Posts by tussock

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  • Hard News: Evil,

    I don't get it. Cop D doesn't dob in the other cops when a complaint is made, so the other cops look carefully at what he's done and decide not to dob him in, but sort of leave him on the case for 20 years anyway. Until the press get hold of it at least.

    Surely they're all as guilty as cop D, them and all the bastards around the Scott Watson trial (three blond hairs, my ass; pay no attention to the $300 million of heroin that might be worth killing someone over), and the local bastards who harassed and mislead the defense witness who never got to be in the trial of David Bain, or the cop who slept with all the mothers against gay men being at kindy, aka Peter Ellis trial, or probably every senior cop in the country if that's anything to go by. Ahem ....

    Anyhoo, I hope no one y'all sleep with ever decides the stupid games they got into as an impressionable kid was rape after the fact, especially if you're into the kinky stuff ('cause, you know, all those dildos in the sex shops are just for decoration, and no one's that submissive).

    Far more importantly I hope y'all are never raped, especially by a god-damned cop. To convict and pervert, eh.


    And while I'm at making everyone slightly more crazy, if that dog had hold me in a river, I'd drown the bastard too. Right quick. And likely have a fine old time with the cops in the cells later for my trouble.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Brown bigots etc.,

    1. Price
    2. Simplicity, ease of use
    3. Breadth of applications
    4. Differing uses
    5. Out of the box functionality
    6. User base, support
    7. Reliability

    1, 3, 4, 6: *nix. They did it better before the others did it at all, and now they've got GUIs for it too.
    2, 7: Playstation, etc. PCs simply aren't in the same class.

    For an OS, use what you like, it's all functionally identical these days anyway. I don't care what you run your Firefox on, or your Thunderbird.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: The A-Word,

    Plus, mininova has all three of the noted Racism doco parts.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: The A-Word,

    I'm pretty sure this does happen in NZ (Aramoana), Australia (Tassie), and the UK (I don't like Mondays).

    It's like how some people, when they go to war, they come home and kill their families, or take up sniping random strangers; some people when they get bullied every day for years with the consent of authority figures and the participation of all their peers, they go on a rampage. It happens.

    It's not like he became president, invaded another country, and got a million people killed, for the only visible purpose of shoveling what approaches a trillion dollars in graft and stock futures to his mates, all the while encouraging nutcase rulers the world over to get themselves in the nuke game lest they suffer the same.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Island Life: Who's laughing?,

    Fixed nyms are good. Nothing wrong with heavily moderating new ones, or restricting their creation when times are tough. Nymshifters and sockpuppets are usually pretty easy to spot, especially so for mods.

    The trolls are usually best politely dismissed in brief and otherwise watched with amusement, it's better to chide those who feed them than try to improve a wrecker. I'm not a real believer in bans amongst grownups either, tends to stifle the group something chronic (or worse, leave you with a mindless collective), and the vast majority of bad eggs get over themselves sooner or later without it.
    Flooders do need banned, at the ISP level preferably, but that's quite different.

    Remaining signal to noise issues are easily resolved with a good strong signal; any group can be dragged back on topic. Don't want people talking shit about the Rt Hon HK? Start talking about the real problems with HK, her real flaws, and her real strengths too. Do it properly and you'll leave the noisemakers in your dust. Ditto for any other ministers, friend and foe alike.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Island Life: Browned to perfection,

    Qualifications are a significant predictor of income and labour market participation.

    So is gender, race, age, and lots of other things we choose not to discriminate on. So what? Ultimately, who cares if some of the immigrants that come here are poor? Are only locals allowed to be poor? Surely it makes more sense to have some unskilled immigrants available to drive taxis alongside all the doctors and engineers.

    ... rather that having no policy would make planning incredibly difficult...

    Planned economies are teh stupid, only slightly less so than leaving it all up to the rich (aka "the market"). One should build schools and hospitals where the classes and beds are full, do all the medical services that need done (and are declared affordable) as they are discovered, doling out the money as it comes up.
    Sure, have a good guess what costs will be for the year, and try to be thrifty, but don't restrict plainly needed spending based on those guesses!

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Launching into raunch,

    I'm pretty sure the guys in porn are exploited more than the girls, the vast majority are only paid a small fraction of the standard female rates, get no nym recognition, have to do a lot of nasty shit on camera (including portraying themselves as a rapist), and often have to take potentially dangerous prescription medication and expose themselves to STDs to fulfill their job requirements.

    I mean, sure, maybe they're happy with it all, but maybe the girls are too. It's still largely the guys getting the shaft.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Bob each way,

    Key's not talking about using big business dollars, he's talking about giving taxpayer dollars to big business to provide social services in place of having all those "worthless bureaucrat's" doing it.

    That's right, he's going to privatise the welfare system. Along with the schools, the prisons, the hospitals, the roads, the state houses, the pension fund, and so on. And guess who'll be buying it all at bargain basement prices? John Key and his mates, who else.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Speaker: Copywrong II,

    And while people are talking about digital stuff and libraries... why isn't there a library.org.nz site were all NZ residents can search and peruse a well indexed digital form every book, magazine, periodical, and newspaper ever written? The library system has real potential to finally fulfill their original purpose using some pretty basic modern technology.

    Obviously, this law would make such a thing impossible. What an incalculably huge loss to society.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Speaker: Copywrong II,

    TPMs, out here in the real world, exist purely to make interoperability and competition for service legally impossible. They have never stopped so much as a single serious digital pirate for more than a few hours.

    Nothing that is sold in NZ should be allowed to have restrictions placed on it that prevent anyone using that music, video, or automobile with whatever 3rd party software or device the end user so chooses (assuming they're happy to void their warranty were applicable). It's plainly anti-capitalist to do otherwise. Do the world a favor and make TPMs illegal.

    How do I listen to my music? How about it's none of your god damned business. Are politicians even aware that these inane restrictions are making the 100% free pirate versions of software and music strictly superior to the bought stuff, and have done for years now? That fixing the bugs in software or devices for yourself (such as bypassing a buggy TPM with a 3rd party patch) would be illegal with this?

    Do we really need Microsoft to charge us all for the next video codec update when it becomes illegal to use 3rd party codecs? Does it really need to be illegal to play your old N64 games on your laptop PC? Do I really need to go to prison for 5 years for making a mix tape?

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

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