Posts by izogi
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Legal Beagle: $420,259.33, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Well, I think it's fair to point out that "yadiyadiyada" is not the attitude successive National and Labour governments have taken to beneficiaries, superannuatants and student loan holders.
No argument there, Craig, and I'm disappointed that the Labour Party isn't being taken to the cleaners over this. I just happened to disagree with Graeme's assertion that the "confusion" explanation must have meant they were smart enough for it to actually twig in someone's head at the time that they were doing something potentially wrong.
If it's somehow reasonable for the Labour Party to be let off for this, the logical next step for any political party wishing to follow suit, and get away with similar things, is to ensure their money isn't handled by someone with the slightest amount of legal competency.
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I simply cannot accept "confusion" as an explanation. Being confused about this means you received the money and thought about it whether it had to be disclosed, and just couldn't make up your mind for certain either way.
Does it? Maybe under a strict definition within a domain, but casually to me it could mean that they were wrong but were completely convinced they were right, then realised afterwards that they'd been "confused", maybe when a smart person showed up and pointed it out.
I don't think this is a valid excuse, nor does it show anything but unacceptable performance for the important role they were in and maybe that kind of thing should warrant a penalty for parties or individuals on its own, but....... malice... incompetence... yadiyadiyada.
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Hard News: The Wogistan form book, in reply to Johnny Canuck,
I get that one probably every 3rd-4th flight in North America (swab of the hands, carry on bag and laptop followed by not-so- suspenseful wait as swab is entered into a little machine).
As far as I can tell, this is a standard thing at Australian airports (domestic and otherwise) and has been for at least two years that I've been travelling around here. It's supposedly random but I get swabbed nearly every time, I think because I tend to make friendly eye contact with the security people as I walk past.
From my subjective experience it seems they'll generally grab the next person going through once they're free from the previous person. I expect anyone who wanted to avoid being swabbed could quickly figure out a way to reduce their chances by messing around re-packing their things from the scanner conveyor belt until they could see the officer was busy testing someone else.
It's totally made for helping people feel safe, rather than actually safe.
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Hard News: The Wogistan form book, in reply to Johnny Canuck,
but there's probably a decent constituency for it. More than the crucial 5% anyway...
Despicable as I think the man is (and his party for accommodating and defending him), he probably represents at least 1/120th of the populace. I don't know whether to consider it an MMP success or failure, but I tend to think that people over a certain proportion should have an opportunity to have their views aired by parliamentary representatives, even if those views disgust me. Maybe it helps to keep others in touch with what some others think, if nothing else. I just hope that talk is as far as it gets.
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Does anyone happen to know why New Zealand presently has a three year term? Is it something that was inherited from Great Britain in the beginning, or was there a conscious decision to set it to three years from some other reason?
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Russell Brown,
Which was mangled in the editorial thus:
Russell, maybe it's been noticed, but the text of the Herald's mangled editorial seems to have spread uncredited to something suspiciously similar in the Fairfax world, though they cut off the worst bits.
In relation to what he told the NYT: "Joy told the newspaper the reality of New Zealand's environmental record came nowhere close to matching the 100% Pure brand."
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Richard Grevers,
But even that is a falsehood.
It's all marketing, though. I have to admit that having the Prime Minister of the country publicly compare New Zealand with a globally respected Americanised fast food chain was a stroke of genius in countering criticism of the 100% pure claim. Problem solved!
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I was amazed by Key's "it's just marketing" comment - the implication was that because it's marketing it doesn't actually have to be true
I don't mind the 'just marketing' concept so much (except for how clumsily it's being said), because 100% pure was obviously only ever meant to be a brand, and marketing of this kind nearly always uses some kind of artistic licence. What annoys me is the arrogance of trying to tell us that it's traitorous to not drop what we're doing, ignore things we seriously care about, and patriotically follow the national company line as loyal employees of the New Zealand International Tourism Corporation.
Sit down and shut up indeed. Any branding campaign like this should have been more than prepared for eventual criticism from overseas, and that might involve just being prepared to stomach it and wrap up if it's already been a good run. When claiming "100% pure" with a clear implication of what people are expected to think, it should hardly be a surprise of the angle that criticism would take.
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Speaker: Pipes: Understanding Hackers, in reply to Richard Aston,
He didn't get paid, the bank got the "message" and paid him fast, he deactivated the "bomb"
It might be effective but it's not very professional. I can't imagine it'd make others want to hire someone in future if word got around.
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He rings them up and tells them and the next thing the AFP is knocking on his door. He wasn’t asking for money he just told them. It was still taken as him being a bad hacker.
I hadn't head of this one but it sounds like this guy and Ira both phoned, and probably the message (and Ira's message) was just whispered around until the original report was completely out of context. I don't know exactly what Ira said, but at the time MSD acted, I'd expect they were acting on a report that "some guy hacked our system and he's blackmailing us for details", totally different from "someone's noticed a way to get info they shouldn't have, and wants to know if there's an incentive scheme as part of telling us".
There's no way to be safe when reporting something like this when powerful people's reputations, future job prospects and budgets hang on discrediting or suppressing what you have to say, but wouldn't there at least be a partial benefit in using writing to communicate this sort of stuff so there's an open written record of how you informed them? I'd think really carefully before reporting a breach just because of the crap that could follow if the wrong people are on the other end, but I don't think I'd ever want to report it in a way where my words were out of my control as soon as I'd hung up the phone.