Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: Hip in the Square, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
I thought one of your hat-states might :)
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Hard News: Hip in the Square, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Whether or not the developers should be roundly beaten (like drums or with drums I'm not quite sure) for the shit sound insulation is irrelevant, the central city is not a quiet place to reside.
The Council is meant to regulate building standards and has planning tools like its District Plan to reflect each area's characteristics and function. The developers find ways to build what's most profitable by doing the least that the market and the standards will allow.
However a lot of the worst apartments were created under the same lax rules that led to leaky buildings. It was also before many Aucklanders had ever experienced what living in the cbd was like, and with aggressive marketing by dishonest pricks like Blue Chip who were hardly going to tell them.
So the market was never going to influence decent noise insulation. and the Council at the time had a developer-friendly stance (knee pads) which resulted in the crap shoeboxes along the Nelson Street ridge and elsewhere. There has been some improvement since as both market and rules got more demanding.
Other world cities manage to successfully reconcile having residences and entertainment venues in their central areas. We get what we tolerate and vote for.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Danielle,
Did you like Altman's Short Cuts?
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
A fan keeps the little buggers away as well
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Danielle,
it's been postponed
good to know
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Angus Robertson,
And they do not project force against "economic" rivals
Do elaborate
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Danielle,
FUCK I hate Magnolia
Not even Tom Cruise's role? Thought it was a chillingly accurate doco when I saw his later couch-jumping.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Danielle,
Plus, if other stuff is going on in your life that makes this difficult, I think you would get a lot of support, but no one here is a mind reader: you might have to mention it before the spiral.
True - hard to do, but rather than argue the seemingly rational surface argument and get tangled in painful knots it's best to just say you're feeling uncomfortable even if you can't outline all of the reasons. You'll get a more supportive response than at most other places.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to recordari,
I had decided that today I would front up and meet some people here, and move forward with my involvement, but after this there is no way I could do this without feeling a whole lot of things that just aren't healthy or helpful.
I believe that none of the people you are arguing most strongly with will be there, if that helps.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I'm still learning as we go, so please treat this as me thinking aloud rather than telling everyone how to suck eggs.
simply pursuing a line of rational argument whose conclusions may be challenging to the person you're speaking to
As others have said, the tricky bit lies where the ideas meet the person. That's often not a 'rational' combination because humans are a whole mixture of things, and there are many different people involved in these conversations; mostly silent.
Russell has noted in the past that sometimes this can be a daunting place for new people to enter. Even for those of us who have been here a while, some sorts of ideas are bound to provoke a strong response when people bring to the conversation strong particular experiences or relationships to the topic. As a minor example, you can see that any time Italy or the United States comes up. :)
I appreciate the passionately conveyed viewpoints and knowledge shared here every day by wise and wonderful people. But even a largely intellectual community has to also be about caring for each other if we want it to continue.
I'm not suggesting we suspend public conversation whenever it pushes buttons for someone (that way be dragons) - and this really occurs for only a fraction of our discussions - but at least we can take a hint when something's going on for another person and be a bit more careful to separate the robust conversation from the often less than robust human beings involved.
We all seem to adjust our tone very well when it's about obviously sensitive things like death or illness. There are others too.