Posts by Matthew Poole
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Southerly: A Tsunami False Alarm at 2.00…, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Quite why, I do not know, because they all have pagers and cellphones.
Pagers and cellphones are not infallible. I've been on the end of a Fire Service pager, and they don't always work even in the middle of Auckland. Text messages can take hours, or days, or never arrive at all. Sirens generally work, since they're triggered by telephone signal.
Whether you agree with the reason or not, the siren is there, the locals are used to it, and the brigade often relies on it.
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A different tone is impossible with the station sirens as they exist, because they're mechanical. Big wind-up motors that make a noise as air passes through their baffles (or whatever they're called). They need three-phase power to drive the motors, they're so large.
What they need is different sirens for the tsunami system. By all means hang them on the post at the fire station, but they cannot be the same siren because, as you say, duration is not a good way to indicate to people that it's not just the brigade getting tipped out. Especially since it could be two or three cycles of the siren before people reach the station and turn it off, which is enough time for the locals to roll over and go back to sleep.
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to Russell Brown,
I had Jane as lecturer for a "Law and Globalisation" while at uni. She's a very engaging, learned speaker on the gamut of IP-related trade issues.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
Lovely, thanks. I stand corrected.
However, in 2005 you were absolutely correct. If Labour and the Greens had had their voters in Epsom all vote for Worthless Dick, Rodders would've been gone-burger. His margin ahead of Worth was less than the votes cast for either Locke or the Labour candidate.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Che Tibby,
ACT disappear – agreed. you can’t imagine National not being willing and able to undermine Hide in Epsom.
Especially if Act continue to poll at half the margin of error, which means that Rodders winning Epsom would not bring any extra MPs National's way. Keeping alive an Act vote that would bring three, four, five MPs for the cost of an electorate is smart.
Keeping alive a single-MP liability for the cost of an electorate seat is very not-smart. -
Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Lew Stoddart,
Lots of people vote informally (on purpose or by accident), or randomly. Sub-optimal.
And unlike in NZ, in Australia the STV papers are all randomly ordered to counter precisely this issue. If 900k Australian voters just start at the top and number 1, 2, 3, etc, and the other 50k vote deliberately, the result should reflect the wishes of the majority of that 50k. Hell, even our national voting papers are randomly ordered to avoid the "Tick the top box" crowd from electing "Aardvark, A" by an overwhelming majority.
This is in contrast to DHB voting here, where the DHBs themselves decide if they use alphabetical or random ordering of STV ballot papers. Fox, chicken coop, etc.Compulsory voting is only bad if you don't take deliberate steps to counter the hefty level of disinterest that compulsion engenders. Randomised voting papers is an effective, easy way of eliminating the bias that attends to ordered candidate listings.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
If ever in doubt, email any politician and ask questions. What you just asked could be copied over to any of them and they are meant to answer. Although Judith Collins wont respond to me.:)
She hasn't answered me about her "with a cell-mate" yet. She's got another fortnight before I sic the Ombudsmen on her, but I'm not going to let her get away with that comment. She was asked a question regarding a statement made as a Minister, and I'm damned well going to get an answer from her as Minister, even if I have to use statutory bodies to force the issue.
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Is the EPG (program guide) all wrapped up in it so I can’t present it my own way?
The situation with copyright around TV schedules in NZ is one of the most ridiculous impediments to producing bespoke commercial PVRs, or was last I heard. That a TV company can claim copyright over the factual timing and titles of shows is a complete nonsense.
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to 3410,
So, the reason PVRs cost $600 instead of $200 is... what, simply the MPEG4 issue, or are there other factors?
That's a reasonable part of it, yes. NZ's out on its own in using MPEG4, it seems, and since we're a pimple on the buttock of the global market we're such a tiny possible sales source that there's no volume to drive down prices.
Until a major market takes up MPEG4, we're probably going to be stuck with high-price Freeview PVRs.That and just the fact that, well, they can charge us that much and we have no choice since there's no source to parallel import.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Kumara Republic,
For all its faults, a welfare system exists so that the well-to-do don’t have to live behind a razor wire comfort blanket, or have the SAS drive their kids to school.
Yeah, but if you're important you can afford that kind of life. And the organs of the state are at your beck-and-call because you're well-to-do, so the prolles can just GTFO and STFU because their betters are busy making money and don't have time to concern themselves with the health and wellbeing of the working classes.
That's about the sum of the neo-lib credo, innit?