Posts by BenWilson
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Speaker: Why the disaster in Japan made…, in reply to Islander,
please say you are kidding!
I shit you not. For $19.95, the entire coastline with soundings and all the markers, buoys, hazards, etc, and special zones (like no-fishing). Comes with the software that lets you do standard GPS stuff - see speed, heading, location, plot trips via waypoints, measure distances, estimate fuel usage, save favourites (secret fishing spots :-) I wish). It's still a bit crude, doesn't do 3D views, doesn't autorotate. But there's also some features you never get in a proper marine GPS - weather, wind and tide information. Does let you photo tag locations to share with the other Androids too, and autoupdates changes to the maps. Pretty amazing for the price, really. The brand is Navionics.
There's several dozen other coastlines for similar prices, covering most of the First World. They're surprisingly small files too - I think NZ was under 10MB.
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The Galaxy S is what I have, the very same that slid 15 metres along a gravelly driveway and over a speed hump on its screen and suffered only minor scratching to the case. So far I've encountered not one single issue with stability. Was pretty stoked that I could buy marine maps for all of NZ for $20 for it - no more getting beached in the middle of the Waitemata Harbour for me (but that's another pratfall).
There are many apps to sleep with, although my favourite is e-books. Considering it's on my wifi network at home, I haven't even bothered to download any, I just read the html ones I find on Gutenberg usually.
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Field Theory: Japan moves, in reply to Rich Lock,
Yes, although I was thinking more of the situation where there is an earthquake elsewhere on the Pacific rim which wouldn't necessarily be felt in NZ, but which presents a potential Tsunami danger several hours later.
Yup, in those cases, it's unlikely the mobile network would be jammed, so texts would work fine as an early warning, so long as your phone is near and charged.
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Speaker: Why the disaster in Japan made…, in reply to Che Tibby,
i'm constantly running appkiller, and have been reliably told that the high-end ones also have crap battery life.
It does chew fast when you're using it heaps. Particularly when you're using all the wireless features and running multiple apps - so when I was running DJStudio to mix some sounds in my car whilst also using the GPS, and foraging for Wifi hotspots, checking my mail, and running Skype and Twitter, the car charger could only just keep up. But I've found if I charge it every day, it's got enough even without the car charger. The mains charger is next to my bed - this is the first phone I've slept with.
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Legal Beagle: Hidden in plain sight, in reply to Hayden Wilson,
Your analysis assumes that there is a common purpose across the defendants - there might be an aggregate advantage, but not one that is predictable for any identifiable one.
Well, they do all want to be found innocent, or even better, have the charges dropped. So there is a common purpose. An aggregate advantage is still an advantage.
But I don't have any real feel for how significant this factor is.
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Speaker: Why the disaster in Japan made…, in reply to Che Tibby,
driving it is just a little too much of a hassle sometimes.
OK, I'll upgrade to "Get a good Android". As in, the ones that actually are competitors to the iPhone, and half the price.
But hey, I'll admit iPhones are pretty awesome too. Just wanted to plug my Galaxy 9000.
The guy in the shop said their screens are supposedly extremely tough, but that he hasn't met anyone with an inclination to test this. I had no inclination, but as chance has it, the other day, I put it to the test.
I was riding my bike, with my phone in my bag and my bag in my basket and the basket over the handlebars. Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I added a coffee to to my hoard, and sipped it as I rode. There was a slight downhill to my local library, which I went down, and remembered/saw too late that there were sharp speed bumps on that. Braking power inhibited by the coffee I was carrying (could only pull one brake), I hit the bump just hard enough to bounce the basket off the handlebars, which spilled the bag on the ground, which spilled the phone out, which slid down the rest of the hill and over another speed bump, screen downwards. I narrowly avoided being flipped off the bike and through the window of the children's section of the library, when the basket went under the pedals. The children inside learned a new swear word, when I suffered the double indignity of minor anal penetration from the seat, and minor squashing of the testes on the frame. Curiously, my subconscious chose "SHITBALLS!".
But I didn't lose my coffee (despite a huge urge to dash it against the nearest wall), nor was my phone even scratched, except a little bit on the casing. Amazed. And sore, and shamed, and learned. Don't drink and ride or you'll get a poke in the stalk and a shot in the nuts, and that's if you're lucky.
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Field Theory: Hospital Pass, in reply to Tim Michie,
For some reason I always pay attention to the Japan RWC matches
For me it's just the awesomeness that our favourite game penetrated somewhere so culturally different to NZ. That the Commonwealth play rugby is pretty much a given, but when you see Japs loving it, it blows more meaning into the concept of sport crossing cultural boundaries.
And there is no reason for them not to love it. Rugby is an expression of a heritage as a warrior culture, and the All Blacks hook into that with a war dance at the start of every game. It's still a game as much about mettle as skill, and Japanese culture still values both. It's also one of the few sports that doesn't have quite such a narrow and specific body type amongst the elite players, so the physical differences of the Japanese just mean they excel in other dimensions of the game.
Perhaps the scrum suggests Sumo wrestling to them? Finally a foreign sport in which massive strong fat guys can show their worth?
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Legal Beagle: Hidden in plain sight, in reply to Hayden Wilson,
It seems to me that a good portion of our criminal bar rarely (probably because of the pressures of resources and time) turn their mind with any degree of focus to cases before the last minute.
Because they didn't have to?
What that often results in is massive additional cost to the prosecution in proving matters that are not ultimately in dispute (with no countervailing advantage or protection to the defendant) and late guilty pleas.
Surely the advantage to the defence is the very existence of that massive additional cost, which will stop some prosecutions and delay others. Yes, there's no advantage if they do successfully prosecute, but that wouldn't even happen in some cases where the prosecution felt there were some weaknesses in their cases that in practice didn't end up being disputed.
eg, if a prosecutor has 2000 person hours every year to spend preparing cases, and each one used to take 100 hours preparation, they could only prosecute 20 cases per year. Cut the preparation to 10 hours by requiring the defence to show what the defense will be, eliminating 90% wasted time shoring up undisputed points, and they can prosecute 200 cases every year. Which means that 180 defendants end up in court who might not have before. Or they could spend the same 100 hours, but entirely on the case that will be disputed, so they'll get a lot more prosecutions per year, being effectively 10 times better prepared for the case they have to argue.
I'm pulling numbers out of my arse, of course, but the point remains. It would be very interesting to hear from actual prosecutors just what proportion of wasted time is eliminated by this. How many possible defenses are there on average? If it's 2, then it should double their efficiency. If it's 5 it's making them 5 times more.
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Finally a thread you can get your teeth into ScottY!
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Field Theory: Hospital Pass, in reply to Russell Brown,
I still consider one of the best individual tries I ever saw to have been scored by a Japanese player (can't remember his name it was so long ago) playing as a Barbarian. A massive bomb sent up, he dashed nearly half the length of the field, leapt and caught it mid-air, and skidded between the posts, about 6 metres ahead of the closest All Black. I had my fist in the air until I realized "hey, that's the other team".
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