Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Kiwibank may be able to undercut its competitors but it's by virtue of the Employment Contracts Act and the franchise sytem not by being smarter.
ERA, surely.
I found the youtube video... I dunno. Creepy. The under/over tone of "fuck you you hypocrites, we'll do this to Tibet if we want, we're no worse than y'all."
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Of course the government endorsed the state house model building, they built thousands of them.
That doesn't stop anyone else building anything different, any more than lockwood kitset homes stop you building something shaped like an igloo. You'll just pay more to do something different.
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And that's my point. The Govt was highly prescriptive in order to achieve the illusion of egalatariamism, effectively halting the building of better housing in NZ.
I don't think the government building state houses halted the building of better housing in NZ. Private individuals were free to do so, but simply didn't, and never have in NZ. Our poor quality of housing is as much part of our culture as anything else. The government was simply building as good, or slightly better, than everyone else was at the time.
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Well, perhaps I'm a little too cynical for my own good but I wonder if its much easier to push things through when you don't have to deal with any pesky political or media scrutiny or arse around with tiresome building, environmental or labour standards.
Yeah, that's the obvious answer, though my memory from the story was that the overwhelming reason was just the total Chinese commitment to it. I guess when you've got a billion people and an economy to go with them, setting up an olympics isn't too hard, no matter what the political/environmental climate you're working in.
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How good were they?
I remeber the ice on the inside of the windows, freezing in winter without insulation and the sacks of coal being burnt choking the air outside, while writing my name in the smoke filled air inside as well.State houses were very good for their time. Practically no houses in New Zealand at the time they were all built had good insulation, double-glazing etc. They were well constructed, and they've lasted a lot better than many houses built since (eg, Leaky homes).
Compared, for example, to the villas that half the Dunedin student population lives in, with a strong breeze when the doors are closed, no north facing windows, many of which were built shortly before state housing started... brilliant.
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along with building schedules that only make sense in terms of theoretical particle physics
Actually I believe that the Chinese were some impressive period of time _ahead_ of schedule in building all their sites. Athens was still pulling things together in the weeks leading up to the games, I think I heard that China had basically finished two years in advance. They've put a massive investment into the Olympics.
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I have to agree with Tom that 1940s Tibet isn't a fair comparison with some sort of free or quasi-free 2008 Tibet. In the 1940s lots of countries were a lot less enlightened than they are now. I'm sure that future Tibet would be conservative, dominated by religion, and have some things about it that we wouldn't like, but it wouldn't be 1948.
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Bill English has just been quoted on the radio talking about "Helengrad-style housing". Clearly, the decision has been made to hit back hard, if not constructively.
We're only now allowed to build grey concrete apartment blocks? Or was he adding just a titch of imagery to his statement for effect :P
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apropos of nothing here's why punk had to happen (stick around, after about the 4th minute it actually gets worse) . . .
My god. I thought you were overstating it at first. It was just like four guys went away and wrote separate pieces of music for their instruments in 4:4, and then started playing at the same time.
But then the guy started singing what sounded like the female lead vocals from Phantom of the Opera.
And then the yodelling. There should be warnings before that. I need to listen to Jethro Tull or Led Zeppelin or something to reclaim the era.
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I bought a dozen after seeing it on here.
It's... well OK, but nothing special. I can't say it stands up to the rest of their line at all.