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Showing posts from May, 2001

"A Sad Farewell" "Wanderings - by Kathrin Goldsworthy (currently NZ)

From the Web 1.0 days I bring you  The Forum . To preserve them for posterity as Geocities can no longer be found but also it's fun to re-read some of them. ----- 30th May, 2001 This is totally off the subject - but I need to share the heartbreak, the pain, get it off me chest - it's all good therapy. One of the things I have become used to over the past 18 months is saying hello and goodbye to many friends, cities, countries, loved ones……but the hardest and most heartbreaking of all was……my piano. You may laugh but it was a very cool piano. And I was quite attached to it. AND it was the largest and most valuable thing I owned (most people have cars or houses - me, I have a piano.) We first got together about oooh, three or four years ago when I went all musical and decided I wanted to start playing again. So thanks to generosity of a dear friend, I inherited an old upright(!!). Next I signed up for lessons with a mad but lovely music teacher - Olga. Now I wasn't exactly th...
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"I don't wanna go to Chelsea" a "Post-It From London" - by Kate Ayres (London, UK)

From the Web 1.0 days I bring you  The Forum . To preserve them for posterity as Geocities can no longer be found but also it's fun to re-read some of them.
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"Growl" "Melbourne Life - by Fi (Melbourne, Australia)

From the Web 1.0 days I bring you  The Forum . To preserve them for posterity as Geocities can no longer be found but also it's fun to re-read some of them. ----- 22nd May, 2001 Would the real fiona.fraser please stand up? I was pretty appalled to learn that somebody posing as myself sent you lot a hoax email from fiona.fraser@telstra.com towards the end of last week. Have just laid eyes on the email ... it makes reference to a bunch of stuff that never happened, at a bunch of places I don't go to, and is written in a a style poorly imitating my own. (God help me if I ever use "Wow!" as a subject heading ...) Anyways ... I ask you all, if you are able, to block fiona.fraser@telstra.com from your email accounts and/or to disregard anything sent from this address in the future. I have somebody investigating the server path of the email on my behalf and I spoke to Telstra this morning to see what they can do about this abuse of their service. While I'd obviously pr...
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"Lucie Aubrac" "What You Should See, But Probably Haven't" - by Andrew Llewellyn (New Zealand)

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From the Web 1.0 days I bring you  The Forum . To preserve them for posterity as Geocities can no longer be found but also it's fun to re-read some of them. ------ France, 1997 Directed by Claude Berri With: Carole Bouquet, Daniel Auteuil, Running length: 1hr 55 mins. This is from the same guy (Claude Berri) who brought us Jean de Florette & Manon des Source - the sumptuous 1986 family saga set in early 20th century Provence. You know, the one with Gerard Depardieu as a hunchback breeding rabbits, and the neighbours who try to stop him so they can have his land to grow carnations on. The sequel, Manon, brought Emmanuelle Beart - the blonde in the first Mission Impossible film - to our attention. I had no intention of covering Lucie Aubrac, except yesterday I took a punt on it at the local video shop, and when I fired it up on the old mitsubishi at home, I discovered to my delight that it was letterboxed! Letterboxing of videos & movies on TV is the subject of many rant...
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Regulatory Standards Bill: Submission Guidance & Assistance [Updated]

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*phew*, this is hard work. Unlike the Treaty Principles Bill which has a tonne of templates and publicly available submissions for you to copy/amend/submit, the Regulatory Standards Bill has very little out there. Update 14-Jan-2024: Did I Miss The Submission? (spoiler, no ) -------- Submission form:  https://consultation.regulation.govt.nz/rsb/have-your-say-on-regulatory-standards-bill/consultation/intro/ Email your submission to:  RSBconsultation@regulation.govt.nz More: Explanation & Submission [Updated] What Is A "Person" [Update 8-Jan-2024] Emily Writes (Jan 06, 2025) being awesome, OK fine, what submissions do I have to make FFS?! , "Don't worry - I got you. Here's everything you need in one place!" : Bill: The Regulatory Standards Bill Do it by: 13 January 2024. Why should I care? This bill is the twin to the Treaty Principles Bill. So much so that you can use your submission for that bill as the template to this one. It has been described as: Th...

Regulatory Standards Bill: Explanation & Submission [Updated]

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You've done  your Treaty Principles Bill submission , and that was a piece of cake eh. If that's what all Bill submissions are like then bring it on, the voice of the masses can be finally heard. Update 14-Jan-2024: Did I Miss The Submission? (spoiler, no) -------- Submission form:  https://consultation.regulation.govt.nz/rsb/have-your-say-on-regulatory-standards-bill/consultation/intro/ Email your submission to:  RSBconsultation@regulation.govt.nz More: Submission Guidance & Assistance [Updated] What Is A "Person" Hmmmm, seems it's different for each Bill, which sort of makes sense. The Treaty Principles Bill is something that's not going anywhere no matter what happens, so it's been made very much a, "Tell us what you think and what could be done", expecting a tsunami of, "It's crap, throw it away". The response is gonna be, "Ok, we asked and we're gonna throw it away, as we were gonna anyway." There are Bills t...

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

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It feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Regulatory Standards Bill: What Is A "Person"

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Apart from the timing and the large set of questions (which you don't have to answer, just send in the submission for you want), the most insidious part of the Bill is the use of the word "persons". Update 14-Jan-2024: Did I Miss The Submission? (spoiler, no) -------- Submission form:  https://consultation.regulation.govt.nz/rsb/have-your-say-on-regulatory-standards-bill/consultation/intro/ Email your submission to:  RSBconsultation@regulation.govt.nz More: Explanation & Submission Guidance & Assistance [Updated] I take this from the extremely helpful and detailed, Proposed Regulatory Standards Bill : Explainer & Submission Guide , written by Jen Bennett and Melanie Nelson with contributions from several others. What does “individual” or “person” mean in this Bill? Most government action should think about all of us - not just some of us. The Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) focuses on individual interests. In the Bill the term "individual" or “perso...

Regulatory Standards Bill - Extension NOT Extended

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On ya, finally got to submit your  Treaty 'Principles' Bill thoughts  BUT that's only part one of two! Don't be fooled into thinking you've done your dash, the Treaty Principles Bill was probably always going to die and absolutely will now because of the overwhelming public disdain for it, your submission will add to that - top work! The Regulatory Standards Bill is sneaking in behind, like a Slytherin behind Potter, and if passed could be a game changer for this country ... it's astounding. I can't say it better than Emily Writes, and her awesome Jan 6th post, OK fine, what submissions do I have to make FFS?! , "Don't worry - I got you. Here's everything you need in one place!" , so I won't: Bill : The Regulatory Standards Bill Do it by : 13 January 2024. Why should I care? This bill is the twin to the Treaty Principles Bill. So much so that you can use your submission for that bill as the template to this one. It has been described ...

"Right Wing" Comedians

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Too many people comfortably plump themselves into an army of one type or another . Surrounded by those that sound like you, listen to you intently whilst nodding, and echo your thoughts on why the fight is a good fight and that the other side are such bad terrible people. I used to be more like that than I am nowadays ... hmmmm, aren't we humans meant to become more conservative and reactionary as we age, strange Mike. These thoughts have me thinking of two UK comedians that have been tagged as "right wing", which is putting them into an army for the benefit of someone but, I suspect, not them. First up,  Simon Evans who makes me laugh when he's talking about his family, kids, and life in Brighton. He then hit my ears big time with: Simon Evans Goes to Market , has had six seasons, delighting audiences with his witty and insightful take on the comedically unpromising territory of economics, all of which prove among the most popular downloads on the Sounds App. On the...

W. C. Fields quotes

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The office has all been moved around - new desks (with starter handles to raise and lower them), new high(er) speed network and ... the same old work. At least I have a differing view of the world, my team (well, the team I'm a part of not "my" team) is a lot closer - finally - and it's like an office from the 80's ... or even a classroom. But I still have time to move the crap off the PC : ------ Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! Who stole the cork from my breakfast? Now don't say you can't swear off drinking, it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they alwa...

The Cookie Time DC-3, I Found It

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Every Kiwi that has ever been on a roadtrip up / down State Highway 1 knows about the Mangaweka Cookie Time Douglas DC-3 café. You may stopped off and had a look around inside, the kids and I certainly have. But in 2021 it was suddenly gone, what happened? Well, it seems the plane was owned by two Mangawekan (?) business people who had a falling out. One dark and stormy night one decided to ship it away without the knowledge of the other (sort of). Shifting the plane meant they had to take the wings off first and now the body lives in Shannon at 2 Ballance Street, just next to the Club Hotel / bar.  Apparently it's being restored and will go back .. it won't. The wings, well who knows where they disappeared to but I understand they're not gonna be joining the body anytime soon. A little history lesson for us all: ZK-APK was delivered to the RNZAF in August 1945, then sold to the newly-formed National Airways Corporation (NAC) in 1947 and given the name Poaka. NAC was New Ze...

The Hīkoi Has You Charged Up But The Work Starts Now

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The submission form: https://www.parliament.nz/en/ECommitteeSubmission/54SCJUST_SCF_227E6D0B-E632-42EB-CFFE-08DCFEB826C6/CreateSubmission The hīkoi mō te Tiriti  was the calling card, a start, a bringing people together from across the nation so that the work can now begin. Why? The Act party is already rallying it's members around the messages it wants to flood the select committee with. It is here they think they can insert their divisive messages. Act, David Seymour, and his backers (notably Atlas, but also other foreign neoliberal billionaires) are willing to play the long game, this is merely the start for them. Having said that, I suspect they've probably taken a small step back due to the sheer amount of people saying, "No, we do not accept this" culminating in today's 45,000+ show of will, but that won't mean anything in the coming weeks. Tomorrow the hard work starts. Let's not get too work-y though, first up something simple, add you voice to the...