Posts by JohnS
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The public sector does have it's charms and it's downsides
As a professional writer, it should only take a few seconds to sort out the difference between "its" and "it's".
And am looking forward to reading your contributions.
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Agree with Gareth's appraisal of Roko in that game. We used to shout, "Give it to Joe!". But, not any more.
but it did have some interesting titbits
Thank you. The first time for years I have seen anyone use the English version. North American "tidbits" seems to rule the NZ roost.
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A plea to RB : Can you get your producer to turn off those maddening blinking green lights behind the panel members? Or at least stop them going on and off?
The producer of "Close Up" on TVNZ One could also take this request to heart. Swirling red rectangles and all!
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There are grape wines -- and fruit wines (and herb/vegetable/whatever).
Generally understood convention.
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... feijoa glut ...
Feijoa wine? Apparently well regarded as among the best tasting of the fruit wines.
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There is no apostrophe in the possessive pronoun "its". Nor is there an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns "his" and "hers".
However, when "it is" is abbreviated to "it's" then, of course, an apostrophe signals the loss of an original letter.
As a retired teacher I am dismayed at our incompetence in helping our students to master this simple understanding.
Unfortunately the misuse of "it's" is a world-wide phenomenon. The Americans are particularly culpable.
The misuse of "it's" seems to have nothing to do with intelligence or general knowledge, so please do not take offence at my comment.
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As an Akld Grammar Old Boy (WWII years) I hated the experience and have had nothing to do with the school since. It wasn't until I left Grammar and went to Teachers' College and Uni that I found I wasn't useless academically.
All but two of the "masters" were incompetents at teaching, and one was a sadist (and the organist for a city church).
I finished up as a colleague of one of the better teachers, coincidentally, on the teachers' appointment committee of the Auckland Education Board. I had pleasure in showing him a report comment he had written on me in which he had something positive to say about my work as a student. Years later, I wept a little at his funeral. Too rare a teaching professional at this "great" school.
In the 1970s I was leading a research and inservice training team to develop a training programme to improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching early reading.
We tried to document programmes and techniques that were working, so we could share these with others. Ultimately the inservice programme was used by about 25,000 teachers. The point of this comment is that we found the best teachers to demonstrate practices that were having notable success were among schools in Ponsonby (way before it became trendy middle-class), Otara and Mangere.
The best teachers were in, what is now known as, the low decile schools.
As has been mentioned earlier, the effectiveness of a school should be measured by the difference between input and output. These schools I worked in were making a huge difference to the educational gains of their students.
Frankly, I was in awe of their efforts.
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Thanks, Rich, for confirming that use of a dimmer results in less power usage than running conventional bulbs full blast.
Perhaps, then, the need to change to CFL (dimmer compatible) is less urgent than for non-dimmer controlled setups. Provided, of course, that one consistently uses a chosen lower light level (as we we do for TV watching and in the dining room). It's nice to have the convenience at the turn of a knob to find that dropped pin, or stitch.
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I pencil the date on the base of every new CFL I install.
So far I haven't had to replace one under 6 years old.
Have only one "cool white" which I use for illumination in front of the computer when using Skype for video calling. "Warm white" makes my camera images too red/orange.
Could one of the experts on this thread tell me if dimming tungsten bulbs actually reduces the power they use (by clipping the sine wave)?
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Don't mock Darwin. Just be thankful that it all works.
I'm nearly 80, have 3 daughters and a son, and I just loved your blog.
Goosebumps summed it up for me, too.