Posts by Matthew Poole
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I presume informally, as we don't have horse police in NZ
This page strongly suggests that there is still a mounted division of the NZ Police, and there certainly used to be one. It wouldn't have been informal.
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Yeah right.
Prove it, then. Find me the law. It's right at your fingertips, so prove to me that they have special legal status. If it's not there, it's not true.
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When NZDF(et al) can't defend themselves against the extras from Last of the Summer Wine.
NZDF really have to take stock.huh? Waihopai ain't an NZDF installation. GCSB isn't a military adjunct. Did the guard then alert the authorities? If not, I hope they're being subject to "retraining".
Being a civilian installation, the guards don't have statutory powers of arrest. They don't carry weapons. All they can do if they catch trespassers is put them under citizen's arrest for trespass and wait for the Police. This is not the United States or United Kingdom, and there is no special legal status for these properties. -
Sacha, that's not exactly fair. Granny's been happily publishing criticism of the Megatropolis concept and process right from the beginning, and if you look back to December it appears that just how unaccountable the CCOs have ended up being has turned out to be rather unexpected. ATA has outdone itself in failing to do what the unwashed masses thought it ought.
In the middle of February we started getting articles, not just opinion pieces, about how the CCOs will lock Aucklanders out of a say on the operation of much of the city's asset base. -
earthquake prediction is on a par with weather-forecasting Hilary.
The tech gets better but the variables are huge and reliability of when/where/how great forecasts are a distant dream.Especially when you start forecasting weeks or months, or even years, in advance. Forecasting tomorrow's weather is getting pretty accurate, and the day-after-tomorrow is normally not too far off either. But next week, never mind six months from now?
The biggest problem with massive complex systems like weather and tectonic motion is that chaos theory will strike. The smaller the area under observation, the less scope there is for random, unpredictable events to manifest. But when you're talking about massive chunks of rock that measure thousands of kilometres by thousands of kilometres, and stresses that build up over decades or centuries, the room for that single wild card to throw itself into the mix becomes absolutely enormous. -
For a start, most of the customers complaining about us on Twitter/Facebook/blogs would be the ones we already put the most time into.
Are you sure about that? I'm a pretty easy customer to please, I just expect "you" to provide the goods/services for which I am paying, as described by "you", in a timely fashion.
I will bitch about you on FB when you are unable to deliver me a coffee until I ask for the third time (and then it's horribly burned), and your counter staff argue with another member of my table when he wants a refund because his coffee still hasn't arrived after 45 minutes and two promptings and now he needs to leave. Hi, Library Cafe, Onehunga.
On the other hand, I will lavish praise on you on FB if you do something extraordinary without even being asked, such as booking out your whole restaurant at no charge and with no minimum spend, creating personalised-to-the-occasion menus, and giving the happy couple a special dessert on the house, as happened to recently-married friends of mine. Ups to the restaurant at Hotel Grand Chancellor, and I have to say that that was quite possibly the best customer service I've encountered in years. Quite a contrast from Rice, the bride's first choice, which would only seat a maximum of 37 people and wanted a minimum spend of $4500. That's a whole hell of a lot of booze!
My experience is that most kiwis are like me. They'll tolerate far shittier service than is actually warranted, and not complain about it at the time, but then they'll let rip to their friends. Nine people told about every bad experience, against one person told about every good one, as they say. At least Web 2.0 balances it out, by giving the same audience for both positive and negative feedback.
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New Zealand is hardly likely to suffer a water shortage, being both pluvial and Plinian.
If the water is contaminated with ash and acid rain, its plenty is somewhat moot.
Auckland actually does have this somewhat covered, with many of the named mountains having been excavated and turned into gravity-feed water tanks that get filled during the night. They can have their inlets sealed, and then be drained into water tankers for distribution. Not sure what other centres have in mind for water supply in the event of massive disruption, though. -
I've just been told I need a Seismic Strap...
Is that for your house or your bedroom? ;)
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The other thing to remember is that "three days" is a minimum all over the world, including countries that have land borders and can expect heavy rescue teams to begin arriving within hours.
By contrast, New Zealand has precisely three urban search and rescue task forces, equipped and trained only to the medium rescue level (that is they can deal with houses, maybe mid-rise office buildings, but nothing to the scale of much of the CBDs of Auckland or Wellington), and based in Auckland (TF3), Palmy (TF1), and Christchurch (TF2). If the big one hits Auckland, TF3 will likely be out of business. AIAL will probably also be out of business. That leaves us with two teams, formed on a basis that they can deal with a single collapsed structure in 72 hours, hundreds of kms from the scene and in need of road transit, and a whole hell of a lot of ocean in the way of other help.
Also, if AIAL is closed, there're only two other air fields that can take a full 747: Christchurch, and Ohakea. Both of which are rather a long way away from Auckland, and in Christchurch's case separated by more water from Wellington and Auckland. Ohakea doesn't have customs or offload facilities for heavy commercial transport, which is also a significant complication.Short version: three days is optimistic to the point of stupidity. Five is more realistic, and if you can go all the way to seven then you kinda understand what's likely to befall you.
Disclosure: I'm planning to live off nice thoughts and good wishes in the event of a major disaster. We have about enough food in the house for three days of eating lightly, and a full hot water cylinder and toilet cistern, but no cooking sources. Do have torches galore, with batteries, and a portable radio.
PS: Those cistern block thingees you buy for your toilet are a really bad idea. That's 9-11 litres of water that you can't drink in an emergency.
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On a totally unrelated note, but figuring that PAS is as good a place as any to ask, does anyone out there have a handle on bodies that will give out large (six-figure, preferably in the 200-500k range) grants to Auckland-based community theatre groups? I've got Lotteries, ASB Trust, and Sky City. Have also delved into Lions and the local Community Board. Am I missing any obvious candidates? I'm trying to demonstrate the futility of expecting to fund $600-800,000 from donations and grants.