Posts by Paul Campbell
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Tussock: I believe that was exactly the essence of what I wrote to the council when they were considering their planning for the coming year - fat lot of good it did - we did however just elect a council exactly none of whom said they were in favour of funding the stadium ..... largely because the bulk of the wimpy bastards carefully didn't take a stand in any of their published statements (and the rest said they were against it)
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I think one of the main problems with wireless mesh networks (we were trying to design one in the early 90s) is that they need a certain access point density in order to 'jell' (they are pretty pointless unless most APS can see at least 3 others) - in Dunedin for example you might try and saturate the student quarter and then build out from there
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sigh - just the thought of Dunedin's old unused gas mains running up every street in my neighborhood and most of the city makes me sad - they were supposedly sold in their entirety to Telecom for $1 so that Clear wouldn't get them - selling the 'copper' back to the govt might free them up for actual competition and I might get the fibre to the curb I really want
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I too agree with most of Chris's column (well except for the bit about '81, I too was being chased around Dunedin by the police and I don't remember the cops being all that nice about it - Chris was probably more plugged in at that time though than I was ...) - really I think the secrecy around the whole thing has become very corrosive and in the interests of national sanity the police need to show their hand - if they're right it wont matter, if they're wrong people can point out why - they're going to have to tell the people they have arrested anyway before they go to trial
The SIS thing was an interesting slip on Key's part one that someone's going to have to explain sometime today
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Russel - I think you have a missing '<' on the link for the open source awards ....
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As Rich points out people like to make big bangs - I was there for that one - it was art, it was fun - in fact I've been going to the desert to make loud noises for years, sadly I've nowhere to do that in NZ yet .... probably a good thing, it would probably be terribly misunderstood ....
On the other hand I'm not a gun fan, hunting weapons are OK, but no one has a reason for a semi-automatic etc etc nor napalm .... I don't know how to easily make the distinction though - I want to be able to fly rockets, make big bangs - I'm an adult and I can take my own risks - I think you need to look at people's intentions and their actions - In a more general (and less personal) case: running around in the bush in camo, shooting at human targets - bad, running around in the bush wearing a bush shirt shooting at deer good.
I suspect a lot of what's been going on is a bunch of hot heads getting a bit far from themselves and talking up a good game, and a few who've genuinely done bad stuff - and some others who've been dragged into the mess and tarred on national TV by the police.
It does seem to me that they don't need special terrorism legislation to have done what they've done - and as I/S points out the new stuff sounds quite scary - takes civil liberties beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned
We've all watched the American and Australian govts play their citizens with the terrorism bugaboo and I think congratulated ourselves that we haven't fallen for the same pile of crap - I hope that this isn't the start of a similar play, whether deliberate or as a response to the wails from talkback radio in an election year, and if it is we don;t fall for it like those others have
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I must admit to being really annoyed by AirNZ's RyanAir take on turning snacks into a profit centre = I wish people would ignore them and just refuse
I've entertained making my own sandwiches and hawking them from the back rows in competition with the trolley
I think the coffee has always been instant, and vile - for 30 years at least (but back then all coffee was instant, and vile and we didn't know the difference)
I do travel too much and need a chance to vent, my current pet peeves are the bozo who took all the seats with back support out of the 777s (remember when they used to touts those) and replaced them with the new multimedia system (which regularly leaves you looking at a windows blue screen - for god sake guys refuse to pay for it until it works) - and the other bozo who took all the clocks out of the Auckland domestic terminal (try and set your phone after coming off an international flight)
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My reaction was more along "thank god, ow all the hype can go away" sadly it's just metamorphised into hand-wringing
It has brought back memories of feeling somewhat the same about the local team losing shield games when I was in high school - though it was a long time ago - it might have more been a case of schadenfreude aimed at the school bullies who really cared about it ....
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OK I'm not a rugby fan - am I wrong in my reaction to this morning's paper "great! now all the hype can stop"?
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Well given their current claims of "broadcasting to all the pacific including NZ" so they can get around the advertising blue laws I can imagine they are doing this - certainly they have to have an unencrypted signal up there now for freeview - last time I checked (many months ago) Sky was using TVNZ's streams (they probably pay them for the use) but had TV3 encrypted - I bet as Freeview channels migrate to unencrypted transponders Sky will start using the unencrypted freeview streams and pick up some more space to add a few extra channels on their transponders
In the mean time I remember hearing that TVNZ was merging some of their advertising markets - they used to run 3 streams for TV1 (identical except for the ads) on OPTUS, I bet they've dropped that down so they have more room for TV6 etc transponder space is always a pain (look at the problems the US sat providors have with the FCCs 'must carry' rule)