Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: The Future of Television, in reply to Brent Jackson,
we're now outside the target demographic.
So do advertisers really expect me to not buy any different brand for the rest of my life ?
I think that might actually be the problem. By our age Brent, we aren't really swayed as much by advertising lies. We know some brands are shit and no amount of advertising will change that, we know how to research products we really want to get the best brand ... again no amount of lies will change that.
I watched ALL of the block, but there is still no way in the world I will drink Wild Bean coffee.
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to BenWilson,
Our cities and towns aren’t doing the subsidization
Our country is smaller economically than many US cities.
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to Russell Brown,
industrial subsidy
Industrial subsidies in the US have had an awful record. Cities and towns have paid enormous amounts to attract businesses to their location only to have the business move on as soon as the subsidy runs out. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of business it is either. With that history I'd want to be pretty careful about what kinds of subsidies went into the industry and I'd want to know which companies can be trusted to stay on after the subsidy so we don't make mistakes more than once - it is my money after all.
In that sense I really don't like the idea of subsidies at all. But the point is well made that this govt loves giving subsidies out to men in suits so it's kind of difficult to understand why the film industry should be different in terms of deserving a subsidy.
But to me there does seem to be one difference about the film industry that makes it a valid target for help from the taxpayer. It does seem to be an industry of highs and lows. If the capability is allowed to disappear during a low there is no capacity to take advantage of a peak in demand.
It's the same logic that argues we help farmers during a drought.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Lilith __,
Sexual desire is somewhat famous for clouding the brain.
One could argue that if it doesn't cloud the brain, you're doing it wrong.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Russell Brown,
One is that Brown is an idiot.
Simon Wilson is wrong. What he should have said is "Brown did something really stupid".
Doing something stupid does not make one an idiot.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Seamus Harris,
the way Public Address readers seem interested in dissecting anything and everything other than the central issue
Two parts to this for me (maybe three).
First, a lot of folks find an extramarital affair to be a fairly mundane and ultimately personal issue rather than a subject for public outrage.
Second, PA has always been about “the media”, that is the discussion is about the way the news is presented rather than the actual news itself. In this case the media has been a very significant part of the story and also an particularly noxious example.
And third, we ramble all over topics here.
So no, a lot of folks here aren’t all that interested in Mr Brown’s affair and are more interested in the way it was publicised and the politics around that.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It’s ok to snigger at a name privately-
With all due respect, Martin, it isn’t. I can understand my weird “foreign” surname doesn’t exactly trip off every tongue, but I do appreciate it when people at least make a good faith effort to pronounce it correctly and avoid turning my name into an occasion for a smutty little sneer.
I'll have a buck each way on this. It is entirely human to the connection between someone's (foreign) name and something ridiculous in one's own language. That connection may be amusing. It is human and reasonable to laugh.
It is quite another thing to take that connection and use it for ridicule. At that point you become a bully.
As for pronouncing foreign names, look at least try. But it can be very hard and most folks accept that it's hard but if you try most folks will appreciate that. Almost nobody in NZ pronounces my surname correctly, I spent 18 months struggling to put the emphasis on the correct syllable of my bosses name and got it right maybe 5% of the time. Some folks can do it really well, some can't, but trying matters.
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Legal Beagle: Fact check: Q+A on mayoral…, in reply to izogi,
If it were an STV election, like in Wellington for instance, are there additional reasons why it would be stupid?
Yes STV would give you the second most popular choice. But that would not necessarily reflect the desires of the majority at all.
If for example you had a mayor, representing one political team or platform, who won and achieved say 95% support from the population and then had some reason to resign a month later, or die, or whatever.
Then simply selecting the next STV candidate would likely result in a new mayor that represents an opposing political platform or team and contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the population.
That would be silly.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Alan Moore,
When I last looked having an extra marital affair could hardly be described as….
“an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.”….I think we all know that if you view marriage as a worthy institution shagging around is wrong.
When I was 17 I thought much as you have just described. And then I experienced life. I noted that enormously intelligent, moral, decent people had affairs, some messier than others. I discovered that what occurs within a relationship can be vastly different from what one sees from outside. I learned that a LOT of people have affairs. You may not have had the same experiences as I have so you may have a different view but for me I would pretty much describe most affairs as mistakes.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Russell Brown,
cognitive dissonance
In order for that to be the case you'd have to demonstrate cognition.