Posts by David Hood

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  • Hard News: The March for Democracy,

    I suspect part of the personalisation of rhetoric on Key is that presidential style politics leads to a conflation of government with Prime Minister. I suspect another part is that among those of a fundamentalist mind the ability to compromise can be seen as a weakness, which means that if strength is shown the compromiser will roll-over.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Southerly: Letter from a Beautiful…,

    I commend to peoples attention this webcomic
    http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=202

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Busytown: Less is more,

    You're reading it to literally. The Southern Cross metaphorically 'gleams' in the Southern Sky. Just like Witi Ihimaera is metaphorically the 'author' under the copyright act.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Busytown: Less is more,

    How about phrase length * number of synonyms for each word * number of possible tenses * (2 * the number of nouns to allow for optional adjectives) * (the number of verbs to allow for options adverbs) for any particular phrase. Now as phrases can be before, within, or after, other phrases by the time you start combining them you are looking at an exponential relationship of some sort.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Busytown: Less is more,

    To follow up on the better known David H.'s methodology. Stats-wise there has got to be some form of error estimation based on the selective sampling- That the sampling method is looking up online it will only match works with online editions. Then you need to filter those direct quotes that were attributed, since they would be false positives.
    So what you'd wind up establishing is a minimum likely level of plagiarism, the upper level is guesswork.
    To quote myself* "Good artists copy. Great artists steal" In this sense
    The Trowenna Sea is pedestrian copying, rather than making the material your own to the extent that the original material is lost.



    *Some may claim this was Picasso

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Busytown: A good read,

    When my mother (Lynley Hood) was researching her Minnie Dean book, she found that a British official involved with the relief effort for the Irish potato famine was Lord Pinetree-Coffin. A fiction author remarked that they could never have called a character in that role such a name.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Body image and the media,

    I tend to think of myself as a silverback male ape.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Standing up and calling bullshit,

    Damn. I wrote a whole post and you nailed it in half a sentence.

    I've had lots of practice yelling it at the computer.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Standing up and calling bullshit,

    What bothers me about Finlay Macdonald's article is that it parallels many other defences of people being unpleasant in equating freedom of expression to some kind of freedom from consequences. We live in an age where pretty much anyone can comment to the widest of public audiences about anything (and it is a matter of personal preference if they do so in "Your Views" or P.A.S., and a matter of newsworthiness if it travels via traditional media channels). Just as people have the freedom to speak, the widest of public audiences has the freedom to speak back.
    In the war memorial story there may be issues for the state of the media around the prominence the story was given, but once the story was out there everyone was free to comment on it.
    I see a lot of conflation of many individuals voices saying what they think into the idea that some group is picking on a particular person.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Windows 7: Actually Not Bad,

    Tony, best free text editor (coding and text manipulation)- TextWrangler. I tend to use the (paid) TextMate for coding, but will still revert back to TextWrangler for massaging data files. Also related I'd mention Schnippselchen Pro, a free code snippets manager.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

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