Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Bart Janssen,
All very well to blame the council for having the parking bay there but the driver made a choice as well, he had other options as do drivers every day in Auckland they simply choose to put cyclists at risk for their own convenience.
Bart, can I direct you to what Barb Cuthbert of Cycle Action Auckland -- who has devoted her life to safe and happy cycling in our city, and whose group conducted the survey of that spotand warned it was an accident waiting to happen four years ago -- says?
Because it's not what you're saying. At all. She says in this morning's paper that Becker "was the fall guy for the infrastructure - [Jane Bishop] was the victim". And she's more familiar with what happened than any of us are.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
Further, my reading of the reports are that he was already up and out of the car and standing up as Bishop clipped him before crashing. I got the impression he didn't just open the door the instant she was passing.
That was my reading of the reported evidence, yes.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Well, Bob, because as I understand it the prosecution didn't prove beyond reasonable doubt that Becker actually committed the offense he was charged with.
As the prosecution effectively conceded in court, thus rendering its own charge invalid.
I also think it's not unreasonable to assume that local authorities will be more aware that most motorists of dangerous choke point and NOT PUT FRAKING PARKING BAYS THERE. Or is that crazy talk?
This. And they were warned.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Lisa Black,
When I was a kid, if it wasn't safe to get out on the passenger side Dad would make me get out on the driver's side. I know it's a bit more of a squeeze for an adult to get over to the other side of the car, but if that's the safe decision why would you not?
Is it actually so ludicrous to consider that people might, having parked in a place that's unsafe to exit, make a little extra effort?
And yet with respect to the motor traffic, he could see it and he could safely get out. Indeed he had got out when he was hit by the bike. He didn't see a cyclist coming down the narrow space between the stationary and moving cars, at 20km/h.
The judge said that "overtaking on the left", as Jane Bishop did, was actually a breach of the road rules. Did the driver have a responsibility to anticipate that, when cycles were also passing on his left? And yet, it's something we all do as cyclists; it's the only practical way to ride on a crowded road.
We need to stop operating roads whose users are expected to make such fine judgments with such terrible consequences when they get it wrong.
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to nzlemming,
As in looking at the nature of the documents and their release? 'Cos I'm not hugely able to actually review all the content (100 papers ~89MB!) ;-)
No, just the former. Asking you to review all the content would be a bit cheeky.
Yeh, but it will be for next week.
That'd be great.
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to bronwyn,
Half her problem with performing them live is that she just simply isn't enunciating very well. She basically mumbles through quite a lot of her lyrics, (watch her mouth, it's barely open half the time) which is stylistic I know, but doesn't help when it comes to hitting the right notes.
And here my ends my one and only post ever about LDR.
Having listened to some gig recordings on Soundcloud, I have to agree that she isn't a great singer and does the wrong things when she sings. I'm somewhat surprised they sent her out there without a voice coach.
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to nzlemming,
Could you work this up into a guest post? With links? Serious.
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Capture: Big Day Over and Out., in reply to bob daktari,
he wandered off to bemuse other members of the crowd and the security lady wanders over and tells us just how nice his mix had been – from a moment of hating the security for, um, doing their job to one of connecting with a human who wasn’t about to ruin someones day nor be an aggressive stereotypical security type
sorta sums up the vibe for me, odd but chilled
Yes. Going through the gate was nice. Much nicer than the same thing at the BDO.
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Anyway, my point was really about how the music industry behaves more like the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal than an honest agent of artisans. This they have done for years because the business of recording used to be the exclusive province of those with the wherewithal to afford the equipment. Now the equipment is, relatively, cheap as chips they still want control of the artists performance and will stomp on their potential customers to make that point.
Unfair: the likes of Sam Philips, Ahmet Ertegun, Berry Gordy, Chris Blackwell, Martin Mills and Geoff Travis have enriched the world through their vision of how popular music should be recorded and released. And they all wanted to make money.
The problem has come with the consolidation of most of the industry into three corporates. Even within those, there are people of vision. It's just hard for them to be heard.
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Wikipedia has the discography of Born to Die's producer, Emile Haynie.
He certainly wasn't an obvious choice: he's only ever worked with hip hop artists before: Kanye, Obie Trice, a couple of Wu Tangs, Kid Cudi, etc. Fascinating.