Posts by webweaver
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Awww thanks James!
Great surname, BTW :)
Um... topic. How about "varsity vs "uni". We always called it "Uni" back when I lived in Blighty, and I noticed that when I moved to EnZed that everyone seemed to call it "Varsity" - so that's what I call it too now. Baaaaaaaaa. I'm such a sheep.
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So I just happened to be passing Google Scholar and somehow my name got typed into the search box - and instead of finding dozens of references (yeah, right) to my final year research project The predatory behaviour of wild passerines: The adoption of a Specific Searching Image for artificial prey exhibiting both colour and shape polymorphism, I found this instead:
[CITATION] The Gathering 2000
A Green - Web Weaver Productions, 2007
Cited by 1 - Related articles...which leads to Sharon McIver's PhD WaveShapeConversion: The Land as Reverent in the Dance Culture and Music of Aotearoa
How cool is that?
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So am I the only person thus far who has owned up to having a science degree? Yes, I think I am.
BSc Hons in Biological Sciences to be exact, with a Post Graduate Certificate of Education to follow. Neither of which has any bearing whatsoever on what I do for a crust these days of course.
It took me a fair few years (and a couple of career changes) to discover that I am in fact a web geek - but maybe the fact that the web hadn't been invented when I did my degree has something to do with that :)
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Doom might happen, it might not, we don’t know.
James, that was the whole point of his argument!
The logic being - as we can't definitively and absolutely prove right now either way whether climate change theory is True or False, there's no point in trying to think along the rows. We have to look at the gamble we take within each column and then decide. By including the worst-case scenario in each column, you have a clear choice, and one which has no flaw. It's logic - and it doesn't depend on whether or not you think the world has been hotter in the past. All it requires is that you compare both worst-case scenarios.
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@Richard Llewellyn - thanks so much for the link to "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See" - I cannot believe I've never seen it before. Completely brilliant.
His gradual pulling together of the threads of his logic - and the moment where he points out the difference between decision-making by row and decision-making by column is lightbulb-glowingly awesome.
Now I'll have to see if I can find a climate change sceptic to try it out on. I realised a while ago (while on a blind date, actually) that if someone is a climate change sceptic, that's a deal-breaker for me. No more blind dates with that particular guy :)
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Ah Winston, how we miss thee. Not.
So Sacha, can you elaborate a wee bit? (Assuming you can do so without opening Russell up to strongly-worded letters from libel lawyers). I'm not really up on the details of those relationships. What do we know that makes people think they're a bit dodgy?
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Absolutely agree, Dave.
Because as the law currently stands, if your charity has been granted tax exempt status, you don't even have to file an income tax return unless IRD requests one (and they'll only do that if they're auditing you).
Craaaazy. The more I find out about the laws governing (or rather, not governing) charities in NZ, the more I feel sure that there is enormous potential for bogus "charities" to screw the system.
As one of the Herald articles linked to earlier said:
Based on annual reports, the Charities Commission estimates the sector to have a combined income of $16.7 billion a year, drawing on donations of $1.4b.
Which is a shit-load of pretty much unregulated moolah floating around.
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Ooops sorry that should read Russell
*blush*
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Following on from Russel's thoughts about the Howlett Foundation...
If I run a charity and it qualifies for full tax-exempt status, and my charity makes a loss because my running costs are higher than the money I raised, does my charity get a tax refund to offset the loss?
I had a look at the Charities Commission website and the IRD website (here and here, but it doesn't say. Anyone else know?
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wow - that page from the Charities Commission website pretty neatly summaries the utter looseness of the rules governing charities in this country.
No rules about how they choose to spend the money, no restrictions on how much a fundraising agency can charge, no audits of their financial statements required, no particular accounting standards or formats required, no restrictions on business arrangements that charities make with other companies, no rules about what is "reasonable" for a charity to spend on fundraising, no rules about how much you can pay staff, no "ratio" requirement because there are no consistent rules on how they have to present their financial information.
Good grief. It's a scam just waiting to happen. I'm actually surprised there aren't more bogus "charities" intent on ripping off donors - or perhaps there are, and we haven't realised the extent of it yet.