Posts by Brent Jackson
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to John Farrell,
Whois changetheflag.nz
registrant_contact_name: Gwynn Compton
registrant_contact_address1: 60 Manly Street
registrant_contact_city: Paraparaumu
registrant_contact_province: Wellington
registrant_contact_postalcode: 5032
registrant_contact_country: NZ (NEW ZEALAND)
registrant_contact_phone: +64 27 9173571
registrant_contact_email: gywnn.compton@gmail.comWho is Gwynn Compton ?
According to Claire Trevett of the NZ Herald :Gwynn Compton works for Mr Key in his capacity as National Party leader…
She goes on to say :
Mr Compton has since locked his Twitter account and removed any reference to Mr Key’s office from his LinkedIn profile.
A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said Mr Compton’s role in the National Leader’s Office involved helping the National Party and its MPs, including the leader, with their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
I wonder if he may be Jason Ede’s replacement ?
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Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad, in reply to Rich Lock,
Riddle me this: If ‘The Media’ is the problem, how has Labour, or any other left-leaning party, ever managed to win an election, ever?
In the last couple of decades, Newspapers and Newdesks appear to have transformed from journalism (with ethics), to entertainment (business oriented). Hence, the somewhat leftish "media" has become rather right.
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Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad, in reply to Moz,
Imagine the first half of the votes for a party all preference A,B,C but the send half all preference A,C,B. If the first half are allocated to the winning candidate, and most of the second half are excess votes that get redistributed… C comes out way ahead desipte only getting half the “next preference” votes overall. Or something like that.
That's not how it works. Excess votes are distributed based on proportions. If there are 20% excess votes to be re-distributed, then all of the second choices are counted, but each one only counts as 0.2 of a vote. So in your example, B and C would get equal votes, as is fair and proper.
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Hard News: Behind Baltimore, in reply to Katharine Moody,
As pointed out in the documentary, the structure of pay in the US Police Force is such that officers receive performance pay based on the number of arrests they make.
That's a bat-shit crazy KPI ! Surely you don't want more people arrested - you want less crime. The KPI should be a reduction in crimes committed in their area. (Which of course leads to cops actively discouraging victims of crime from reporting it ...).
I don't think incentive pay for the police is a public good.
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Envirologue: Too Big to Fail – Why…, in reply to Stamper Stamp,
...given that the world’s surface temperature has remain static for some 18 years to-date...
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Hard News: This Anzac Day, in reply to Samuel Scott,
Unless the tone changes from one of 'didn't we do well to fight in those wars' to 'wan't that an awful chapter in our nations history, those poor bastards, let's not do this again' then I don't have any interest in partaking in the 'celebrations'.
I think the tone has changed. I was uncomfortable in the late '70s attending ANZAC day services as I felt that they were glorifying war with their commemorations. A few years ago when I accompanied my children to ANZAC day services I felt there was respect for the loss of life, loss of health, and loss of innocence that occurred then, and in the wars since. The service I attended (Pt Chev RSA) mentioned the mental hardships experienced by those who survived.
I hope the tone of respectful rememberance of the horrors of war does not give way to any sort of celebration. Companies attempting to use ANZAC day to raise their own profile had best be very wary - overstepping the mark could result in an ugly backlash.
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Hard News: The other kind of phone tapping, in reply to TracyMac,
Shout-out to the Tooting massive.
Yeah, I lived in Tooting Broadway when I was in London in '87. Links Rd, near the Tooting Railway Station. The Gorringe Park (Lounge Bar) was our local.
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Hard News: The other kind of phone tapping, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The NZ system of having a payphone just disconnect the dial was unusually permissive – in the UK, the exchange knew it was a payphone line and expected some sort of special pulses/tones to indicate money had been loaded before it would connect.
Yeah. I remember being annoyed that tapping didn't work in London when I got there.
I did meet a NZer there who had a "batphone". It was a phone with alligator clips on, and a number of public phone boxes in London (the one I saw was in Earls Court) where you could tug the wire down out of the bottom of the payphone to expose two carefully cleaned patches of wire, to which the alligator clips attached. You could then phone for free using your phone, ignoring the pay phone entirely. Afterwards you tucked the wire back up ready for next time.
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We also knew that you were allowed to dial up to 3 digits (so 111 would work), so you always chose the low numbers to dial. So in your example 584 273 I would have tapped, 5, pause, tapped 2, dialled 4, dialled 2, tapped 3, and dialled 3.
Wasn't it weird how the charge was three 2c pieces ? How awkward was that ? A single 5c, or 10c, piece would have been so much easier. I remember having three 2c pieces in your pocket was one of the things checked on in scouts to show that you were prepared. But I never used them.
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Definitely what Dave said ...