Posts by Stephen Judd
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And that was when the whole country was on a 256k pipe.
Most of which I chomped up on day on the help desk at Waikato when I got wind of the exploding whale video, which I must have been one of the first people in NZ to see.
I remember working at the University of Waikato at enrolment in the early 90s, maybe 1992. We all had accounts on the VAX/VMS system, and I learned through my workmates that if you had nothing to do, you could run a program called "news" (in other words, a USENET client) which was the gateway to all sorts of surprising things for a young mind.
A few years later I was working full time at the University. I was blase about email (and yet proud of having stephen@waikato.ac.nz when I tried to explain this email thing to people outside the institution). One day John Houlker wandered in to the help desk exclaiming about this program called Mosaic which was a client for the World Wide Web. At that time, everybody did say "World Wide Web", carefully pronouncing the capitals. Mosaic was a boring grey program that didn't seem as easy to use as gopher, so I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. Until I happened on Justin Hall's "Links to the Underground" and began to grasp that any fool could make a site, and that there was an interesting kind of site that was mostly nothing but links to other interesting sites.
I don't have a single great story to share. I do like the way online communication has become a kind of prosthetic extension of my social life, giving it capabilities denied to the un-augmented.
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The use of "the Beltway" stems from a comment the PM made at one of her post-cabinet press conferences some time back.
Ha, I remember that, now that you mention it. When I reflect on that, it lowers my opinion of Clark somewhat...
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A dead metonym, even.
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Beltway is odd because in the US context, it refers to an actual geographical feature: the Capital Beltway in DC, which is a ring road around Washington. Cf references in UK English to the M25.
In NZ it's a dead metaphor, dangling referent-free in the linguistic breeze. But there is no comparable geographical feature that encompasses the seat of political power and the residences of the influential, or the whole of the capital, so I reckon we're stuck with it.
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The first one was at the roundabout at Royal Oak, about 1971 I think.
At Royal Oak? Are you sure that was KFC? I distinctly remember some sort of KFC knock-off, but with a green-striped colour scheme instead of red, perhaps with the word "country" in the name, which I used to look at longingly when we drove up to visit my grandparents. Sort of a fried chicken parallel to the still-extant Ollie's.
For me KFC is one of those things which is always far better in my memory and expectation than what I experience when I actually eat it, which I suppose is why my last KFC must be several years ago now.
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Veitch has said (and we all know) there is two sides to every story, and I think until recently we only heard one (and even then we've only heard one really, Veitch hasn't and can't put across his side of what happened).
Veitch has had his big public apology and various proxies have popped up to heap scorn on his ex and testify to his character. If we're weighing who has had the most chance to put their side in public, I'd say he's by far had the better of it.
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That's very flattering David, but in reality my ability to write about economics is based on nothing more that some amateur reading, an obsession with the housing bubble, and extensive undergraduate bullshit experience.
(Did anyone read Bernard Hickey today? I would probably just write that column over and over and over again).
**REPLY**: Economics or banjo, obviously; whichever you felt more comfortable with... -- DH
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Oh yeah, from Ian Bettereidge via Danny O'Brien, on journalism vs mere blogging: "Journalism is when you pick up the phone."
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We already have high quality, well researched and well written journalism available on the internet (such as PA) and it doesn't cost me a bean.
PA is marvellous, but much of what it publishes is commentary, not original reporting. Apart from PA there's Poneke (who definitely does write original albeit parochial stories), No Right Turn, The Fundy Post... who else is there?
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david_aucks: start here. I think Paul Tregalgis is behind this amazing collection. If you email the address on that page, whoever is reading the mail will be able to help you if anyone can.