Posts by Matthew Poole
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
BTW, anyone have some geekery on why the internet is still working but it’s basically impossible to make cell or land line calls, even here in Dorkland?
Short, simple version, their commonality ends with the piece of copper that ends up in your house. Once it gets to the cabinet (or exchange) at the end of your street, the internet connection is split off and handled entirely separately from the phone connection.
The internet just gets slow if it gets overloaded. The phone system, though, stops accepting new connections in. If the exchange telephone signalling has been damaged the ability to make calls is completely hosed, but if the copper is fine the signal for internet still works.The reason this is affecting the whole country is that telephone trunking is shared, and right now the whole country is focussed on Christchurch. The providers will be dynamically reallocating voice capacity around their networks (the wonders of voice circuits being digital) to assist with communications into Christchurch, and that reduces capacity for other centres.
Plus, every man and his canine companion is trying to get hold of people in Christchurch, getting dropped, but tying up channels in the attempt. Or calling people they know who know people in Christchurch to find out if there’s any news. -
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Mr Mark,
Mobile networks are mostly down. MCDEM is reliant on MSM, HF radio and satellite phone. The MSM is, well, the MSM. HF radio relies on competent operators, who may or may not be available right now. And satellite phones are awesome, provided your operators know how to use them correctly. Which is probably more true than it was six months ago, but still not a given. They're not quite cellphones.
My emergency response unit team leader likes to say "If your mobile phone still works, it's not a disaster". So if WLG and CHC can't communicate by cellphone, this is definitely a disaster.
-
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to SteveH,
I'd be inclined to believe RNZ over TV3.
I'd be inclined to believe the NZ Police over the both of them. TV3 are proving why the media are thought of so poorly.
-
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
One of the risks with Twitter in particular is that unsubstantiated info like this spreads like wildfire.
At KiwiCon (hacker conference) in 2009, one of the presentations was on how to "hack" WikiPedia by getting the reputable media to put into print a false rumour started through Twitter. Attendees managed to get it reported that Vic Uni's Pipitea Campus was on fire and had been evacuated, all through Twitter.
Please, anyone who's thinking of retweeting anything relating to the quake, if it sounds like official information make sure you've confirmed it on the Police website or similar. The media sites don't count as fact-checking.
-
Yeah, OK, I did a poor job of explaining myself there. Insufficient caffeine.
And as I/S says, humiliating Bennett would be a great achievement all on its own. Shoving her onto the dole queue would be even better, but sadly I don't think National's support is going to crumble into dust.
-
Yes, this will have been more physically severe than September, even if the energy release was less, because it was so much closer to the surface. GNS say the acceleration was a full 1G, against 0.8G for September, so 25% higher speed of movement at ground level. Throw in many buildings damaged and unrepaired from September, and there's no way it couldn't be ugly.
-
Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to giovanni tiso,
winning marginal seats doesn't mean getting more people in Parliament under most scenarios.
Say wha? An electorate seat is an electorate seat. There are 69 of them, and they're totally FPP. Winning a marginal seat absolutely gets you more people in Parliament.
-
Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to Ian MacKay,
No, but it doesn't take many seats swinging back to Labour for National to be looking distinctly shaky in ability to form a government.
-
Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to Heather Gaye,
Both those options are still mildly controversial, aren't they?
Depo is definitely controversial, because it can have long-term irreversible effects on reproductive health and also fucks with the recipient. I watched a lovely, caring teenager turn into a narcissistic, manipulative bitch in a matter of weeks when she went onto depo. It was very sad. I believe NZ is one of only a few countries where depo is even legal.
-
Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to George Darroch,
IIRC unemployment alone is 70,000 right now.
Unemployment right now is well north of 100k. Just getting all the people who have lost their jobs due to the recession back into the work force would be our 100k reduction.