Posts by Peter Ashby
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@Simon Honiss
I can download movies from Blockbuster and because my ISP has a tie-in with TiVO this is unmetered so doesn't get counted in my cap. The movies cost slightly more that I could get from the video store but I guess I don't have to drive there. Despite this I still haven't used it yet because the selection isn't great.
That is my experience with on demand videos through Cable here in the UK, there is a huge selection but most of it is crap, lowest common denominator, packed full of TV movies, sequels etc. I hardly ever use it. Film4 on the digibox has better films and comes free with my cable subscription.
@Russell
Wow!! I didn't have to log in to post this! I don't know what got fixed, but very big thanks for getting it fixed. -
@Matthew Littlewood
As someone who went to Intermediate and then secondary school in Dunedin, it always boggled the mind how small the students from outside the place (and they are of course the large majority) had such a small view of the place. Many of them scarcely go out anywhere past the Octagon in the three or four years they study here. I remember writing an article on South Dunedin as a features writer partly because Dave Large (the editor) and myself realised many students would have never got that far out of the place. And the way the flats have been arranged plays a huge part in it.
Absolutely, lots of people I knew as a student at Otago might as well have been living on a small Pacific Atoll for all that they got about the place. I came to Uni from Auckland but I had lived in Dunedin from 6 to 11yo, so knew it well enough to be comfortable moving about the greater Dunedin area either when I went for a run or when I got my motorbike. A blat out to Middlemarch or some nice quiet contemplation at Aramoana or Alan's Beach were part of my relaxation. To those for whom an evening at the Normanby was an exotic outing I feel pity.
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@Phillip Matthews
The ones in the flats will, by and large, not be first years. They will be in one of the many Halls of Residence that dot Dunedin, that is a whole other culture, or was. So the ones who light bonfires in Castle St are 2nd years and older. Behave like that while in Halls and you are likely to find yourself homeless or otherwise sanctioned. That all goes when you go flatting.
I liked Graeme Downe's point in his blog, it sounds from it like the ghettoisation of North Dunedin is even worse than when he and I were there as Students (I saw the early Verlaines at the Oriental in '84). The flat we had at the top end of Cumberland St. is now gone and a block of flats built there instead for eg. The students are not responsible for this the good buy to rent burghers of Dunedin and the council planners are. Here in the UK they are thinking about passing legislation to limit the number of 'houses of multiple occupancy' in any given area after hints (only vague hints in comparison) of this happening in Nottingham and Edinburgh. Seems its too late in North Dunedin so since it is containable and the aforementioned good burghers need not be inconvenienced, why not simply contain it?
Yes, if it happened in South Auckland it would be treated differently, but that is because there are lots of other people around so it has to be treated differently, but that is not any different from a lot of the context dependant policing that goes on. For eg the world rugby 7's in Wellington only the revellers there do not expect aggro from the police so there isn't any. If the police let it be known that the Undie could go on in this place but overspill would be dealt with they would soon burn the party out.
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Something has changed in recent years that is for sure. The thing about students having parties that got rowdy and involved impromptu bonfires in the middle of the street is not new, 'twas ever thus*.
Back in my time ('84 on) I had never heard of the 'Undie 500', it may well have happened but it cannot have been a major event. I wonder if it was some sort of homage journey after they dismembered the excellent School of Mines at Otago and shipped it up to the Engineering Faculty at Canty where it proceeded to whither on the vine.
So either the cops and fire service have become less tolerant over the years or the Undie 500 has become an opportunity for organised mass partying rather than just one or two flats, in which case the event is a problem though I can't see how you can ban it in a free country. They feel they can do it in North Dunedin because it is Scarfyville with few true locals (the place is absolutely dead in the summer). This is unlike other places in the country where students have ordinary people as neighbours.
*Neighbours were having a rowdy party once which we tolerated until they started hurling beer bottles, one of which hit the wall of our flat right beside the bathroom window where we were bathing the eldest. We decided to call the cops at that point and when they arrived they calmed the situation down and the next day we got an apology.
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@Brickley
Eh? That's like putting fluoride -- another dialectic in NZ...thought that one died out in the 60s everywhere else
Um here in the UK we are having that exact debate right in the here and now whereas the folate in bread debate was won here a long time ago. These arguments run on different timescales in different places due in large part to the nature of the players in the debate. If for eg a respected public health scientist heads up the anti debate and sticks with it over decades that can derail and delay implementation. The science is rarely completely watertight in all respects and it always comes down to health economics which people hate thinking about (how can they put a price on someone's life?). So someone who works on accentuating the demonstrable negatives while denigrating the positives from apparently high minded principles can be persuasive to a lot of people.
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And here's something to consider - while a 50-year-old man can get a woman pregnant, how many women of a fertile age (say, 18 to 35) would want to have a baby with some old geezer?
You mean there isn't an equation where the how old/fat/bald/disgusting line intersects with the how rich/powerful/well connected/good for your career he is line? Or maybe Ted Turner's toupé really is attractive? and that despite appearances (insert rich old man with young blonde wife) really is a really hot adonis.
Besides women with children do much better when the alimony gets decided than childless women do and being the mother of the next king has always been something worth fighting for, even in the Sultan's harem.
Us males aren't the only sex capable of being shallow and materialistic you know. I notice you don't question why a 50 yo man would want to sleep with a young woman.
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@Lucy Stewart
I misplaced mine (selfless maternal instincts) somewhere while dreaming of the all-partying, all-the-time PhD student lifestyle in exciting foreign places. Has anyone seen them?
Scene: the coffee/seminar room of a science lab. A female postdoc has brought in her newborn offspring for introductions. Gathered is a selection of male and female postdocs and PhD students. I (married, two kids) am holding new offspring and have been for a while. Feeling like I am monopolising the opportunity I attempt to offer it to some of the female academics/students. Not one of them would take the baby. I eventually passed it over, to the other married with children male there. Us two and the mother were only ones to touch the baby.
The sound of ticking body clocks was deafening in that room along with the strain of them not being listened to. It's a shit deal I agree, but the biology is pretty unforgiving despite maverick Italian doctors.
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I'll third the comment about EndNote, I will always be an afficionado for ProCite. That was a Real Database (TM) that was, unlike EndNote which wouldn't know the first thing about being a database. My PhD thesis was referenced using ProCite and it worked flawlessly.
My first references database I built myself using Reflex for the Mac after my honours year. I brushed up my touch typing putting all of 100 references on file cards into it.
BTW despite forever clicking the 'remember me' and 'keep me logged in on this computer' check boxes when logging in I get logged out with pretty much every page refresh. This does not happen on other sites, what gives?
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The IAAF has just announced that NONE of the samples from the men's 100m final have tested positive as well as that none of them has tested positive in the last year.
Remember that they also have the younger athletes like Bolt's baseline blood samples which mean even if they take entirely natural human steroids it will show up. This can also show up blood doping (not relevant for the sprints) and EPO doping with human EPO (ditto).
So to all those sceptics, where is the evidence? BTW for the record I am one of those who thinks Dwayne Chambers should have been banned for life, I don't care how clean he is now, he still benefits from muscles artificially enhanced since he has never stopped training.
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A number of the female athletes from the former Eastern Bloc and East Germany in particular have had sex changes. Is this a result of all the 'vitamins' they were injected with (iow they were on a hormone course anyway) or because athletes tend to the testosterone end anyway? We will never know for individual cases, the numbers are too low for the stats to be significant, but it is highly suggestive.
As for those who say Bolt must be drugged, you just don't understand the modern testing regime. It has already been mentioned that the IAAF have baseline blood samples for him. This means any significant changes in natural hormone or significant metabolite levels now need to be explained. Not especially relevant to sprinters, more to catch EPO taking distance runners trying desperately to keep with the East Africans, but the principle is there. What this means is that even he takes entirely natural human hormones, not synthetic ones, they can detect the change.
The risky time for Bolt will be in the future when for eg he is struggling with the inevitable injuries, the major championship is coming up and he is getting older and some Bolt junior is snapping at his orange heels. Right now he has no need and no reason. He is simply a very happy, and rare (?) conjuction of very fast muscles and long legs. The conservative opinion is that if your legs are too long you may be fast but it will take you 30-40m to get them going by which time you are dead last to the Tyson Gays of the world. That is Bolt's special thing, he has sufficient acceleration to overcome the handicap of those long legs which is why he goes away so fast once he really gets going.
The phenomenon is not just that though, the man is a breath of fresh air. You want to know my theory on why that final was the fastest ever? Those men were relaxed because Bolt punctured the traditional silverback male swagger fest that used to rack up the tension. Supreme athletic performance comes when the athlete relaxes into it, vis Primos Cozmus's final hammer throw after the gold medal was in the bag.
As for putting the shot, it is not just about throwing it as hard as you can. It is about finding the perfect fusion of timing, motion and effort such that you manage to put as much of your weight and muscle behind it and release it at the perfect time and trajectory*, and still stay inside the circle afterwards. If it was just about strength they could use a gym machine to decide it.
*Valerie Villi's shots were straight down the middle, think about it.
BTW the shortest woman in the high jump field (I forget her name) holds the world record for differential jumping of 34cm. What this means is that she can jump over a bar 34cm above her head. Blanka Vlasic can't come close to that.