Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Russell Brown,
Politicians who get picked out for high office rather than working their way up through the party ranks tend to be crap at the job, though. (One advantage of not having an upper house is that anyone wanting to be a minister has at least to fight an election.)
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Poole,
V-series nerve agents
One would hope that the testing procedures for putative pesticides would have moved on since 1950s Britain. There's a very substantial approval process (including animal testing - shock horror) to go through before the EPA would let anything out of the lab.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Poole,
I'd assume that a researcher developing pesticides will be looking for substances with minimal rather than maximal hazard to humans.
I'd expect that if they came across an unknown toxic chemical suitable for weapons use, it would be quite likely to have already been discovered secretly (probably in Russia or the US). The most sensible approach would be to publish the research so that any precursors could be watched and controlled.
In any case, wouldn't they need EPA approval?
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Poole,
used in missiles
Or cellphones.
And in general, a commercial grade crystal (such as you can order from RS, Element14, Digikey and the like) could be used in a missile or other aerospace application without problem. Much of the difference with military grade parts isn't the design, it's the paperwork (being able to trace each part by serial number back to the factory and drawings). Then you have temperature and vibration tolerances (which are similar to parts used under the bonnet of a car). Finally, you have radiation tolerant parts, which are important in space or if you want your gadget to work after a nuclear war has started.
But in general, the sort of professional military outfits that might need military-grade parts have already got multiple sources and don't need to try and sneakily buy them in Otara market.
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Wow. I'm so glad the Mr Key and his mates are protecting us against attack by these guys.
Obviously we need a Top Secret Agency With Special Powers to protect us against petty vandalism to websites and the like. Stupid of me to think that we'd actually be better off if information on that sort of thing was shared to assist the people actually responsible for preventing such activity.
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IANAC but I seem to recall that one of the things about Baptists (as opposed to Anglicans, for instance) is that they don't have a hierarchy, so there are as many views as adherents?
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Chris Waugh,
#1 If the supermarket shelves are stripped bare by Chinese people cashing in on John Key's promise, what do Kiwi kids drink?
I doubt that will happen. I've worked for a supermarket firm, and while NZ supermarkets ostensibly don't supply non-retail customers, in practice supermarket owners (as in New World/Pak and Save) are only too happy to sell wholesale - if you back a truck up to the loading bay and take a pallet straight from the supplier, they just saved $$ on the costs of conventional selling. There's even options in the software to do just that. If they run low, they can always import some.
#2 Is he really encouraging Chinese people to break NZ law by illegally exporting dairy products?
Well, as a free marketeer he probably thinks those laws are daft but can't be bothered repealing them. Even as a non-believer, I don't quite see why we have laws about what you can export? If Chinese people want to enrich NZ by buying our products retail instead of wholesale, why should we stop them?
#3 What happens when Chinese people attempting to cash in on his promise run into supermarket buying restrictions or the law? People were pissed off by Hong Kong imposing its infant formula export restriction.
Why don't they go to the EU, where there are no export restrictions and the flights are probably cheaper? Is EU milk seen as dodgy also?
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Ken Livingstone has the killer fact:
In the 31 years before Thatcher came to office the [UK] economy grew by about 150%; in the 31 years since, it's grown by little more than 100%
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Paul Campbell,
The reversed dial. I don't think I knew that.
But it would have made little difference to an electronic exchange - just a software switch to change the pulse interpreter. It'd make pulse dial from a modem odd though - I wonder if people translated the number, or if modems for NZ were 'special'.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Poole,
I'd think that exposing a clear analysis of what had being done would result in the supplier losing all its export business, getting the arse sued off it and going bankrupt in fairly short order. Others would probably be chastened into not trying it on again.
