Posts by Moz
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Had an amusing discussion with City of Sydney staff at the opening of the construction site for the new library about bike parking. The train station opposite is privately run and initially had zero bike parking. Fortunately they have lots of poles and suspension wires and all the other knick-knacks that are popular with architects. So there was a period of tension, where they would issue "tickets" to "illegally" parked bicycles, people would challenge them and discover that they didn't have the power to issue them or enforce them, and so it went. Then suddenly a set of bike racks appeared and the "bicycles must not be parked in this area" sign vanished.
The new library has been approved by the council's bicycle mafia because it has decent parking and some end of trip provision. The main thing the underground library lacks is a link to the underground walkway to the adjacent station. Apparently no-one ever thought things might be built around the station so no provision has been made to allow it. Instead people walk up stairs out of the library, along 20m, then down stairs to walk under a busy road into the station. It is very silly.
But NSW has similar reasons for that as Auckland does... right wing government building roads, left wing council trying to make the city liveable.
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Hard News: With regard to place, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
rejection of my bid to join a local social cycling group because I have an ebike ... "when Dylan went electric (s"
I love that line, it's in one of my favourite Urthboy tracks: (decent audio player suggested)
ebikes on social rides shouldn't be an issue I would have thought. Even some of the competitive kids are riding them these days, not least so the less fit ones can keep up.
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That all looks awesome.
I fear the chicanes are there to stop load bikes and people with trailers. They look inconvenient, but with my quad bike they'd be just about impossible. Quad and trailer is expressly designed to let me sit a 2.4x1.2m sheet of plywood on top of it, so it you can't readily get something like that through a barrier it's going to mean I have to stop, unload, portage everything across, then reload and continue. This is not, IMO, unreasonable - part of the joy of decent bike paths is that it lets you load up your bike trailer or loadbike with a book shelf, chest of drawers or whatever rather than being forced to use a powered mobility aid.
Or I can add a few unnoticed kilos of battery powered grinder to the load. Amusingly one such obstacle nearby was the subject of ongoing complaints for some years until someone cut half of it away, but left a ~5cm high stump. Within a week council had come round, cleaned up the stump and removed the rest of the barrier. Now there's a nice metre-wide gap next to the motorist gate on the bike path. Almost as though that's what they meant to do all along :)
I should update this page, or turn it onto a blog: http://moz.geek.nz/mozbike/ride/carry/index.html Just about every trip to the local hardware shop would give me an excuse to post a new photo...
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Access: The Family Carers case – here we…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
"non compliant service arrangements"
Surely that's barse-ackwards, being that those are some of the few who meet the legal... ah, and there's a little problem for the miserly, indeed. Say no more, squire, there's nothing to interest the likes of us.
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Hard News: Blockchain, what is it?, in reply to Moz,
This just reinforces my earlier dismissal of the "contracts" in Etherium as taking us back to the days before formal legal systems, when might was right and if you didn't like it you had best be the one with the might:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14691212
Write your contract in a programming language with known bugs, including "while it's true that 2+2 usually equals 4, we sometime rewrite one or both of the 2's as other values so the answer might not always be 4. The contract that results is still binding on you, but may not be binding on us".
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to ,
I'm not in a position to vote my feelings on anyone, never have been. Two main reasons: I'm quite misanthropic and judgemental, so the overwhelming majority of people seem like arseholes to me. Secondly, I grew up knowing politicians and political people. I've hung out with people from Bill Rowling to David Farrar (and, to my credit, killed none of them). Even Mike Ward irritates me, despite liking him in general and agreeing with his politics 99% of the time. But hanging out with them doesn't make me think "wow, these people are moral paragons full of good ideas and wisdom", on the contrary it generally fills me with rage and a desire to either run away or punch them.
So voting my feelings about politicians would result in another ballot with "I hope you all die in a fire" written on it. That's not the best outcome, and not even the "least worst" outcome.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Sacha,
I have heard allegations she was receiving undeclared income from a rental property.
That phrasing is marvellous!
The easy implication is that she owned a rental property and wasn't declaring it or the income. In reality she likely had a housemate and didn't declare their rent payments.
But hearing that it feels as though she's a fat cat... especially now when we know that most MPs own rental properties. We're not thinking "20 years ago she was a poor solo mother" we're being encouraged to feel "she's a rich MP on the telly, and she screwed us". Because people vote their feelings, not their carefully considered, soundly researched logical conclusions.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Sacha,
"I never lied to them as such"
Charitably that could mean that she lied about being available for full-time work while on the unemployment benefit and studying (or some similar stupid requirement).
I am guessing she's trying to exclude lying by omission, suggesting she failed to report income or a relationship and considers that lying by omission despite the requirement that claimants affirmatively state the lack of income on a regular basis.
But the cynical part of me takes it to mean that every statement she made included truthful elements, like "I, Paula Bennett {this bit is true} have no income to declare {this is the "as such" part}".
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to ,
Now, seen as how this is the Winz confessional blog
It is?
Forgive me Russell for I have sinned, I took money from the guvmint what I was not s'posed to... Although I don't actually recall doing that, but I'm sure I did. I was more inclined to trespass against corporations that trespassed against me than go through the bureacrazy to get money that I didn't actually need (lucky to be me, I know). I was on the dole for a bit, but my supervisory official was a woman I went to university with and she just looked at me and said "we don't have the sort of job you should be looking for, so I'm not imposing a job search requirement. Now take your dole and go away". As you might guess, that was about 1990.
I fear Pullya Benefit would demand "three paean to RogerDouglas and kick a homeless person" for absolution, where Russell might be more inclined to "donate that sum to charity".
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Katharine Moody,
she was never deliberately in a position to lie to WINZ.
In other words, when she was in a position to lie to WINZ she got there by accident.
She is very carefully not denying that she lied to WINZ.