Posts by Andre Alessi
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Hmm, come to think of it, I remember exactly when the last time it snowed in Wellington was, because I was there. 1995, July or August at the latest. I was in Weir House and everybody rushed outside to throw snowballs at each other.
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Hard News: When the Weather is the News, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
3) Come to conclusion today can’t get any more socially awkward.
It's an unchanging law of the universe that today can always get more awkward.
I managed to survive the night without too much worry on the Shore. Underfloor insulation, a heater, and a massively overpowerd desktop PC kept my room toasty most of the night. Not so my friend in Ponsonby, who was reduced to literally sitting on her heater most of the night.
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Hard News: Is that it?, in reply to Kumara Republic,
When is nanny statism not nanny statism? When it's paternalism.
The right has always been very good at making exceptions for people that upper middle class pakehas don't like. "One law for all-unless you're brown, poor or brown & poor".
I've been looking at going back to university, but honestly the idea of living on a student allowance, even with part time work as a supplement, is terrifying. I'm hardly rolling in dough at the moment, but the current student allowance would only just barely cover my rent in a pretty modest flat on the Shore-no food, no utilities, no transport. It's even worse for people on unemployment, so I don't really understand how National can think most people would choose to live on a benefit if they had other, genuine options.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Not sure if the word cheap can placed alongside SMS in NZ, nor has it ever been so. I was shocked when I flew into Asia in the late 90s and the various nations were all paying less than a cent a txt – 20c was the standard on a plan in NZ at the time. It was costing me 80c to send a txt to NZ on my NZ plan, but 3c if I used a local SIM.
Compared to Asia’s deals, you’re right, the SMS charges were appalling. But compared to the US for example (which is where our telcos took their lead on which technologies to implement) we had it pretty good. SMS usage didn’t really kick off in the US until 2007. Prior to that most providers were still charging per SMS, at anything up to 50-80 c per text (and charged for both outgoing and incoming texts.)
Compare that with NZ, where Telecom and Vodafone started rolling out text bundles a couple of years earlier, and were charging 20c a text from the early 2000s.
ETA: International texting has always been hideously expensive in New Zealand, though, and doesn't show any real sign of getting cheaper.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
But also, in the UK (and most other countries) the underclass is urban. In NZ, a lot of the poorest people live out in the country.
There are still plenty of urban poor in New Zealand, unfortunately. And the shared characteristics stretch across borders: first or second generation immigrants/refugees with few employment or educational prospects and a high degree of vilification/Other-ing in the prevailing culture. Rural poverty is a whole different kettle of fish-even the Mongrel Mob and Black Power provide a level of social anchoring that urban youth don't have access to.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Rich Lock,
Vaugely surprised that it's as popular as it seems to be in the UK. Hardly anyone in NZ seems to be using a blackberry now that smartphones are widely available.
NZ missed the Blackberry buzz (in part) because we were early adopters of cheap SMS. Text messaging took a lot longer to catch on in other countries than here. (Season 2 of The Wire has a great sequence where supposedly tech-savvy detectives look on in confusion as the Bad Guys communicate with their phones without speaking at all.)
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Still waiting to hear back from family in London, but not overly worried-they're pretty self-sufficient and would no doubt have let us know the instant something serious happened.
Trying very hard not to comment on the reasons for the violence due to a very real possibility I will lose my temper at all and sundry.
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I'm skeptical of the suggestions that these events, as interesting as they are, herald some sort of change in the culture of reporting in the UK. If the death of a well-loved public figure couldn't stem the tide of harrassment and privacy invasion, I don't see how a "little" corruption and collusion would.
As for that column by Heather Brooke insisting that it's mostly the fault of the supposedly repressive and restrictive privacy and libel laws in the UK-yeah, no. That might be the case if we were talking about small-time publishers, but NotW? No chance. There are some valid concerns about access to information in the UK, but I'd suggest that the assumption that the US' model of "any information you want on anyone at all (as long as it's not held by a private company)" is not an ideal we should be striving towards either.
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Up Front: P.A. Story, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
I found this for Emma and Ngaire earlier (don't ask, I don't want to talk about it.)
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Up Front: P.A. Story, in reply to Lilith __,
Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the EQC…
Torchwood 4, based in Hereford St. Hilary's chocolate shop is where they make the special chocolate that you feed to pterodactyls.
