Posts by Harry Musgrave
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Hard News: Friday Music: The First Time, in reply to Sacha,
drum and bass heavy
not that there’s anything wrong with that
Not at all - it works for the newer Simple Minds songs from their stadium days but not so much for the older stuff where you actually want to make out what is hapenning on the keyboards.....
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First school concert - we had the Happen Inn singers come to school sometime in the late seventies.
First concert - Auckland university orientation 1980 headline was scheduled to be Split Enz but then they started becoming popular and decided to do their own proper shows and we had to settle for Citizen Band and some others (probably including Spelling Mistakes). Citizen Band released a 'bootleg' LP not long after that which I snaooed up as a memento (and I named my oldest daughter Julia).
Concert I regret missing most - Simple Minds (probably 1982) when they were touring with New Gold Dream. Though I like their newer stuff it would have been great to see the old stuff where the mix was not so drum and bass heavy. -
One point I read on the debt ceiling and a potential default.
It may well be that the legislature can 'legally' decide to prioritise their spending and thus choose to avoid a default BUT there is a question as to whether they can techincally do it. There will be a lot of different computer systems set up to automatically pay bills at teh appointed times. Changing those to pay the desired ones correctly and cleanly would be no small task. (Especially as there is no agreement to pay someone to do that either.)
A definite long term consequence of a default (and most likely of this potential default) is an increase in overall interest rates for US debt - and also the world economy needing to get it's head around the situation that there is no global safe place to leave your money with no risk of losing it. -
Hey - did anybody else go to the Waterboy's at the Civic on Monday?
I've been wanting to talk about it's awesomeness all week..Electric fiddles are so cool!
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Susannah Shepherd,
I for one find it hard to believe that it’s less safe to drink from or swim in the rivers of New Zealand (or some other named environmental disaster areas like Iceland) than it is in most of the countries named as top environmental performers – Central African Republic? Mali? Eritrea? Really?
I imagine's there's not a lot of fertiliser runoff in those rivers....
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The experience of watching Star Wars (new hope) at the movies had a huge impact on me. We got one of the last seats at the old cinerama and sat right in the front row. I remember being stunned by the impact of the first spaceship flying over me and then to have it followed by a HUGE spaceship was awesome.
Episode 1 certainly had it's bad points but I like the bits and the beginning where the two Jedi just take over a massive star ship by themselves. It's the first (and really only time) you get to see what a Jedi is really capable of.
And there's a line from probably Episode 2 'Target the Federation starship!' And I immediately think of the Enterprise!
I wasn't that strck by Empire Strikes Back - maybe because then I was at varsity and I had seen a few more films by then.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Knowledge Bro,
Re the distinction between Hacker and Cracker.
I heard this argument from an esteemed blogger from the states a few years ago and I disputed it with him then.
The group of expert programmers may wish to use the jargon term cracker for bad guys and hacker for good guys - but they don't get to decide the meaning of words out in the real world of english speakers.
For better or worse hacker means someone who attacks systems - in its initial meaning for bad purposes. It does not mean expert programmer. That was the first meaning it had when it was first used in normal english and subsequent uses have solified that meaning. Expert programmers can try and reclaim the word but I suggest that the battle is lost.
Cracker has no real meaning in general english that relates to IT.On a personal note - when customs ask me for my profession - I don't put hacker - I put computer programmer.
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Spoiler!!!!
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Field Theory: Olympics-eve, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I also like that they decided to honour the National Health Service. That seemed to me like an addition to the American healthcare conversation - we've got socialised medicine!
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Almost since I first heard it I've thought that I'd like Simple Minds 'Someone, Somewhere in Summertime' at my funeral. Listened to the album recently and thought that 'Big Sleep' might be even better..
But why stop at one!