Posts by Paul Campbell
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Stewart,
Also, I was horrorstruck by the pro-gun lobbyist who stated that the gun-control people had these children's blood on their hands, for preventing the school authorities from having guns that could have been used to kill the perpetrator earlier.
Stewart: I agree - but then I realised that the mother, the first victim, the gun nut, with all those guns, disproves that point for ever - being prepared and having a lot of guns does not protect you from other gun nuts, if anything it makes you more vulnerable
Elsewhere today we decided that the US needs to license ammunition - as much as you want at the practice range but you can only have 3 bullets at home - don;t want to be part of a gun massacre? stay away from where all the ammunition is
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Isn't this like scrabble, we're not allowed to use proper names - that leaves out both "dotcom" and "jobs, lost"
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I was amazed by Key's "it's just marketing" comment - the implication was that because it's marketing it doesn't actually have to be true, so go on polluting as you were
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I have a neighbour who breaks into stuff for a living - not random other people's stuff mind you - people with new hardware, or in the process of buying someone else's hardware send them to him and he sees how easy it is to break into them - he's quite proud that he's never failed - when he's done he writes a report, explains what to fix and how - rinse, wash repeat.
"Penetration testing" (aka "pen-testing" because giggle "penetration" giggle) - is a business - it's "white hat hacking" - completely above board - and often misunderstood - I've occasionally helped, pulling ROMs off of boards and imaging them - and yes I worry about how people will look at me doing that.
On the other side of the coin I help design boxes for people - usually we leave them with minimal security - we don't try hard because as a rule we don't care - you want to trash your box, we'll happily sell you another - but that's a business choice - and we don't make ATMs or firewalls.
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you know you really don't want to get those new glasses ...... and then go home and see what you've been doing with that nail gun
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Craig - I'm pretty sure he'll win the popular vote - most of California hasn't been counted yet
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Wherever you are .... this year I'm in India on a business trip - it brings back weird memories - 8 years ago we'd packed up our family in California, gone to Burning Man and just kept on driving east, escaped an incoming hurricane in New Orleans, gave away the truck in Atlanta, dragged the kids through the monuments in DC, stayed next to ground 0 in NZ and then dragged the kids around the museums of Europe .... come election day we were in India watching Bush being elected again and as a result feeling good about our move back to NZ
Today is a weird deja vu
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I remember first seeing upstairs at the Cook, general impression at the time was that they weren't the Enemy - no one likes change
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last night was a little bitter-sweet for us - my father-in-law had been a part of the whole Greenwich Village folk scene, knew Woody, Pete Seegar, all those names, he'd regaled us with stories of those times, as a baby my wife had been followed by the FBI for possibly being a communist (he was incensed years later when he got his FBI report back characterising him as just a dilettante).
He passed away a couple of years ago, I think he'd have loved last night's concert - we really regret not having done some sort of oral history project to record his memories of those times.
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I really enjoyed the concert - Kyle did in fact get the best seats down front - she must have been the first one in line (she said she'd been there 2 hours early - I just dropped off my partner while I looked for a park and still got a 3rd row aisle seat
Half time mens toilets were at a premium - it was held in a girl's high school auditorium which is fair turnabout for a change I guess.
I went to two concerts in the OGHS venue this week, it's a great small space, wonderfully in your face, probably needs slightly more oxygen, got a bit stuffy towards the end
As always those who deign to wear excessive perfume in public in the middle of hayfever season ought to be taken outside and decontaminated
(this last comment also applies to the approaches to/from immigration in Auckland airport, I always arrive back in the country in tears)