Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
The idea's been around for ages. I can see why it hasn't taken off here. I, for instance don't live within cooee of anyone else with a wireless router. If I wanted to be part of such a network, I couldn't. I'd be starting it up. Which means I need to be the guy on the fringe with the connection to a Telco. Which means I might as well keep all the bandwidth to myself, since I'm paying for it ...
The administrative and set-up costs for this kind of thing should theoretically fall within the scope of the government's Broadband Challenge malarkey.
You're not talking about you, as Joe user, buying a big, fat pipe and hoping everyone else plays nice -- it'd be a co-op. If wireless access points are $150 each, you can buy 1000 of them with your government funding and give the buggers away to anyone who'll have on their roof. That'd do the Chev.
The attraction for the telcos is in only having to deliver to a single point of entry for the network. In Europe, they compete quite strongly to deliver service.
I can see advantages in having local data local too: a local cache for internet content from TVNZ/TV3/RNZ/etc would be pretty cool. And ping times for neighbourhood gaming would rock ...
-
Don't hold your breath over the John Cale concert - I was sorely disappointed in his 2002 concert at London's Festival Hall.
The reviews have been great this year -- see here.
-
but the youtube links (& I think google video) are identified when you post a simple youtube url on public address and it then gets interpreted correctly...
Yep. The guys were keen to keep real HTML out of the forums, so if you want to embed a YouTube or Google Video clip, just paste in the URL (__not__ the embed code from YouTube) and it will happen automagically.
But you need a YouTube URL with the "www" included for it to work.
-
My thinking is that if the police have anything concrete, they have way over-extended their case. I can just imagine them having reached the conclusion "ZOMG! Teh TERROR!" and then wilfully misinterpreting everything else they learn in the light of that belief.
And as I/S pointed out last week, the firearms charges seem to amount to holding someone else's gun. If Bailey and others attended "training" camps where guns and molotovs were being handled it would seem to reflect poorly on their claims to peaceability, but it hardly makes them terrorists.
It still seems the police have alarming evidence relating to some of those arrested, but, if so, that group's looking quite small. As I said yesterday, it only take one nutter (and Lockett seems plenty crazy), but the police might just have shot themselves in the foot with the conduct of their operation.
-
Bomber has some comment this morning:
Which is why the cops had better have this in the bag, so low is their credibility that anything short of a smoking gun in terms of evidence is going to be enough to restore public confidence in their actions. NZers have a default mechanism that automatically sets to the person getting pushed around, we don’t like it and it gets us defensive, which is exactly what Hone Harawira is articulating.
Note however he doesn’t try and defend or negate the charges against those being held, which has become the tone of choice once people hear what the Police allege they have as evidence
In other news Jamie Lockett has been bashed in prison (after talking with a cell mate of his who got out a couple of days ago, Jamie was apparently in full ‘revolution’ mode inside and wouldn’t stop talking about it), and the inability of the Police to keep one of those charged inside suggests they don’t have the evidence to keep him after he was released on bail.
There seem to be two groups of those arrested, those who were just radical and went to the camps, and those who plotted plans.
More sparks are expected as the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill is debated in Parliament this afternoon.
-
So just like Will Smiths "Men in Black" the intel about aliens from the Enquirer, our cops are getting theirs Terrorism intel from uncensored.
Nah, that's not really relevant. And I shouldn't inflict my own feelings about Uncensored (whose creator, Jonathan Eisen, I have regarded as basically despicable since his role in the sad story of Liam Williams-Holloway) on Bailey, who does seem like a gentle soul. The judge clearly didn't regard him as a risk either. But it does look like he made some poor choices.
-
PC notes that Bailey was involved in producing the conspiracist Uncensored magazine. Which certainly doesn't make him a terrorist (because then Mikey Havoc would be a terrorist), but it does speak of a certain lack of taste.
OTOH, there's your Steve Crow connection. Run with it!
-
One of the Wellington arrestees has just been released, and on hearing their name (still suppressed) I'm extremely surprised. This person is one of the nicest and most peaceful people I know. I'm not just saying that - I'm sure most people who've met them would say the same.
Personal anecdotes don't make someone innocent, but my level of incredulity towards all of this has just rocketed.We certainly seem to be coming down to a choice between justifiable concern and police cock-up. From Radio NZ news:
One of the men facing charges after last week's nationwide police raids has been released on bail.
Rongomai Bailey, 28, is facing four charges under the Arms Act, including possession of a rifle and molotov cocktails.He is also alleged to have attended three so-called military-style training camps in the Ureweras.
The judge released him on bail on condition that he not go within 30 kilometres of Ruatoki or possess any firearms or explosives, adding that there was still a chance Mr Bailey might face charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act.
Mr Bailey had been granted interim name suppression but it lapsed at a hearing on Tuesday in Auckland District Court where his lawyer was arguing for his release on bail.
A handful of people were in court to support Mr Bailey, including his sister and girlfriend.
-
But too many things in the pilot were brought in abruptly. Matt's going through a divorce? Nathan's alive but not the Senator? George Takei is dead.
It settles down after that opening bit of frantic scene-setting.
-
-- Any number of feeds of whitebait, fresh out of the river and fried with a little egg, when I was a kid in Greymouth. It is quite possible I will never taste anything like that again in my life. (I told Anthony Bourdain that the whitebait his friends had smuggled to Sydney for him wasn't really fresh enough enough to be the real thing, and he gave me a dirty look.)
-- Burgers from the White Lady and Al & Pete's, back in the old days.
-- A fish curry at a hawker centre in Singapore in 1989, fetched up for me by an old bloke, who I chatted to while I ate it. It was day one of five years' OE. Breakfast had actually been my first meal on foreign soil, but this one felt like it. And it was delicious.
-- Dinner at the Curry Club in London, with its plain decor and formica tables, and my friends. Mmmm ... green chilli bajis. (Also, various meals at the Golden Curry in Clapham North. Everyone has their favourite London curry house, and this was ours. They even sent us Christmas cards!)
-- Two Christmas lunches in London, cooked by Sue and Janis, later of Cafe Astoria fame. Christmas far from home is always better, especially when dessert is psychoactive.
-- Any number of tables groaning with dishes for parties at our house. I don't have Che's finesse, but I do know how to make a whole lot of food appear at once and have people like it. I find preparing big feasts quite meditative.
-- A lunch at Prego with Finlay Macdonald that went on for about five hours. I had the whole snapper, we talked about every bloody thing under the sun, including our dead Dads, and we both sincerely appreciated the fact that the Schlumberger pinot gris was on special.
-- Dinner at Kai in the City with the other Webstock speakers last year. It was the first time I had muttonbird (like lamb with anchovies) and the first time most of those present had encountered Maori food and culture. It felt good.
-- Lunch with the young staff of Augen Vietnam on my visit there this year. It was just the staff canteen, but it was a banquet, the kids were alright, and I was so happy to be there.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 2044 2045 2046 2047 2048 … 2279 Older→ First