Posts by Kumara Republic
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Legal Beagle: Election '20: The No…, in reply to Bruce Ward,
It appears that keeping the 5% is intended to reduce representation diversity. While I am not sure about the sense/effect of 0%, surely 2% or even a mere 3% would not lead to a downfall of ‘democracy’!
The original rationale for the threshold in the German version of MMP was to prevent another Nazi Party from pulling a 1933. It's worked mostly well to date, even wannabes like the AfD are kept mostly in check.
That said, NZ's threshold can do with some tweaking. 4% would be a good compromise between political stability and political diversity.
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Hard News: Family Matters: a post about 2020, in reply to Steve Parks,
Same. I remember that episode of Mythbusters where they did myths suggested from reddit users and I learned that Reddit was considered – or described itself as – “the front page of the internet”.
For me, PA was the front page of the internet, at least in New Zealand.
Not sure why I drifted away but some country singer could write a song about it.
The rise of social media, methinks?
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I've already notified Russell on Twitter about it.
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COVID
Antifa
BLM -
Apologies for the thread necro, but I’ve finally found the time to post an epilogue. The issues I wrote about in August 2017 are still very much relevant, despite an electoral reprieve both here and overseas.
The good news: in the middle of last year, I graduated from web dev boot camp after it finally got NZQA approval, and hence student loan approval. It seemed to better suit my style of learning by doing, and it wasn’t as gruelling as first thought.
The bad news: the bubble seems to have deflated - AFAIK less than 20% of my cohort found work - and that was even before the COVID outbreak. There was no active job placement at the end as I had high hopes for, instead it was little different from a WINZ pep talk. I attended the Summer of Tech internship programme later in the year, but not even a single response back, given there were about 3 applicants to every available internship. The SoT window has since closed as I am no longer a recent graduate. I’ve had piecemeal gig testing work between then and now, although it’s allowed me to work from home. And I’m getting heartily sick of expensive wasted efforts every time I study something.
I got in touch with the people behind Specialisterne NZ, and it’s still in “development hell”, despite some progress with the Accessibility Tick scheme. I’m also hoping against hope that the re-elected Ardern government hasn’t forgotten about the Future of Work policy it touted not too long ago – the COVID crisis would be the perfect opportunity to put it in the front seat.
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From the Vault: 60 Years of Television (TVNZ OnDemand). I seem to recall writing about 50 years of New Zealand television in the Listener. Tempus fugit. This NZ On Screen collection includes footage of the Wahine disaster; the start of colour television; Lotto’s first broadcast; and the launch of Māori Television. It seems ironic that it’s on TVNZ OnDemand.
I may still have a taped VHS copy of “One Turns 40” stashed somewhere at my folks’ place. A snippet from it on YT:
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Hard News: Together Alone, in reply to steven crawford,
Hi dude, looks like you have that 3d rendering pretty sussed out now. What’s the software you’re using?
Mainly DAZ Studio 4.12, with occasional touch ups in Blender & GIMP.
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Welcome back, everyone. While we're all in lockdown, I have my Steam account to fall back on. And, of course, my 3D art hobby...
https://www.deviantart.com/deepred6502/art/Prepare-Not-Panic-833572227
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/prepare-not-panic/2927830/?phttps://www.deviantart.com/deepred6502/art/Coming-like-a-ghost-town-834964173
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/coming-like-a-ghost-town/2929811/?p -
Some further reading:
The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President: How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 electionIn the words of Neil Postman from "Amusing Ourselves to Death":
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
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Hard News: Rage and change: RNZ's music problem, in reply to Ben Austin,
Whatever happens, the re-merger needs to make sure there's more RNZ in TVNZ - think the old TVNZ6 & TVNZ7 - instead of the other way round.