for a week. In the second week the sensation gradually disappeared.

It was such a horrible experience, I now avoid Pine Nuts at all costs.

If you are reading this because all food tastes bitter to you and you don’t know why, now you know you are not alone. I’m sorry there is no treatment, but in about a week you’ll start feeling better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/09/why-is-all-food-tasting-bitter-it-could-be-because-you-ate-pine-nuts-a-few-days-ago-pine-mouth/feed/ 0 My 10 Favourite iPhone4 Apps http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/my-10-favourite-iphone4-apps/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/my-10-favourite-iphone4-apps/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 08:51:53 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=535 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Google Search

Why? Because it makes it easy to search Google Images, Google News, Google Places etc and tells you if you have unread Gmail

AutoStitch Panorama

Why? Because you can stitch up to 16 photos together to make a giant panorama

DropBox

Why? Because you can store documents in your DropBox.com account and store them on your iPhone offline

TeamViewer

Why? Because you can take control of your computer at home (or anyone’s for that matter) from your iPhone

JotNot Scanner Pro

Why? Because it enables you to take photos of receipts, crop them, convert them to B&W and upload them to DropBox or Email. A paperless office.

IMDB

Why? Movie ratings, movie trailers, actor’s details, all at your fingertips

TED

Why? Because these 5-10 minute videos about Technology, Entertainment, and Design are inspirational and completely free

Kindle

Why? Because Amazon’s Kindle books are cheap and you can read them on your iPhone

Flight Control

Why? What would it be like to be an air traffic controller for a day? This cool game is as close as you’ll get

Zynga Poker

Why? Because you like Texas Hold’em and they give you $100,000 play money to start with

 

 

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/my-10-favourite-iphone4-apps/feed/ 0 10 Best Sci-Fi Science Fiction Movies of All Time http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/10-best-sci-fi-science-fiction-movies-of-all-time/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/10-best-sci-fi-science-fiction-movies-of-all-time/#comments Sat, 20 Aug 2011 08:17:46 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=523 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

I just love sci-fi movies. It is by far my favourite movie genre.

I just checked the top 1000 sci-fi movies on IMDB and created these lists of my favourites:

10 Best Sci-Fi Movies of All Time:

  1. Avatar (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  2. Inception (2010) | IMDB | Trailer
  3. Matrix (1999) | IMDB | Trailer
  4. Star Trek (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  5. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) | IMDB | Trailer
  6. WALL-E (2008) | IMDB | Trailer
  7. Aliens (1986) | IMDB | Trailer
  8. Minority Report | IMDB | Trailer
  9. iRobot (2004) | IMDB | Trailer
  10. Back to the Future Trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990)

33 More of the Best Sci-Fi Movies of All Time:

  1. Source Code (2011) | IMDB | Trailer
  2. Iron Man (2008) | IMDB | Trailer
  3. Original Star Wars Trilogy [IV 1977 | V 1980 | VI 1983]
  4. Deja Vu (2006) | IMDB | Trailer
  5. War of the Worlds (2005) | IMDB | Trailer
  6. District 9  (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  7. Limitless (2011) | IMDB | Trailer
  8. Bicentennial Man (1999) | IMDB | Trailer
  9. I Am Legend (2007) | IMDB | Trailer
  10. The 6th Day (2000) | IMDB | Trailer
  11. The Adjustment Bureau (2011) | IMDB | Trailer
  12. Terminator Salvation (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  13. The Butterfly Effect (2004) | IMDB | Trailer
  14. Vanilla Sky (2001) | IMDB | Trailer
  15. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) | IMDB | Trailer
  16. Hancock (2008) | IMDB | Trailer
  17. X-Men Origins: Wolverine | IMDB | Trailer
  18. The Island (2005) | IMDB | Trailer
  19. Gattaca (1997) | IMDB | Trailer
  20. The Truman Show (1998) | IMDB | Trailer
  21. The Incredible Hulk (2008) | IMDB | Trailer
  22. The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  23. Men in Black (1997) | IMDB | Trailer
  24. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) | IMDB | Trailer
  25. RoboCop (1987) | IMDB | Trailer
  26. The Abyss (1989) | IMDB | Trailer
  27. E.T. (1982) | IMDB | Trailer
  28. Equilibrium (2002) | IMDB | Trailer
  29. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) | IMDB | Trailer
  30. Total Recall (1990) | IMDB | Trailer
  31. Spaceballs (1987) | IMDB | Trailer
  32. Jurassic Park (1993) | IMDB | Trailer
  33. The Fifth Element | IMDB | Trailer

6 Highly Rated Sci-Fi Movies That I Really Hated

  1. A Clockwork Orange (1971) | IMDB 8.5 | Trailer
  2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) | IMDB 8.5 | Trailer
  3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) | IMDB 8.4 | Trailer
  4. Moon (2009) | IMDB 8.0 | Trailer
  5. Children of Men (2006) | IMDB 8.0 | Trailer
  6. Blade Runner (1982) | IMDB 8.3 | Trailer

11 Best Time Travel Movies

  1. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) | IMDB | Trailer
  2. Back to the Future Trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990)
  3. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) | IMDB | Trailer
  4. Groundhog Day (1993) | IMDB | Trailer
  5. Deja Vu (2006) | IMDB | Trailer
  6. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) | IMDB | Trailer
  7. Twelve Monkeys (1995) | IMDB | Trailer
  8. The Lake House (2006) | IMDB | Trailer
  9. The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  10. Primer (2004) | IMDB | Trailer
  11. Timecop (1984) | IMDB | Trailer

8 Best Robot Movies

  1. WALL-E (2008) | IMDB | Trailer
  2. iRobot (2004) | IMDB | Trailer
  3. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) | IMDB | Trailer
  4. Terminator Salvation (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  5. Bicentennial Man (1999) | IMDB | Trailer
  6. RoboCop (1987) | IMDB | Trailer
  7. Short Circuit (1986) | IMDB | Trailer
  8. *Batteries Not Included (1987) | IMDB | Trailer

11 Best Alien Movies

  1. Avatar (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  2. War of the Worlds (2005) | IMDB | Trailer
  3. Star Trek (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  4. Aliens (1986) | IMDB | Trailer
  5. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) | IMDB | Trailer
  6. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) | IMDB | Trailer
  7. District 9  (2009) | IMDB | Trailer
  8. Men in Black (1997) | IMDB | Trailer
  9. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) | IMDB | Trailer
  10. E.T. (1982) | IMDB | Trailer
  11. *Batteries Not Included (1987) | IMDB | Trailer

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/10-best-sci-fi-science-fiction-movies-of-all-time/feed/ 0 I Convinced A Guy To Turn Himself Into Police After A Hit And Run http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/i-convinced-a-guy-to-turn-himself-into-police-after-a-hit-and-run/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/i-convinced-a-guy-to-turn-himself-into-police-after-a-hit-and-run/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:46:33 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=517 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

This one time I was driving towards town in a 70kph zone one sunny morning. I was just rounding a gradual right hand bend when a beat-up red car coming from the other direction crossed over the centre line. It smashed into the rear right hand side door of a small grey/blue car travelling in my lane, which was ahead of me by about 30m at the time. Bits of glass from the lights and a part of the bumper of the red car fell off and scattered across the road.

The grey/blue car came to a stop in the middle of the lane, as did I, but the collision barely slowed the red car down, in fact, it crossed back to it’s side of the road and sped off!

I couldn’t believe it! The driver didn’t even stop to check if the other driver was ok!

Because the collision wasn’t too severe (a head on would have been quite bad) I decided to abandon the victim too. I wasn’t going to let this guy get away with a hit and run so I spun the car around and went after him.

He turned off several times into side streets trying to shake me. But his car was a piece of junk and one wheel was jambed up against a crumpled wheel well so it certainly wasn’t a high speed pursuit. I was beeping my horn and flashing my lights to let him know I wasn’t going anywhere. We ended up in a very quiet suburb when he finally pulled over.

I didn’t have a cellphone on me so I suddenly felt very alone.

I got out, as did he, and we talked. He told me he’d been at a party all night, had been drinking heavily and had only had a few hours sleep before deciding to drive home this morning. He had fallen asleep at the wheel when he had hit the other car. And one point he said “if it wasn’t for you, I’d be long gone by now”. Which worried me.

And I told him that his only option was to go and hand himself in to the police station near by and I wasn’t leaving until I witnessed him do exactly that. I assured him that the police would go easy on him because he had taken responsibility for his actions.

After about an hour of talking (including some very long silences), he finally agreed. We got into our cars, and as bits of tire and more bumper fell off his car, we drove another 4km to the nearest police station. He parked outside it and I parked further away and watched him go inside before I drove straight home.

When I got home I looked up the phone number for that police station and called. I asked “Did ‘John Smith’ just hand himself in?” After a short pause the officer said “yes” and I immediately hung up, satisfied.

And that’s the end of the story. The police didn’t trace my phone call and give me an award, the guy didn’t hunt me down and beat me up, and I didn’t try and find out what happened to him.

I’ll do the same thing all over again if I get the chance, because it’s the right thing to do.

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/08/i-convinced-a-guy-to-turn-himself-into-police-after-a-hit-and-run/feed/ 0 Does Google Hate Me? Has Google Banned My IP Address? Why Is Gmail Blocked From My Computer? http://www.sheltron.net/2011/05/does-google-hate-me-has-google-banned-my-ip-address-why-is-gmail-blocked-from-my-computer/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/05/does-google-hate-me-has-google-banned-my-ip-address-why-is-gmail-blocked-from-my-computer/#comments Tue, 31 May 2011 01:15:16 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=510 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

This one time I couldn’t access the Google products that I use all day, every day:

  • Gmail
    • I have 14 email addresses piped into my Gmail account
  • Google Search
    • This is the bedrock of my existence!
  • Google Analytics
    • I look after 40+ websites and couldn’t access any data
  • Google Docs
  • Google Adwords
  • Google Adsense
  • Picasa Web Albums
  • Google Maps
  • YouTube

It all started 2 weeks ago when I got a static IP address from Telecom (for free as part of the 40GB Total Home package).  Almost immediately I noticed that I couldn’t access YouTube, but this didn’t ring alarm bells because I thought it was just a bug or they had high traffic at that moment. But when I couldn’t access my Gmail account a week later, that’s when I got really worried.  And then when I noticed I couldn’t access anything else owned by Google I spotted the pattern.

I couldn’t access any of these Google services but other websites in NZ and overseas worked fine.

It was so bad that if I visited a website that used Google Maps, I couldn’t see the map but I could see the rest of the website.

I couldn’t run my business. Email is my core function. It is how I communicate.

I was cut off.

Alone.

:(

I tried clearing browser cache, tried 3 different browsers: Firefox, IE, Chrome. All with no improvement.

After 3 days of waiting for the problem to disappear on it’s own, I conducted a few Google searches via my iPhone (I turned off WiFi so I was using Vodafone 3G) and I began to suspect that my static IP address was the problem.

After a 60 minute phonecall with Telecom (on a Sunday) with 3 different people (2 in Malaysia + 1 New Zealander) who all suggested clearing the cache and trying different browsers, the last one agreed that a black-listed static IP address was probably the problem. He told me to go to www.telecom.co.nz/staticip to request a new one. I did so.

12 hours later I got an email regarding the request that asked “have you tried a different browser?”.

… *cough*

aaarrrrghhhhh!!!!

Yes, that made me furious.

But I held my temper and simply replied “yes, of course I have. Please change my static IP address immediately.”

4 more hours later, it was done. I was assigned a new IP address and all Google’s services are available to me again, hooray!

Why did Google block my IP address in the first place?

Perhaps the computer assigned my first IP address was used for automated Google searches or spamming and was black listed by Google? Perhaps my computer is infected with Malware and automated searches were being conducted without me being aware of it? I don’t know.

Will Google block my IP address again?

I bloody hope not. But if it does, I know what to do next: I’ll go to http://www.telecom.co.nz/staticip and request yet another one.

What have I learned from this?

This experience has reminded me just how dependent I am, and my business is, on Google’s free products/services.

Perhaps I should purchase a single Google share (about US$520 each at the moment), so at least I can justify my sense of entitlement.

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]]> http://www.sheltron.net/2011/05/does-google-hate-me-has-google-banned-my-ip-address-why-is-gmail-blocked-from-my-computer/feed/ 0 Evidence That Natural Selection Doesn’t Work: Rabbits Bums http://www.sheltron.net/2011/03/evidence-that-natural-selection-doesnt-work-rabbits-bums/ http://www.sheltron.net/2011/03/evidence-that-natural-selection-doesnt-work-rabbits-bums/#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:47:39 +0000 sheltron http://www.sheltron.net/?p=498 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Here in New Zealand we have 2 kinds of rabbits: Domestic pet rabbits (that are often white and fluffy) and wild brown rabbits.

When you see a NZ wild brown rabbit running away from you, you will notice a flash of white with every bound they take.

No, it’s not a camera with a flash strapped to their behinds, it’s because their bum hair is bright white (in sharp contrast to my Uncle Bruce).

Surely this flash would make it easier for natural predators to kill them, such as Hawks and Leopards?

We all know that rabbits “breed like rabbits”, well maybe God made their bums white as a form of population control?

If that’s true, then why haven’t rabbits with white bums been all killed off and the ones with brown bums taken over?

There are 2 possiblities:

  1. Either natural selection is bullocks
  2. Or there are so few predators in NZ that the rabbits have no incentive to change (in fact, we have just 1 species of hawk and they are very small, and we sadly, have no leopards)

What do you reckon?

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