Posts by Nick Melchior
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As far as watching TV downloads on the telly goes, my Pc has a s-video output. I plug that into the telly, the PC's sound card into the stereo, turn it all on and away we go. I've also set up my xbox 360 to connect to the PC, but then realised that the damn thing makes so much noise that I should just stick with my current solution.
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I think some of the appeal of Second Life is that it reminds people of the cool 80s/90s cyberpunk novels that were a lot of people’s first encounter with the idea of virtual spaces. Second Life, however imperfectly, is the closest thing around to the network in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash for example. Other than that, I think it’s sort of for people who like the idea of socialising online, but are too ‘mature’ to play World of Warcraft of something similar. It’s like a game, but isn’t. These are just assumptions mind, I haven’t ever messed around with SL (and only briefly played WOW) so I don’t know.
I worked for AIM Proximity for 6 months a number of years ago. I have rarely been so bored.
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the Wellington raid will probably turn out to be a stinker, because it will have missed a former resident who was the target of the warrant. (I'm totally speculating there ...)
I've got a friend who lives in that house and I reckon that someone who stayed there (or stayed there regularly) who be a person of interest, but there's a lot of major activist types in and around that place. That doesn't make them terrorists of course.
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Correct. But by the same token, being an animal rights activist doesn't mean it's impossible for you to embrace violence, as some people seem to think. It has happened.
Oh hell no. I'm up with the Animal Rights Militia and their ilk. I'm an ex-straight edge vegan, I've met all sorts of people (and listened to all sorts of bands) who espoused violent attacks on vivisectionists etc. But that's just the same as christians who kill abortion doctors - completely insane, but that's how it goes sometimes. But being willing to break the law, while it obviously plays some role in the development of terrorists, doesn't a terrorist make regardless of ideology.
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I can sort of see the cops getting nervous about Maori activists clambering around the hills, and about some anarcho greenies planning to disrupt happy valley or whatever.
What escapes me is how these two divergent groups could be linked together. They do not seem like natural allies.
Really? Anarchists in NZ have been pretty active in meeting and supporting Maori Sov. activists for years, at least in Wellington. They (and I was involved when I was part of anarchist stuff in Wellington) raised funds for the Motua Gardens/Wanganui occupation in the mid 90s and have met with Maori sov. activists to discuss issues over the years. Anarchist publications (The State adversary etc) have had articles discussing and promoting Maori sov as well and I've never met an anarchist who wasn't sympathetic to Maori sovereignty issues.
Partly it's a radical approach to protest (as Bob Munro points out), partly it's a fairly common support for indigenous rights. I don't see why anarchists wouldn't naturally support Maori struggles.
Maori activists probably appreciate the support and fund raising but I suspect it's fairly one way traffic.
Bob - as for your comments, it's not a black or white issue. Considering the police system flawed doesn't mean that you need to refuse to use it at all times any more than thinking capitalism is flawed requires you to never go to the dairy to get bread.
As for the battery hens thing, why would they? Breaking into a farm to rescue animals doesn't imply blowing things up any more than smoking weed makes you a potential murderer or driving with no seat belt makes you a rapist. If the police believe that braking one law makes you equally likely to break all laws then they're more stupid than I understood.
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On the autism thing, a friend of mine wrote a piece for the Age about her experiences growing up with an autistic brother:
which I thought was lovely.
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Is there any need for a national youth radio network in NZ? Doesn't the b-net cover it nicely? Certainly I'd rather listen to any of the BNet stations than to JJJ over here and I'd also reckon that the community stations like RRR and PBS would be better off if they weren't effectively being poor brothers to JJJ.
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The arms industry is predicated on this tennet. Luckily the NZ Govt has never succumbed and bought lemons for our defence forces.
Isn't that ebcause they don't buy anything for your defence forces? (Ba-boom ching!)
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On the biofuels issue a leader in the Economist on April 4 said this:
"Eventually, it might even allow countries with lots of trees and relatively few people, such as Sweden and New Zealand, to grow their own fuel rather than import oil."
It was an interesting take on the issue, bascally criticising US subsidies on corn for ethanol as emphasising the worst sort of biofuel.
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there is gathering speculation that the emails have already posined brash and the next person that it might take is John Key.
This means good news for Bill English.
I've been out of the country for a while but isn't that the same as something being good news for Clark? Surely English is still regarded as fairly wet and uninteresting?