Posts by Russell Brown
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So all things considered, you can imagine the state of mind in which I went to my hairdresser on Saturday. Now, my hairdresser herself is lovely, but I can only really deal with that kind of environment by viewing the experience as an anthropological field trip.
We have discussed this before, but you really need to meet my hairdresser. You can talk to him about a lot of stuff, most especially your own specialist subjects. I feel privileged.
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Hard News: Thinking Digital, in reply to BenWilson,
if historians want to read word95 docs 100 years from now they will need to have working machines that run win95 and word95.
Well, they need something that can convert the files, anyway.
Virtual machines would be more straightforward, surely? Leo's current project is putting MAME -- and with it, every arcade machine ever -- on an old Xbox. I am quite excited about this.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to John Armstrong,
Jesus that is properly frightening. It's bad enough seeing the Herald publishing wilfully misleading photographs of balls flying between uprights simply to reinforce the 'Wayne Barnes is Incompetent' narrative.. (He said, desperately trying to stick vaguely to topic..)
Quite. That story was utterly risible. The Herald's sports team seems to have been taking turns at trolling for the past six weeks.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Sacha,
RWC tournament public spending figures coming in.
I wish they’d itemised them better:
Public expenses Mr Key did not cite include advertising, promotional events, match-day entertainment, volunteer co-ordination, signage, extra staff, improvements to urban facilities, VIP hosting and fan zones.
What, for example, are the “improvements to urban facilities”? How big a part of the bill are they? Are they of enduring benefit?
I hope relatively little was spent on “VIP hosting” – but fan zones are actually there for New Zealanders, and I think government does have some duty to make public provision for people, if only for safety reasons.
ETA: The Herald's April story has some more detail:
About $310 million will be spent on the tournament's operational costs and fees,
Offset by ticket sales, so a $39m shortfall, two thirds cover by the taxpayer.
$130 million on upgrades to ports and airports
Infrastructure, then.
$107 million on local expenditure, $41 million on the activities of public agencies, $40.3 million on World Cup-related facilities (including the "Cloud" on Queens Wharf ) and $9.5 million on events
The last including things like this week's Style Pasifika showcase.
Like I said, it'd be useful to see it itemized properly.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Sacha,
I don’t see a claim that alcohol *causes* family violence – as you say, it’s just a disinhibitor.
It was argued here that a spike in reported levels of such violence was *more associated with* activities involving alcohol consumption *than with* sport as such. I’m not aware of research about that, but presumably it exists somewhere.
Alcohol Healthwatch has pages of citations with respect to the association between alcohol and violent crime.
In New Zealand, alcohol is a factor in a third of family violence and half of all serious violence. I don't think acknowledging that is using alcohol as an excuse. It's just a fact.
But, yeah, this possibly isn't the right thread to be going into this in depth.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Tom Beard,
Not sure I’ll bother just yet: I’ll save the money and update my iPhone 3GS to a 4S eventually. After all, I watch shows more on my phone than on my TV, and will continue to do so unless NickFromFulham stops uploading.
If you spend $170 on an Apple TV puck you'll be able to AirPlay the video from your 4S straight to the new TV you haven't bought yet. See how good I am at spending your money?
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Salvation Army will come out to your house for big items if you want to donate it.
Maybe. Given that recycling centres have run out of capacity to store old sets, it's quite likely the Sallies have more than they need too.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to merc,
http://www.ewaste.org.nz/sched.htm I love recycling ewaste. Shame the Govt. doesn't see a place for battery recycling.
I traded a dead car battery on a reconditioned one last week. Fifty bucks, compared to $180. I did have to listen to more about batteries than I really cared to know in the process, though ...
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to John Armstrong,
Mmm, do-dads. I'd probably have gone ahead and bought one if it came with the cool documentary they were playing in the shop. Galapagos lizards swimming underwater in HD was just ace.
Without wishing to deter you from your noble path, TV does look bloody good these days.
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Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Marcus Turner,
I suppose that might be part of the feeling against Quade Cooper, but I don’t know. I do wonder, though, whether there’d have been quite the same fuss if he’d been pakeha.
Nah. That absolutely not it.
There's probably a little of the fact that he was born here, but mostly it's this:
And this:
A little upstart repeatedly taking cheap shots on a man with McCaw's mana isn't going to end well. And that fact that he's shown he clearly can be rattled in a game only encourages it to continue.