Posts by Bart Janssen
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Sacha,
So if New Zealand is to have one world class university it can only be the University of Auckland on current ratings.
A "University of New Zealand" has been suggested several times. With campuses at various sites. The idea is that it would foster collaboration rather than competition.
The reverse experience of splitting the DSIR&MAF into 10 CRIs (now 8) suggests that competition between universities is not a good thing and a merger to form the UoNZ might be productive.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
I think you need SONAR to deal with U-Boats, not RADAR.
Not entirely, U-boats spent most of their time on the surface but because of their low profile, radar, particularly at the time, would have struggled.
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Hard News: Disrupting the Television, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
I agree that the attitude that everything is–or should be–free, poses a real threat to creatives
And yet it's actually quite hard to figure out how best to get your money to the actual creatives. My solution of buying the blu-rays may be wrong. I know buying CDs isn't the best possible thing for musicians but it's better than some other options. The few times I have gone to a concert I have bought the CDs at the show because I figure that has to get more money to them, doesn't it?
But music is easy compared to TV programs. Do Russell and team have DVDs for sale at the filming of Media7? Not last time I went but maybe they're thinking about it now :).
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Hard News: Disrupting the Television, in reply to Russell Brown,
And I feel no guilt at all about grabbing documentaries that won’t screen here for years, if ever.
Good call.
And I'm not trying to be holier than thou about my attitude. It's just I can afford to pay and since I don't really understand how writers/directors/etc all get paid for TV programs I figure I should contribute. Heck I don't even know if that's the right thing to do, maybe breaking the system is the right thing because it might lead to money going to the actual creative artists and not the business that exploits them.
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I have an odd problem in that I won't pirate TV programs. There are things I will pirate especially as for books when local distributers appear to be the ones restricting sale to NZ. Note I try very hard to pay the author but sometimes it's very difficult.
But for TV programs especially good ones the problem I have is who will pay to get them made? At the moment I'm just not sure I know. I worry that if everyone pirates TV content, nobody will be able to pay to have good content made.
So I buy the Blu-ray. And when my friends offer me a burned copy of GoT I say no - is that stupid?
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Hard News: Disrupting the Television, in reply to Deborah,
until we can buy them on DVD
Snap. Also I love the resolution of Blu-ray so I'd much rather wait for the Blu-Ray and watch in high def with no ad breaks - except if we need more wine.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Russell Brown,
Anyway, it’s a great read:
The Oatmeal on Tesla.
Wonderful!
Particularly liked "douchebuffalo"
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to BenWilson,
“How good is it? Is it really worth the cost?”
Both I and Lucy have answered that to the best of our ability. You dismiss our examples as pointless anecdotes and then are offended when I object to you dismissing the examples. What I have described is my personal experience and my understanding of the history of science. I honestly can't do more than that Ben.
You can’t even measure when you’ve got it, nor what it was worth.
Yes we can and by we I mean my fellow scientists. Obviously I can't provide a measure that satisfies you but it should have some effect on you that within the science community not only do we honour and reward those brilliant people when we recognise them. We also express profound regret when it becomes apparent we have failed to recognise their brilliance in their lifetime.
The science community don't have an SI unit for brilliance but that does not mean we don't recognise it and value it. You might stop and ask yourself why we would do that if it had no value.
More likely, you’d be one of the people writing something back to her from the journal saying her ideas are too whack to publish, because you don’t get them, being a self-confessed B grade.
I know you're just trying to be insulting here but I'll treat this seriously because it is very serious. One of the hardest parts about attracting and keeping world class talent is our funding system. You are quite right in that it is very hard to review a brilliant proposal. Sometimes it is beyond your understanding. But even average talents can provide useful reviews if they are aware of their limitations. But we actually don't need to rely on folks like me because we can call on international reviewers to help us decide - and we do - for The Marsden grants.
The real problem comes when you abandon the resource of the international reviewer community. At that point you end up with accountants deciding which grants should get funded and their record of identifying and supporting brilliance is not good.
But ultimately it is the overall lack of funding that is crippling. But we don't have funding because people argue incessantly that we don't actually need talent so the fact that we can't keep talent is of no great import. That is why I'm grumpy about your position Ben, you argue that mediocrity is enough for NZ, you argue that the brilliant don't offer enough to make it worthwhile chasing after them or don't offer enough in a currency that you find acceptable to measure.
If you were right the NZ science scene would be performing at international level. There aren't many in NZ who would argue that to be true.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours?, in reply to John Armstrong,
Maybe you’re astigmatic!
Nah just old.
Been short sighted since I was ... well, found out I was short sighted at age 11.
Developed long sightedness over the last 3 or four years, simple age related lack of ability to pull the lens into the shape need to focus on close things.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to John Armstrong,
quantification of ability
This is the bit that is causing difficulty. I, and I believe Lucy as well, am saying that there is more than just a quantitative difference at the top end, it's a qualitative difference in ability. In my experience those people can never be replaced by any number of good people.
My problem with funding students the way we do now is that those qualitatively different people will choose to avoid science. We don't have person A to give funding to because they have chosen a profession that will pay their loan back faster.
Ben is arguing (I think) that there is no qualitative difference and that the quantitative difference is insignificant. We don't need the best and brightest we can make do with more of the good ones.