Posts by JackElder
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
I’m sure you could sell placebo pills for money as long as you didn’t cross legislation and call them medicine. “Life enhancement pills” or something with a swanky brand name.
In all seriousness: isn't this the entire point behind mainstream chemists selling homeopathic remedies? As in, homeopathy is basically a way for people to self-administer placebos and thus obtain relief via the placebo effect?
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Southerly: That CERA Rumour, in reply to Kumara Republic,
I’d hate for a rebuilt ChCh to become like Houston.
I'd love for Christchurch to become the hub of a space program.
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One of Jack’s new colleagues has complained of a two-hour bus commute from Churton Park, so it doesn’t sound as well served on the non-car transport front as other Welli suburbs either
Actually, it's pretty reasonably served (it's not far to the J'ville transport hub). I believe that her problem is that she's going from one side of Wellington to the other, which means that you have to change in the middle ... which is a huge stuff around. I think I took the bus maybe twice when I started this job; life's too short. Now I just cycle - much faster. Even counting the Ngauranga gorge on the way home.
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Great, big, soulless houses plunked in the middle of teeny-tiny sections and, apart from a preschool, nowhere within walking distance for people to go – not a cafe or a dairy or even a postbox. I’ve been trying to go for walks there while the kids are in school and it’s pretty grim.
I recall reading a survey of residents of Churton Park in Wellington. The main result was that the residents really wanted local amenities - shops, cafes, a library, that sort of thing. I summarised this to my wife as "they want to live somewhere that isn't Churton Park."
In all seriousness, the homogeneity of the architecture doesn't bother me so much - it's pretty much an effect of all the houses being built in a very similar timeframe (and often by the same builder); as the houses age and people live in them, differences sprout. What gets me is, why the hell would you want to live somewhere that's ten minutes drive to get to anything you'd need - shops, a library, a fish and chip shop?
That said, I often go for walks around Churts of an evening, and can confirm that the eponymous park is quite a nice place to go for a wander. But I doubt that many people know about it... because you can only access it on foot.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Russell Brown,
relatively sophisticated techniques such as stenography
*cough* Steganography. Stenography is reasonably sophisticated, but I don't think you're just referring to taking notes in shorthand.
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We haven't even started talking about dicks yet!
I posted a video about masturbation in the sixth post on this thread, man. Keep up.
I have episodes of working from home - I mostly work in an office, but will occasionally have the odd half-day or couple of hours at home. Agree wholeheartedly about the geographic separation if you can get it.
Since I get the impression that a lot of people working from home are doing so as contractors or are in non-traditional employment relationships, I'll just add my main tip about this: get a good accountant. They save you time, money, and hassle. Plus, they're handy for stuff like explaining how you can claim the cost of that Aeron chair as a business expense.
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Any time someone mentions working from home, I feel obligated to post this:
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I don’t think it was indiscreet, just funny in a weird way that someone I don’t think I’ve ever engaged with before tonight is crowing about ‘fucking with me’, which is why I assumed the twitter account was a dummy. If it’s not then I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about.
An analogy: I've occasionally been on (work-related) conference calls where I've gotten a bit fed up with the current speaker. My solution to this is to put my phone on mute, say "Oh for fuck sake, get over yourself!" quite loudly, and then unmute the phone and go back to it. Is that a weird or creepy thing to do? Similarly, Danielle is a prolific tweeter, and has a habit of "stepping outside the room" during PAS discussions and venting the odd thing that would not add to productive debate here.
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And a comment on lurking; I lurked for quite a while until a thread hit a subject that I was both passionate and reasonably knowledgeable about. I think that's how quite a few people get sucked into commenting.
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Speaking to the substance of the post, the underlying contention is that there are two classes of internet commentator who have different opinions to those of the author: 'tinks' and 'trolls', who are either stupid or evil respectively.
I think Emma is arguing that some, not all, commentators fall into these categories, and that they're useful ways of describing specific behaviour patterns that some individuals tend to fall into. I would be astonished if she were arguing that everyone who disagrees with her falls into one or the other category.