Posts by Lyndon Hood
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And on the other hand the North Shore seems to have a handle on graffiti already.
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Something I've been thinking via Philip Ball's Critical Mass.
People tend to imagine a straight-line relation between things like enforcement (or, say, social deprivation) and the amount of crime.
But if you make a model where there the crime is socially influenced, then the more influence there is the more the graph starts wiggling horizontally. You basically end up with two possible levels of crime (a high one and a low one) for any given level of the other factors, and it's difficult to get from one to the other.
I think this means it would take more enforcement than you would think to make a significant difference (but that difference could suddenly become enormous).
Either (if we think tagging is important enough) this justifies a draconian response, or it suggests you may as well try to address the social factors.
Anyhoo.
Or is this your subtle lawyerly way of exacting revenge for his Werewolf algorithm?
I have this image of Keith taking cues from his PDA in the midst of a roleplaying session.
Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?
You: I want to know if you're a werewolf.
Eliza: Do you wish that youre a werewolf?
You: Please don't bite me!
Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?
You: I don't want you to eat me. That is, if you are a werewolf.
Eliza: Do you wish that im a werewolf?
You: Well, if you were a werewolf, I would have to kill you. No offence.
Eliza: Do you wish that i was a werewolf you would have to kill i no offence?
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Or a collection of cities perhaps.
A collection of tubes?
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I'm still a little floored by just how demented so much commentary is around NZ politics.
Something I was reading about talk radio in the US makes me think - if if your views aren't reflected in the mainstream (if, for example, you're rabidly something-or-other) you'll naturally be attracted to alternate fora like comments sections. If they are, you won't.
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You could turn this into a drinking game (and I'm already wishing I had).
I had a mental side bet Key respond with "Is that it?". It took him far longer than I expected, but he did repeat it when he got there.
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(i have no idea who those other comedy album nominees were)
Going for the one that seemed the most vaguely familiar: Harry Shearer is one of the Simpsons' voice actors, came via SNL. And some movies.
There's a sense in which FOTC just beat Spinal Tap for a Grammy.
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Just to supply a link for Craig: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0802/S00055.htm
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http://www.suitablyflip.com/suitably_flip/2008/02/super-tuesday-f.html
Chap's theory: bad weather forecasts potentially favour not-McCain and presumably not-Obama.
Speaking of linux candidates, the guy from the geek web comic XKCD declared for Obama the same day the Kennedys did:
When putting together tech policy (to take an example close to home for xkcd) others might have gone to industry lobbyists. Obama went to Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons (under which xkcd is published) and longtime white knight in the struggle with a broken system over internet and copyright policy. Lessig was impressed by Obama’s commitment to open systems — for example, his support of machine-readable government information standards that allow citizens’ groups to monitor what our government is up to... Obama stands against bad governing not only in his support of specific practices like open data standards and basic network neutrality, but in his work against corruption from day one.
I have an old Doonesbury where one of the journalists caught up by Bill Clinton's campaign says "He's going to break our hearts, isn't he?"
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"NZ Sucks"... "Australia nil".
It's traditional that when New Zealanders say 'six', Australians hear 'sex'. I like to explain that by suggesting that, for an Australian, 'one, two, three, four, five' is foreplay.
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on the day my parents migrated here, they had a conversation in which they thought they heard the other person say "oh, so you've come here to die."
It's often remarked that foreigners' first impression of NZ is being asked to go to the chicken counter.
I find just as annoying people who pretend to be something they're not through the way they talk.
Everybody tends to adapt their language - in the broad 'speech pattern' sense - to the person they're talking to, at least if they're trying to be friendly (my wife did a project on this with gender language styles). People will overcompensate, especially (I think) If the gap is big. I remember Bill Ralston in his nightline days used to revel in Jim Bolger striving to adopt the accent of visiting dignitaries.
There again, I'm sure it can be quite painful if it's deliberate, too.
Because we pronounce 'surely' and 'shirley' differently... at least, I thought we did
Quite. I just couldn't help myself.