Posts by Stephen Judd
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The iPhone and the iPad are all about the individual....they are not designed for business or integration...sounds like w*** to me.
Anyone remember how PCs got into businesses? How the early spreadsheets and databases slowly displaced the mainframes and minicomputers, over the protests of the centralised IT (or data processing, as it might have been) staff? People realised their value and smuggled them in, and as they got seniority, they didn't have to smuggle any more.
"Not designed for business" doesn't mean they won't succeed in business over time if enough people are smitten with them.
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I see a netbook being superior and cheaper, with camera, SD slots, ethernet, etc. Voda have an Aspire One bundle with 3G modem data plan right now, if you want one. You could put Ubuntu Netbook Remix on it and be away.
Some netbooks are approaching 8hrs battery life already, and at this stage my next computing device is likely to be the gruntiest solid state netbook I can find.
This pad thingy does look like it would be a thing of beauty and joy for the person with more money than sense. But jeez, you'd cry if you dropped it, wouldn't you.
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OK, further poking around (thanks Paul and Lucy!) shows that the SST amended their trust deed on November 2009, presumably to bring themselves into line with the requirements for being a registered charity with the Charities Commission. So there may be hope for more transparency in the future.
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To be fair, I don't think it's a deliberate choice by SST not to be a registered charity -- they seem quite cross about not being allowed to be one.
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I reckon Wellington is a surprisingly good place for cycling compared to Auckland, because the narrow twisty streets mean that drivers are generally slower and more alert. You can see this reflected in the prevalence of jaywalking in the Welly CBD -- I nearly got killed several times in Auckland after relocating because cars that would have slowed in Wellington blithely continued. Someone told me recently (probably the urbane Mr Beard) that despite the hills, there are more cycle commuting trips in Wellington that Auckland.
I'm very intrigued by reports of Auckland CBD development of Woonerf style shared space. That'll be something to see.
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Ooh yeah.
Latin America and South America aren't really synonymous, are they?
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Why is this National Goverment driving ordinary New Zealanders to attack their nearest and dearest?
When is John Key going to ban sharp pointy knives?
There you go.
(Incidentally, I understand that the reason table knives have round tips is that Louis XIV, in the days when France set the fashion in these matters, was alarmed at reports of how many of his subjects were stabbing each other at dinner and made it law.)
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I take it all back. That'll learn me.
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If I could offer some advice to the novice Auckland cycle commuter, and apologies for those who know this already or have their own strategies:
- Plan your route before you leave.
- Try it on a quiet day, like a Sunday afternoon, to familiarise yourself.
- Do it at least once at rush hour in a car, to establish whether it's viable.
- Where possible, get off the road and cut through parks.Eg, I always avoided going up Khyber Pass from Broadway to get into town. Instead, I would nip through the park on the far side of the intersection, go up Carlton Gore Road, cut through the Domain, and end up going over Grafton Bridge, holding the lane if necessary.
If that's not possible, look for parallel side streets to main drags and use them.
- Make eye contact with drivers at intersections.
- Realise that drivers aren't ignoring you deliberately, but there just aren't enough cyclists around these days* for them to look for anything smaller than another car. "Oh shit I didn't see you!" is genuinely heartfelt and all too common. So act as though you are invisible. You might as well be.
- Especially, be prepared for people to come out of side intersections and cut you off. They didn't see you.
- Car drivers always underestimate how fast you are going. When they do see you, they think you're crawling and that they have plenty of time to overtake/get into traffic flow/whatever, so...
- ... be prepared for them to pass you and turn left into intersections ahead of you and cut you off.* I read a few weeks ago that cyclist numbers in New Zealand are about a quarter of what they were in the 80s. On the other hand, numerous studies show that the more cyclists there are around, the more aware of them car drivers are, and the lower the per-cyclist accident rate. Conclusion: we are in a vicious spiral of cyclist safety in NZ, where perception that cycling is unsafe actually makes it so. I had a lovely email conversation with a Graeme Lindsay at Auckland University discussing his research into this very topic just recently. Article.
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RoO -- I honestly don't think the accidental name of Cuba St has anything to do with the Batucada, at least. It has a lot more to do with the tastes of a few crucial people who decided that street art and performance was something the city needed more of. (And of course Carnival isn't a Cuban thing anyway). The first capoeira group in Wellington started about 2000 and although I'm vague on the details because it predates my interest, several of Capoeira Pasifika's members were instrumental, as it were, in the early days of the Batucada. If I was going to blame anyone, I'd blame them, not the street name.
And there are lots of South Americans in Wellington now. I hear Spanish and Portuguese on the street quite frequently. I'm probably mixing with a particular subculture now, I admit, but last night I was out with a random assortment of people that included some from Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay, only one of whom I was actually expecting to see.
{on edit}
Geoff's comment reminds me, as web weaver was reminiscing with me today, the drum circle at the old Cuba Cuba cafe goes back before Batucada days and probably contributed a lot to that particular element of the Cuba St-based subculture.