Posts by Myles Thomas
-
The changes at St Lukes road intersection with Gt Nth Rd have lost a through lane heading into town along Gt Nth Rd. Surely traffic having to now wait to go straight means further delays.
The road works on that bridge and intersection cost $$$$ and seems to have been a step backwards. There's no benefits on St Lukes Rd apart from a redundant lane as your photos show. There was no need for a new lane for traffic turning towards Pt Chev from St Lukes, and the extra east-bound lane for the motorway could've been created by sacrificing the shoulder under the bridge. What a waste of our money.
Still huge problems abound such as the peak time queue to turn left onto St Lukes from Gt Nth Rd, which snakes all the way back along the east bound motorway off ramp.
Of course, these little tweaks to intersections and off ramps are just tinkering to solve a much broader issue - too much traffic.
Comprehensive and appealing public transport is the only solution. And that's not a long-term or medium-term solution. It's needed right now.
-
We had the same problem with our KB MasterCard while travelling round Europe last year. A day into our trip it stopped working. We assumed it was a rural France thing and continued with our KB eftpos/debit card but in London that stopped working too. We were out of cash for a day and a half, couldn't take the kids to things we'd planned to in our short 3 day visit and were borrowing from friends.
After battling time zones and call centre waits which are unforgivable, It turned out the MasterCard was blocked cos of dodgy transactions which is fine but they hadn't tried to contact either of us despite having all our ph numbers and email addresses (why do they collect them if they won't use them?) The debit card was blocked cos we spent over $1000 on a laptop and the bank thought that was suspicious though it allowed the transaction. Again no attempt to contact was made.
Since returning we moved to ASB visa. It was easy to do and I recommend it.
I think KiwiBank contracts it's credit card services from Shitty old MasterCard which explains the big difference in service.
-
The thing to remember is that it's the system that creates these problems and not the individuals. Guardian writers are no better than Sun writers - they're just doing a different job, informing vs building audiences. Equally the TVNZ commissioners work in a deeply commercial, precarious and risk averse environment. That is created by pressure from their bosses who are under huge pressure in turn from their shareholders, the government, to make as many $$$ as possible.
Like the medium is the message, so the paradigm is the programme.
-
Hard News: What you lookin' at?, in reply to Regan Cunliffe,
So cynical. Even if Greive is plumping for NZME or Spinoff his points are still relevant. More relevant still is Russell's about the need for a non-commercial channel (note channel in the broader sense, ie not only broadcast) which is able to take risks a la SBS or ch4 in the UK.
-
I'm willing to accept that many people like the silver fern and the southern cross and that Lockwood's shallow symbolism appealed to many Kiwis. As such if most people like it, I can accept these two symbols on our flag, but what ruins his design is the... design. It's poor. The fern is too big and munty looking. The stars are way too big too. These things are what make this flag a fail, and by extension anyone waving it.
This is the fault of the process where the flag panel had to choose only from the entries all designed on word for Windows. The flag panel should've had the opportunity to take those basic ideas and rework them so they're better. Ie make the fern better, shrink the stars back a little, get a deeper blue rather than from a basic computer palette.
In this way the process was flawed.
-
'Disruption' also 'disruptive' re changes to media and steadily being applied to everything and everyone.
Has anyone already put this in?
-
Hard News: Change for the Better, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Re duhaminising of cyclists.
This was the point of the recent safety ads getting people to think of cyclists as real people. They featured a person with DAD or DAUGHTER written on their shirt while riding a bike. Perhaps whoever researched that campaign discovered that drivers' dislike of cyclists is the greatest threat to cyclist safety more than being visible, leaving a bubble etc.
I'd be interested to hear what these commentators like Hosk and Clarkson, who are frankly just assholes, have to say about the lovely general public hating on cyclists so much that we need public safety messages about it.
-
Polity: A hazy, intriguing crystal ball, in reply to Deborah,
My guess is that the “backing yourself or your friend or colleague” effect is swamped by genuine predictions from political junkies who are not personally involved in particular races
Not really. It's pretty easy to dominate an obscure stock for a week by sinking a few hundred dollars into it. There were fascinating instances of stocks behaving abnormally around Len Brown quitting and prior to that Bob Parker.
It came up in Dirty Politics too in which a protagonist boasted of altering the market enough to generate a few news headlines.
But these larger party-vote stocks would cost a bit more to alter as there are more gamblers playing them. My guess would be a couple of thousand to push a stock 5% for a week. Being persistent you could alter the herd thinking for longer as well.
-
Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Hebe,
"On to it. Look at 2mins28: Kay starts the killer line and English grins because he knows what's coming."
well spotted, English is pretty disinterested until that point, then grins and hides it by reaching for a glass of water to cover his smirk.
That Key goes back to the refrain of rapists etc, after not getting it out the first time confirms planning to say it in advance.
-
Yes we saw similar double height bike stands crowded around train stations in Zurich earlier this year. Very impressive.
My answer to the countdown Grey Lynn problem would be don't shop there. It's rubbish on other levels too - expensive, too many toys on pillars, poorly organised, Aussie owned...
I'm not sure if New World has any bike stands either but that wee dishrack as you say, is an insult.
