But by the same token, Key's press in particular continues to be staggeringly soft. He's routinely hailed for being basically average.

Um, 'hailed'? Well, I guess leading a National Party where half the front bench isn't spending more time in the Press Gallery urinating on the rest of the front…

I have no problem with Glenn donating/loaning money to the Labour party, but Mallard's actions just seemed ... unseemly.

Meh... That's what a 'handbag' is for, but I have to agree its usually much better handled. I remember a damn cringe-inducing photo at some Fashion Week even were Clark and…

I just can't be bothered with what, to me anyway, seems to be a systematic undermining of the Labour Party, and the glorification of John Key.

Tom Frewen wrote a good column in Friday's NBR about the gallery's fixation on The Race, which creates its own narrative. The government has…

I have been a long time follower of you blog and that was uncalled for from me....a bit too personal

No worries. I think I was a bit surprised at it coming from you, and was thus snippy in return.

I was addressing the left as a whole not you personally
I am not outraged or indignant just…

Supposedly, rather than dwelling on Labour's foul weather (the hikoi and a bad poll) I kicked for touch and wrote about my mother's cooking. Kiwiblog types regularly invoke this, invariably…

Time for a recipe RB, your mum’s chops, coffee maybe, artificial intelligence and distraction perhaps.

Oh bugger off, Raymond, that's really cheap. My post on this matter was my own, frank opinion. Read it again if you like. It's hardly a glowing review.

I just can't summon the same indignation…

It seems to me the left just don't get how bad this looks to the ordinary citizen who just…

the pixies have never been confirmed
>but that would make the entire grunge movement >a hoax...
the Zen approach to consciousness
Nirvana?

Maybe they have Bar Mitzvah instead of confirmation?

Humidity turns me into a disrag and all I can do is procrastinate and avoid all the course outlines that…

From my POV I'm curious about what you mean when you say "getting dynamic systems to implement digital style thinking processing" the concept seems to turn my brain to fudge.

OK, by digital I mean as in not-analog. If you think humans are dynamic systems, then clearly there's one…

Oh yes, have you seen O' (jeez) Sullivan's column today?

Well of course I saw it, but I didn't read it. Must I?

They were clearly looking to avoid a photo opportunity. That may be yet more backfiring media management, but ....

That's what I found unseemly about the…

beauty is in the eye of the beholder

c'mon, we all know why those weedy little nerd boys are with those fat chicks, and it aint because 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.

Disclaimer: I have a preference for the more fuller figured woman myself – thin girls can't…

Look how Labour treats some one who donates serious money to Ack. Uniie and gives a helping hand ($100 000) when they need it
It just looks like bad manners,a bad look, the sort a kid would get repremanded for

They were clearly looking to avoid a photo opportunity. That…

Look how Labour treats some one who donates serious money to Ack. Uniie and gives a helping hand ($100 000) when they need it
It just looks like bad manners,a bad look, the sort a kid…

What is meant by 'image'? Are you talking about tracking brain activity during various tasks?

Yes, there's been quite a bit of development in brain imaging techniques.

This is a bit old now, but the fact that we can observe people making a decision before they become conscious of making…

We have an election looming and it is almost as if the bulk of the media…

the pixies have never been confirmed

>but that would make the entire grunge movement >a hoax...

the Zen approach to consciousness

Nirvana?

Neuroscience makes it fairly clear that it's caused by brains, but that's not the same thing.

i) Neuroscience does make it clear that something is caused by brains and you might wish to attribute to it the properties of consciousness as you choose to define it. But I'm gonna call…

the pixies have never been confirmed

but that would make the entire grunge movement a hoax...

the Zen approach to consciousness

Hai. In a similar vein, when people get overly concerned with 'what it's all about' I like to recommend Voltaire's Candide.

Finally something I might understand, if I was brave enough to think about it, in this thread.

Lucky you. I didn't understand it, I just said it. Android uc.

I used to work in a business that supplied information and software to European corporates and banks (it's now part of Dialog, which you librarians would know, I think).

As well as our team getting pretty reasonable…

With the ability now to image in real time thoughts as they occur in the brain there's lots of interesting stuff being discovered.

That sounds cools. What is meant by 'image'? Are you talking about tracking brain activity during various tasks?

We can postulate a being that functioned just like…

And appeal to my experience of it to suggest it isn't a physical thing and certainly isn't the same as brain activity.

That experience is being mediated by your mind which may just want you to think that.

...the things being so different you can't form a syllogism or make…

[Which makes it effectively the only…

it's also a job that's cursed with the idea of being a 'calling' rather than a profession

Like nursing. And teaching. And various other jobs predominantly done by women. Meh.

And I know regular PA commenter Pete Darlington once practiced the dark arts of the bookshelf. I gather the new info-storage architecture in his house is a thing to behold ...

Jeez Russ, everyone on PA thought I was cool until you spilled the beans on that one!

Librarianship might…

http://www.newstatesman.com/200802140010

And Fallowell's right — his book has been "absurdly distorted". That's a polite way of putting it. I think that everyone who got worked up about it and attacked him now owes it to him, and themselves, to actually…

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/20/library-starts-to-in.html#comments
Brilliant quote in comments

Or: http://www.xkcd.com/

In fact what you're saying is quite congruent with what a lot of postmodernists have been saying (which is what I suggested above with the 'thus were launched...').

I know. I only pretend to dislike postmodernists.They have some interesting points. My main problem is that it's a whole lot of…

Any sufficiently advanced libertarian is indistinguishable from an asshole.

No argument there...

As a corollary to Clarke's third law, Gregory Benford proposed that technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

I am really enjoying it.

You're welcome. I'm enjoying it too, especially hearing a real engineer confronting theory.

Odd thread in which to have the conversation tho'

Libertarianz

Any sufficiently advanced libertarian is indistinguishable from an asshole.

(I cannot claim it, but I cannot resist passing it along. It seems to true of most persuasions really, but especially so if the inhabitants of (tax-free) Liberteria).

'lime green'?

Can't resist: 'gan green' maybe? All the bilious shades from infradig to ultraviolent perhaps? (Tip o' the hat to the shade of Douglas Adams.)

Anyway...

Kracklite, there's a place for thought experiments. I don't think this is an example of it.

Well, maybe thought experiments are koans. Deconstruction…

I reckon they know diddly-squat about organising CDs/DVDs/computer games.

They do a lot better than any DVD/Video hire store I've been in. eg.

K: Do you have XXXX.
VS: (looks on computer) Yes we do, and it's in!
K: I've been looking for it and can't find it.
VS: Ah,…

Just because someone's wrong on the internet, it doesn't mean I have to do something about it.

he just uses Andrew Llewellyn when he's dressed up like a human?

That'd only work if Andrew Llewellyn looked like a human.

I reckon they know diddly-squat about organising CDs/DVDs/computer games.

It should be noted (as a former public library worker) that it is almost impossible to keep any of those things in any kind of order that makes sense, since they are so heavily browsed and/or stolen. (I am never leaving…

We can be pretty sure he's a member of the Libertarianz party. Or at least a devotee.

And that he posts on this blog under a pseudonym.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Sprung!

I think we need a visitor like him once in a while to remind us why our ancestors left England in the first place.

I'm hoping all this will blow up in Nationals collective face and I'm sure it will, (People who live in glass houses etc.)

Um... and how about the old saw about Caesar's wife having to be beyond reproach, Steve? I can't really get the outrage gland pumping over this --…

Some uni libraries (Otago, for instance) are beginning to acknowledge that libraries can be social spaces, and not just hushed tombs.

Ugh. The number of students down here who complain about people who start up 20 minute conversations in study spaces about their weekend and how much they hate exams,…

As someone who almost became a librarian (at the General Assembly Library), back in those dark old pre-computer days, I wonder if we really need them any more.

As a non-academic, having entered the trade of scribing straight from school, I have a particular perspective on libraries and archives.

On…

I wonder if we really need them any more.

As any Pratchett fan knows, Librarians Rule OOK.

Dealing with librarians as a course co-ordinator (back when I had a full-time job), I had to arrange seminars for the librarians to explain laboriously to the godda- I mean sweet and fluffy…

I mean has he actually tried to do what his thought experiment suggests would be a piece of piss?

Well, the point of thought experiments is that you don't do them physically, but think about their logical implications. There's no point in actually putting a cat in a box actually.…

Which actually makes librarians work much more interesting and probably valuable too.

I suspect we have a few librarian lurkers here. Wanna come out and play folks?

And I know regular PA commenter Pete Darlington once practiced the dark arts of the bookshelf. I gather the new info-storage architecture in…

We can be pretty sure he's a member of the Libertarianz party. Or at least a devotee.

And that he posts on this blog under a pseudonym.

Don't ever get caught up a dark alley facing a mob of chain-wielding, flickknife flashing librarians.

Look out! The Dewey gang's here.

They'll file your arse under D for Deceased.

Obviously I wasn't running down librarians, who themselves can and do use Google. Just saying that what was a rare…

Redbaiter may be repetitive, and we don't know anything about him/her apart from that (well actually I'm pretty sure he/she's an Australian)

We can be pretty sure he's a member of the Libertarianz party. Or at least a devotee.

Searle's ultimate point is one of scientific parsimony – that comprehension is not necessary for the room to operate.

I think it's the opposite of parsimony. He's inventing entities, like 'comprehension' which are indistinguishable from the operation of the room, then simply asserting that the human has it and the…

I know some librarians who would probably like to make balloon animals with your intestines for saying that. :)

Too bloody right.

Don't ever get caught up a dark alley facing a mob of chain-wielding, flickknife flashing librarians.

Look out! The Dewey gang's here....

One, in a number of professions, universities are churning out far more architecture graduates and designers than there are jobs. This is the result of 'aspirational' marketing and enrolment (and that's why I hate that particular buzzword). This is compounded by the fact that these professions have international…

But then talk to the ones who moved to Queensland...

You'd be amazed at how many Maori live in Qld. I met an extended community, like 50+, in South Brisbane which is growing rapidly. Each time one or other a Maori-owned company picks up a new contract (mainly construction firms),…

There is no disputing that she 'comprehends' what is going each way, with the aid of that tool.

Here's where I run away and hide under Donna Haraway's skirts and tell you that you're married to a cyborg. That indeed is the principle objection to…

...but everyone would know the difference, the moment they flamed it and it failed to grasp anything about what they were saying...

I think that would make it more believable.

Hell, I'm off to the airport. Bloody Clark.

... and other ironic and earnest comments on that topic...

OK, my experience in a small segment, academia. There are a number of reasons for emigration that I can cite that have little to do with KKKlark, the effing Treaty, dandruff etc.…

And Paul, you seem to be affirming what I said rather than the reverse.

I'm not saying you're wrong in all instances Dale, I'm saying that your theory doesn't apply to me. I prefer Simon's approach though, that there's a bit of willful blindness.

Just this constant refrain in NZ of "I'm going to Australia because ..." so often ends in an illogical comment on the state of our politics.

Weather and wages are fair enough, though. And food. And big city…

Sometimes it seems the basic requirement for migrating to Australia is not to know – and above all, not to want to know – about the political culture that people are heading for. NZ is squeaky clean by comparison.

If Australia is the solution, Helengrad is not the problem.

I…

And Paul, you seem to be affirming what I said rather than the reverse.

I think Turing thought sentience or consciousness was an offshoot of intelligence.

Well, I can't model Turing's actual thoughts on that (heh), but in the early days of computer science, some optimistic people were thinking that consciousness was an inevitable corollary of intelligence, which they thought…

certainly not NSW where there is endemic corruption

Sometimes it seems the basic requirement for migrating to Australia is not to know – and above all, not to want to know – about the political culture that people are heading for. NZ is squeaky clean by comparison.

If Australia is…

Glenn offered me $1m to stand as MP, says Morrison

Does Howard Morrison have some sort of "open mouth before brain" affliction?

And who on earth would want Howard Morrison as their MP? It's like a collection of stupid people all getting front page headlines this week.

I believe the Turing test is intended to be a sufficient but not necessary proof of "intelligence", not humanity.

Actually it is a test of neither, but – supposedly – of sentience or consciousness. Alan Turing proposed it as a means of examining, not necessarily solving the questions about whether…

It all adds to that irresponsible, floating, holiday feeling – the thought that making the country work…

I suspect Key is benefitting, and will continue to benefit, from the admirable (mildly left-wing) NZ tenet that everyone should get an equal opportunity, translated here into an unexamined…

You mean, see whether a person conversing with Key via a keyboard will decide (be fooled into thinking?) he's human based on the answers he gives?

I believe the Turing test is intended to be a sufficient but not necessary proof of "intelligence", not humanity. That's why it's always computers…

I'll speak for 90% of the couple of dozen that I know that have gone – weather and family.

Family is a complicated matter. Our youngest was born here and as often happens you end up with friends with kids of the same age with whom you do lots of…

For me the attraction is the career opportunity and the tens of ks mpre money but the downside is access to the sea, the hills, and family. Maybe going to Auckland would be easier.

I'm a migrant to Australia, and though I'll not purport to speak for anyone else, I think its an over simplification to suggest wages alone are what attracts people.

I'll speak for 90% of the couple of dozen that I know that have gone – weather and family.

I don't…

Most people don't want to be CEO. They want job security, enough money to get married and to have some kids in a house they will eventually own – and to squirrel away a bit for a rainy day/reward for their labours.

Precisely. But classical and neo-classical economics has a…

Just how much trade do we have with Monaco (other than swapping postage stamps)?

We export millionaires and tax dollars to them.

Time for the Turing Test perhaps?

You mean, see whether a person conversing with Key via a keyboard will decide (be fooled into thinking?) he's human based on the answers he gives?

Heh, indeed.

I wonder if the wrong interview technique is being used. Time for the Turing Test perhaps? Or maybe one could set up some interesting tape loop experiments by playing recordings of him back to himself?

Heh.

Maybe. But your argument is that almost all of their potential pay increase might have been lost to a move across a WFF threshold. This is completely different from a situation where the top marginal tax rate gets raised a couple of percent.

With regards to productivity, the…

RNZ tries to be 'balanced' these days and there are no shortage of Colonel Blimps in their audience, but the most charitable description of Key read out was 'lightweight'.

He was average. But he's always average.

I certainly don't "hate" Key. He just seems a bit of an empty vessel.

This morning at water coolers all the talk was "jobs for boys" and there was surprise when the cooler people discovered to be an "honourary" position.

Missed the Key interview on this matter on Nat Rad because I was putting the rubbish and recyclables out (OK, laboured simile, sorry), but…

Driving wages down isn't going to make Australia less attractive.

I'm here because I get a fully funded (free) degree at a university that attracts top professors.…

Can I ask why. I'm going through the same thing so interested in perspectives.

I know off employees who have foregone promotions because the wage increase is outweighed by the loss of WFF benefit. That is not good for anyone.

Working for Families has had that effect though..."

This is the great right wing fraud, the foundation of sand that the nonsense economics of the neo-liberal right are built on. You know what WFF has actually done? It hasn't put economically virtuous, upwardly mobile perfectly rational people into a…

Gareth

Working for Families has had that effect though.

Partly, but that is because it is about the threshold where you doing no work to receive a benefit vs working for money and losing that benefit.

Effectively it becomes a significant amplifier (do I go from doing "no" work and…

Do not take my comment as an endorsement of those sites. I meant to add that the vilification of HC is similarly out of touch. I suspect many of those people have probably never met or heard her or Key directly, which is interesting in its own right about…

And yes, Australia has the highest manufacturing wages in the world. And well funded universities. There's a reason people migrate there.

George may well be right on this however Australian competitiveness in manufacturing is not so good if measured in by exports/terms of trade. Australian employment in…

This morning at water coolers all the talk was "jobs for boys" and there was surprise when the cooler people discovered to be an "honourary" position.

That wasn't made clear at all. It would've spoiled the story.

Or they may "feel" Key can't be trusted. So when Guyon and Duncan…

or

producing the same in LESS time.

have i missed something? and yes, more cpaex will likely increase labour productivity.

surely mr key is just advocating for a greater share of GDP for business owners at the…

Working for Families has had that effect though.

I was amazed at TVNZ's hysteria over Glenn last night on the telly. I was dumbfounded they didn't mention it's an honourary position. This morning at water coolers all the talk was "jobs for boys" and there was surprise when the cooler people discovered to be an…

No matter what tax rate you are on, if you do more hours, you get more money, which is yours

Precisely – yet it is continuously held up as the "personal tax cuts inspire greater productivity" argument. Yet finding ONE person that actually think it makes a difference personally is…

Alternatively, you could say that waged employees will be incentivised to do more hours because more of the money paid is "theirs".

I've never bought this argument. No matter what tax rate you are on, if you do more hours, you get more money, which is yours. Most people actually…

Today in Parliament, John Key called for a Nanny State. For more government…

Not Consul for Morrocco, Joanna.

Ummm errr umm it's not that I can't read, just I was of course referring to the dark seedy underbelly of Monaco. Why do you think Grace Kelly drove off that cliff, after all?

You increase productivity by increasing the percentage in the workforce (which Labour has done significantly, not by reducing wages, but while they've increased), and through technology and investment.

Completely agree, and this topic was the first that really took the wind out of John Key's sails for me – at…

On a completely different topic, has anyone else tried to respond to the MCH Consultation Paper on the Broadcasting and New Digital Media: Future of Content Regulation (Jan 2008)? It has been a nightmare for me,…

Richard Worth is the Consul for Monaco, to New Zealand (and he used to be Consul for Colombia).

Which was the more glamorous?

That would depend on whether you're in the hashish or the coke camp, right? Errr, not to put across blatant stereotypes that I know are not accurate…

I'm pretty sure the reason John Key is so loathed by the left is that they see him as a class traitor.

Pardon?

Well, let's see. Brought up in a state house, got a free university education, went overseas to make his fortune, came back to help his rich new…

I'm pretty sure the reason John Key is so loathed by the left is that they see him as a class traitor.

Pardon?

I just can't imagine Key round a table at APEC or whatever. Shame, because he's an intelligent, well meaning bloke. So clearly not intended for Politics...

BTW, I hope there isn'y…

I'm pretty sure the reason John Key is so loathed by the left is that they see him as a class traitor.

Reducing wages, lowers the cost of labour relative to capital investment. That can actually reduce productivity by disincentivising investment in productivity increasing capital, and increasing the incentive to hire another cheap warm body.

And for those wanting an example, just look at the 90's. The ECA and high unemployment kept…

i'm sure that's really high on Key's list of Loyalties To Be Served

"We would love to see wages drop," he says.

"The way we want to see wages increase is because productivity is greater. So people can afford more. Not just for inflationary reasons, otherwise it's a bit of a vicious circle as it comes back at you in higher…

Richard Worth is the Consul for Monaco, to New Zealand (and he used to be Consul for Colombia).

Which was the more glamorous?

Its not as if the last consul wasn't a partner in a large NZ law firm as well as a National Party MP while holding that post. At least this guy actually lives there part of the year round.

You've got it backward, I'm afraid.

Richard Worth is the Consul…

Good to see an ex-pat investing some of his money back in NZ if you ask me.

He's actually done some really fine things: shipping condoms to Africa, funding development projects in rural India. He's like one of those American alumni philanthropists, in that he likes to see his name…

and all the plonkers in the media want to talk about is middle class tax cuts, smacking and non-existent "scandals".

There's a cluster of narratives in place now that will be hellishly difficult to break. Labour clearly had a plan to at least try and do so, but that's been…

everything in Auckland is swanky.

or, according to a bunch of Cantabrians I met once, something which sounds pretty similar to 'swanky', anyway.

This whole business about Owen Glenn will be now be endlessly commented on by various journalists interviewing each other, as part of the pre-determined Fin de siècle…

Its not as if the last consul wasn't a partner in…

John Key has been caught telling the Keri Keri District Business Association he'd love to drive down wages and all the plonkers in the media want to talk about is middle class tax cuts, smacking and non-existent "scandals".

Indeed. I look forward to the swivel-eyed ones frothing at the mouth…

everything in Auckland is swanky

is that an extraneous "s"?

OK, beat me now....

Personally I couldn't give a toss if the man gets appointed honourary consul to Monaco. It's a voluntary position of very little importance, and it'll just mean that he's doing some free work for us. As long as he's vaguely…

you poor bugger. how long have you been in this business?

Well it's a good thing it isn't here! Really all they have done is…

The high ground was in being completely transparent about what they did have.

I don't think so. That is a high ground, sure, but it's not the big one, IMHO. I think a large proportion of people are much less concerned with how the money came to the party than…

i'm lucky if i can afford a dinner up at me local cafe, so Soul would qualify as swanky in my world (although it's not an adjective I'd use without tongue firmly in cheek, admittedly).

It was just a pointless adjective, aimed at trying to puff up an angle that…

Yep. If he'd just said that Glenn's last contribution was a loan to set up a more robust fund-raising system, it wouldn't really have been a problem.

I suspect he thought "loan" conjured images of cash-for-peerages a la Blair, but — duh! — those loans were chiefly a problem because…

put many of them together have you?

i'm lucky if i can afford a dinner up at me local cafe, so Soul would qualify as swanky in my world (although it's not…

Interesting reversal. In the past Labour could always nebulously claim a high ground of having less money to play with.

I suspect they will still have a lot less money. The high ground was in being completely transparent about what they did have.

John Key said he didn't know who…

I think the whole saga (more of a pamphlet, really) shows how easy it is to rattle Labour's cage, regardless of how slim the charges are.

Which is what made me think the Shipley-Roberts comparison was apt. Shipley could have handled that one quite easily, but she wound up misleading…

Graeme Prowse

Ha, I recently had my birthday party in Sydney WITH that guy (well, Steve Bisley). Ended up on water taxi on Sydney Harbour and all I could think of was "Woh, I'm in a f#*^ing episode of Water Rats!"

/pointless-australian-actors-diversion

More seriously, I do not think Glenn is at fault, Labour are simply reaping the whirlwind from their confrontational approach to election finance reform.

This…

Interesting reversal. In the past Labour could always…

I couldn't believe Mike Williams response when asked if he'd got in contact with Glenn to sort out what he did or didn't say…

Mike Williams, a major liability for the Labour party – Discuss
Just a perception thing on my part

I get the impression that he adds a lot of energy and rallies the troops well. His problem is when he opens his mouth in public : cf the "surprise" he promised…

You mean SIR Michael Fay.

I always thought that WAS a reason why we have a honours system – a vapourware way of rewarding people who stump up with real $$$.

Personally I think the whole thing…

I believe the structure…

Take a bow, RB!