Posts by Andrew C
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Kumara Republic,
The comments on the tax anecdote have gone slightly tangental, Rich specifically said (probably flippantly, so that's why I said it was a cheap shot) that he wants those who pay the lions share of taxes to go away. So that tax story is 100% applicable to his comment.
@DeepRred
Snopes.com calls bullshit.
My quick skim read of that site seemed to be they couldn't track down the original author of the story, rather than it actually calling bullshit on it?
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Rich of Observationz,
super late, but for Rich:
You wanna see the people already paying by far the lion’s share of the tax all fuck off overseas?
Yes.
cheap shot, but still want to?
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Lucy Stewart,
When you look for familial DNA matches, you look for probabilities more like one in millions that a random sample would match the known sample – in New Zealand, for instance, you’d want a certainty of better than 1 in 4 million. Above that, at least one other random person in the country will test positive by chance.
As the population increases there is more chance of a random match, but saying that above this at least one other person will test positive is not a true. Its more likely, but not definite. And the same sentiment works in reverse too.
I’m sure it was just a nice simplification, but it shows how the sort of human-can-understand-this projection onto a statistical number can be a bit misleading. I wonder if this sort of twisting is used by lawyers in the courts to confuse...?
And my pals who do criminal forensic DNA testing for a living confirm that sibling testing should be able to confirm OBL’s DNA to a very high level, well above 99.5% (and as they were free to increase the number of loci tested above what is the standard number tested in forensic labs, the US scientists could have got this figure very very high indeed if they wanted).
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This time around, same thing. Good publicity, you could argue, having your new leader declaring his intentions on every media outlet available – even ‘Perigo’ FFS. But from the outside it makes the fringe right look fractured, compromised, messy. We’ve seen the uncertainty, the machinations – will it be John Boscawen or Hillary Calvert who plays Judas – all play out.
I dont know, I sort of like how its fully out in the open and transparent. All those behind closed door back stabbing coups just made the players seem nasty and sneaky and underhand. This seems kind of clean.
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The next question for you lawyerly types is: Is this presumption of guilt really allowed under NZ’s constitutional law? Is the presumption of innocence and the onus of proof being placed on the prosecution embedded deeply enough in our constitution for this law to be thrown out by the courts? Is that even possible in the NZ system?
IANAL, but is that what a speeding ticket does? Or is that different..?
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I spent years designing DVRs (protocol engineering, not UI) and everything I've seen in NZ so far just grates - the UIs suck - especially MySky
Paul, we are thinking about getting a PVR in the not too distant future. Seeing as you would probably know more than the average bear about whats good, whats bad, whats needed, whats not etc, is there one you would recommend? Dont have sky, so i guess this means freeview compatible.
If it makes a diff, it would be nice to have something which can play my avi's etc from my computer too.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Dismal Soyanz,
Return on capital and dividend yield are quite different beasties.
OK, thanks for clearing that up.
As im not much of a financial person, could you give insight into which would be the more appropriate figure to use in this case?
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This may actually be worse than paying interest on debt. Bernard Hickey looked at the SOEs being singled out and found they had an average dividend yield of 7.6% – considerably more than than the 5.5% interest the government is paying on new debt.
One of the financial commentators on the Business Hour Larry Williams ZB show, from memory either Fran OSullivan or Brian Gaynor, said the current return on capital were around 2%. This is quite a way from Hickeys 7.6%.
No idea who is more likely to have the right figures.
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Hard News: Only what we would expect a…, in reply to Jackie Clark,
It’s just such a load of old bollocks that this was even news. Seriously. A man gets a bit pissed off at his wife, he acted like a bit of a dick and sat on the bonnet of his car.
I've not followed this story, so can someone tell me if the above is what M Dev said happened, or what the police/courts have said happened.
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It does irritate me a bit the way they’re going with the gate searches – going through every tiny pocket in a woman’s bag, tipping out some guy’s whole packet of tobacco looking for joints.
This year was the most thorough search I have ever experienced at the BDO. They went through everything I had, even down to feeling the hem line in my jumper, lifting up the band in my cap, super close look for broken seal on my water bottle, etc, basically breaking down everying I had brought in.
I have to take a collection of syringes and blood testing equipment with me (type 1 diabetic) in a smallish bag within my main backpack. As the search was progressing I didn't fancy dealing with this so simply plucked the bag out from my backpack during the middle of this supa-search and held on to it. The lady didnt even seem to notice (or care), and never checked this small bag. Odd...