Hard News: Graceless Islanders
149 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 Newer→ Last
-
here's a good one
Until last week, I had been in two minds about Bradford’s bill, but I unexpectedly worked it out in less than three seconds. My five-year-old daughter bit me on the leg and I smacked her on the arm. We were both shocked – me because I had never before been bitten, she because she had never before been smacked. I expect that neither of us will be again, certainly not by each other, because my guess is that she will never again bite someone. It would be ridiculous for me to be charged with assault. If I was, I would argue self-defence. My striking her was utterly instinctive, in the way that, say, robbing a bank or poisoning your husband’s mistress is not.
Perhaps my daughter will require years in therapy as a teenager to get over it, but she might get a discount rate with her elder sister, who has never been smacked but seems to equate her after-school French lessons with child abuse.
Listener, 10 Mar 2007
-
The company I worked for in 1999 had a visit from the ministry of commerce - they'd had a complaint from a customer who had bought a system we had first sold in the 80's. We weren't prepared to declare the system y2k compliant. I had a lady go through all of our fault dockets, for hardware repairs. I didn't tell her there was nothing there to do with software compliance.......
In the end, the older systems all worked fine at the dawn of 2000, without modification.
-
As a sidebar to the Subway story, I knew Jackie back in the early 1990s and frankly this impression that she is some sort of mentally disabled teenager is laughable. She would be in her mid to late thirties by now, and so high functioning you only assume she is a bit eccentric (She has a BA, and the Asperger bit is entirely a surprise to me). This is perhaps another example of gross media exaggeration to inflate public emotion.
-
In the end, the older systems all worked fine at the dawn of 2000, without modification.
That doesn't surprise me. I was completely unconcerned that my ancient PC (or VCR) & its software gave a hoot what year it was. And they didn't.
The system we were working on tracked residential tenancies, rents (and rental debt). Some funny things happened to accrued debt & tenancy tenures in the bubble, pre-modification. Nothing fatal, but it was good to sort it ahead, rather than after.
-
This was a point of sale system. And yes, the software only used 2 digits for the year.
-
The fault dockets were all for our newer, y2k compliant system. It had a snazzy operator keyboard, whose rubber membrane was rather delicate.
-
3410,
My main complaint was about this:
AIDS has had its turn in the role of global killer and although it has cut a terrible swathe through some populations, it has largely slipped off the front pages.
AIDS in 2005 (latest figures I could find): deaths of 3 million people; new infections of 4-6 million people, and "largely slipped off the front pages" is supposed to be a valid measure of the issue? For anyone to say that, is pretty poor. For a supposedly leading journalist... that's shocking.
I don't want to harp on about this particular piece. One could easily find a dozen examples that border on being this bad.
-
The fault dockets were all for our newer, y2k compliant system
Tee hee... ain't it always the way.
"largely slipped off the front pages" is supposed to be a valid measure of the issue?
Probably a dangerous place to say this, but I've met more than one journalist who thinks that way - if we don't print it, it can't be news.
-
and "largely slipped off the front pages" is supposed to be a valid measure of the issue? For anyone to say that, is pretty poor. For a supposedly leading journalist... that's shocking.
That is my problem with much of the "media" today. There is a strong tendancy to believe the media is the news. That is of course an interesting view. Most folks believe the media report the news.
It also highlights something else, we are very often unaware of just how much our view of the world is shaped by those who choose which stoires are worthy of making it into the media. A kind of censorship. More benign perhaps because it's mostly stupid censorship based on commercial goals eg TVNZ reports "news" about dancing with the stars because it raises TV1 revenue. But censorship nontheless.
Some folks, apparantly Ms Black think it's just fine that editors decide what is really important.
Thank [deity of your choice or none at all] for the internet
cheers
Bart -
My main complaint was about this:
AIDS has had its turn in the role of global killer and although it has cut a terrible swathe through some populations, it has largely slipped off the front pages.
AIDS in 2005 (latest figures I could find): deaths of 3 million people; new infections of 4-6 million people, and "largely slipped off the front pages" is supposed to be a valid measure of the issue? For anyone to say that, is pretty poor. For a supposedly leading journalist... that's shocking.
Well, that'll learn AIDS for mostly killing people who didn't count anyway.
-
that'll learn AIDS
yeah, should have stuck with rich white people.
it has largely slipped off the front pages
and hence too the non-existence of any body responsible for world poverty, msm manipulation of politics, or non-competitive anti-democratic msm ownership
-
The worker, Jackie Lang, poured two cups of diet Coke during a break to comfort a distressed friend. This was against company policy
So, she didn't just "share her drink" with her 'distressed friend' (as was widely reported yesterday) she actually gave ger friend a free drink!
There's no doubt the employer completely over-reacted and probably doesn't know much about Employment Law (hence the clumsy attempt to label the action as theft by laying a theft charge). My guess is he/she has been wanting to get rid of this employee but couldn't because you can only fire after the employee has committed the same 'offence' THREE times - unless that 'offence' is theft, in which case you can dismiss instantly.
So if you crash the bosses car, erase the hard drive, and tell a customer to 'f#ck off' (NB: I'm making these examples up, not suggesting Ms Lang did any of them) you can't be fired until you crash your bosses car three times OR erase the hard drive three times OR three times you tell customers to 'f#ck off'.
AND THEN you can only be fired IF after you crashed the bosses car the first time you were instructed to drive more carefully next time AND IF after the second crash you were warned in writing that a third crash would possibly result in your dismissal.
AND EVEN IF YOU ARE FIRED for crashing your bosses car a third time you could probably still take a punt with Employment Tribunal. Odds are that they will find your boss should have sent you on a driving course, and probably contributed to the situation by allowing you to continue to drive the vehicle.
If you think I'm being silly then try one of the other examples. If you still think I'm silly then read this
The authority said Mr McNeill seemed "almost to see it as an imposition to be required to attend work if it did not suit him" and believed he had done nothing wrong. ... The worker had sought three months' lost earnings but was awarded only six weeks ... [$5,000]
FWIW - I stopped eating at Subway once they stopped giving out the little tickets to claim a free one after six/ten purchases.
-
Sue,
i loved those little tickets
but i'm soo tempted by their new breakfast menu. Occasionally on a Saturday morning a group of us sneak into the movies and watch the latest blockbuster while consuming MickyDs pancakes and hash browns. -
Some are broadly 'conservative', others 'liberal', but they only interest me to the extent they provide a forum for lively, well-considered and interesting writing rather than impose some dull ideological orthodoxy - whatever it may be.
OK but I had come to expect a certain liberal stance from the Listener in the nicest possible way and then all of a sudden things changed and I was reading a different mag. Moreover, you could hardly accuse the Listener of providing a forum for "lively, well considered and interesting writing" - not from the prominent Black Page anyway. As I said originally, I was impressed by the smacking article in the current N and S - a magazine I often find inimical to my liberal tendencies! Actually I find the reactionary comments of Black much more likely to confirm my bias than a reasoned, researched article by a righ winger.
-
Speaking of Y2K... in a similar vein, did you hear about the squadron of brand new USAF F-22 Raptors that basically crapped out when they crossed the International Date Line en route to Japan?
-
Hi Craig,
I'm happy to read across the political spectrum but if it's right wing I'm reading I want smart right - like the Economist or Tyler Cowen - not Joanne Black who, as the extracts up thread show, doesn't have a functioning analytical bone in her body.
I guess the other thing that rankles about the decline of the Listener is that we don't have any left-leaning major magazines in New Zealand anymore. It would be nice to have at least one Nation or Guardian or something.
-
Hi kids, newsflash.
David Bain's convictions have been quashed and a retrial ordered. Lucky he didn't have to rely on our 'supreme' court for justice.
-
Sue,
wow
that's some newflash, i guess that's Saturday morning's brunch conversation covered ;) -
Yeah Che... here I am, still blogging from the inside. And no course yet :) When do I get my invitation?
-
aeh?
invitation to what?
-
Thank [deity of your choice or none at all] for the internet
I'll thank Jon Postel. After all, he did look a bit like God.
-
I guess the other thing that rankles about the decline of the Listener is that we don't have any left-leaning major magazines in New Zealand anymore. It would be nice to have at least one Nation or Guardian or something.
Well, I may be in the minority here, but I wouldn't mind a domestic equivalent to The Spectator or The National Review at their best either - hell, even a 'smart right' newspaper columnist of the calibre of David Brooks or George Will would make opening The Herald less painful.
Anyway, if anyone feels the lack of a 'left-leaning major magazine' why doesn't someone start one? Ghastly as Air America is (was?), I'll give Al Franken and Co. due credit for not just sitting around bitching about the evil right-wing media and putting another voice out there.
-
Craig - I agree, a <i>good</i> right wing magazine, or merely a columnut, would be good too. As for DIY leftwing media - funnily enough I once had a semi serious look into this but concluded that I didn't have the capital, health (chronic illness particularly bad at the time), or experience. I'd love to do it one day though.
-
oh no - I honestly meant to write 'columnist' just then. Honest. Perhaps a Freudian slip when I saw the name David Brooks...
Post your response…
This topic is closed.