Posts by Stephen R
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Hard News: Lowering the Stakes, in reply to Ray Gilbert,
In a spirit of pointing out good things:
I heard recently that there's at least one school in Wellington (in Lyle bay somewhere, I think) that has put in cycle-lanes around the inside of the perimeter of the school so that new riders can practice riding their bikes without having to negotiate traffic while they're still learning.
I thought that was a fantastic idea.
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Hard News: Lowering the Stakes, in reply to Sacha,
Mr Tangiia was also an inexperienced cyclist who may not have looked for hazards like that.
Having just started biking again, the first ride home saw me crash (and break my helmet) because I was trying to go from the road to the separated bike-lane over a curb that was not suitable for bikes. There are lots of little things to look for that I knew 15 years ago when I was cycling a lot, but have forgotten in the meantime, and worse, I'd forgotten that I'd forgotten them.
Now I'm being a lot more cautious, and haven't even had any close calls (yet).
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After I moved from Christchurch to Wellington 12 years ago, I stopped riding my bike. I started again just before Christmas, and (allowing for weather and days when I need the car for other reasons) I'm cycling in a couple of days a week.
So far, the closest calls have come from taxis. (and one day I drove, I had to slow for the ambulance/policecar/ taxi around some poor bowled cyclist.)
Along the route I ride, most people in cars have been pretty good. The road isn't too bad, with cycle lanes for a fair bit of it, but there's this bit around the bays where the road narrows, and the cycle-lane just disappears. One minute, I'm cycling in my designated lane (in a perfect space to get doored) and the next I'm playing in the same lane as the rest of the traffic with few options about where to go.
The first time, it was a little distressing, but there are enough cyclists on this route that the cars are pretty used to it.
I'd like to say that a side-effect has been that I'm more considerate of cyclists when I'm driving, but I think that started 6-12 months ago when there was a thread here including video from a Wellington cyclist's helmet-cam which made me wince.
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Dr William Rolleston, Federated Farmers spokesperson on climate change:
“Whatever ones’ views may be on the causes of climate change, the fact is it is happening ..." -
Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Really? I had thought lithium batteries got contaminated by long use and were not recyclable into new batteries.
According to http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/print/volume-12/issue-4/features/the-lithium-battery-recycling-challenge.html lithium in batteries is completely recyclable, but "Recycled lithium is as much as five times the cost of lithium produced from the least costly brine based process."
Part of that seems to be because there's not yet the bulk supply of worn out automotive batteries, and the ones that are aren't standardised as to their chemical makeup (both factors making economies of scale more difficult for recycling companies). The article also suggests that this will likely change in the next ten years, as they expect demand for lithium batteries will make recycling more economically realistic (the price of lithium having almost tripled in the last ten years).
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Is it wrong that I feel a nigh-on-orgasmic and highly addictive rush of schadenfreude every time I hear the words “Cameron Brewer declined to be interviewed” on Radio New Zealand?
No Craig, it's not wrong, or if it is, I don't want to be right.
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I'm wondering how well it would go down if Len decided to kick off an EY investigation into all the things undeclared by the 5 councillors who called for a vote of no-confidence in Len, and then sheeted the bill home to those 5 councillors at the end of it.
My guess is that it would be considered a bit rude.
So, without being a Len supporter (not living in Auckland, as it were) I'm still seeing it as pretty rude for the Herald and co to be trying to ping Len with the bill.
And it pisses me off when people try to tip over the board when they're losing the game; and that's what Christine Fletcher and the Herald seem to be trying (and indeed, the whole smear from the get-go looks that way).
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Rob Stowell,
APN last week posted a full-year net loss of A$455.8 million on increased write-downs on the value of goodwill and its newspaper mastheads.
It's nice to know they've noticed how they've been pissing me off.
Now I wonder what they'll do about it.
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I guess I have a general problem with any anonymous political donations. People can make perfectly honest political donations, but equally they can expect a quid pro quo. If you're genuine you have nothing to hide, if you're not we ought to know. It seems to me that anonymous donations are relic of a corrupt past, the excuse that it's to hard to do the paper work is old, just doing everything online gives you an instant paper trail ready to export for public notification.
I've donated to a couple of different political parties when something they've done has pleased me. If I've used their website they seem to use it as an excuse to send me importuneous mails in the future asking for more money.
I've taken to ignoring their requests, and yet still occasionally dropping random acts of cash on them. Last time I dropped a hundred bucks in the cash kitty for raffle tickets without taking any tickets, (because I didn't want to be marked in their little black book of easy marks).
I also loathe how difficult it is to donate to people without being tracked by my bank. It's none of their business who I give money to. I don't want to do everything on line.
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Call me slow, but I just watched "Jimmy wants a job" for the first time.
I'm sure the hayfever is why I'm feeling slightly teary-eyed. Best wishes for Jimmy in the future. It was very brave of him to show the hard bits as well as the easy bits.
(The analogy about graphics cards vs cpu processing of graphics was very geeky Russell, but made perfect sense to me.)