Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Looking forward to it, because this is a plot that thickens so steadily that I suspect somebody’s cornflour silo may have sprung a leak.
I've been swigging cough syrup for the last three days and it still doesn't make any sense. Never a good sign.
-
Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Our “Esteemed Prime Minister” also enjoys this disgraceful abuse of Parliament.
I agree with you, up to a point. This might sound strange coming from me, but I don't think facetious answers to serious questions (I'll err on the side of generosity here) is the right tone to take.
Honestly, I wasn’t awfully enamoured of Michael Cullen’s “witty” lacing of his answers with snide insults then looking all outraged at the entirely predictable result. Not really sure I pay my taxes for live-trolling to the Press Gallery.
You know the really weird thing about Select Committees – you see these caterwalling numpties behaving like grown-ups taking their jobs seriously and treating each other with grown-up civility and respect. Wonder if it has anything to do with the lack of television cameras, and pretty light press benches, in the majority of SC meetings?
We constantly get politicians bitching about how they get no respect and can’t understand why the political process is so often viewed with cynical contempt. Here’s a crazy idea: You get what you give, folks, and karma’s a bitch.
-
Nah, the saddest thing is that Ministerial Question Time is supposed to be a pretty basic mechanism for public transparency and accountability in a legislature that actually has real and lasting impacts on people's lives.
Brownlee isn't the first to treat it like open mic night at a third rate comedy club -- hell, he's not even the worse since we now have a Speaker who will insist (for the most part) Ministers at least make a plausible impersonation of answering the question. But it's tiresome beyond belief.
-
When my sister was a naughty teenager she suggested she’d like Prince’s Darling Nikki at hers.
That would be interesting -- would the dress code be bikini briefs and raincoats for the gents and underwear with a leer for everyone else?
As a general rule, inspiring the mourners to hump the pews and collect notes in their arse cleavage is not the level of decorum you want for a memorial service.
-
How about we kick off my funeral with a spot of Monty Python (‘All Things Dull and Ugly’)
Otherwise, you’re getting hymns (and yes atheist friends, this would be a wonderful time to grit your teeth and indulge me) – I’m particularly partial to ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ at the moment. Take it away Mr. Hannon…
The recessional. Louis Armstrong’s ‘West End Blues’, with interpretive dance at your discretion.And remember folks, I don’t give a shit if you’re flat but shoulders back, tits out and PROJECT!
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Ross Mason,
Surprisingly you don’t see too many accountants giving (good) public presentations either.
No -- which might be an asset when you're being deposed in a fraud trial, but doesn't do a great deal of good when "non-accounting people" would like to make some sense of why they're unemployed, their retirement savings are worthless and they live in a country whose economy would need a fireman's ladder to reach the shitter.
Look, there's always a place for jargon in the world. I don't understand jack shit about structural engineering but I'd really like any architect or builder I've retained to be able to explain in plain English why knocking out that load-bearing beam would be dumb as a sack of kittens.
-
Nah, rant actually not over.
Is boiling down complex ideas for non-specialist audiences a hard thing to do at all well? Yes - which is why I admire good general-interest writing/journalism about science so much. But it's a skill not a mystical vocation. I'm just suggesting it's not only a healthy contribution to the culture for more scientists to develop that ability, but entirely in their enlightened self-interest. Science isn't just about the seminar room and the research lab.
-
Hard News: Higgs Live!, in reply to Russell Brown,
Bart mentions talks he has been to. That is not the problem with the “Comics of Cern”. It is the non science folk (and reporters) who are watching and trying to understand – and probably having a little difficulty given the questions asked at the news conference along the lines of “What should I write about this event in my paper?” – thus they concentrate on the how rather than the what.
And that’s great, but it’s also spectacularly (and dangerously) naive. If scientists aren’t going to deign to speak clearly and intelligibly to those “non-science” folks out there want to know who will? Politicians on the campaign trail who will never have an easier applause line than denouncing “out of tough” pointy headed academic elitists who’ve never had a real job in their lives. Folks who think religious dogma has a place in science curricula for “balance”.
Oh, and writers who will ask questions like Can debt-swamped Europe afford expensive science, like pursuing the God particle? They’re not going to stop, so it may behoove some scientists to have a fucking answer that can be understood without a ladle of alphabet soup after your name.
Rant over.
-
It’s based on the version captured in the Stop Making Sense movie
It quite odd comparing the warm, white-funky big band gone boink live tracks with the album versions you often need to chip the ice off.
-
Intriguingly, some people – including Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei – expressed discomfort with the cost of the LHC project, and felt that the money would have been better spent alleviating poverty than seeking intangible knowledge. Let me put that into context for you.
Let me put this into a slightly different context. Nobel laureates Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain and Howard Florey were drawing academic salaries and research budgets during the Great Depression.
if you're one of the uncountable millions whose lives have been improved - or even saved - by Penicillium-derived antibiotics, you tell me if that was a good investment.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 169 170 171 172 173 … 1235 Older→ First