Posts by Peter Ashby
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Yes, your bags go missing from a domestic flight to a provincial airport which means someone half inched them without doubt. General rule, don't leave stuff lying about and especially don't leave stuff lying about in the care of people who don't give a stuff. That's what left luggage lockers are for.
-
I once in the context of my academic lab job, made the mistake of searching the internet for 'muscle anatomy'*. Fortunately I was alone in the office at the time.
You can bet Clead feed will not be applied by the Universities, so all you need is a student account or a Uni job and Bob is your kind under the counter Uncle.
*The lab copy of Grey's Anatomy was rather old and I needed up to date figures on variations in it in humans.
-
Bother Jimmy Stewart and Kate Hepburn, the Guardian at the weekend revealed that Cheeta is still alive! Yes, that Cheeta, the one that acted with Johnny Weissemuller. He's 76 and living in Palm Springs (where else?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/06/celebrity2
-
Redbaiter spat the dummy in nz.gen and declared he was off to Oz. Presumably he meant he was transferring his bile to the web.
I gave up Usenet myself a few months ago. I needed my life back. Be nice to have threaded discussions on the web but.
-
At the last Edinburgh sevens on the first day we were sat in front of a party of French teenagers who were in very fine voice and got into a very good natured chanting match with a group of Spanish kids. However they were polite and quite during the matches, unless France were on of course. An international sevens event is just the best advertisement for the joy that is rugby. Segregate the fans a la soccer? The very thought of it should send a shiver down the spine.
Besides who would you argue with in the pub afterwards over the beers if not the opposition supporters? Be boring and one sided with just your fellow bigots.
As for cheering where you happen to live at the moment, well pooh to that. Here I sit in Sunny Dundee (whoops it's just clouded over) in my 3 years old Otago NPC shirt. Just because I spent my teenage years in Auckland didn't remove the South from my blood. I remember going after work to Eden park 2 to watch Auckland play Wellington at cricket. I was the only one there cheering for Wellington, who were battting. Why? because it was good for Otago on the table if Wellington beat Auckland.
-
Ah yes, toll bridges built and run by private companies. Scotland has been there done that with the now infamous Skye Bridge. When it was built the car ferry across Kyle Rhea was forcibly closed to prevent competition. The toll was GBP5 which is no small sum of money. There is in the summer months a car ferry just down the Minch, but the roads too and from on both sides are um picturesque, meaning long, narrow, winding and on the Skye side single lane with passing places.
Needless to say the bridge was imposed on a sullen Scotland by a Tory govt and it took a LibLab Scottish parliament to buy out the contract and make it free.
I would say that it is far, far too easy for the private company to make, *representations* to a receptive minister to cause a reconsideration of minor details of the 'wider' project. After all buses fall under the same minister don't they? so no competing cabinet level bus champion. Bad scenario.
-
Surely the idea of printing it off is dying anyway with the final appearance of viable electronic ink devices? At the very least the content should be compatible with at least some of those devices.
-
NZ's MSM was now controlled by so few, with so little competition that I went into mourning for an independent fourth estate. I even missed the UK redtops.
My opinion exactly Cindy. The major newspapers in NZ have effectively no competition. The DomPost doesn't compete wth the Herald and the Press doesn't compete with the Oddity. Which means there is this idea that 'your' local newspaper should be neutral, an idea completely foreign to the UK where if the paper you are reading goes off on a limb you can simply change.
Which is why I view the complaints over the SST's going all tabloid, so don't read it or start up some competition.
Back in the day in Dunedin I worked with people who bought The Observer weekly on subscription. It came airmail on seriously thin paper. They got it because the coverage of international and serious issues in NZ media was so bad. Now of course The Observer or The Times or the NY Times are just a click away. The then Editor of the Oddity told a friend of mine that if a proper national daily ever happened in NZ they would happily drop any pretence at International or even much National news coverage.
Stephen Jones aside I go for a UK broadsheet description of an All Black game before somewhere like Stuff. The NZ report will be a pedestrian bare bones description whereas the writers over here will give you an erudite and well written piece of prose that is a pleasure to read. You even get to correct the misconceptions about our 'poached' Islanders.
-
They'll be there for sure. A poorly-sourced story can very easily flash around the world and wind up in our papers. Medical research is the ostensible topic of many of them.
Ain't that the truth brother. As a biomedical researcher every such thing I see in the MSM makes me head for source or close to source material which my finely honed scientific skills enable me more times than not to tell that the MSM story bears no relation to the actual research or even the University/Institute press release.
Sorry to say but too many arts graduates expected to cover medical/science stories is to blame. For people raised on the idea that there are no facts only opinions putting a nonsense spin on something cannot be a problem. Then there is stats abuse, but at least we have Ben Goldacre to keep us on the straight and narrow.
For one thing he keeps the Grauniad's excellent science journalists on their toes. The last thing Alok Jha wants is one of his pieces getting shredded by Ben on Saturday. As a scientist I approve of the Grauniad's science reporting. Now if they can only wrestle the health stories off the sports reporters...
-
Huge point, that one. It's where the Guardian's Comment is Free blog venture most often falls down -- because those fancy public-school-educated Guardian journalists very rarely get themselves mucky by joining in their own discussions.
That is less and less true Russell, though often the responses are later in the discussion and tend to be one long post addressing a number of points. It is often the younger, staff commenters that do this. Guest commenters rarely do. Polly Toynbee has done so too. So your blanket description is innaccurate. It possibly depends on what articles you read and how long you hang around (a problem with time zones, I know which is why this so long after your post..)