Posts by BenWilson
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Speaker: Why the disaster in Japan made…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Awesome. I bet Garth that someone would say "get an Android!" in the first half-dozen comments. :-)
He was just begging for it.
Edit: And mine was the 6th comment...made you pack!
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Speaker: Why the disaster in Japan made…, in reply to ,
I have a portable VHF radio.
For the boat, right? It's amazing how survival oriented boating is, I've become about 5 times more prepared for natural disaster since December, just by getting one. VHF, flares, smoke signals, fire extinguishers, spare petrol, spare batteries, water bottles, portable gas cookers, spirit cookers, portable long lasting food, UHT milk, first aid kits, grab bags, spare toolkits, throw ropes, 4WD with towbar, learning up about survival in adversity, sources of vital information, better clothing. I'm just mentioning the things useful off the boat.
That's all predicated on me being at home, which I am 95% of the time. Most people don't have that luxury, and will have their clothes, wallet and phone at best. If their phone is an awesomely powerful device, it could save their life.
I was wondering how long before they add VHF/CB to these smartphones. Would be very useful any time the network goes down, or out of range.
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Legal Beagle: Hidden in plain sight, in reply to 3410,
Not being required to "show their working" encourages mistakes, which is a bad thing.
The prosecution has always had to present its case in advance, though, no? You know what charges you will face, and what evidence will be presented.
I'm not saying these changes are good, just that the reason why they're bad isn't leaping out at me at the moment. Other than that it's a very general strengthening of prosecution power, which I haven't heard any particular case for, other than cost-cutting. Do our prosecutors really need more advantages, considering that they already wield the power and financing of the State? Making it ten times easier to prosecute could lead to ten times more prosecutions - is that something we actually need?
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Make it an Android and I agree with all you say. I recently upgraded, after years of pooh-poohing at needing anything more than voice and txt. But it now finally is an actual quantum leap, carrying a device that has both GPS and mobile broadband and WIFI around, and some pretty hefty storage and processing power too (my Samsung Galaxy is more powerful than my netbook). The camera is actually good enough now to not ever bother taking my actual camera anywhere casually. It is finally a decent computer in the palm of your hand. You can compose reasonable text on it, or browse the web. You can SkypeOut, or just use various IMs. Or Tweet and Facebook. I might actually bother if I was in a disaster, that is one time when people really do give a fuck about exactly where you are and what's happening.
As such, it would be a basic thing to have in a disaster, and carrying spare capacity to recharge it is wise, a car-phone charger was the first accessory I purchased, followed by a car-mount. Not just because everyone in Christchurch had their phone die on the first day, but also because I've always had my phone die at awkward times, and for the $20 for a car charger, there's not really any reason to put up with that any more.
Also, I've been pleasantly surprised about the size issue. They may have a large screen, but they're slim, so they do actually slip into pockets nicely. It's actually less cumbersome than my older and smaller phone, which was fatter so it stuck out more.
One trap for new players I fell into. Black is a popular choice for a color, right? But consider that it will possibly spend a lot of time on the dashboard of your car. It gets bloody hot already, and I'm sure that contributes to excessive power usage. White might actually be better. Or mount it on your air vent.
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Hard News: The Wall and the Paper, in reply to Susan Snowdon,
It's good to finally hear a decent reason for it. I did like the flowers, but wondered why it's so seldom that you just see wild fields of them. So the answer is "they need maintenance"?
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Thanks Graeme. I don't know quite what to make of most of it, other than it does in general seem to be heavily in favor of prosecution. The requirement to actually tell the prosecution what your defense is seems quite a massive change, I can see why it's held up as "removing the burden of proof". That's overstating it - it's weakening the burden of proof by giving the prosecution more time to work directly against your exact defense case.
So if you say, for instance, that you will defend your assault charge with "self-defence", they can spend all their time and energy addressing that defense, finding character witnesses for the assaulted, boning up on the ins and outs of self-defence, prepping the witnesses not to say they were angry, etc. Before, they would have had to consider it quite possible that you'd deny even being there, and would have to spend considerable effort proving that you were the one who bashed whoever the assaulted was.
It is still a bit hard for me to see directly why this is particularly bad, though. Prosecutors wasting their time shoring up aspects of the case that will never be touched does seem to me to not really get to the important issue, of allowing the judge/jury to more clearly see what actually happened and make an informed decision. I'll need to think on it, but my only objection would be that it generally weakens the strong position defendants had before. And it's a MAJOR weakening - their ability to reveal their defence on the day in court was a huge factor in being considerably more prepared than the prosecution.
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All Blacks vs Japan is a great idea. But it could be a dull game. All Blacks vs Barbarians, in Japan, with preference to the top Japanese stars?
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Hard News: The Wall and the Paper, in reply to Kumara Republic,
In other words, a gated community minus the actual gates. All made of ticky-tacky and they look just the same.
Sounds like vast tracts of Europe to me, only more modern. Perhaps it was just sentimentality but after my first world trip, I wept when I flew over Auckland at the beauty of the cacophony of roof colors and odd section and building shapes. It seemed like something precious about my home town after seeing 10 or so drab cities with miles upon miles of identical roofs on identical houses on identical streets.
I did notice that Euros often make up for it with their interior decorating, though.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The coastal land around the reactor has suffered considerably worse than just about anything the reactor could do, already. Its value has taken a pretty big hit already, the property there being covered in salt water and wreckage, and thousands of the locals having lost their lives.
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If you've been hit by an earthquake and you're near the coast, you should just assume a tsunami is a high chance. I learned that from a Japanese movie as a child.
Edit: It also suggested that anything at all you can do to get people to high ground is good.
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