Posts by 81stcolumn
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Congratulations you labour lackey you......
I hope the show goes well though it still may not be enough to convince me to get a tv or a tv card. I do hope the TVNZ thingy is agreeable though.
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Thanks for that Graham, I particularly like the idea of bridges for people – that is to say bridges that do accommodate cars, bikes and people. I grew rather fond of the river of bobbing hats and heads that cross the Thames for example. But I would say that having lived and worked around Clifton’s older but somewhat smaller brother (sister?); no doubt about my favourite. I worked in the red building beneath the span, part of the old normal college and next to the white building is the old university boathouse. I never got over the thrill of rowing out beneath the bridge on a clear morning. The view is near identical to a watercolour I have on my wall. Oddly enough I ended up living in the house designed by and built for Telford during the construction of the bridge. I love the idea that a bridge is a near perfect expression of form and function in public infrastructure. Towers, museums, lavatories and fountains can be aesthetic as well as functional; but nothing has the potential of a bridge to express beauty and purpose. Auckland Harbour Bridge has its moments if only by virtue of the view it can deliver at dawn and dusk, but it still has some way to go before it really feels part of my Auckland life in the way that the Menai Bridge did when I lived in Wales. I do feel that has something to do with the fact that of a lonely night I could walk out to the middle and stare down the straits.
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Eighties !!!! Eiggghties !!!!
Well I guess that is me in a way - At least I understand that you cannot shop your way to a better future. Don't start me on bikes and cars again either. The gates comment is a bit dumb out of context - sorry I still just get all tanty over suburban drawbridge mentality. A class of people who feel no sense of ownership or responsibility for the troubles they seek so ineffectively to exclude.
As for gang HQ......a few well placed pebbles might just do the trick......... There is in my mind, something quite fun about exploiting the property of a gate that can be just as effective at keeping people in as out.
Funny though, my partner and I asked the same sort of question about the guy who stabbed the tagger; would he do that to a P dealer ?
Different rules for different people aye !
I/O As for the BBQ be assured I always bring decent wine....
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Weird. Only today I was telling myself how great it was to a have a FO electric gate. It stops people from wandering up and forces them to buzz me on the intercom and announce their presence. Meaning I don't have to put my pants on unless I want to see them.
How very........__bourgeois__ of you I take it I'm not invited to the barbie then ?
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NO offence intended to the deaf or blind I might add...
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Robyn -
Was perusing your lovely photo stream and wondered if Greenland hospital was actually in Greenland ? <chuckle>
The tagging thing looks like a conversation between the deaf and the blind.
I want to be seen....I want whites walls.....
Can't help feeling that I would have tagged as a kid - The angry git in me still wants to vandalise those big electric security gates that people put across their drives...
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Kyle I'll keep the essay on this for another day suffice to say that PBRF and its cousin RAE never failed to screw the little guy and the new kids on the block. The biggest tragedy of all has been how effective it has been in undermining collegiality within and between institutions. Having held the shitty end of the stick I can tell you that it really does stink.
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To be fair I was pleased for Otago and I know some of the people who worked very hard to get it right. The problem with PBRF is threefold IMHO.
i) Impact factors are a poor way to judge research quality, readership and availability tend to render some researchers more "international" than others.
ii) It completely fails to acknowledge growth or genuinely cutting edge fields.
iii) Because the system is relative, there are no rewards for those who manage to in some cases to triple their output.
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My partner (a Kiwi) has just made me do all of these in my best BBC just to see if I could do it. She made me do bear bare several times amidst peals (as opposed to peels) of laughter.
Although I'm a fair mimic I've never bothered aping the local dialect figuring that it would get me biffed. I do however sometimes hide the BBC in M25 or Yorkshire.
My favourite from the North of England around Manchester was
pillow-pillar.... -
But it's achieving its goal of directing funds towards institutions that are doing international quality research, and away from those that aren't.
My point being is that it doesn't reward international research per se; only international research of high impact factor in areas where NZ can convene a panel of sufficient experience and authority. Which is plainly not the same thing. A colleague has dubbed it the medical research reward scheme. Which is interesting given that Medicine has its own funding council as well.