Posts by Steve Parks
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I was contrasting it in that sense with the page one story based on the reaction of some of the commentors in stuff's comments section. I feel the latter is dangerously close to the media saying something's now a public discussion because they say it's a public discussion.
Absolutely. I guess I was just a little miffed when I saw that DomPost article held up as good journalism ... I guess I'm of the view that neither was.
Okay. I’m happy with both were sloppy, but for different reasons.
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Graeme:
"were they commenting on the actual policy, or the reporter's gross misunderstanding?
Kris Gledhill, of Auckland University's law faculty, said the policy seemed to target a group of people unlikely to be released anyway.
Well that comment seems pretty likely to be a reaction to the actual policy, as Gledhill understands it, rather than a reaction to a summary provided by the reporter.
But in any case, the aspect I was referring to as valid was the approach to what's newsworthy. A news article based on the reaction to National's policy of the sort of people canvassed in that story is... well, it's news . I was contrasting it in that sense with the page one story based on the reaction of some of the commentors in stuff's comments section. I feel the latter is dangerously close to the media saying something's now a public discussion because they say it's a public discussion.
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Now that story is a valid news story about the reaction to National's policy announcment. That was on page two of the Dom Post today. The contrived "death sentence" story - that was on page one.
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Oh, you clearly missed the Herald's 'Your Views' around the time of the South Auckland killings. That got really mediaeval, really quickly.
My producer was flicking through it and made a crack about sharia law. And the next page he clicked actually had someone proposing that thieves should have their hands cut off ...
The latent violence amongst upstanding citizens can be quite a thing to behold.
Did the Herald make a story out of that, though: 'Public calls for a hands off approach to theft' ... or some such pun headline ?
Is anyone else a little uneasy with Stuff turning the comments made in reaction to one of its stories into a story in itself? As far as I'm aware, outside of some of the comments, there hasn't been a recent call for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
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I should be working. Instead I'm fixing your links:
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Prison's too good for 'em. Prepare the miniature guillotine.
You were being ironic, some people aren't...
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Gravity does affect the heavier object more, but so does inertia, both in proportion to the mass of the object, so that acceleration due to gravity stays the same.
Fair enough. I could’ve worded my sentence better, but the net effect is what matters, for the purposes of the point I was making.
You own a tank? Cool!
That’s just silly, of course I don‘t own a tank.
I borrowed Bruce Dickinson’s
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Hunh?
Ships don't sink gracefully in a vacuum. -
1. Heavy objects and light objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum.
It helps to complete sentences sometimes ;-)Quite. The acceleration due to gravity is the same for heavier and lighter objects. And considering the point of using this example of the limits of ‘common sense’ is to do with people’s notion of weight, the wind resistance stuff really isn’t too relevant. Many people have a common sense notion that heavy objects tend to fall faster than lighter ones because gravity affects the heavier object more.
Heavy objects do fall faster.
Sometimes. Sometimes not. The same common sense that tells people that a hammer will fall faster than a feather leads many to presume a hammer will in turn fall slower than a much heavier object, like (say) an army tank. Whereas, the tank’s greater weight makes no difference, but its greater wind resistance will so it down.
And yes, as it happens, I did just check this out myself yesterday, while tinkering around in the backyard. -
__ most recent McCain-Palin madness__
How about this one. Yikes!
I'm not sure if it's the same interview, but apparently there's an exchange that goes:
Couric: "What lessons have you learned from Iraq, and what specifically would you do to spread democracy around the world?"
Palin: "Specifically, I think we should work to spread democracy around the world."
Yikes, indeed.
As was pointed out to me on another forum, some of Palin's answers when being interviewed are disturbingly similar to this one.