Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Testing... testing...
What would black jesus do?Give the Southern Baptists the heebeejeebee's methinks. Mind now there's a you know, black man in the White house possibly they are busy changing all and every picture of a white jasus with flowing locks to a Sylvester look-alike.
How about some offline civil disobedience. Since nearly everyone who works in IT opposes section 92, why don't we all just call in sick on the same day and see what breaks without anyone to fix it..
Day without a Gay was attempted in the States as a protest against Prop8. Unfortunately due to a variety of reasons it didn't work out so well. I think if you were to do Day without a Geek and every geek was committed, I'd think you'd get quite some errr traction? attention?
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@ Russell
Thanks for that - good to hear.
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Two things.
1) I see black boxes and I didn't need to do anything. The other boxes that don't have black have dark grey images. I'm no geek. But as a statement and political online action it's slightly disconcerting having black boxes down the screen. Kinda black, know what I'm saying? Perhaps have a statement to go with the gravatar?
2) I'm, oh fuck it, disabled. I hate that word. I HATE it. But sometimes (rarely) I'm gunna play the fucken card 'k cause sometimes ya have to. I'm deaf. Born that way. And I found Rodney Hide's prattling and annoying whine telling some twit that he didn't need to build according to the law because he had to put in a disabled toilet, fucken offensive.
"Disabled" policy from what I can see (I don't pay it much attention - why should I be reminded of my loss, not my abilities?) attempts to acknowledge disabilities, but from the perspective of the abled - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Like much policy really.
Hope the single malt shifted the viewpoint if Sascha and the other dude were 'abled'. If they were 'disabled', hope they solved the disabled's worlds problems and had a good laugh at the same time.
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Here's the thing; that 7's stuff? Well I've observed that there's the 7's game, and that's big.
But what's bigger is the time, energy, and effort people go to dress up. As pirates. Whales. The robot soliders from Star Wars. That funny orange man from the Electoral Office. And cross dress.
It's interesting how a rugger game has unwittingly given space to otherwise straight men to dress up, and a fair whack of them, in dresses of various shapes, sizes and colours. (Of course, the entire team has to do it, otherwise no-one will do it. Everyone experiences the same thing. Our egalitarinism rears its head)
Its as if the 7's (outside of the game) has become NZ's Mardi Gras.Where gender boundaries are blurred and who the fuck cares?
I think it's powerful. And fascinating to watch.
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Fantastic. Key's done damn well. I don't much like his politics, but I do respect the approach he has to people and Big Gay Out mightn't need his validation but it's bloody fantastic to see the PM just getting involved sans attitude.
And I think he was doing it out of just being a good sport rather than any political calculation. Whatever his flaws, Key likes people and wants to be liked.
I was back stage watching Key with Buffy and Bimbo, both taller than he, and both with very big hair. Key was stiff, apprehensive at first, 'chatting' with them. Then went really apprehensive when Buffy&Bimbo exhorted him into a very simple dance routine to the tune of a remixed "Over the Rainbow".
For the first half of the song he was stiff and tried to look 'Prime Minister'-ly. As anyone would in that situation - you could read it on his face "Fuck - I'm the PM - gotta look prim, proper and respectful'.
Then amazingly, you could see him think - ahh fuck it. Let's get into it. Which he did. At that point, people really cheered - it became not a situation of it's the PM on stage with Buffy&Bimbo, but it's a straight white male who's game enough to give it a go.
And good on him for doing so.
Mind, Goff was the better dancer when he did his piece later.
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I'm making some semblance of muttar paneer (paneer cheese is $14.99kg at Mahadeo).
I reach up to get the motar and pestle (because that's just how I'm rolling) and as I grasp the bowl, the granite pestle rolls around, falls -- and hits me. In the forehead.
Should I Twitter this?
No, you write out the recipe! Yum! How do you make it?
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I lived in Montreal for 3 years. In winters during the day it was -30c, but night time temps with wind chill was -40c.
Temps down to -15 were ok. Past that and you really had to watch what you were wearing. I remember it being 0c, and thinking how warm it was. It made me realise how weather temperature is 'relative'. -30c is cold, but 0c is warm.
I made the mistake once of using bare hands to hold the metal door handle to my flat while using my other gloved hand to turn the key in the lock. Fortunately only my thumb and forefinger were stuck. I had to kinda blow/lick them to unfreeze them from the door handle.
Black ice was dreadful - I came to dread those days (day temps above 0c, night temps below 0c). I walked, crimping my toes in their boots involuntary for 'grip'.
The wonderous thing was the 'big thaw' - at the end of winter. Everything melted - huge puddles would form everywhere - people got through them on upside-down milk crates. Then one day, everything had evaporated, and the world was dry, and two weeks later, green buds would be on the trees.
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That's fairly outrageous extrapolation of any information about the shooting so far.
For which I'd dearly love to be proved wrong.
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The victim seems to have been shot either by the fugitive (who tried to hijack a westbound track after crashing) or in error, by police. Yikes.
And there's this dis-quieting thought at the back of my mind that the courier driver that was shot by the police was shot because he was young, brown and driving a vehicle that the police didn't think someone of that age and race was meant to be driving. Pray it ain't so.
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People are in a hurry sometimes. Whilst your advice to slow down is a perfectly good general life principle, another good one is 'teaching people to slow down is not worth dying for'. So being considerate is your best advice of all.
So I guess the collary of that principle is that 'hurrying is worth the mess and crap it casues'.
The curious war that some cyclists seem to want to wage against cars is littered with their dead bodies, and some dents on vehicles.
Guess that would be the same war where a woman cyclist was knocked clean off her bike when a driver making a right hand turn, illegally turned right in front of her. Granted, it was heavy traffic, and the driver possibly may not have seen the cyclist. But the driver assumed that there would be no cyclist there. Given that its summer and it's lovely out, it's the wrong assumption to make at this time of the year.
And the wrong assumption to make when tootling around the fine highways of the South Island currently - cycle tourism is very popular, so expect cyclists when you turn that corner.
It's not a war cause war is ugly and very few wars actually achieve anything (haven't we learnt that yet?). It's about respect. I have a car and pay taxes etc. It's just annoying that somehow some people, not all, just some, seem to think that the road isn't for sharing.
I say some people cause in my limited experience so far, most drivers drive around me in an arc, or wait til they can do so. I model this behaviour when I drive.
But no amount of town planning is actually going to make the place flat.
You've hit one nail on the head. That I wish I could wrinkle my nose and make those freakin' hills disappear! So if I can't, I'm working on getthing the idea of flattening them another way; cycle bridges between ridges.
Geology dictates alot of what we do; it annoys me that somehow we humans think we are immune to it and act accordingly.
At bottom we have a chicken and egg problem. Roads are safe for cyclists and pedestrians when there are lots of them; cyclists and pedestrians tend to avoid unsafe roads.
And roads are safe for other users when they are safe for cyclists and pedestrians. Everyone wins.
Honestly, I feel very sorry for the transport people. They have to figure out solutions that piss everyone off the least.
Too true. Such a hard job - I know a few and the abuse they get is constant. Their skins are pretty thick as a result.
They just need to move away from the existing paradigm that saw the public road as exclusively for the use of cars, and towards a paradigm that sees the space as mixed space, and for the use of everyone, regardless of how they move through it.The younger engineers get this. The older ones struggle with it.
Suppose you are trying to make it safe for people from Onehunga/Royal Oak etc to bike into town (or at least to Newmarket). I don't see any alternative corridors to Manukau Road, and I also predict that any attempts to limit people's ability to park on the side, or to partition off a continuous cycle lane, will provoke howls of outrage from the motorists.
And I guess we (drivers) also have to move away from a paradigm that sees roads as an exclusive privilege, and towards seeing roads as a different kind of space that privileges everyone using it. Fundamentally, public roads are exactly that, public. Parking on the road is not a right. It's a privilege.
Where to put cycle paths is a tough one. Follow main roads, or quiet suburban ones?
It's a tough choice in Auckland for simple reason of geology. The street pattern was laid down over a period of time and subject to various influences. Not surprisingly, given the geology of our landscape, people developed main roads along ridges. And for good reason; it's easier.
I've rode in Vancouver where I lived; there the street pattern was grided. The bike paths were usually parallel to the main arterial routes. However, precious few of our suburbs follow a grid pattern, so our choices are limited as where to put cycle paths. Not surprisingly, main roads are a good choice, for the same reason as they were developed - it's easier.
Which leads back to seeing the space as a space for all users, not merely drivers.
Whenever I see those multi coloured Lycra clad shaven legged plonkers covered with fake advertising
It never ceases to amaze me; people seriously think that by putting on bright lycra and riding $2000 bikes that they instantly will look like Lance Armstrong? Personally I think it's more of a sexual fetish at work here.
I've had generally positive experiences on the road in Auckland. Most people appreciate if if you signal and act predictably, even if you may be temporarily holding them up, and will give you enough road room to get by. That's alright by me.
Yeah, I've noticed Auckland traffic is mellower than I remember the 80s and 90s being. ... I feel it's a zeitgeist thing, intangible, a mass mood swing. Perhaps popular mellowness has huge amounts of chaos built in due to karmic feedback loops. But whether that is true or not, I want to be on the side of good karma.
Been my experiences as well. Long may it continue.
Sorry for the long post... it's just a particular concern of mine.