Posts by linger
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to Islander,
[Haden was] a draconian spelling & grammar person
who, unfortunately, was very often wrong about grammar
(as prescription so often is).
I particularly enjoyed one article of his that argued, at length, that that wasn’t a proper relative pronoun. -
Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Sacha,
And there was me thinking National’s roads would be paved with good intentions.
* * *
As for ponies for everyone: Remember that the advent of the motor car actually decreased urban pollution levels, for a very basic reason. Considering the likely effect on public health, horses will probably not be a viable solution for the volume of urban public transport now needed in most places.
(Though NZ will be in a better position than most other Western countries.) -
Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to BenWilson,
And they [=internal combustion engines] will get all the fuel at the end of the oil supply, when rationing demands it.
Really? Fuel is the most wasteful possible use of petrochemicals. By any logical measure, oil’s use as a chemical feedstock for plastics should have much higher priority at a stage when rationing becomes necessary. There are other possible sources of energy .
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@James: Well played, even on a car stereo.
@Sacha: Ah, well, that would be these guys:Rather than, say, these guys:
(Kenny also did several other similar skits. One I haven’t been able to locate yet was a practical demonstration of the predictable “inhale helium until desired octave is achieved” line.)
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to James Butler,
pink noise generator
means you need something at a higher octane
(e.g. Bee Gees) -
Hard News: Television and the Public Good, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Mitch Benn’s song here does seem to owe something to Dan&Dan's (less celebratory) Daily Mail song.
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to philipmatthews,
She also invents a genre called "hop hop" ...
a clear sign that the reviewer's a bunny.
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to Russell Brown,
For the LDR songs I’ve heard so far, I’d make a distinction between the music, which is pretty much everything you’ve claimed for it, and the lyrics, which are something of a mess, with no real sense of any message or worldview that the performer really believes in; and this is at least in part because the character of the songs’ narrator is not fully inhabited. Both meaning and character are sacrificed for superficialities of sound.
But, OK, it’s pop, style-over-substance is only to be expected. And it does sound amazing. -
Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to George Darroch,
500 or so cyclists, all wearing black
i.e., lots of low-visibility cyclists? ...
the impact would be undeniable.
I fear you could be right.
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By the way, it can be argued that many news organisations are institutionally biassed to some extent (although it is important to note that this may not be the product of any conscious decision to mislead or distort). The mechanism for this is the focus on “news value” or perceived interest of a story to readers. One component of “news value” is the idea of “consonance” – that readers prefer stories that confirm their existing prejudices and expectations about how the world works. There is considerable scope for this aspect of “news value” to be applied somewhat cynically when assessing whether or not to run a story, or choosing an angle for the story, and so news organisations run the risk of exaggerating rather than challenging existing prejudice. As one specific example, usually the stories chosen for publication about China in Japan play up crime, fraud, or pollution. (Also: stories published about crimes within Japan often feature “foreigners”, often Chinese, even though the huge majority of crimes committed in Japan are by Japanese nationals.) The result is not necessarily institutionally racist per se, but it may often play out as, at least, institutionally xenophobic.