Posts by George Darroch
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Danielle, add to the list.
8. National and ACT support slavery.
I mean that. There are millions of slaves in the world today, and if you refuse to take concrete actions to help stop it when you have the choice, you're supporting that.
-
But the point of cycling is that some technologies aren't allowed; you can exploit nutrition to the hilt, but you can't turn up with an engine.
No. That isn't the point of cycling. The point of cycling is that you turn up with a bike, you get on that bike, and then you race that bike from point A to point B.
-
And if the only way you can become a world record holder is by wearing a special suit, do you really deserve it?
It's a sign that everyone's playing the same sport.
I suppose I'm in a pro-technology mood today because I've been reading about the restrictions that the UCI has placed on competitive cycling technology, in an attempt to keep everyone on the same page. Unfortunately, it's held back the development of better bikes considerably. But this is a sport that lives through technology.
Perhaps swimming stay a purist sport, with lycra and googles the only concession, interested only in the limits of human ability.
-
Is comparison important?
-
The context for above - "Top Secret" technology helps swimmers...
-
I'm a defender of the suits, actually. They're "only" about $500 in cost, which puts them within reach of anybody at the highly competitive end of swimming - if you're not at that end the improvement they offer is pretty marginal. Sure, they cost more than a $50 pair of speedos, but not much more. You might spend $1000 or more on the top end, but compare that to the cost of attending a meet and it's still very reasonable.
I think you're discounting the improvements in performance that have come with better use of cameras and computer modelling in swimming, which has allowed swimmers to train every single part of their stroke to offer least drag and most performance. The US swim team now slide their hands into the water partly open, which reduces drag considerably. To say that the suits are responsible for all of the improvement is too much - some of it certainly.
Do we by the same token discount Bolt's records because he had better shoes than those who came before? More technology is a good thing, as long as it is relatively accessible. These suits are.
-
For what definition of "stops improving"?
The singularity would suit me nicely.
-
Another advantage of the Dolby technology is that if you slipped a couple of the dichroic filters into the colour wheel of a Texas Instruments-based DLP projector you could show proper 3D movies on the wall of your living room. Bugger – I was hoping my 42in LCD panel would see me out....
By this time next year there'll be HD-3D-stereodolbyphonic-100megainch-withEXPLOSIONS!!-TV.
I'm waiting until technology stops improving before spending on anything new.
-
Do you not remember the level of the opposition to the attempt at a ETS? "FART TAX"!!!! Tractors up the steps of parliament! What do you suggest Labour should have done? Used urgency to ram through legislation in the teeth of hysterical opposition? We are not talking about the current National government, who seem to think that is business as usual. we are talking about Helen Clark's government.
Business in New Zealand fought a bitter campaign against any attempt by the previous government to create a meaningful ETS, because they clearly thought that if they could hang on until 2008 they would get a government they could lobby successfully to do nothing. And they were right.
So far, the business lobby have won every round. But they don't care. They've won the right to another decade or two of windfall profits, and when the chickens come home to roost, they'll just get the taxpayer to bail them out.
Quoted in full because there are a few issues that deserve consideration.
Firstly, if the previous Government were strongly committed to emissions reductions (and thus far I have seen no evidence that this was the case - that instead they were a wishlist item), then they would have been an issue that they would eventually have to have fought sectoral interests over. You can't make an omlete without breaking eggs.
By not fighting the Federated Farmers, and calling them out on their extremist positions (absolutely no responsibility for farmers at all, everything paid by you and I), they ceded the possibility of making a moral case, and arguing this on its merits. Yes, a fair proportion of the population agreed with the tractor drivers, but few of them were Labour sypathetic at the best of times. A good proportion of the population weren't impressed at all, and a larger proportion didn't know the facts of the matter and were muddled - but Labour refused to come out fighting and explain its case for fear of putting fuel on the fire.
I'm a firm believer that in politics you have to make the case for things, and try and establish new orders. Sometimes, you don't have the political capital. Other times you simply hang on for dear life, and hope that the weather changes, but 2003 was not that time.
In the early 2000s the Feds, ACT and Nick Smith (a key backer) were somewhat marginal, at least relative to other times in NZ history. The Government only has a certain amount of political capital to spend at anyone time before having to generate more, but I think that fighting the Feds wouldn't have been as costly as made out.
More importantly, it gave the opposition a template for successfully making the Government back down: Ignore the minimal cost imposed by a change or any of the compelling rationales behnid it - don't try and argue on fact, argue on emotion. Labour had managed to extinguish weaker versions of it on a number of issues previously (closing the gaps etc) but this was the first time it was applied properly. After their initial success, they applied it many times, almost all with success. You have to fight hysterical bullies if you're going to win.
You can't managerialise everything.
-
So do we have an inferiority complex or a superiority complex?
Not everybody. But there are more than a few with an insecure need to declare that we are "the -st in the world" at some particular attribute.
It's a convenient mythology. See the way NZ is advertised in Australia.