Posts by Matthew Reid
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Grub
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to BenWilson,
Makes me think that at least half of the meme that the other sex are alien arseholes is simply rejection at work.
Some don't get the rejection. Clearly there are different interpretations for the signals we send out - some people fit the meme much better than others...
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to DCBCauchi,
I’ve had proper official access to a university library for the first time in a long time for a couple of years. The main benefit is being able to search journal databases for articles and then download the pdf.
Google books etc is ok, but it’s annoying. This is great. All those footnote refs you wished to consult? Well, now you can.
I thought society as a whole was paying for university research. I don’t understand why these articles aren’t freely available to everyone.George Monbiot has the answer for you: economic parasitism by academic publishers who have prfoit margins approaching 40%.
The returns are astronomical: in the past financial year, for example, Elsevier's operating profit margin was 36% (£724m on revenues of £2bn). They result from a stranglehold on the market. Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, who have bought up many of their competitors, now publish 42% of journal articles.
More importantly, universities are locked into buying their products. Academic papers are published in only one place, and they have to be read by researchers trying to keep up with their subject. Demand is inelastic and competition non-existent, because different journals can't publish the same material. In many cases the publishers oblige the libraries to buy a large package of journals, whether or not they want them all. Perhaps it's not surprising that one of the biggest crooks ever to have preyed upon the people of this country – Robert Maxwell – made much of his money through academic publishing.
The publishers claim that they have to charge these fees as a result of the costs of production and distribution, and that they add value (in Springer's words) because they "develop journal brands and maintain and improve the digital infrastructure which has revolutionised scientific communication in the past 15 years". But an analysis by Deutsche Bank reaches different conclusions. "We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process … if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn't be available." Far from assisting the dissemination of research, the big publishers impede it, as their long turnaround times can delay the release of findings by a year or more.
What we see here is pure rentier capitalism: monopolising a public resource then charging exorbitant fees to use it. Another term for it is economic parasitism. To obtain the knowledge for which we have already paid, we must surrender our feu to the lairds of learning.
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It's much easier coming back from somewhere you've had a bad time. We returned from Moscow four years ago relieved to get away from the appalling weather, six lane roads choked with cars, crumbling Soviet cityscape, and the dirt. NZ is emptier and therefore less dirty.
Although it was hard saying goodbye to the people we had become close to, there were few of them - Russians are hard to get to know, maybe all those years of suspicion of each other under a surveillance society. It was nice to return to a place where you can become friends with people because you met them in the park and you both had a kid. That'd never happen in Moscow.
We came home with a seven-month old baby and lots of winter clothes that I finally got to use agin this NZ winter - snow boots, polar down jackets. Otherwise its now just fading memories of beautiful subways, expensive food, bad vodka and lots and lots of fur.
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And next year, we are going to Christchurch.
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Nice spread in The Press this morning David. Well done.
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Green, phew. I really feel for the Haywood household. I'm glad not to be the one bearing the handcuffs. In some ways though it might be better to be red or green, and have some certainty, than be in the limbo of the orange zone.
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'Areas of retreat' sounds ominous. I predict that termoinology will enter the lexicon, like 'munted'. As in "my house isn't munted, but it is in an area of retreat".
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It may all be revealed tomorrow afternoon.
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Hard News: Christchurch: Square Two, in reply to Hebe,
Ventilation is not an issue for most munted houses; we have plenty of gaps to air out dampness. But better to be warm and damp for a few weeks than cold and damp.
I imagine there will be explicit instructions on use of the heaters.I don't think we can rely on the ventilation from houses being munted - will every bedroom be well ventilated? Even if there there are instructions, will they always be followed? Perhaps money towards a safe heating source (knowing that the Red Cross has a grant to pay for electricity for the old and young in damaged houses) or money towards a different place to live?
Other solutions may well be more complex. However, simple but potentially dangerous solutions are not what is needed.