Posts by Peter Ashby
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Of course, and committed quite rigidly to the ideas he believes are right, not equivocating like the rest of us. I'm quite fascinated by how short the leap is for some from a Marxist worldview to the far end of the ideological scale.
The link you are looking for is rigidly comitted. It is iow all about cleaving to an ideology. The further out you go in the political spectrum the more dogmatic the ideology gets and the more you are expected to prove your cojones by cleaving to it.
Yoof get attracted to the apparent certainties of Marxism (and it appals their parents to boot). Disillusionment with it results in a journey through the wishy-washy, compromising, talk to the opponents central grounds. The traveller gropes around for the old certainties and finds them on the far right where they show the zeal of the convert anxious that their past be put firmly to bed so they become the most shrill of all.
The centre is populated by those who see the world in shades of grey and that nobody has all the answers. The fringes by those who wish to see the world in a starker contrast and for whom compromise is perhaps the dirtiest word of all.
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But if you want evidence that the UK is a police state, consider this story - they've confiscated 7000 safety deposit boxes and expect people to prove they've obtained the contents legally before giving them back. "Prove your innocence, citizen" or what? Or this one - police have arrested 183 children over their postings on Bebo.
Nope. Firstly there has for some time been a law allowing the seizure of assets derived from the proceeds of crime. NZ has just such a law and uses it. Or perhaps you think that sticking your ill gotten gains in a dodgy safe deposit box should be allowed? Watch old episodes of The Sweeney where they get a warrant to search a box. If you read the piece you will note that the police had to get a warrant for this, iow there was judicial oversight meaning if I am caught up it gives me a legal in for a challenge. Recourse to the law is not a police state.
Secondly, the 183 were not arrested. Read the bloody article, or is misrepresenting the facts your aim? they arrested 70, they *interviewed* 183, in their homes, in the presence of their parents. Quite a different picture from 183 kids in interview rooms down the knick doesn't it? Again what is your basis for the misrepresentation? Once incompetence can be forgiven but twice, no dice.
Note I am not saying that there are not worrying developments here in the UK, though more down south than up here where for eg you get your dna profile removed if found not guilty or not charged. Not so down south of the border. But detail like that also weakens your case doesn't it? facts eh, bloody inconvenient for a good polemic.
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While people are searching the New Scientist archive for material, last week's (24 May) had an article titled 'Science Rules OK!' that had the information of a study done in UK prisons on random drug testing. Positive tests for opiates (heroin) or tranquilisers went up from 4.1 to 7.4% after testing. Because they clear the body faster than cannabis so the prisoners were switching drugs.
It was reported in the BMJ, vol 312, p 1411.
The NS article is at:
<http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19826571.900-science-rules-ok-running-societies-the-rational-way.html>Though login is required for the full fat. General message of the article is do proper case controlled studies and don't ignore them if your favourite policy (sexual abstinence, drug testing) is shown not to work.
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Yup, we have a mountain gum in Eastern Dundee, on the hill above the beach. It's as tall as the lamposts now. I can't claim credit for putting it in, but I did stake it hard to stop it pushing over the front wall and I prune it too.
Doesn't look too out of place with the 3 Phormium tenax next to it.
One of the big paper gums or bluegums wouldn't grow here, but there are gums high up in the Blue Mountains where it snows. This is one of those.
Also the climate is not that dissimilar to Dunedin. More cold Easterlies perhaps, but as much snow and frost.
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As for how to roll out such a system, the cable cos here in the UK run their fibre along the footpaths, so two lengths per street, but no street closures. It sits in the street under little cast iron cover until I ring them up and request an installation whereon a man comes and puts the fibre from the street to my house. Cost me iirc 50quid and that included all the house wiring (we had a box put in upstairs) and the phone line. He was amenable to taking it around the front garden instead of across it too. To save time and be nice I allowed him to coil the cable for next door under the gum tree. Saves the next chap if next door ever want it.
They have Sky but.
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Back in the old days of NZR when they electrified the NI main trunk (1980 to 88) they put in a fibre optic pipe all along beside the line while they were doing it. The signals run off it for one thing but was the first fibre backbone in NZ.
IIRC the universities' network ran on it too.
Is that old enough, in the NZ context, for you?
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Jeez you people are too conditioned by the borked marketplace you inhabit. Here in the UK the deal is UNLIMITED broadband, if that is not your offer you are not in the fixed line marketplace but a subset of the mobile one. Sure we get 'traffic shaped' if we restrict others on our nodes with very high bandwidth and if you complain often enough they 'allow' you to upgrade your package and this funds a faster link in the local cabinet so everyone wins.
Since we got broadband (cable) our speed has doubled three times for no extra charge. Offering unlimited broadband would be a killer marketing advantage so I am stumped as to why nobody is offering it to you. From over here in the UK it all looks very, very, very primitive and one of the expected big downsides when we finally come home.
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Speaking of Bridges and Pork, there is the Skye Bridge here in Scotland. Built by a Westminster govt and it used to cost a fiver to cross, and it put the ferry at Kyle Rhea out of business.
Enter the Scottish Parliament and what did it do? it bought out the private pork company that built and operated it, and now it's free. No tolls on the Forth or Tay road bridges either, though that was precipitated by the removals of them from the Erskine bridge in Glasgow.
It seems that Scots thought a fiver to cross to Skye was grossly unfair (it was 80p elsewhere), but it was unfair for Weegie commuters to cross the Clyde for free while those on the East coast had to pay. Tricky thing pork.
Funny things: the Forth had just finished installing wizz bang fancy automatic toll booths like what the Frogs and Jerries have on the Autobahns etc. They had to tear it all out and showed their pique by dragging the process out and inconveniencing commuters no end.
Here in Dundee the workers who built the Tay Road Bridge got the pork of work in perpetuity on the toll booths. Annoying thing was they made it hereditary so it became a closed shop. So when they faced redundancy or redeployment to maintenance, outside when the Easterly wind off the Steppes is blowing freezing rain in your face, nobody gave them a bit of sympathy. Ah pork.
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There is also the small matter of the history of cable in the UK. If it wasn't for the leveraged takeover it would be a dead duck with the companies bankrupt. Before the Virgin branded merger Telewest were just about doing it but NTL was in trouble. They are primarily pushing multichannel TV in competition with Sky and aren't anywhere near universal.
So unless the new fibre is going to carry far more than just broadband, which makes looping it rather than a star config look dodgy. Then no commercial operator will want it. BTW what's up with running it along the sewers?
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Jeremy Eade: "What goes up must come down. Watch that coffee and make sure you sleep."
Well said that man. Maybe it was my education in physiology coupled with being a distance runner but drugs never really appealed. There are too many people who think there is such a thing as a free lunch with such things. It is a no brainer. If you use Ecstasy which uses up large amounts of your serotonin then there will be a big comedown while your poor brain frantically makes some more.
If you take speed or coke to keep going then inevitably you will have to make up for BOTH the lack of sleep and energy you used.
I'm not saying don't do it, just be aware that everything has a cost and the piper has to be paid. It seems easy when you are young, but you won't be young forever.
As for caffeine I can drink 6 cups a day including one before bedtime and fall asleep just fine. But that group is because I am an addict and have become habituated. I don't sleep quite as well though and I am lucky. My wife can't drink it after about 2pm and expect to get to sleep at 11. So I am a caffeine freak and she is not.
However when I'm running a lot my tastes change and I move more towards tea (black, Russian, with lemon). Go figure.