Posts by Bart Janssen

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  • Hard News: Something up with Apple?,

    Hi Sarah

    This is no help to you in the Hutt valley but in Auckland Ubertec in Parnel is well stocked, have friendly attentive staff, and know their shit. This however is the exception, there is a largish Mac specialist store in central Auckland which is repeatedly given me appalling service, with staff more interested in chattiong each other up than selling stuff and when dragged on to the shop floor to help, respond in monosylables.

    However an Apple store would be nice too.

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Southerly: They don't make 'em like they…,

    The Marriane Dreams book about the girl who draws pictures that become real was made into "Escape into Night" adapted for TV by Ruth Boswell who was also involved in another favourite of folks here .. The Tomorrow People!

    http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/escapenight.htm

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Southerly: They don't make 'em like they…,

    Lots of great memories here.
    I'd like to vote for Dr Who (esp the John Pertwee incarnation), UFO and Space 1999 were great and Blakes 7 was better - all in that British ... "we can't afford the special effects, so we'll fake it and the audiance will go along with us" ... style.

    And while I really do think those were great shows I also remember watching with great enjoyment complete crap like Buck Rogers and The 6 million Dollar Man. Were they great? er no but they did entertain me as a kid.

    On a slightly higher level for American shows was Star Trek the original series. Yes in hindsight it was formulaic and sexist but sometimes they actually looked at real issues in an entertaining story.

    But to be truely honest as a child I had a huge amount of fun watching Wild Kingdom and Flipper and Gilligans Island too.

    Like Brent I was scared shitless by that lighthouse and the boulders that moved - thanks so much for the name of that - now I can see if we can get a copy.

    So I don't know what is the greatest of all time, it depends on what the criteria is. As a child I enjoyed Flipper as much as Dr Who so which is the better childrens program?

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • If the Straitjacket Fits ...,

    OK in an attempt to get back to Hamish' point...

    So what exactly causes people to be innovative? Genuine question.

    I work in an industry where if you actually look at what people do day to day they are incredibly innovative. Thinking laterally developing alternative solutions to problems and in general making stuff up that works.

    BUT has that innovation decreased with the changes in the job over the last 20 years? The instictive answer is to say yes because I remember the innovative stuff we were doing 15 years ago - but I also think I forget the boring stuff that didn't work. I guess if you look at publication rates you could argue we are less innovative but even that is a tough call to be certain on.

    What I do know is that with ERMA (the envrionmental risk management authority) regulations and with increased monitoring of health and safety there are more things we cannot do at all and many things that require more hassle to do. Does that mean we are less innovative - well one arguement is yes because there are some very good experiments we could be doing that are simply to expensive in administrative costs to attempt. But that also drives us to look for other ways of getting the knowledge we want - ie we are forced to innovate.

    So I'm not sure - yes I think nanny state in the guise of H&S and ERMA does hinder (and sometime stop) some good innovation from happening. But ultimately the people are innovative anayway.

    But I work in an unusual industry - we are a group of people selected to be innovative. But then I read the business pages (occassionally) and read about other industries where people are being innovative all the time.

    You know I just don't think Hamish is right. I think yes there are more cases now where the community (aka government) limits our activities. But I really don't believe that we as a community are less creative as a result. I guess for me the problem is I can't be sure the frequency of innovation in the NZ society has changed - good lord how would you measure it?

    erk that might be too optimistic for a Monday.

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • If the Straitjacket Fits ...,

    We're not talking scrapped knees in the playground though are we? You don't just learn what your limits are if things go wrong with fireworks, you end up seriously burnt, or blind, or starting a fire.

    Actually I don't think that's entirely true. Most accidents with fireworks just scare the crap out of people. It's only a small percentage of fireworks accidents that cause any injury and only a small percentage of those that cause a serious enough injury to be reported.

    That's not to minimise your point but instead it highlights just how many times accidents happen with fireworks. My guess is that there would be very few backyard displays this weekend where everything went according to plan. Certainly in ours there were several fireworks that went wayward.

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • If the Straitjacket Fits ...,

    Hi Tui
    I think learning some things by making mistakes is good but to suggest that I might extend that idea to also think we shouldn't help those who've made serious fianacial mistakes and now need the communitys' (governments') help is a little harsh.
    The thing for me is there are some things I believe it is appropriate for the nanny state to get involved in but that does not mean I think the nanny state should be involved in everything and vice versa.
    In other words there are places where I draw a line.

    When it comes to allowing undeveloped brains to be in charge of lethal weapons I do think the state has to step in.

    When we are talking about drinking age ... well the analogy I drew the other day when I first replied to Russell was of our coffee culture. There are enough studies done that strongly suggest that coffee - in excess - is not good for developing brains. It's probably not a good idea to give your 5 year old a double espresso with a perfect crema.

    And you know what, I doubt there are any barristas in NZ who would give a 5 year old an espresso. Should we legislate to make sure in never happens? - er no - because we don't need to legislate. Because education has done the job already.

    Teenagers, those irresponsible animals that I personally think should not be allowed to drive, know pretty well the effects of 12 espressos before lunch. And while they might spend a large amount of time in coffee houses they generally don't drink coffee to excess. How the heck have we managed to establish a mature balanced (if somewhat fanatical) culture around coffee and failed utterly to create the same mature balanced culture around alcohol.

    The answer I think is by taking a mature balanced approach to coffee. On Sunday mornings throughout Auckland definately and I bet throughout NZ the coffee machines churn out a huge number of fluffys that allow children to partake in the culture of the cafe without any risk. As they grow older most preteens get to try coffee and learn their limits. As teenagers many have abused coffee at some time and paid the price in the evil "I missed my coffee this hour" headache. But they don't do it often and they learn the joys and risks of coffee. Compare that with the way most children are exposed to alcohol.

    If only we learned how to drink alcohol the same way.

    So I'd love to see the drinking age laws loosened and teens taught (in school?) how to drink and have fun without getting smashed. Banning alcohol will never teach the teens how to drink for pleasure and not for pain.

    So personally I'd like the nanny state out of the alcohol debate. But that doesn't mean I want the nanny state out of everything - I do want them to raise the driving age - I do want our community (the state) to provide a safety net for people when they stuff up their lives. There are issues where I want the state to be involved and issues where they have no role, and each issue needs to be debated on it's own merits. Drawing analogies from one issue and applying them to anoher is fraught with risk, a risk to be avoided of course.

    Again does any of this involvement supress innovation - I have no clue. But to be honest I haven't seen a real connection raised yet, except perhaps the Jaapanese model but there you are looking at a hugely different culture.

    So here's a question

    Are we actually any less innovative now?

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • If the Straitjacket Fits ...,

    <quote>Seems to me there is a basic human attraction towards exposure to danger (for many)...<quote>

    Yup fear has a number of physiological effects one of which for many people is the release of endorphins. Endorphins are natural painkillers very similar in their effects to the opiates. Or in others words foir some people ...
    having the crap scared out of you gets you high

    Unsurprisingly some people get addicted to that high.

    BTW it's the same natural endorphin release that gives you runners high - which might explain why Mr Slack keeps trying to run a marathon.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • If the Straitjacket Fits ...,

    I work as a scientist and we've seen the difficult side of "risk management". Suffice to say risk management assumes everyone is a moron and/or evil - which is not a criticism it just is the way the rules have to be written.

    The problem of course is there are both morons and evil people out there. So how do you stop them doing stupid stuff.

    I fondly remember re-enacting "the Dambusters" in the stream where we played as kids. We built the dam then we devised numerous variants of Dambusting bombs using thundercrackers. We had a ball. We were probably lucky no-one was hurt at all - we did get wet though, does that count?

    But a couple of years ago the son of a friend of my mother blew his hand off trying to make a super bomb using gunpowder from fireworks (stupid). And there are people who think it's fun to shoot skyrockets at kids (evil). And so we make a law to manage the risk.

    And I'm sure that the law change has reduced injury and reduced the fire and ambulance callouts and I'm sure a total ban would reduce them more. But would it reduce the number of stupid people and/or evil people?

    That's what the "nanny state" is trying to deal with - creating legislation to mitigate the damage done by stupidity.

    So the question is does it work? And what's the unintended consequence of the law. I could argue (falsely) that if thundercrackers had still been available the son of my mothers friend would not have tried to make his own one. Instead like me he could have played with the er safe thundercrackers:). But you can also argue (less falsely?) that banning alcohol encourages kids to drink to excess when they do get their hands on it.

    Would I like to have a chance to play dambusters again - sure. But on balance in this case I think getting rid of them was probably for the good. That said I don't like bans - I don't think they really achieve the ultimate goal of curing the stupid people.

    To change subject, if you want people to learn how to drink responsibly then a ban won't help in that learning exercise nor will endless TV ads. But maybe if we had a really cool nanny that gave us a glass of beer to see what it tastes like and learn that 2 beers is fun but 10 beers is less fun - well that's the kind of nanny state I'd like to see.

    Does the nanny state supress innovation? buggered if I know.

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • The NZ Web's greatest hits (and misses),

    Huh? But there is no New Zealand web, is there? The whole point is that it's a world web. It's kind of like asking "what do you think of New Zealands moon?"
    But if you want my call, the New Zealand web sites I visit most are probably public address and wherever that may lead me and then probably CricInfo.
    I do have a soft spot for the Royal Society of NZ website which tries very hard to include the info you might want http://www.rsnz.govt.nz/ of course I can't get on right now because of a bandwidth problem :).

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

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