Posts by Lucy Telfar Barnard
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Ha, Patricia Bartlett! I remember my mum saying she'd sent PB her books in the hope she'd call for them to be banned, because it would be good publicity. No such luck... I don't know if that meant PB thought they were too tame, couldn't be bothered (i.e. was picking her battles), or just didn't read them.
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I would say the Olympic closing ceremony was awful, but I feel I shouldn't comment because I didn't watch the whole thing. We were in a B&B in Lancashire, and I'd hoped that maybe the bad sound mixing was just the TV's sound quality, but clearly it wasn't. I wanted to turn it off after half an hour, but a junior member of the party wanted to watch more, so we suffered it up to 10pm.
But the hour that we did see? Bad, bad, awful. I think the director must have said "Yeah, man, let's have a bunch of people running round in newspaper, that'll be, like, a comment on the paparazzi and stuff. And yeah, the music, well, we've got all those musicians, just put them on in the order they said yes. And find someone else for Bowie's slot, will ya?. Oh, and we're a bit tight for time, so see if you can squash some of the songs together a bit, right? Wotcha, good to go!" -
Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
And my advice would be to get the school’s students to transcribe the data by hand. And assume it is transcribed correctly and then send it as is.
Ooh, and they could transcribe the data by hand in Māori. Or even better, draw pictures of NZ sign language! That would be fun!
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What would happen if each school provided, in response to the OIA request, not aggregated data but individual, anonymised data, on paper? So Fairfax would have to redo all the data entry, for each subject, for 50,000 students in each year they decided they were interested in.
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Hard News: Future shock for the media, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Yes, United World Colleges. I would agree about the TLA thing, but the International Office has told us to just use the acronym. It's a branding thing, apparently.
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Hard News: Future shock for the media, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Would you be so generous if she were male, American and ran a hedge fund? Just exploring thought patterns.
To me the critical difference is that Victoria and her partner developed the basis for Wildfire as part of a tool they needed for running an existing business, rather than just looking round for something to make them money. And as a fellow UWC graduate, I am confident that Victoria has core values that make her different from the stereotypical hedge fund manager.
Disclaimer: I am also Chair of UWC New Zealand.
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Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Phil fryer,
its a bit of a 1st world issue
Also, I'm a bit tired tired lately of hearing this line presented as a reason why I or anyone else shouldn't care about any given issue.
1. It's not just a first world issue. People in developing countries have their own debates about the topic; their politics are as capable of including such social and "moral" debates as ours. South Africa, for example, has seen its way to allowing same-sex marriage despite not yet being considered a first world country. Clearly it mattered enough to some people there for it to be passed into law.
2. Even if it were a first world issue, how would that matter? New Zealand is a first world nation. Given that our MPs can only make laws for New Zealand, the majority of their work will always (or at least I hope always) be things that could be considered "first-world issues". -
Wow that video footage was as depressing as usual. I am so bleeding sick of weasel from politicians. When they're still repeatedly saying "I haven't given it a moment's thought" despite having had quite a few moments available to give it such thought, oye, I just want to shake them! Why is it so hard to be honest? Surely any politician watching that can see that Richard Prosser, despite not even being able to see the right side of the fence from dark and narrow little valley he's lost himself in, looks like less of a twit than all of those sitting on it (and also trying desperately to look like they're not sitting on it, just leaning, and hoping that they can arrange themselves - or the fence - so that it looks like they're leaning from the same side as where the viewer stands...)
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Drink. Drive. Marry. Enlist. Smoke Tobacco. Fornicate. Vote.
Yes, but that's not a particularly useful list. It's pretty easy to stop under-age people from marrying, enlisting or voting because they all involve paperwork and bureaucracy. On the other hand, children do drink, drive, smoke tobacco and fornicate, and the risks associated with their doing so would appear to be higher than for those who are over-age. Thus, I think that the argument that cannabis is less harmful than alchohol is probably a better argument for its decriminalisation for those who might be persuaded in that sort of way.
I always wonder about this. Why do those pushing law reform (campaign wise, i.e. norml) never lead with [Portugal]?
Maybe "the way they use statistics in [Portugal] is different." Or "[New Zealand] is a much smaller country". Or something.
/e wanders off to have a quiet cry for the days when NZ had a Prime Minister who appeared to have ever thought critically and analytically about anything that mattered (i.e. not how to make the most money off forex futures).
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Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Matthew Poole,
Imagine 700 people trying to pass through a barrier that takes over a second per person just to read their card before opening the gate, which is the situation that'll be faced at Britomart once this is rolled out on trains here.
Don't you just have more than one barrier? Seems to work in London.