Sponsor's Message

"Impossible things I do daily, miracles take a little longer" is, we're told, the sign that hangs in Jimbo's office.

How reassuring that must be to all those bright entrepreneurs who watch the way that Israel, Ireland and other countries continue to box well above their weight in the hi-tech world of the 21st century - while we dawdle along - hogtied by 20th-century DSL speeds/prices and a real lack of government leadership in this area.

But, to look on the bright side - I have had a great couple of weeks.

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Much of the efforts I've invested in developing various bits of technology over the past couple of years have started paying dividends (albeit not financial ones).

Although I'm working on a budget more measured in cents than dollars (my total pre-tax income for the past 12 months was an incredible $11,400), and although I'm getting absolutely *zero* assistance from Jimbo's crowd, I've been lucky enough to become part of a team that has achieved some significant design and engineering breakthroughs.

Of course certain members of the current government have told us that such technology is not developed in "sheds" and that the strategy of idiot-grants consisting of taxpayers' money handed out with little understanding of what it's going to be used for is the only way.

Well I think that Anderton's admissions that the Knowledge wave is failing to crest and the achievements that have been seen in my "shed" during the past couple of weeks show the folly of such comments.

There's another TV crew coming from overseas in a couple of months to film a segment for The Discovery Channel on the breakthrough stuff we've been working on. One of the questions they're almost certainly going to ask is "why are you forced to do this in a shed and on such a shoestring budget?"

Of course let's not forget that my local MP's (Mark Burton) electorate office suggested that I should go on a sickness benefit (which I most certainly haven't) rather than continue my work - and Burton himself declined my offer to make the results of my research available to the NZ military - at no cost to them.

Let's not forget also that two years ago, Anderton's office also effectively scuttled the deal I'd set up to license some of my technology to a major US corporation and create a small R&D facility here (funded to the tune of several million dollars).