This looks like a fantastic step forward: New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing Framework

The draft NZGOAL sets out a series of policy principles which embrace, among other things, the notions of open access, open licensing, creativity, authenticity, non-discrimination and open formats.

[...]

So far as copyright works are concerned, NZGOAL proposes that agencies apply the most liberal of the New Zealand Creative Commons law licences to those of their copyright works that are appropriate for release, unless there is a restriction which would prevent this.

New Zealand inherited from the British Government the idea of Crown copyright, which essentially says that by default, the government retains copyright to all works produced by the government. The United States is actually pretty far ahead in this area since there is no equivalent to Crown copyright and most works are freely available to the people (see data.gov). Most other governments aren't so enlightened.

This new framework would allow New Zealand government agencies to license their work under the Creative Commons licenses—even the most liberal Attribution (BY) license. I don't think this replaces the Crown copyright, but instead allows agents to "dual-license" their work.

This can only be a good thing. (Our current government doesn't exactly have a great track record on doing the right thing these days. I have more to write about that later.)

About an hour ago, we felt a magnitude 5.4 earthquake. Although New Zealand is a fairly seismically active area, we had not felt an earthquake since we arrived here almost five months ago. In Christchurch, this one shook gently for about ten seconds.

After being here for a couple of months, I've started to notice all sorts of ways in which Kiwi english is different from North American english. The most obvious difference in spoken language is pronunciation, eg. head is pronounced like heed, backpack sounds like beckpeck, fish and chips is like fush and chups. In written language, spelling is the most obvious difference (colour vs. color, organise vs. organize).

One aspect that's a bit different that I hadn't expected is prepositions. Until recently, I thought english speakers used prepositions in pretty much the same way. Perhaps I should have known better than to assume that, because there are definitely some differences:

New Zealand English	North American English
Not On Service (eg. a bus)	Not In Service
What did you do at the weekend?	What did you do on the weekend?
Call us on 555 1212	Call us at 555-1212
Your balance as at 12:34 is ...	Your balance as of 12:34 is ...

It's easy enough for me to adapt to the spelling here (especially since words such as "colour" are spelled the same way in Canadian english) since I have time to think about spelling when I'm typing, but it's going to take a bit more work to come up with the locally correct preposition fast enough when I'm speaking. Then again, since my accent will likely never be anything close to Kiwi, I would hope my funny use of prepositions will be easily excused.

Google recently released street-level maps for Australia and New Zealand, yay! I checked my DNS LOC maps page to see whether street maps would show up for me. They didn't. Apparently, Google Maps released version 2 of their API a couple of months ago and I hadn't upgraded yet.

After upgrading my page to version 2, street level maps for New Zealand magically appeared. Now you can DNS LOC hewgill.net and zoom in to see approximately where we live!

Our application for permanent residence in New Zealand has been approved!

Date of EOI submission: 25 July 2005
Date of application submission: 25 November 2005
Date approved: 15 May 2006

"The holder of this permit may remain in NZ indefinitely."

I made a new user icon today.



In map stores here, you can buy "south up" maps which offer a new perspective on the arrangement of land masses on our planet. Of course, many of these are published by Australian or New Zealand companies and show those countries near the top centre.

I've also changed my xearth desktop image to be a "south up" map. It's fun!

We made it! About 30 hours ago, after a good solid 24 hours of traveling, we arrived in Christchurch. After getting some groceries and stuff in town, we drove out to Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula and settled down for the evening. Today I woke up with a hell of a headache, no energy, and probably a fever. I'll survive, but it sort of puts a damper on enjoying the lovely weather here today.

We're probably going to stay here for a couple more nights and then head back into town. Hopefully I'll feel better before my interview on tuesday!

We're just a few minutes away from heading to the airport, on our way to New Zealand.

Outbound: AA 427, NZ 5

One-way trip! See you on the other side!

After six months of waiting, a flurry of bidding activity on a sunday evening a few weekends ago, followed by more waiting, our house has finally been sold! The ink is dry on all the paperwork, and the new owners have the keys.

I no longer have to pay for electricity, gas, water, lawn service, insurance, homeowner's association dues, alarm permit, two mortgage payments, and whatever other home ownership related expenses might crop up.

It would have been nice to be able walk away from this with a wad of cash too, but the real estate market has not been terribly kind to us. But we're still in good shape. We can now start over in New Zealand with a fresh slate and make the best of it there.

Remember, the Insight is still for sale. If you know anybody who wants to drive the car with the best fuel efficiency available (about 60 mpg), let me know!

Things are suddenly moving fast. It looks like Amy and I are going to try to make it to Austin in time for SXSW (that means leaving Canada around march 4). We haven't got our paperwork for New Zealand completed yet, but our plan is to go to NZ anyway and I will enter as a visitor, while Amy can enter using her "Working Holiday" visa which is good until this July. We can complete the NZ immigration paperwork while being physically in NZ, so that will work out.

But we'd both really like to be in Austin for NTN@SXSW! We'll drive from Victoria to Austin again, and the Insight will be for sale in Austin once we get there.

The answer to the geopoliconomic question I posted the other day is:

Orange areas use 100-127 V electrical systems, while blue areas use 220-240 V electrical systems. The map is a simplified version of the map found here.

This is important to us because almost all our consumer electronics stuff that we have here won't work in New Zealand. Some things such as wall warts and battery chargers may accept 240 V, but we'll need a few plug converters (the plug shape is diagonal / \ instead of vertical | |). Other things, such as any appliance with an AC motor, won't work. My desktop computer has a switch on the back of the power supply to change the accepted voltage; I just need a new power cord which I'll be able to buy there. Similarly, Amy's Mac Mini has an external power supply which we'll have to replace once we get there too.

We recently received formal confirmation by letter that our application submission has been accepted by New Zealand Immigration. Since I do not have a New Zealand job offer yet, our application is in the slow queue and they are estimating up to four months before our application is assigned to a visa officer, and then up to a further three months after that. However, the current processing times bulletin shows that they only have a two month backlog on skilled migrant applications. Futhermore, we don't have any special circumstances like existing medical conditions or criminal convictions that might make our application take longer to process, so my best guess is we will receive approval around april.

April would put us in New Zealand near the end of summer in the southern hemisphere. We had hoped to get there earlier to enjoy more of the summer, but we may have to settle for autumn instead.

Amy and I have decided to leave the great state of Texas, and indeed the country, and relocate permanently to New Zealand. Why New Zealand? Amy spent three months there earlier this year and absolutely loved it. The scenery, the climate, the people, she fell in love with it all. We have been talking about something like this for quite a while, but recent events have made this even easier to do.

I am in the process of applying for permanent New Zealand residency through their Skilled Migrant immigration program. I am going to sell the house, and my cars, and as much stuff inside the house as possible, and we're going to start over in a new country. I had too much stuff tying me down here, and Amy has really helped me lighten my load. Once we can get out from under the house, we can go anywhere we want.

The time frame is still up in the air. I'm not sure how long all the New Zealand immigration paperwork will take, but as near as we can tell it will be a matter of months. I'll post more news as things progress.

I'm excited!

(Yes, I'm still working on my trip report from Peru! It's coming soon. Pictures are online here.)