Posts by st ephen
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Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat, in reply to NBH,
It is worth noting that Peter Gluckman’s been the driving force behind the National Science Challenges and they’re one of his pet projects; I’m somewhat surprised that no one’s asked him for his views on all this yet.
Don't be surprised if few scientists are willing to go public with their views on Gluckman's role in the process.
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Seems to be quite a bit of bioplastics work going on at Scion. Based on waste plant material I think, so no need for new GM organisms or displacing food crops.
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Nice to know the government prefers to have ambulances lined up at the bottom of cliffs rather than fences at the top.
Someone was talking about this in another context last week - National is all about "freedom of choice" and "personal responsibility". Hence no fence at the top, and ambulances run on a commercial basis at the bottom. Remember that, and you'll have a better chance of understanding their weird policy choices.
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Hard News: Another Saturday Night, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Perhaps from the rugby league comments team when viewing the replay: "He has gone outside his man and done him for pace, then he's come off his right foot and beaten the cover" sort of thing..
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
Farmer Green regards the NZ Forest Dept decision to go with Pinus radiata rather than Cupresssus macrocarpa (or lusitanica) as one of our worst national decisions.
More accurate to say that by planting species other than radiata pine, NZ lost out on billions of dollars worth of revenue. Radiata wasn't even in the top ten by 1913, with plantings of larch alone outnumbering it by 100 to 1. Long after commercial investors had switched to almost 100% radiata, the State persisted with other species (stopping only when Treasury imposed a ROI hurdle). A bit harsh to blame the dominance of radiata on the NZFS then.
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Just noticed that today's ODT editorial repeats the spin from the government's press release on pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol - that NZ will instead join the alternative Framework Convention on Climate Change because the KP only covers 15% of emissions so it's just symbolic, whereas all the big player are in the FCCC.
Thing is, we were already a party to the FCCC - it pre-dates the KP. The KP came about because the FCCC was totally symbolic - there were no binding commitments and as a result nobody did anything. The KP (for all its faults) was an attempt to change that.
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I knew it was fake, but not how incredibly fake it was.
I happened to be in the Octagon on the day, and saw the limo pull up outside the theatre. It was only then that I noticed the red carpet and the rope holding back a somewhat bemused crowd of at least ten teenage girls. I guessed that the chap who hopped out of the limo was Ben Lummis. Or someone off the GC. Or an afternoon TV host. Anyway, he stepped onto the carpet, the cameras zoomed in extra tight, and (three-two-one) the "crowd" screamed a little and waved their flags. Then I think the limo ducked around the corner to pick up the next celeb and repeated the process. It was kind of cool, like watching actors do their thing in front of a green screen.
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…a prominent ANZ author…
Surely the production (and consumption) of poetry and short stories involves a far tinier clique than the NZ Post Book Awards. Fair enough for not wanting to play the game – most scientists and sportspeople also hate endless rounds of grant applications and publicity – but shitting on those who do make the effort seems a bit off.
[I did a small edit above. I don't want a scrap unfolding while I'm away from the keyboard. Let's all be nice. It's Friday. RB]
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Yeah. Communicating science is important. Accountability is important. Budget forecasting is important. Stakeholder engagement is important. Quality science is important. And human nature being what it is, within our CRI's each little group of experts think they're at least as important as the others, if not more so.
NZ could be doing so much more science , dammit!(Or maybe - given that slick marketing actually trumps all - we could just close up shop and hand the budget over to Saatchis et al?).
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There should have been time to set up a clean, professional default font, and get someone to cast an eye over it to tidy up the heavy boxes and clashing colours.
What about using the CERN house standard? New Zealand's CRI's have certainly spent time over the years developing style guides, selecting fonts and colour schemes, engaging design consultants to refresh and road-test them with stake-holder focus groups, rebranding, creating templates for presentations, brochures, posters and umpteen different types of reports etc etc.
Perhaps that's why we didn't discover this particle thing first?