Posts by Gregor Ronald
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Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to chris,
I agree - "aftershock" is the word of the year in Canterbury.
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Books - Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother". (Published in 2008, but I'm always late.)
Movie - "Boy", by Taika Waititi.
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I think I agree with Bill Manhire. This fuss reminds me of Chief Broom, in the preface to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"; "It's all true, even if it never happened."
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Ms Tolley's hope reminds me of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."
And if teachers are going to be sacked for not getting all children to be above average, then how will principals get anyone to teach Year 6Z? The kids with no support from home will take the teacher down with them...
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I lived in Wanaka from 1975 to 1995, and I was never brave enough to call myself a local; you had to be born there.
The area became badly spoiled in the late 90s, as residential development ate up the lakeside land, and now large parts of the town look like Hamilton or Botany Downs. The main topic of conversation whenever I visit is the price of property, which is sad.
Still, you can't beat the scenery and the skiing. But a warning - you may not like the place so much next May and June, when "the fogs" happen. Ask a local about the early winter; and tell Hairy Harry that Gregor said Hi.
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To Tessa Houghton - I'm the Turnitin administrator for a university, and I think that breaking a novel into 20MB chunks and waiting for an hour for each comparison, then analysing the results, would be a job you'd remember for a while. However, I guess major publishers can do bulk deals with TII; the academic journals all do this now and so do lots of conferences vetting papers.
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I like STV because it always delivers a result, and I think (not 100% sure here) that it's more accurate, proportionally speaking. Computers will process the votes in a few seconds, though verification and safeguards may make that hours.
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I was going to point out the Dave Henderson-ZAP link, but I see it's already noted. Amazing how it helps someone like Hendo prosper - as long as he can con Bob Parker into bankrolling his dodgy projects. Or is SmoothBob Tightpants a Zapper as well?
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Oops, I should have added "though we may be sympathetic in principle". We may be willing enough, we just don't get any practice.
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And I'm a Southlander who's migrated to Canterbury via Central Otago - there's definitely a lot more awareness of a Maori dimension up north, we southern honkies don't get exposed to Maoritanga that much.