Posts by TracyMac
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
That's hardly entire story - the Police quite frequently turn a blind eye to laws they can't be bothered enforcing. There were a vanishingly-small number of prosecutions for sodomy before the Homosexual Law Reform bill, most of which were actually about sex in public places and child molestation.
No, this ridiculous amount of money and energy spent on cannabis control is essentially about easy news stories and a bunch of pumped-up guys who enjoy running around with guns and choppers (not so much the criminals).
Edit: oops, repeating same points made downthread. Oh, well, +1 from me.
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Field Theory: The Force will be with…, in reply to George Darroch,
I thought The Matrix (the first) was waaaay better than any of the SW movies. Interesting premise - omg, someone had actually read modern cyberpunk - interesting plot, and some attractive characters (ok, the poker-face on everyone got a bit old). I didn't think the other two movies lived up to the first one's promise - and eh, "messiah" plots bounce off me severely - but there were still some good moments and no bloody ewoks or dudes in gorilla suits.
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Meh, I can't see why you would find it so important to show kids the movie. No-one sat me down with Citizen Kane at a formative age and said "You must watch this!" I was interested enough to do so when I was an adult.
As for Star Wars, I was 10 when the first one came out, and we couldn't afford to see it at the movies. We didn't get a VHS until I was 16, and so I saw bits of it then. I'm afraid I wasn't impressed.
I actually watched the whole thing when I was in my 20s, and from the perspective as a fairly keen SF reader, thought the story was pretty pedestrian and most of the characters banal to annoying. I mean, I know my (younger) brother loved Chewbacca (he was the 12 year old glued to the VHS version), but how many times do you need to see someone in a gorilla suit going "GARARAGH"?
So yeah, of the right generation, but not every experience is universal when it comes to consuming media. I suppose in terms of kicking off SF movie blockbusters, it was pretty seminal, but we still seem to be stuck with an SF movie oeuvre consisting mainly of effects + bildungsroman + bad-guys-vs-good-guys-with-spaceships-plots, and I'm heartily tired of it.
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Hard News: Triangulated by Fools, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Eh, so how can we manage to produce a world-class rugby team, given the same population pool? Cricket is even more of a niche sport, so you would think the competition would be comparatively less stringent.
...I'm not sure why I'm commenting given my complete lack of give-a-f#ck factor about either sport. ;-)
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Thanks, Russell, for putting this online, and for curating such a wonderful group of co-bloggers. Of course I relate to Emma's, erm, provocations with much enjoyment, I loved Tze Ming's wit, found Dr Tibby's contributions were incredibly intelligent and thought-provoking, love geeking along with Keith, enjoy Jolisa's occasional postcards, and Hayden has even managed to make me read about sport once or twice and enjoy it.
Also, this too was my major link to my turangawaewae for a number of years (and will be again from next year). I keep meaning to get along to one of the semi-regular events, but the mild dash of social anxiety that rears its head has kept me away. I think I'm going to have to buckle up sometime - something involving whisky would definitely help. :-)
And so too with many of the commenters here - you make it a lively and thoughtful place. Cheers and kudos to all.
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All the more dubious in terms of potential harassment, since I know for a fact that the police typically carry out bailchecks during morning shift (i.e. from around 7am to 3pm, but especially after rush hour, since that's the quietest time of day). Unless they have cause to do otherwise.
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Too right with what George says about so many more people out there who won't/can out themselves as bi because they can get along ok (for how long, I wonder) with expressing one side of that binary. It really frigging is depressing. It was depressing 26 years ago when I came out - while I'm at (not exclusively) the dyke end of the spectrum, most of my partners have been bi or have had huge heterosexual experience - and to know attitudes from within our community haven't changed that much is just sad.
Is it an improvement that Katy Perry has given permission for (straight?) chicks to snog each other at parties? I think it is, to a limited degree, but the hell that that it's not just one or two drinks for inhibition-lowering, but "get snotted for plausible deniability".
As for those in the queer community who still treat bis like second-class citizens, it's embarrassing. And kind of about that syndrome - as George observes - where some individuals feel the need to oppress others to bolster their pathetic egos.
I went to the Lesbian (-only) Ball in Auckland a few times in the 80s, and ended up boycotting it, because taking my bi girlfriend ended up feeling like we were both propping up the attitude (not that we ever got "challenged" - I mean, she was somehow missing the scarlet bi-whore mark on her forehead).
The Lesbian Ball stopped being supposedly-exclusive after a while (and has rebranded itself recently as "La Balle"), but, meh, I'm really over events that label themselves as "Gay and Les" only. Screw that noise, it's not for me. And I'm appalled that people organising these events seemingly feel they can get away with it. Still.
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Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Richard Aston,
While I find the use of electronic voting machines entirely suspect in the US, this isn't exactly true.
Tagg Romney runs a venture capital company that mainly funds other venture capital companies (no direct investment in the primary companies). Some of those VC firms have invested in voting machine companies.
These layers really don't indicate any hands-on intervention in machine design or programming.
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OnPoint: #WTFMSD: "Damning", in reply to Keith Ng,
Yup, I'm still keen on wielding the good-old carefully-selected cc when necessary. People don't grump at you if you don't default to the scattershot approach.
As long as someone in your management chain or the organisation's Security group is included, you're covered. Especially in these days of email journalling and retention, which often means you don't need to keep it physically sitting in your inbox forever. (Although hanging onto that "problem" correspondence is never a bad idea.)
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A friend of mine works for Australian Customs, and by far their greatest information source for wrong-doing is disgruntled ex-partners or ex business associates.