Posts by Bart Janssen
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Up Front: Well, Read Women, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
Sheri S Tepper, Octavia Butler, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffery, James Tiptree Jr, CJ Cherryh or Mercedes Lackey (amongst many others) ... Julian May, Elizabeth Bear, Martha Wells, Connie Willis, Tanya Huff, Elizabeth Moon ...
Also Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre and Ann Leckie (being read right now) ...
Hell yeah. The genre's history is not great but the list of women in SF&F now is awesome.
I kinda think it would be hard to be an SF&F fan now and not read women it would seriously limit the authors you picked.
That said the recent debacle with the Hugo awards reminds us that there are dicks everywhere
-
Up Front: Well, Read Women, in reply to TracyMac,
Melissa Scott
Nope I was thinking at the time of Susan R Matthews. I'm pretty sure I've read Nicola Griffith's Ammonite but it appears to have gone from my memory. Which is cool because I can read it again :).
-
a Bogan sees a politician as having no redeeming value to society
They are not alone
-
I'm mostly a SF and Fantasy reader. A genre with a long and storied history of sexism.
But also genres with some amazing authors who don't have penises. I rarely think about the gender of the author although I have to say I've been bemused that some of my favourite female authors are gay. I have no idea why or even if it has any relevance at all.
-
Just 2 minutes too slow.
-
Pretty sure the comment about Zadie Smith is referring to the practice of giving cigars as fairground prizes.
-
OnPoint: Don't put words in our mouths, Rob, in reply to Rob Salmond,
But data and method are not the same thing, and I was discussing method alone.
So despite the fact that several experts (Dr Black et. al., are experts) have called your data rubbish* you are still happy that you applied the analytical method correctly.
We have a bunch students here learning how to do science. None of them would be so utterly stupid as to persist with your line of reasoning. If any did we would consider it a failure of our teaching.
Honestly I understand your reluctance to admit you were wrong. It is entirely human and normal. But by continuing to insist that what you did was just fine you are convincing me (and I'm guessing others) that you should have no role in managing this country. That opinion carries over those for whom you work, The Labour Party.
I'm guessing you (and/or your employers) believe that any damage you do now will be forgotten by the next election and that the votes you lose are balanced by votes you gain. If that is true, again it convinces me that you should have no role in managing this country.
You have hurt a large group of New Zealanders and continue to do so and you don't seem to care.
*My word, they simply highlighted the multiple flaws in your data collection -
You harmed people with this.
Your response is that the ends justify the means.
And you didn't mean to harm them so it's OK.
-
Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
The Bart/ Ben debate is good
No it's tedious and boring and does nothing for anyone.
Sorry guys I shouldn't have bothered. Ben argues with everything I say on this site now - leaving me feeling very much like there is little point in trying to contribute. It takes too much energy to ignore his constant trolling of me so I'll leave him to it for a while.
I don't particularly like flouncing but honestly it is too stressful to have this kind of reaction and argument every time and I need a break from it.
-
Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to BenWilson,
It takes 10 seconds to discover this by reading only the first Wikipedia paragraph on the subject, which is the barest minimum of research you’d expect someone to make when trying to comment intelligently on the issue.
Here you go Ben because the wiki page is not the clearest.
And here is the quote you need to read and understand
To carry out QE central banks create money by buying securities, such as government bonds, from banks, with electronic cash that did not exist before. The new money swells the size of bank reserves in the economy by the quantity of assets purchased—hence "quantitative" easing.
CREATE MONEY
In the US they actually print dollar bills but most modern countries use electronic transaction such as the ones wiki describes.
The important thing to understand is that it is exactly the same as printing dollars.
After the central bank or reserve bank uses quantitative easing there is more money than there was before. And most importantly the value of each unit changes in direct proportion to the amount created.
So if NZ made 5% more money the value of the NZ dollar would be 5% lower. That is why it has an effect on imports and exports.
As the economist article explains QE can be useful in certain situations, particularly if the internal economy is large enough to respond to QE. But in NZ that is not true.
I strongly suggest you spend more than 10 seconds doing research next time before deciding that yet again you have to find a way to argue with me.