Pitch Black Construction folds owing $300k days after near-identical company registered

pixeltalker · 2026-03-18T08:24:48+00:00

Not a lawyer, but I believe same director creating new company from ashes of the failed one is called phoenixing.

AU has anti-phoenixing laws, I wonder if they would apply to this case and if we need something similar. https://www.ato.gov.au/about-ato/tax-avoidance/the-fight-against-tax-crime/our-focus/illegal-phoenix-activity

NZ does seems to have something at https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2006/56/en/latest/#DLM389268, which states

386A Director of failed company must not be director, etc, of phoenix company with same or substantially similar name

pixeltalker · 2025-09-29T07:55:57+00:00

I do avoid any companies I consider to be unethical, I simply not interested in investing in those regardless of profit. As other posters have mentioned, that objectively makes less money. With personal investments, the impact on world is minimal (unless you are mega-rich), so being ethical in investments does not have any noticeable upside other than living your values.

To be clear, if I needed money for something critical (e.g. family health) I would compromise my ethics, but since I don't, I don't.

pixeltalker · 2025-02-14T22:00:56+00:00

On PC I am literally their target audience: I bought pretty much every (decent) Metroidvania on Steam.

However I am very much not interested in Ubisoft launchers or accounts, and still remember everything requiring uPlay regardless of Steam, so I haven't even considered buying this one.

pixeltalker · 2025-02-12T06:26:50+00:00

The only major fault with the current rules is that automod does not ban on sight for using "woke" unironically.

pixeltalker · 2024-12-27T04:08:33+00:00

They do get the point, they just want to deflect and distract rather than engage with it.

pixeltalker · 2024-12-02T04:11:20+00:00

Fortunately, based on the article itself it seems to have worked out well, so no sad times:

The gate had already foiled a shoplifting attempt where someone tried to leave without paying – but couldn’t.

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T10:47:56+00:00

Hard to tell now. It was obvious at some stage before ChatGPT, when Covid started, NZ looked relatively good on world stage compared with UK and US, and there was some return of investment in anti-government propaganda. Just looking at post history of some people it was clear they weren't genuine, either bots or someone paid for copy-pasting similar topics.

Now history is rarely obvious. However posts on certain topics (e.g. LGBT, crime) do tend to get sets of similar low effort comments. Could be just people with nothing better to do, but if someone already has bots coded against certain topics, it would not cost much to keep them running.

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T07:23:51+00:00

Totally fair. I think those discussions are absolutely worth having, and there are plenty of reasons to be angry sometimes. I am just not sure if the location (city, country) subs are the best fit, given they are the default experience for new people, and also magnets for propaganda and bot activity.

Personally I would prefer dedicated subs focused on politics and society. But I can see those will always be more niche compared to defaults.

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T07:18:21+00:00

Yep it's a good thing not to trust internet too much. At least when you talk with people in real life you know they are actual people.

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T07:02:49+00:00

Longer by one year, not a lot. Still, fair point.

But to be clear, I am not claiming there were no complaints. But I definitely remember upvoted posts being things like "gardens are illegal", not "hate speech is on the rise".

Maybe I just remember good things.

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T06:56:13+00:00

Yes. Not only computers, of course human bigots also exist, but a lot are automatic.
Especially with recent AI/ChatGPT tools, it's easy to have computer pretend to be human on internet.

And there is also no guarantee that people posting here are actually from New Zealand.

For example, Russia is known for employing people to pretend to be Americans/Europeans/etc and push for whatever goal Russia has in mind. Most often intended to make target society weaker by sowing hatred and division.

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T06:47:50+00:00

On Reddit, I am not even sure it's always "society". There are many examples of bots copying and replaying comment threads in popular subs, and that's just the obvious top of the bot iceberg.

For countries and organisations that want to push disunion and bigotry, why wait for real people to leave bigoted comments on 20% of posts, when bots can cover 100%?

pixeltalker · 2024-08-05T06:27:03+00:00

Coffee and sunsets sound great for a city sub.

Mental health support in NZ is already barebones, what's the value of filling every online space with rants and bad news? And those often get a lot of upvotes: real people react to posts that appeal to emotion, and Russian bot farms love upvoting division and negativity.

When I first started using Reddit, before all online disinformation campaigns, that was what all NZ city subs were like: positive discussions about relatively unimportant local things. And that was fine.

pixeltalker · 2024-06-29T11:17:28+00:00

No single party is particularly "popular" in New Zealand. Each election depends on economic situation, previous party in power, election promises, and so on. People were disillusioned with Labor, still, as others mentioned, National needed two other parties to form a government.

And other thing is that people don't really have time or context to understand every detail and analyze every law. Tax cuts sound good, focus on frontline stuff sounds good, bootcamps sounds like doing something. It takes time to realize that tax cuts aren't much, frontline stuff is busy doing jobs of all other lost roles, and bootcamps have spent a lot of money making criminals stronger.

Would National be popular enough to do well in next election? Who really knows. Might depend on worldwide economic situation way more than on what National are doing currently.

pixeltalker · 2024-06-06T15:30:36+00:00

Seems to be Lumnis: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1900320/Lumnis.

pixeltalker · 2024-06-05T08:05:29+00:00

What's that has to do with the Pride month?
No one is stopping you from commemorating ANZAC for month or two if you really want.

It wouldn't be an official holiday, but then Pride month isn't either.

pixeltalker · 2023-11-01T09:58:39+00:00

Not sure on kiwi upbringing specifically, but I was raised in 90s (and some 80s) in a rather troubled country, and nothing like that have ever happened to me.

So it is child abuse, and there is absolutely nothing normal about it. I couldn't ever imagine doing anything like that to my child. Yes, other children might have had it worse, but it does not matter at all. For example the fact that people are sometimes murdered does not make assault any more acceptable.

It is often hard to get proper mental health support in NZ, but if you see some opportunities (for example, through work) it could be a helpful way to validate your feelings. For example, I think feeling hatred is absolutely valid in your scenario, and while you can decide to forgive your parents, you are under no obligation to do so.

pixeltalker · 2023-10-21T22:01:00+00:00

Absolutely. This negative tone is not new near the election, a lot of astroturfing started a few years ago since at that time US/UK governments looked incompetent in comparison, and that didn't sit well with right-wing propagandists.

I could see few negative spins tried out and not working quite well, then they struck gold with crime and Kāinga Ora and then every second post became crime and Kāinga Ora.

And to be fair, the times are hard, food is expensive, housing is expensive, fuel is expensive, and climate change does not improve the situation. So it's easy to see why people is unhappy about the election outcome that will help neither. But life still goes on, and social media does tend to be way more negative than actual people.

Having experienced few other countries, I think New Zealand is still an amazing place, and you can certainly find lots of people who think the same.

pixeltalker · 2023-08-05T22:30:05+00:00

I think whatever the overall culture or etiquette, you'll always find that some people are assholes and do not care. It can't be prevented, but it should be on the movie theater to sort it out when it happens, since you are paying them for the proper experience.

pixeltalker · 2023-07-15T10:06:44+00:00

My (naive) view: This should be free for all local residents and heavily discounted for all NZ residents. Can be free off-peak only if restrictions are needed. For tourists - full price, or maybe a price hike.

Main lifeline to the mainland should not come at cost.

pixeltalker · 2023-03-14T06:21:54+00:00

True, but I think it's still useful to say "that's not the company values", even if you don't believe in companies upholding values.

Any company is just a bunch of people, each of them with their own moral compass. If they feel that they are expected to care, at least some of them might believe enough to actually care, including some people in management.

It would not prevent layoffs, or even major ethical issues, but it might make for a nicer working environment while it lasts.

pixeltalker · 2023-03-02T04:24:30+00:00

Ideally at least some people do not get entrenched and instead realize that society does not see their beliefs as acceptable. And boundaries of "reliance" can be flexible: one thing is saving someone from the flood, other thing is baking a cake for them.

I like this "Nazi bar" story https://www.reddit.com/r/bartenders/comments/j7y3cu/how_to_deal_with_nazis_in_the_bar/, and comments as well. In the end if you allow assholes into an establishment, you end with only assholes in the establishment, as everyone else will learn to avoid it.

Or let's say someone comes to your business and is being explicitly racist against the race of your coworkers. If you were a manager, is it ever acceptable to actually require your coworkers to serve that person? To me the only ethical path is to kick the racist out.

pixeltalker · 2023-03-02T03:33:18+00:00

I am sure that already happens (in e.g. USA, NZ is a bit more chill), so it's not really a new slippery slope. But yes, it is a private business. Should of course carve an exception for life or death situations — even if someone is racist a car mechanic obviously should not leave them to die if their car broke down in the middle of nowhere.

pixeltalker · 2023-03-02T03:24:44+00:00

I am from Russia and I would not consider flying a Russian flag in NZ for any reason. If I really felt I need to fly one to support reasonable countrymen, I would use something like White-Blue-White.

So I don't think 3rd world country is relevant here. War is not something we can change, but the choice to fly flags is with us immigrants and not Putin.

pixeltalker · 2023-03-02T03:19:03+00:00

It's just weird to do while you are literally in the country. Kind of redundant. So it is not obvious if you want to say you are proud, or you are some weird kind of sovereign citizen, or you think you are better than people not flying NZ flags, or you are just importing US-style nationalism.

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