Posts by Mark Thomas

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  • Hard News: Getting out of the archives,

    Economic geography, globalisation and New Zealand’s productivity paradox, a 69-slide presentation (PDF) by Phillip McCann, Professor of Economic Geography University of Groningen, The Netherlands and Professor of Economics University of Waikato.

    Is there a copy of the actual paper online?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Speaker: The Freeviewer Diaries (1),

    Mark - are you just getting "current and next" programming (which is always in-band) or week at a time programming? (which I believe in NZ Freeview uses a non-standard format that Windows may not know about)

    I am just getting "current and next". That is, my guide only updates the TVNZ programmes when I'm watching a TVNZ channel, and TV3 for TV3, etc. And when it updates, it updates about a day in advance.

    Media centre didn't seem to be able to set up the week in advance thing (it asked for my country and postcode when I first installed Windows 7). The icon in the notification tray shows that it is trying to find the updates though. There are geeks on geekzone.co.nz who do geeky things to make it work, but I haven't been bothered to try.

    This also means when I want to set media centre to record programmes more than a day in advance, I have to set the time, date and channel. But that's no biggie.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Speaker: The Freeviewer Diaries (1),

    As an aside, I've been using Windows 7 RC on a PC for the past few months, and the bundled media centre works very well with Freeview. My only complaints are that the programme guide only updates when you are watching that particular channel, and the recorded HDTV programmes quickly fill up the hard drive (file sizes of up to 6GB per hour). There doesn't seem to be an easy way to compress the video files (h264 within a *.wtv container file).

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Field Theory: No draught in here,

    Argh. I should not have read this at work. Thirsty

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Hard News: Friday Ideas,

    Russell, if you're looking for more photographic contributions, the http://www.flickr.com/groups/nzflickr/ group is very active and generally quite helpful.

    Why have I being ignoring wired.com?

    The magazine is good too.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Hard News: Home, straight,

    I just don't get that TAC Drug Driving one, the guy's not even driving or are they suggesting the other driver was on something? weird.

    They're probably suggesting that you shouldn't try crossing the road while high ;)

    For me, the TAC ads were effective. Unpleasant, definitely, but they get the point across. Roads are dangerous places. Splat!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Island Life: Burn fat, not oil,

    ...the get across spokesman didn't seem very well prepared - the first question 'what gives you the right to break the law and disrupt people's days' wasn't dealt with well at all.

    I cringed. Graeme Knowles was a bit hopeless. Not once did he say that getacross didn't want to disrupt traffic, and had planned for it months ago. It was NZTA that turned it into a four lane blockage.

    Bevan Woodward was much more impressive during his interview on Morning Report.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Island Life: Symptoms persist,

    I'll just say this: they didn't need to close the centre lanes, and the fact that they did leaves me thinking there was a tactical cynicism to the decision.

    Wayne McDonald does seem to be keen to try and polarise the issue:

    "The Transport Agency says it has learnt lessons from the action, and will beef up security next time anyone plans a protest"

    Hmmm, that's constructive. I guess Wayne didn't hear what the Road Policing Manager had to say about 3-4000 people determined to cross the bridge.

    Oh well, I'm sure John "Cycleway" Key can sort things out, as soon as he's recovered from Coming third in an oyster eating competition.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Island Life: Symptoms persist,

    The gradient incidentally wasn't as bad as I anticipated (and was a hoot on the descent).

    I reckon! In all seriousness, motorway asphalt is so smooth! Ideal for cycling.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

  • Island Life: Symptoms persist,

    How cool was that bridge crossing?! I wonder if it'll make any difference.

    It did seem a bit odd that the police blocked all four lanes - surely it would have been better to let the northbound traffic go through the centre (like during the marathon)?

    I liked one person's comment while we were up there: a friend of mine asked a passer by if we could make it all the way to the northern end. He replied, "Today, you can go wherever you like. It's your bridge."

    Sweet.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 317 posts Report

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