Posts by SteveH
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
So what the hell is this?
Copy Australia day?
-
@Rich:
Basically, the whole of Yellowstone is a volcano. A volcano so big, you can only see the whole thing when you're in orbit. Apparently it's overdue for another blow.
Calling Yellowstone overdue is really just fear-mongering. It's based on three data points: the VEI 8 eruptions 2.1Ma, 1.3Ma and 640ka. And if you do the maths you'll find that those eruptions are, on average, 730,000 years apart. So, on average, it's not due for another 90,000 years. However trying to come to any prediction based on extrapolating three data points is the worst kind of statistics abuse. About all we can really say is that it'll probably produce another VEI 8 eruption within the next half million years or so. It could be tomorrow, or the human race might already be extinct when it happens.
@Lucy:
Most earthquakes are caused by the plates of the earth's crust sliding past each other, getting caught, and then releasing and shifting (a little simplistic, but essentially correct).
Earthquakes where two plates are sliding horizontally past each other are generally not that powerful (relatively). The really big quakes are called megathrust quakes and occur when one plate is subducting under another. Both this latest Chiliean quake and the quake that caused the Boxing Day tsunami are in this category. The bad news is that the North Island is atop just such a subduction zone.
-
Are those two videos supposed to be the same?
-
Oh - and re:regressivity of GST, try this:
* According to the IRD income distribution data (so income tax only) the top 10% earn 33.5% of income.
* According to the TWG's GST paper (which was supported by analysis from Treasury, which did GST impact analysis based on HES data), the top 10% of households paid 19% o f GST.I hope all those people who voted for National but aren't in the top 10% of income earners understand that.
-
The outrage that someone should dare to assume they have copyright over something they designed is quite bemusing, yes.
I think people have trouble with this because flags are perceived to represent some entity or ideal so it feels like someone is trying to assert copyright over what the flag stands for. Oz had their own version of the problem last month when Google had to modify their Australia Day logo because they were denied permission to use the Aboriginal flag in it (http://www.news.com.au/technology/google-erases-aboriginal-flag-from-australia-day-doodle-on-homepage/story-e6frfro0-1225823647182). What's interesting is that flag is an official flag of Australia and yet is still subject to copyright.
Of course, you can have a good debate about the appropriateness of *exerting* copyright in this instance, but...
Well it does seem a bit cynical to say "look, here's this flag I designed that I want you all to adopt" and then later turn around and say "wait on, it's copyrighted, you can't make a copy".
-
But there are some bits that need clarification for me -- will this thing tether to my iPhone? If so, I won't need the 3G version.
No one seems to know yet. I'm hopeful though.
If it tethers, will that include feeding GPS data?
I doubt it. I think that if you want to use this as a satnav (and it'd make a great one) you'll need the 3G version or some sort of GPS addon.
-
Apple may yet prove you can fool enough people enough of the time to turn a buck. But I doubt it.
I don't know if Apple will fool anyone but I think enough people will want this to make it successful. You're focusing on what's missing but it'll probably turn out that what it does do it does brilliantly and that'll be enough for many people. Plenty of pundits panned the iPod and the iPhone, basically missing the point, and I think that's happening again. I expect the industry will spend the next year playing catchup just like they did with the iPod and iPhone and they'll wonder why their apparently superior products don't do as well. I think Jerry Holkins probably has it right when he said:
It's got to be so annoying to compete with Apple, at anything really, because it's not like they're doing something fucking crazy. Everybody's had these ideas before. The difference, and this is grim if you are a competitor, but the difference is that everyone else spends a lot of time (and often, money) determining why those things aren't possible. And then it comes out, for real, only you didn't make it. Some other guys did. And when you come out with what is (on paper) a better version of the same thing, maybe even multiple times over, it's too late. You made a "product" to compete with their "product," tastefully arranging your regiment, only to discover that they hadn't made a product at all - they made a narrative. A statement about how technology should interface with a life.
I'm not saying this to be mean, or get my kicks, or to engage in psychic vampirism. Competing with these fucking people must be a genuinely harrowing state of affairs.
-
China is our neighbour rather than the United States.
China's about 9000km from NZ. The US is about 10,500km, if you don't count Hawaii which is much closer. Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines are between us and China while there are no major landmasses between us and the US. You have an interesting definition of what constitutes a neighbour.
-
Quite apart from the various forms of oppression they have perpretated on their own citizenry (genocide, slavery, institutional racism, the war on drugs), they have and are doing plenty to other people, including their allies.
I did say "recently" in an earlier post so you can take out genocide and slavery (and let's just point out that China's record is hardly clean on those fronts either). Institutional racism is a least as bad in China if not considerably worse.
And we are other people. So what's your point again?
The suggestion was that "I would rather bow to tha age old wisdom of China than the rabid rightiousness of America". The implication being that we'd be better treated as people by the Chinese government than by the US. My point is that is crap. Do I really need to remind you of Tiananmen square, Falun Gong, Tibet? As Amnesty International says in their 2009 report:
The Olympic Games in Beijing brought heightened repression throughout the country as authorities tightened control over human rights defenders, religious practitioners, ethnic minorities, lawyers and journalists. Following protests and unrest which began in March in Lhasa the government originally detained over 1,000 people. Hundreds remained in detention or were unaccounted for at year’s end. The authorities used a series of violent incidents alleged to be linked to terrorists to launch a sweeping crackdown on the Uighur population in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread. The authorities maintained tight control over the flow of information, with many internet websites blocked, and journalists and internet users harassed and imprisoned for the peaceful expression of opinions. The authorities made increased use of punitive forms of administrative detention, notably the Re-education through Labour system, to silence critics in the lead-up to the Olympic Games.
Does sound better than the US to you?
-
I don't want to accuse you of being a troll but that statement is covered in great dollops of wrong.
The Homeland Security act has the US tapping Citizens phones as we speak let alone <GASP> looking at their eMails. Many American Muslims find themselves on the wrong side of the American dream, or don't they count?Nicely taken out of context. The bit I replied to was this:
Yeah, my bad. I thought maybe invading peoples countries, locking people up in countries that don't adhere to the west's concept of basic human rights just to torture them, imposing their concept of "Democracy" (read corporate larceny) on countries trying to escape the fear of death squads run by tyrants in the pay of multinational greed heads?
If you're claiming any of that has been done by the US to their own citizens on any sort of organised scale than I think you're the one who should be supplying citations.
Once again, are you claiming that China has a better recent human rights record than the US? Because that is what it sounds like you are claiming and that is patently ridiculous. Want a citation? http://www.guardian.co.uk/Tables/4_col_tables/0,,258330,00.html
[edit: Sigh, that's 10 years out of date. Will you accept Amnesty International's 2009 report on China? http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/china/report-2009]Love the way they are going about health care reform. You can judge a society by the way it treats its vulnerable citizens.
Yet you still want to side with the Chinese?