Posts by Lucy Stewart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Sofie: I hope I'm being way too cynical, but I really hope that these decisions are being made on the basis of sound scientific advice and not ferocious lobbying and media pressure.
Well, if you consider "because British Airways put some planes up and demanded to land at Heathrow" sound.....sure.
(I may be maligning BA, who may very well have done wide-scale scientific consultation before making this move. And then again.)
-
Oh lordy - I heard Suzanne Prentice on Natrad the other day (was she talking to Jim Mora?) and she was completely unable to say what her actual policies were beyond "I'm National".
And that it was Time For A Change. But not to terribly different things, because she likes Invercargill, just to...slightly different things. Better things. Changed things. Of some nature.
Good on her. And good on her for giving Parker something of a run back in 2007. She gave the impression of being smart enough to know that she was on a hiding to nothing, but someone had to do it.
I know Megan a little through local left-wing politics, and I've always been impressed by her. She knows what she's doing.
-
and then two days ago I get some creepy call on who would I vote for, Jim Anderton perhaps? wrong wrong wrong!
I'm pretty sure there were several other names in that survey. And Nicky Wagner, also mentioned, is *much* creepier than Jim Anderton. By several order of magnitude.
He was working customer service in a video store, she used the phrase "Don't you know who I am?"
Euuuuughhhhh. OTOH, competency + dickishness >>>>>> incompetency + dickishness, and we all know on which side of that equation Parker falls.
Then again, wouldn't it be nice to be able to choose between *several* competent, decent candidates? One can only dream.
-
To be honest, I sometimes don't know what to make of the RealClimate writers' arguments, because they always seem to be turned up to 10. But that could be said of nearly all the "debate" on the denial side. [Edit: Not that I am saying they are equivalent at all. I just find the style of RealClimate wearying sometimes.)
I think, given the climate they operate in, turning things up to 10 most of the time is understandable. Not always *helpful*, but very understandable.
-
David we have all done dumb things
"That seemed like a good idea, at the time!"
Well I have and so it would seem have youI don't think I need to detail the Great Smoke Inhalation Affair or the Melting Pot Incident to give you the flavour of some of the fire-related mishaps in households I've lived in. It mostly doesn't do to dwell on them too much, with the exception of making sure there's no repeat.
-
Someone wants to be careful - enough high-tech tools that don't need thumbs, we humans might not be all that useful any more.
My cat would certainly enjoy a device upon which she could play Planet Earth on demand. So many edible-looking birds, so little control over her viewing of them.
-
I am also tempted to ask what is so wonderful about that particular development, but I fear a copyright flamewar would erupt
Basically, with software, because the field is so large and so fast-moving, it's impossible to search exhaustively for prior art or prior patents - often, someone will patent a method then try to apply it retroactively to sue everyone who's invented and/or used a similiar method in the meantime. Check out some of the ones listed here.
-
I also know someone who hated The Girl in the Fireplace, because she loved Rose so much.
I resemble this remark, probably because I *was* an eighteen-year-old when I first watched DW, and Nine's season was the first season I watched. I always liked Rose and I always will. (Or because when it comes to shipping, in any medium, I find an OTP and then cling onto it like grim, grim death. It's a personality...thing.)
-
BTW, if the literal definition of "unbelievable" is "I can't believe they're going to charge that much for it in NZ given the current US-NZ exchange rate" then perhaps the tag line will prove to be accurate.....
Just the fact that they're advertising it that heavily at all without a release date or price is irritating. It's like being taunted.
-
I've worked all sorts of holidays before, particularly when I was in hospitality. As a student, if you took a job over summer, it was implicit that you would be working at least either or both Christmas Day or New Year's Eve (the latter, painfully, not a holiday with time-and-a-half perks). I don't remember it being particularly optional, but if you take a job in December, what do you expect?
But it's not just the students; for Easter, it's the people who don't have the extra summer staff to cover for them and would be made to work, losing their one long weekend a year. If anything, I'd vote for Easter Saturday being made a public holiday too, so they could be more certain of being able to take the whole weekend off.
There are an awful lot of people in hospitality/retail who will be there their entire lives, not just over the summer or when they're young. Most of them won't become managers with better bargaining power for holidays. Most of them will have kids, and thus unable to take their annual leave just whenever. They're the people you need to worry about. And they damn well deserve a couple of guaranteed days off.
(IMNSHO, Easter Saturday is *far* worse than New Year's in retail because it has all the nutty panic of Boxing Day without the time-and-a-half, whereas New Year's is much quieter, if still sucky.)