Posts by Stephen Judd
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If you live in a subsistence village where all your family are within five minutes' walk, and your job involves spreading muck on fields, then you're fine.
Actually, there is a steady stream of news in the last year or two about how mobile phones are affecting (for the better) life of very poor subsistence farmers. People are using phones to find out what prices are in other parts of the country and what foodstuffs are in demand at the market today, which enables them to get a better return on what they sell and to avoid wasted trips.
Yeah, you don't NEED a phone when you're a peasant, but if you can have one, it'll help you identify opportunities for arbitrage just as well as a Wall St trader.
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don’t know the meat companies but they might pony up some dosh
Historically they haven't been too keen, hence why MIRINZ had to merge with AgResearch.
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I've never been cuddled on account of my hoodies. What am I doing wrong? And should I turn myself in?
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Oh Sofie, after what you've been through that's a gracious and humane take on things. I wish you well and hope the sun will shine again.
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So much emphasis is placed on the consumer having to agree that they need help before it could be provided.
It may be that the terrible things that happened in some of our institutions in the middle of the 20th century have led to a reaction that is too far in the opposite direction.
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The only exception to this seems to be in the area of mental health, which I get the impression is treated as an absolute Cinderella.
I absolutely agree with this.
The sad fact is that there is no PR juice in obtaining money for nutbars, who are a) stigmatised and b) unable to advocate for themselves when they need it most and c) often disparaged even when they are well.
Without passing judgment on what happened in Finn's case - it seems to me that a system with surplus resources is likely to have redundant checks that catch mistakes, whereas in a stretched, under-resourced system, every participant has to get it right every time.
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"Not everything "the public" (aka panty-sniffing editors) is interested in is a matter of public interest."
That's something I have often (without the panty-sniffing bit) said myself.
However, the point of the story was to stress how well-off and free-spending Bryers is. Notice that while part of the story is about spending money on prostitutes, it goes on to talk about his assets and other pastimes.
If the story was of limited relevance, it's because Bryers was a consultant only by the time the company was in trouble.
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I dunno, Craig. Leaving the morality of prostitution to one side, isn't it relevant and interesting that a senior officer of a company in serious, serious trouble was spending up large on *cough* entertainment on a regular basis?
The restaurant analogy is a good choice of analogy to think about this with, because I actually think that if he booked out a high-end restaurant regularly, that would be news too. Living the highlife while the punters' investments were turning to shit is perhaps something that the famous Mum And Dad Investor is interested in.
There is no suggestion he was using company funds. But now that this information has come to light, people with a financial interest will be making sure of that.
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When someone young, filled with ability and promise goes in this way, it really is a tragedy. I am very sorry for him, his family and friends.
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take a shower at work anyway
It may be a superficial feature, but having a shower at work is a major fringe benefit as far as I'm concerned.
I never worried about being rained on biking to work in Auckland because I always had a change of clothes and a towel in my bag anyway. My former employers at Peace Software, bless them, had a lockup for cycles, and a shower.