Posts by Keir Leslie
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And what happens if you take the second derivative? Maybe he meant that instead?
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And, er, sorry if you'd rather I hadn't mentioned it. I wasn't sure if it was an indiscretion error or not, and (rather selfishly) thought why not?
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Keir - um sorry,
Oh, it's just the idea of Mark telling you that the catchment area for your work was a small part of 4 million was too -- I dunno -- bizarre? -- to pass. (That and I was kind of curious if I was right or not.)
And in fact I think we do as a society owe you a living.
And I thought your novel was really powerful. I had to read it for English at school; hated English that year, hated the teacher, hated the daft hoops we had to jump through to get credits, but really liked your book.
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Um, Mark, if Islander is who I think she is -- I'm thinking a tower and magic realism? -- you may possibly have just made the most hilarious fuck up I've ever seen happen on the internet.
Although I do think Islander should possibly have come clean a bit earlier -- but that's up to her.
And if I'm wrong, I've made an even worse one than you have.
Substantively, this:
For every JK Rowling, there are 10000 others writing in their off hours, hoping to make some pocket money.
is the is/ought fallacy.
And I'd support proper state funding in place of copyright -- but you'd be looking at big $$$, and a godawful fight over administration. I think Charlie Stross has a nicer version of it floating around somewhere.
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I think I'll take first-hand experience over stats ;)
Oh, I'm just kind of curious.
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That's largely down to the fact that parents don't want their kids exposed to the rough and tumble of rugby at an early age. Once they're older and sturdier, the round ball becomes an oval.
Is there any evidence for this?
I'm quite curious as to why so many people are convinced this is true. I can believe the first part, but speaking purely anecdotally, I know no one who has dropped football and taken up rugby. Of course, I don't know a representative sample at all, and the plural of anecdote isn't data, but.
I prefer the simpler explanation that football is more fun to play, given that that fits in with the experience worldwide.
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well, nobody's going to convince anyone in NZ that footie's better than rugby at any rate).
Er. Have you looked at the youth participation figures?
"stop fucking around and play the game"
But they are playing the game; it's just not the game you're trying to see.
Also, football spectators value things other than just vulgar dramatics -- skill, elegance, good tactical play, &c. Something can be absorbing without being continually exciting!.
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When one team's passing the ball around at the back, there's probably a contest going on -- how's the attacking midfield finding space, how's the defending team putting pressure/denying space/marking runs?
Now, yeah, you might find that boring, but it's very unlikely there's no contest going on, unless the teams are pretty mismatched or one is playing to kill time, or purely to retain possession and the other is content to let it go to a draw or whatever.
The ball isn't always the thing to watch in a football game, and the space being contested isn't always the space around the football.
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It seems there's so much passing around at the back and waiting for the opening and oh god.
Yeah, but you probably don't know what they are trying to do, and how to judge it. Watching most sports requires an amount of acculturation before they start to make sense, and most NZers haven't seen that much football, or put much effort into understanding the game. (Which is probably changing now with Sky etc.)
Like, a 0-0 draw can be thrilling, even if there are only one or two chances, if, say, the mid-field battle is dramatic, or one defence plays a stunner, or Pele's playing and he pulls off half-a-second of genius, or --. But to see that, you have to actually know quite a bit about the sport.
It's similar to looking at art; you can't just walk up to a work of art and expect to make an informed judgement without some background.
That, and most NZers miss the tribal nature of club football totally.
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playing field to the farmers market
I love that that is true in both rural NZ and hippy SF, but in totally different ways.