Posts by Keith Ng

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  • Southerly: January 2008 Will be a Bad…,

    Oh David, now my obsession with death-rays seem practically philanthropic in comparison... (more humane, certainly)

    And who am I to argue? You're a scientist and an astrologer. You know this shit. I will await the dwarfs.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Summer of Shadbolt,

    And so it bloody shouldn't. *If* it were true, it would be the Labour party circumventing their spending cap by sponsoring unattributed propaganda. If any evidence of this emerged, I'd expect a prosecution.

    In keepleftnz's case, the writers were parliamentary staffers, but not acting in their capacity as parliamentary staffers. They certainly weren't directed by the powers that be to do it. And I think that it's unlikely that the Standard are being paid to do it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Summer of Shadbolt,

    Why were they published annonymously?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Summer of Shadbolt,

    I'm not sure the authors of the Federalist Papers would agree with you on that point.

    Please explain. 8-)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Summer of Shadbolt,

    ... my primary medium of "political expression" has been my membership in the New Zealand National Party.

    Yes, but identities of the officers of the political parties are public, and they are accountable for the actions of the parties. Similarly, we don't need to know who hammered the nails on the billboard, we just need to know who's taking responsibility for it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Summer of Shadbolt,

    While I'm at it, I/S - are you here?

    Go on, declare yourself, too. Can't argue for transparency behind the veil of a pseudonym.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Summer of Shadbolt,

    It has to be a physical address.

    I stand corrected.

    And just to be a little pedantic about your electoral roll analogy, you're quite right that everyone is required to register to vote. But not everyone's details are publicly available .

    The principle of transparency only extends to identity, not to personal details such as addresses. Now, addresses are used to verify identity, but it doesn't need to be the case. Perhaps the solution is to allow registered third parties to use PO boxes or to unlist their address?

    Keith - I take it you believe anonymous political blogs such as The Standard should be banned. I mean how can you advocate that Andy Moore has to put his name and home address on his $5 personal website which advocates against Labour as essential transparency, yet not apply the same standard to blogs?

    Do you really think transparency should depend on whether or not a website uses blog technology or not?

    Great point, David. So on one end of the spectrum, you have paid political advertising, on the other, you have personal political communications via the internet, and the question is where you draw the line.

    I can confirm Graeme's claim that keepleftnz included people in the PM's office and other parts of the Beehive. People I've spoken to deny that The Standard has any parliamentary links, but the point stands: if a partisan blog can be a means of electioneering, and we don't want secret electioneering, then a partisan blog has to be transparent, too.

    For us to know that The Standard is not run out of the PM's office, we need to know.

    I appreciate that shedding annonymity is a price; it's not much effort per se, but it's a real price. But it's not a new price. In the not-so-distant past, if you wanted to campaign, you have to literally stand up in front of the public and declare yourself.

    So, folks at The Standard: Declare yourselves.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • Speaker: Vint Cerf: TCP/IP and me,

    I caught myself moaning about Google Map's low resolution the other day, before realising how completely absurd it was. I was sitting in my living room, and I could receive satelite images of anywhere on the planet, on demand, on my laptop. From friggin' space.

    We're totally living in the sci-fi future already, with instant electronic access to what is practically the sum of human knowledge. W00T TCP/IP! W00T indeed.

    (I guess that means that human comprehension - and by extension, humans - are now the bottleneck in the system.)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Things I know,

    Hi- just quietly to the wannabe geek:) is it a viable option to put ubuntu on a memory stick, and boot and run the os from that?

    It works just like a normal installation, except that you install it onto the memory stick (or in my case, SD card). The biggest caveat is that memory sticks, or any kind of flash memory, has a limited number of writes before they die. That's fine for normal usage, but if you put a swap drive on it, then it'll die much sooner. So you have to put the swap drive on the harddisk, or do without one (which is fine).

    You'll get better mileage out of dual-booting, and it's not too hard...

    I did exactly that the other when experimenting to see how well Ubuntu ran on my daughter's new Asus eee.

    Stephen, you should try Eeexbuntu. It's Xubuntu, but all the jiggery and pokery has been pre-done. I'm writing this from my Eee, with Firefox on Xubuntu, right now.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Things I know,

    You mean yours hasn't yet?

    >apt-get update
    >apt-get install sentience

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 543 posts Report

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