Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Dennis Frank,
Normally when a leader is weakening the fact is signalled loud & clear by the body language. None yet.
I think he honestly does not understand a lot of what is going on. He doesn't know if he's weak or strong because he does not have any real infrastructure in place to keep him advised. He discards advisors like they're contestants on his stupid show, on which it was noted by the editors that they often completely failed to understand his rationales and had to work really, really hard to edit the shows to make him seem rational at all. The only time I ever watched it, he fired the highest performing contestant who had won immunity because they got cocky and waived their immunity. Whether they were any good at whatever stupid task they had been put to, selling buttons on the street or something, was beside the point. He was infuriated by someone being cocky on his show. His actions and decisions are emotional and narcissistic, not rational, and he doesn't have any clear direction or policy. So I don't expect him to change his behaviour even if he gets impeached. For him, it's all Mission Accomplished every day that he gets a ton of attention.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I'm amused by the idea of Trump personally reading documents. By most accounts, this never happens if the document has more than 100 words on it.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Dennis Frank,
Trump seems to lack a moral compass from our perspective, but so what?
He's literally the most powerful man in the world.
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Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Russell Brown,
no actual evidence apart from ...
I'm fully expecting pictures of Trump naked, TBH. The guy is stupid enough for that.
I do not believe that is the “best” way to characterise Trump’s stance.
His stance changes constantly. Sometimes within a day. Sometimes within an interview. Sometimes within a sentence.
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Gawd. I just ride through the intersection on the road. At least the road is designed for vehicles. But I'm not ever cycling at busy times.
A frequent choice would be to ride in to Uni on the cycleway, but home along Gt North Rd. Riding DOWN Gt North Rd (particularly Chinaman's Hill) was one of life's great simple pleasures. There are very few such long slopes that eat up several kilometers with almost no effort, and the bus/cycle lane gave separation from motorists. Going the other way was dreadfully laborious and unsafe compared to the NW cycleway, even with the grand finale of no less than 4 stiff ascents before K Rd.
The cycleway generally felt slightly less safe going home, because gravity is on your side but the path is narrow and winding, which means pedestrians are a big danger. The proposed improvements on the Bike Auckland site look good.
It is somewhat irksome that the cycleway, which follows the motorway, does not go under any of the bridges that the motorway does. This would reduce cyclist and pedestrian traffic on the bridges, surely improving the traffic flow, so there is a sound reason to do it, even taking only the interests of cars into account. I guess the problem is cost - the on-ramps and off-ramps would need bridges or tunnels. Or lights, which the on-ramps actually do have now.
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Hard News: Big Night Outage, in reply to Hebe,
Yes, if we consider the first quake in Chch to have been a forewarning, we just got forewarned.
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Hard News: Big Night Outage, in reply to Hebe,
‘So then we went to the cafe and had a coffee’ wasn’t my disaster experience – more ‘so then we were trapped at home by the broken bridges and roads’.
Yes, I'm not calling the storm a disaster, even though there are still people without power. It's not really in coooeee of a disaster, which is good, since it was a category 2 storm. Any stronger and it would have been called a hurricane quite legitimately.
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Hard News: Big Night Outage, in reply to Russell Brown,
seek to ruin your life by awarding a mere four stars.
Oh no, Brer Brown, not the 4 stars! Anything but the 4 stars!! You can chunder all over me, make me listen to wub wub, even make me put on talkback radio while we wait in the KFC drive through queue....
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Hard News: Big Night Outage, in reply to Moz,
I don’t have a car to charge, though
That’s always even more surprising, TBH. :-)
I also bought a relatively cheap solar recharger and I’m completely independent.
So long as a bright sun is shining :-).
I got all survivalist for a bit when the Chch quakes happened, so I’ve got like about 10 cooking options: 2 gas bbqs, one little portable one, two woodfired charcoal cookers, several disposal tinfoil versions, a whole bunch of hand made meth and wood stoves from tin and aluminium cans. I have a grab backpack with tent, sleeping bags, cooking gear, various other amenities and a grab box with water, toilet paper, medical equipment, milk powder, all in the shed in case the house is fucked. Lots of torches and batteries and so on. Then there’s the van which can actually convert entirely into a big bed, or seat 8 people, with working heater.
I’m ready in case we have to get out of Dodge, pronto. Well, OK, I don’t have any guns.
ETA: Oh and of course the car has multiple charger adapters, including one multi adapter for every kind of phone ever made, although TBH that was less about survivalism and more about getting a good Uber rating.
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Hard News: Big Night Outage, in reply to Gareth,
You can live without the oven for a long time if you’ve got a kettle-style barbecue/BGEgg/pizza oven, and, well, you’re cookin’ with gas…
Although unexpected challenges may arise from strong winds, like the sausages falling off the back into the neighbors yard being hoovered up by their pitbulls, or the entire BBQ blowing off, for that matter.
