After a successful training (teaching) week, I’m on my way back home.
I also had a chat at AuckLUG (facilitated by the Auckland Novell
offices) and got invited to an “NZ 2.0” meeting at Galbraith’s
brewhouse by Nat Torkington. That was particularly interesting.

Airports are always good fun, lots of computers and other signs at
work. On the way in the main arrivals/departures displays were low on
virtual memory (photo attached), one the way out I saw a shop
advertising LCD tell that its Norton Antivirus subscription had
almost expired and that it had protected against 78000 viruses
already (how can that box possibly be so exposed?) and another screen
in the departure lounge displayed a blue screen of death. Not picking
on Auckland, this is pretty typical. Sigh.

There was also a sign on a garbage bin saying “no spitting, please
use toilets”. Hmm…

And one particular quarantine display cabinet actually contained a
decorated monkey skull (hello Indiana Jones! what are people thinking
when they buy stuff like that?)

AirNZ’s (Boeing 747/777) in-flight system is curious… on boot each
seat needs to load stuff in various stages, first a fairly long
Xmodem download, then some DHCP netboot magic, then a TFTP download
for the GUI. If the system crashes for some seats, the only recovery
method is to shut down while entertainment system for the whole
aircraft, wait some time, and reboot (which takes 20-30 minutes).
Surely… (oh never mind)
The captain just explained that people should pause between pressing
buttons (through the intuitive!? system) because otherwise the system
might lock up “just like your computer at home when you click the
right mouse button repeatedly”). Oh dear.