Posts by Emma Hart

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  • Word of the Year 2007,

    When I stopped trying to be clever and think of the word that summed up the last year for me, the answer was actually obvious:

    underwhelming.

    It describes everything: the Rugby World Cup, anything involving the Black Caps or Michael Campbell, the real effect of repealing s59, the actual content of Californication, David Beckham... All year, I've just been repeatedly underwhelmed.

    Impressed by Coskriedictory, though. We'd been using neo-contradictory. And Neo-con-scripted for the Republican debates.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: Somebody flicked the…,

    Well you might as well enjoy it. The locals here in the Bridge refer to Mangere Bridge as the Mission Bay of South Auckland

    I prefer Le Pont Paresseux when I am feeling suitably Continental.

    I think you'd be hard pressed to beat refering to Timaru as the 'Riviera of the South'. That spawned my family calling Orari the 'gateway to Geraldine'.

    And this is my pick for trendy-liberal-guilt Christmas present of the year.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: Too busy with First Life sorry,

    Second Life, however imperfectly, is the closest thing around to the network in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash for example

    and seems to be what it's designed to emulate.

    otherwise... so dull that you can guarantee only adults will be on there.

    I do know someone who, while mainly a WoW player, mucks around in Second Life occasionally specifically to take the piss out of other players. This includes doing stuff like turning up to a western-themed sim as an eight-foot tall werewolf wearing cowboy hat and saying 'howdy' a lot. Or making a flotilla of 50-foot flying hotdogs and flying them over furry sims while playing Flight of the Valkyries. It's a sandbox. It doesn't appeal to me, but I can see how it appeals to others. I like some structure.

    I wrote on it when it first came out, and I am astounded to see that there's been very little improvement in its UI or graphics since then. But I'm also boggled as to why the media seems to fixate on Second Life so much more than any other MMORPG.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: Back in the mainstream,

    The Chaser is coming to our screens soon

    Choice.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: Back in the mainstream,

    If you go here you can watch the guys from the Chaser pop round to Kevin's place with a few of his Facebook friends.

    He copes very, very well indeed. I hear a rumour he was some kind of diplomat...

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: Back in the mainstream,

    I'd predict the Greens would do a lot better in NZ under STV if that were the case.

    Um... how? The Greens got seven percent of the House of Reps vote, and no seats. STV isn't proportional, and it hasn't switched Aus off being a two-party state.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Bottom is a Magic Place,

    Your constuct of a demographic will say when white nuclear families beat their children it's not serious by their virtue of being white.

    And/or, mean that we should conduct close surveillance on all people who fit the demographic (umm, brown people on welfare with previous convictions?) while we wait for them complete their inevitable assault on their children.

    Neither's at all good.

    Well, if Kevin's talking about prevention, and that's the word he used, you can remove the 'previous convictions' bit. But he did never mention race, to be fair, and we don't actually need to point to the elephant for this logic to be bloody scary.

    People are more likely to recognise domestic violence when it looks like they expect it to look, so the more you tell them it's only deadbeat welfare spongers who beat their kids, the less likely they are to recognise abuse in a nice middle-class white family. IMO, anyway. I may be a little touchy, having been both a welfare parent who didn't hit her kids, and a kid watching a guy with a good job and no record of violence* pushing my brother down a two-storey exterior staircase.

    "Close surveillance" doesn't happen without devoting huge resources to it, and those resources have to come from somewhere.

    *No official record of violence. Never reported because you didn't do that.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Bottom is a Magic Place,

    Not that it means anything though, or does it? da da da daaaaa!

    I love a good fnord.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Bottom is a Magic Place,

    Anyone noticed that a fasces appears on either side of the American Flag behind the rostrum in the United States House of Representatives?

    Why, yes

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Bottom is a Magic Place,

    And while you're up, Kevin, could you explain your reference to demographics, which Kyle and I both found alarming? What, for instance, does the father's employment status have to do with... anything?

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

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