Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Russell Brown,
Ahem. Canton Cafe.
Quite right Russell. Canton Cafe has great chinese food. But you'd have to describe the service as an experience. I love the food but I find I have to be in the right mood to enjoy eating there.
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Just a comment about Kingsland. There is an assumption that Kingsland restaurants are somehow deserving of patronage. In my experience restauarants live and die on their food and service. In Kingsland the food is average to bad. The Thai is decent but has bad nights. Little india is OK but can't claim to be cuisine. Bouchon is average on a good day but the service is aweful. Deve was always fine as a middle of the road cafe but it's replacement is not even that good and next door the tapas is simply aweful.
The highlights in Kingsland are excellent burgers and surprisingly The Neighbourhood bar which has good food. It isn't that far to Valley road and the excellent Serafin Tapas, very good food at Two-Fifteen and the decent pub food at the GPK replacement on the corner. Up in Mt Eden, Molten looked deservingly packed as did it's bar and the cafes while never spectacular seemed to be making their customers happy.
So maybe just maybe it isn't that Aucklanders are doing something strange by avoiding Kingsland, but rather that they are showing evidence of taste.
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Hard News: Dropping the Bomber, in reply to Danielle,
Key’s charisma factor
I would understand this reasoning if I thought Key had any charisma.
My current theory is that his face is remarkably symmetrical and hence trustworthy. I mean it can't be pheromones. And when he speaks it's hard to find any content (he is a politician after all) so what he says can't the the popular thing. So I'm going for his appearance ... there must be some fundamental feature about his face that speaks to the primate brain and says "trust this man"
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I think it's an interesting psychological experiment. We were told again and again how many people would swamp our bars and restaurants. It seems now (as a result of that message maybe?) that locals have decided to avoid all those places we were told would be crowded. And perhaps that same message has been communicated to the visitors as well.
I'm not sure how it could have been done better. Somehow the message that has been heard was "how will we cope with all these people" instead of "this is going to be so much fun lets all join in".
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Time to lose this Government of liars…
But the public likes being lied to, the polls prove that.
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Hard News: Thanks, Steve. For everything., in reply to Simon Grigg,
Jobs may have not invented the MP3 but he invented a way of dispersing them
And even then it wasn't a single thing. It took several iterations to get even close to being right (if it is even right yet). But in the background I'm not sure anyone other than Jobs could have bullied and persuaded the record companies to become part of it.
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Hard News: Thanks, Steve. For everything., in reply to David Hood,
As a personal expression, particularly to do with a product that went through a phase where the advertising was "Here's to the crazy ones", it may well seem a bit weird to you, but that's OK.
+1
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Hard News: Thanks, Steve. For everything., in reply to Stephen Judd,
there's a whiff of faint praise there.
More than a whiff and more than faint, I hope. Some artists need impresarios.
In a world where so many managers suppress talent, perhaps Jobs' most significant ability was to create an environment where those creative geniuses you named were able to perform. And actually willing to stay for many many years. Having worked for many management teams that have utterly failed to recognise and encourage talent I'm kind of shocked that people are willing to dismiss what Jobs was able to do.
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Hard News: Thanks, Steve. For everything., in reply to Paul Campbell,
I've been to a few funerals now. And talking about someones flaws is not forbidden but it has to be done with delicacy and care for those present who cared for and even loved him. I talked about my father's weaknesses but in context and with love. Had someone taken the opportunity to soapbox at my father's funeral I might not have dealt well with it.
Steve Jobs shaped much of my working life with products that I don't believe would have existed without his personal drive. Sure something would have existed, but somehow in Apple, Steve Jobs gathered and guided so many really talented people that the products from Apple have been special. So for me this week I'll honour Steve Jobs and his contribution and I'm sad to see him die.
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Hard News: Thanks, Steve. For everything., in reply to chris,
As I said I understand the issues and I believe they are important.
But on the day he died and in a thread intended to remember his contributions, it was out of place. Consider it the way you might consider the funeral of a member of your own family and then act appropriately. No-one imagines him to be perfect but we set aside those issues for a while and remember, and focus on, the good.
And as Sasha says even in a mere 56 years the quality of his contribution is amazing.