Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Friday Music: Digging in New York, in reply to Matthew Goody,
I did need to escape in the end!
It would have been good to look longer at some of the non-record things there. I did notice that they'd come by someone's collection of very explicit vintage (pre-internet) swinger mags. People had a lot more hair in the old days ...
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Hard News: Friday Music: Digging in New York, in reply to Alan Perrott,
yeah man, bleeding thumbs (always the inside corner at the back of the right hand nail...ouch)
Middle finger, right hand in my case. The crazy thing was that I hadn't noticed, so I had quite a bit of blood caked into the record grime. I had to go to a bar and have a beer (never mind the IPAs, American wheat beer is great!) and clean up in their bathroom.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
Baby boomers planning on moving to a retirement property out of Auckland, for instance, are advantaged by Auckland prices being as high as possible.
This might be me in, say, seven years' time. But I'm happy to argue against my own interest in this case.
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Here’s the bigger version of that Prince review. Click to read.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Luke Williamson,
Oh and, BTW, what is the answer cos I’m not quite smart enough to work it out. Is it a combo of capital gains tax, intensification, more land made available? Or is there some other vital component required?
Given that various analyses of the problem are true to a greater or lesser degree, I think it would be a mix of measures, including the government building more houses.
But the first step is acknowledging that this is a really serious problem.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to BenWilson,
No. But you can cancel any that don’t, and that is a perfectly fair reason to do so.
Would that affect my rating as a rider?
And also: is there anyway I can choose my driver? You know, maybe I'm prepared to wait for that driver I like...
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to BenWilson,
Also, I don’t have to carry cash.
And you don't get anyone doing a runner on arrival. One driver told me he felt that was the best part, compared to his previous taxi work.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to BenWilson,
You got Surged! Topic for another post. It’s definitely not uncontroversial. Riders hate it. Drivers love it. But it’s pretty much a lottery. About 1/20th of my fares are comprised of extra surge charges. I don’t have the stats, but gut feeling is that the possibility of surge adds roughly 5% to the average fare. But the variance is huge!
Surge pricing is part of the package – you're warned about about it when you request a driver and it's your choice as a rider. From memory, I've only paid it once.
I've had two drivers I had to one-star. The first after it became clear that the reason he wanted to take me the long way to Newmarket was that he wasn't confident about the SH16 > Southern motorway transition. It got a bit hairy when I insisted he do it and he had to make the lane changes to come off at Gillies Ave.
The only other driver I've one-starred took too long to find me for a pick-up on Newton Road and then drove (on the motorway) with his phone/GPS in one hand. Ironically, he was in a badged taxi and had clearly launched the Uber app because he wasn't getting any fares. Sometimes I'll take a taxi home late at night because it's easier to just get in a waiting car than call one.
But in general, and especially for outbound journeys, Uber has been brilliant. Better cars, prompt pick-ups, no fuss on arrival. It's really not just about cost.
But I'm very uneasy about the lowering of driver standards.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Andre,
There has been a breakdown in trust that may take a generation to mend.
I think this might finally be starting to sink in, actually.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Jean Hughes,
I feel the same way, but I’m not clear on how to require that.
By the way, Geoff Cumming's 2014 Herald story on the taxi industry is a very informative background read. Surprising fact: taxi drivers who are company employees don't need a P licence. Weird.
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