Posts by Mikaere Curtis
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Kev was great. The first time I saw him was at an improv gig at the Bridgeway, and he had serious x-factor, and I wasn't surprised when he landed the lead in Desperate Remedies.
I was hoping to get to know him better because he was a friend of my wife's from back in her acting days in Christchurch, but I only met him the the once.
Russell, that was a great post back in 2002. I listened to the MP3 you linked heaps.
Wow, seven years !
-
And it's all being done here with significant scrutiny or debate
I believe that should be without.
It seems quite clear that McCully wants to build an empire (again !). He really is the worst of all worlds.
What strikes me about the Key government is the sheer lack of rigour in so many of their decisions. It's as if they think they can simply spin any unintended consequences.
-
I would like it to be a compulsory school subject from 5 years old for all children as it could be extremely useful in all sorts of circumstances for all of us.
I fully agree. It has been our third official language for almost three years now, and it would be a great language for our kids to learn. It would certainly make ordering drinks in a loud bar easier...
My wife is a NZSL interpreter, so I've spent a fair amount of time with Deaf people. It does seem to me that if we were to generalise the uptake of NZSL, one impact would be that Deaf culture be significantly transformed as Deaf would be able to more easily integrate into non-Deaf circles.
-
Ditto the "never do anything for Valentine's Day". Mainly because it's our wedding anniversary four days earlier.
Which would be today.
We kind of got carried away at the kid's school's fundraising auction last year and ended up with a voucher for the French Cafe...I think I'll be late in for work tommorrow...
-
At Foo Camp this Friday, I'm to perform the whaikorero on behalf of the manuhiri, in the whare at the college where it happens.
I don't intend to be one of those people who staggers through five minutes of bog Maori, so I'll express my respect in English. But I would like to greet in te reo, and know what I'm saying.
Anyone got a few good lines for a geek retreat? Mikaere?
Sure thing, glad to help. Where is Foo being held this year ?
It might be easier to take this offline. My email is mikaere[dot]curtis[at]gmail[dot]com.
-
I take your point, but most do involve some form of religious interaction and I object to this mightily.
I understand completely. There seems to be an unwritten rule that Maori = Christian, which I personally find incongruous with the pre-European origins of Maori cultural practices.
You've been to a lot of poorly run meetings, in that case. In the classic pakeha tradition, meetings have a chair, the chair calls the meeting to order, and the chair calls the meeting to an end when there is no further businesses. I am afraid this is a tradition in decline, but many groups would do well to revive it.
Oh yes, I've been to a lot of poorly run meetings.
Even a meeting with a competent Chair benefits from having a karakia to begin/end it. There's something ineffable about all the participants stopping their chatter, and standing in silence whilst the karakia is recited. It's like we all inhabit a common mental node-point or something, which somehow lubricates the meeting.
And ending karakia seems to add a shared sense of closure, which I don't detect when the Chair simply declares the meeting over.
Sure, and the purpose of grace is to instil a sense of gratitude and humility before eating. The objection is not to the purpose, but to the religious form. (Someone mentioned an atheist grace upthread, which I find bizarre, but whatever ...)
I agree with the gratitude and humility - it adds a sense of occasion to any auspicious meal.
On New Years' Day we put on a spit-roast feast at my parent's-in-laws place. My father-in-law is a Zen Buddhist, and the Buddhist contingent recited a very cool Zen Buddhist grace. While it wasn't strictly Atheist - it didn't mention Atua/God, but was definitely spiritual in nature - it did give thanks and regard to all sentient creatures. Very cool.
-
When I was learning Te Reo, I had a friendly disagreement with the tutor about the karakia at the beginning and end of the lesson, once I had learned enough to figure out what we were saying.
The purpose of karakia is to focus the group on the task at hand. It provides a boundary between the kaupapa of the hui and the everyone getting on with the rest of their activities.
The initial karakia focusses the group on the purpose of the hui, and the closing karakia enables the group to de-focus and get on with whatever. Having worked in both Pakeha and Maori work environments, I have found meetings that have karakia are significantly more effective because you don't have the arsing about and small talk that typically brackets a meeting. You know when it starts and when it ends.
The fact that most karakia are Christian is an artefact of colonisation, and there's no reason for a karakia to invoke a deity at all - in terms of it's purpose within the context of a hui.
I used to get a bit of stick at work for not participating in karakia or powhiri. My excuse was "it's not culturally appropriate for me to mouth religious or cultural views that I don't share" and I still stand by that.
Hmm, which aspect of "we welcome you visitors to our place" or "thanks for welcoming us" do you find culturally inappropriate ?
-
I find that ostentatiously listening to loud music through headphones is a good foil against most touts.
my friend Nicola, who was tasked with defending my virtue, beat back the pimps, touts and ladyboys with great success. "No" most certainly meant no.
Reminds of a time when I was in Patpong. Our hotel wasn't too far from Patpong and I wanted to get some cheap watches. My girlfriend didn't want to go out, so I was in Patpong on my own, sans chaperone.
The market is actually very pleasant, pity it's surrounded by sleazy burlesque bars, each with signs like "Girl with snake !". Eeew .
The door touts were quite aggressive, and politely declining wasn't effective, so I ended up telling them I was gay. It worked, probably helped by the fact that I was wearing a sarong.
I finished my shopping and grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. The driver pulled out some brothel brochures with pictures of scantily clad young Thai women, saying "You like ?"
"No thanks, I'm gay."
He put them away. But, while driving, he started pointing at me, laughing and saying "I like, I like." He pointed at himself, "You want ?"
He wanted to have sex with me. Aaargh ! The one weak point in my otherwise flawless plan !
"Um, no thanks."
"OK. OK. 100 Baht ?"
I'd thought I was worth more than that. Maybe it was the sarong...
-
Mikaere, for what it's worth, I've been a software developer for over 20 years too so I've got a rough idea about this sort of stuff thanks. The point is not whether it's "technically" doable or not but the COST involved would be horrendous.
Yes, the cost would be high. No argument.
But I see it as an investment in long-term benefits. Very long term, and benefits that are IMO currently immeasurable - in the same kind of way that the benefit of the personal computer was immeasurable as at the mid-70s.
We can't continue along the current economic path, it is simply non-sustainable. My proposal is about investing in evolving out economic system into one that is able to fully cost our economic activities.
It will not be cheap, but it will be worth it.
Personally, I'd love to live in a world where we don't have to campaign for justice, where it was a natural by-product of our economic system.
-
That's the Judiciary's fault, as much as anything.
I agree that the judiciary need to take a stronger line one this kind of behaviour. IIRC, some guy went to jail for a few months in 2007 for repeatedly destroying native bush in the Waitekeres, but that's quite uncommon.
In my proposed system, if such a developer would be charged in social and/or environmental $ for the infringement. Since they wouldn't be able to simply convert blue$ to green or red, they wouldn't be able to count on using the capital appreciation flowing from the vandalism to pay for an fines. They would need to earn that red/green money on the sale of the development, which basically puts one of the prices up and makes the deal more expensive.
You mean like replacing/re-writing/upgrading every single computer system in the country that deals with any sort of monetary transaction ?
That shouldn't cost much should it ?
I've been writing banking software since '98, and IMO it's not that big a deal. Sure, it's non trivial and probably expensive to implement, but you wouldn't need any technological breakthroughs, just a lot of coding. In effect, we would have three times as many bank accounts, and inter-system protocols would need to support three values rather than one transaction value.
Given how much effort went in to Y2K, I think it's a doable proposition.
Also, this would be a great opportunity for some government-sponsored FOSS projects that could provide tools to assist businesses to track and calculate the triple currency values.