If you want to see what real hate speech looks like then announce to all your Che Guevara shirt totting, university educated twitter followers that you support free speech now and see how long you last.
66 to 1 is a 1.5% chance of being wrong... thats a lot of denied visas.Also, I see no mention of whether they both know their mothers in this article, so perhaps one or both of them were adopted, but that being said 1.5% is still a massive probability.
Since the Govt. is only banning single use plastic bags, does that mean the supermarket will still hand out bags to those of us who dont throw them away when we get home?Perhaps to make it legal I just have to verbally promise to use them a second time later, when Im checking out?I see no problem with that!
I dont understand, are the clothes shaped to fit a female form or a male form?Or do they just mix the clothes together so its harder to find ones that fit?
Wow, did he really just say help Aucklanders be great again. ?!Hes not even out the gate and hes already associating himself with Trump.Dont get me wrong, Im a big fan of Trump, but clearly doing that is political suicide in the New Zealand environment.I dont think he knows how to draw lines in the voter population properly and will lose out on votes unnecessarily, especially since hes running as representing Auckland as an asian city, I think that might go down well with some and badly with others.That being said, who is running against him?
I imagine thats why they only picked fruit in the middle of the orchard - so theyd be able to spread the theft over multiple trips.These thieves must run their own farms, and the stolen avocados will appear on the balance sheet as a miraculously high yield for that year (or perhaps they manage to produce this high yield every year through dubious means..)They could also sell the surplus to their unscrupulous friends who run other farms, to spread out the miracle yield and go undetected by authorities who would be asking pesky questions like wow how did you manage to yield so many avocados from such few trees??But given that these fruit wont ripen for human consumption it leaves me wondering if there are other uses for this fruit (cooking oils perhaps?) - So Id be looking to farms that sell in those markets as potential suspects. The other possibility is that the thieves have a use for the fruit themselves such as feed or fertiliser (hey, Im no farmer, so I dont know what they can use them for).
I dont know about Qwant, but Duckduckgo purposely leaks your information to practically every major tech company except Google (its built using various technologies that give those tech companies access in one way or another to your searches).The guy who built Duckduckgo made his millions by selling the userbase from his previous website, so hes clearly in the know how on monetising user data.
Thats because socialists know whats best for all of us even if we disagree, were just children to them with a superficial understanding of the great work theyre doing.. Theyre utilitarians and were the selfish ones!
The quote itself isnt original, and nor is the general theme (batmans head above the quote): There are many prints for sale online.However, they clearly chose the most similar font to the original, but Im not sure if Nagao can claim copy right on that particular font style, especially considering they changed it slightly anyways..It certainly looks like they copied the original, but the original wasnt particularly unique to begin with and they have made enough changes that I bet it will be hard to defend.Her only option now is to use social media to get justice, and maybe get in the news about it.
If I wanted to use my own bag instead of the plastic ones provided then I would have brought my own bag along - I dont need you to ban plastic bags to help me make up my mind. Unless your intention was to force me to do something I dont want to do, in which case you know where you can shove your reusable bags.
Here is an ideal, how about a world where you can have children and pass on your home like the generations did for millennia before you. Not really too much to ask for is it?
Because we as a society made the mistake of allowing those who control the speaking venues to disproportionately benefit from left leaning policies, which has changed the opinions of those in positions of power to personally favour left leaning proponents.For example, a university lecturer thinks universities are great and will fix the worlds problems, so left leaning policies that make university free must be helping fix the world, and he will talk about that in his lectures, perhaps as side comedy or perhaps to make a point.This isnt a matter of corruption though, this is simply a matter of influence.Arguably this is made worse because some on the left believe they are morally justified in retracting the freedoms of others because they believe that those others are in turn trying to retract the freedoms of vulnerable groups.Although this same leap in logic can occur in any group that believes what they are doing right. So I believe it must hinge on the fact that there is an expectation for those on the right to justify themselves using rationale, while those on the left are presumed to be correct by default because their emotions align with their beliefs.Also the liberal ideology is a nanny state whereby the people are not capable of making the right decisions for themselves as evident in how society has evolved throughout history (implying that we are always in a constant state of being wrong), and so the people who are right must step in and decide things on the peoples behalf. In this case, the VC is that authority protecting people from being brainwashed by this danger-speech.
Classic Labour tactic of divide and conquer; announce a new tax on 40% of the population so you have the support of the other 60% who the taxes will be spent on, then after you pass that tax you move onto the next 40% demographic and keep going until everyone is being taxed.
I support Free Speech and in this instance I agree with the Free Speech Coalitions proposed actions of taking these people to court.But I am not a part of the Free Speech Coalition and I would appreciate if you would consider these current actions of the Coalition based on their own merits, and not use the Coalitions other actions as a way to detract from these ones.That being said, this is a good opportunity to criticise the Coalition, if you so choose, but please do so in a way that doesnt appear to conflate the Coalition with their actions discussed in this article.
It should speak volumes to you that you have never heard of those two before and yet, so many others had heard of them and wanted to see them talk.You might want to ask why you have never heard of them before, if they are so famous and such important speakers to some?Perhaps this could serve as a red flag to you that they were already silenced long before they even got here.They have a worldwide following of millions.
I would like to remind everyone that Ireland was sued by the EU for having such low taxes as it has been stealing tax revenue from other member nations, and consequently becoming rich off their businesses. So much so that instead of disputing the the lawsuit they happily paid out the fine and will continue doing so, because having one of the lowest tax rates in the world affords them great business and employment, think Facebook and Google.Businesses would prefer to be operated locally, they will even pay our higher taxes to do so, but its just not enough in their financial interests to move their headquarters back over from Panama unless we make it so.
Ridiculous, in terms of weight they make up nothing in the landfill, and in terms of pollution, when was the last time you were strolling through the forest or out at sea and decided to throw out a plastic bag? That just doesnt happen, plastic bags are a non-problem, you only see them floating around cities and think its a problem because you never get out side.Heres a real problem: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.Bigger than Texas (2.5 New Zealands in size), with estimates ranging up to the size of Russia.Where does all this plastic come from? 60% is from fishing gear, not people living inside cities throwing plastic bags out into the ocean.. Get priorities straight and create tougher measures on fisheries being responsible for their gear/nets, and force them to practice retrieval.Also, why do people think that stricter laws in NZ are going to make any noticeable impact? We will have a much greater impact on the Earth if we deploy our charismatic leader to negotiate trade deals with places like India so we can then negotiate for human rights and environmental protections with them. Rather than telling our own people to produce slightly less rubbish than they did before.
How is abolishing segregation in parliament divisive? By the very definition it is unification.Regarding harmful, perhaps you have a valid point there, and you should elaborate further, starting with explaining how losing out on Government benefits (land handouts, parliamentary seats etc) is not a return to normal but is in fact bringing them below the normal.Just because Hobsons pledge is politically motivated doesnt mean it should be banned, the motivation behind speech doesnt determine whether its contents are hateful or not.Even if their purpose was solely to take away from minority groups it would only be hateful if you were to show that they chose to target minority groups, not because of rational reason, but instead because they simply didnt like their race. Then that would be hateful.
The issue isnt about whose business practices in NZ are more immoral, China or the US? its about how do we get concessions from our American ally who has neglected investment in us over the past few decades, which we do by accepting investments from China.Both countries see NZ as valuable, but while China is putting money into NZ, USA is trying to guilt trip us to get our loyalty for free.Keep in mind that China is employing a tried tactic that was once employed by the US: They are investing heavily into countries (infrastructure/one belt) that cant afford to pay back those debts, to which those countries will one day default on and then concede ownership of their assets to China. The key point here is that we should feel free to form deals with China that benefit us, but try not to sell off the country at the same time, like other countries have done. We need to strike a balance between short term and long term gains.
Clearly if they are being forced into it then they need legal protection, but if they choose to have a gay marriage or they choose to go down the path of conversion therapy then they should be allowed to do that and it should not be made illegal.Which ever choice they think will help them live their lives to their happiest should be an open option to them.
It is possible that the 66 to 1 odds is NOT referring to the accuracy of the DNA test, but its actually the chance of them being related, and there is no way for the test to be more certain than that.Sort of like how you can be 100% certain that your odds of rolling a 3 with a six sided dice is only 1 in 6, but checking how many sides are on the dice a second time wont change those odds.For example, they might share similar Genes, which have a 1 in 67 chance of being entirely coincidental and a 66 in 67 chance that the reason behind that is because they are related. But the test is 100% certain that they both have those similar Genes.In such a case re-testing will achieve nothing.
They are far more talented than you can imagine a human to be.And I can assure you that they dont mentally clock out at 4 PM to day dream about that cold beer waiting for them at home.
Exactly, I wanted to make that point as well, and felt bad that I left it out!Too often I see people conflating religion with race, if anything religion is closer to a form of culture, but it also often overlaps with state and should be open to criticism in the same way that proposed laws can be criticised.I believe that only attributes that a person are born with should be under any kind of protection.You are free to choose your religion, culture, and economic policies, but youre not free to choose your race or gender. So differentiating between those things is important to me.
If your interest rate is say ~5% on your 95% mortgage, and your deposit was only 5% of the house, then the interest you have to pay back every year is the same amount as your initial deposit.So if you had issues with not being able to make a bigger deposit than that, then how on Earth do you expect to afford the interest?
Its different with China because they are making an organised effort to influence their neighbours through immigration, lobbying and unpayable debts, as weve seen in other countries.The big problem is that the mainstream news doesnt cover even a fraction of what is going on and gives the perception that nothing bad is happening around the world in regards to China, and when they do cover something people think its a propagandist effort to make China look bad, but its the complete opposite. Our media has to be careful about how they cover China because if we covered everything then China would pull out of trade with us and crash our economy - No one wants to be the first to stand up to China and thats what China is counting on.Just look at whats going on in Xinjiang.
I saw this online years ago, didnt mention anything yesterday because there was no need to be overly critical.Almost the exact same design too, just search DIY Heating on YouTube and it is almost 5 years old.Give the YouTube channel a look, he does many amazing DIY designs.
It was only a few years ago that everyone agreed that American elections were just a vote for the lesser of two evils and that both parties were essentially more of the same just a different flavour.And everyone agreed it was terrible how the Kennedy, the Bush and the Clinton Families were running the country as their own mini monarchy.Not to mention the lack of term limits for congress where senators live their entire lives in power over the country or the many Govt departments loaded to the brim with technocrats that answer to no one but themselves.But now that Trumps elected, any position that even so much as hints at an organised or corrupt state is blasphemy.Where did all the liberals of yesteryear go, the ones that used to decry Government control and power abuses?Are they now the same liberals such as yourself who today are now asking for more state entrenchment to protect it from the evil individual, and his few merry men, known as Trump?
Every time something negative comes up about China there is an army of supporters trying to deflect with what about USA.Heres a list of reasons why USA is better than China:Taiwan (already been attacked, invasion planned to take place by 2050), Djibouti (debt trap + military base), Sri Lanka (debt trap), Tibet, Burma, Falun Gong (religious persecution and organ harvesting), Uighurs (bar codes on homes, forced detention, political and religious reeducation, forced into orphanages, forced to live with and sleep in the same room as Govt.employees), Vanuatu (debt trap), Buddhism (fake Govt. appointed successor to Dalai Lama), Organ harvesting prisoners, south China sea, burning churches (authorities burning the cross in public), intellectual property theft (including infiltrating R&D corporations and military deparments), social score system (facial recognition and bans on flying/leaving the country), pollution, constitutional dictator, public authorised kidnappings (Fan Bing Bing, head of interpol, journalists, protestors), and many more.
The thing that makes what they did not Free Speech is primarily the fact they were using their speech to smother and obscure other speech.Some further red flags that show why it might not be free speech include:They were not engaging in conversation, they were broadcasting.They were not broadcasting to people who wanted to hear their speech.What they had to say was not constructive arguments with premises and a follow through with logic, but were instead simple offensive statements.They were not invited to speak at the venue, they did not organise this event.
I wouldnt agree to someone being forced to participate in conversion therapy, just as I dont agree to them putting up posters and handing out coasters that have the opposite effect.I also dont agree to paying taxes to have those taxes be used to fund someone who wants to change my mind and tell me how to think on a personal matter.This is all happening out in the open, in public places and businesses; where is the backlash like there was with the calls to have conversion therapy centres shutdown? This is no different, and objectively worse.
Not just Russia but China too arrests their political opponents under the guise of anti corruption campaigns where the political opponents are charged for committing fraud.Which is ironically exactly what Muller IS doing and not just talking about it. So yes the righties agree with you on this one; witch hunts are bad mmkay??
I cant help but think that the capabilities presented here will turn out to be grossly exaggerated (enough power to ignite 1000 pairs of clothes at 1 km range and weigh less than 3kg battery?).And I also have to assume that the Americans have already given this a good shot.I think the main point here is that attaching a hot laser onto a small powerful battery isnt a major leap forward in technology.It is however, very likely to be illegal under international law (Geneva convention?) that prohibits weapons that cause permanent injury such as blindness, which is the main reason the west hasnt deployed laser technology themselves.
Just to be clear, its a brilliant idea, but Im pointing this out since it appears people have begun to believe that this is a new idea.There are other videos stretching back to early 2008 that show the same designs. So there are other DIY geniuses out there who arent getting the due attention they deserve; who have YouTube channels you can check out if youre into this kind of stuff.
I always knew that before my life was over theyd be hooking my head up to some magnets and telling me if I have nothing to hide then I have nothing to worry about. But I never believed Id see the people begging for it to come sooner.With the way the world is going with plastic bans, sugar taxes and Chinas social score system, I expect well see them abuse technology to shame and coerce the people into the behaviour of their choice.As it is right now, theyre just trimming the edges of behaviour, tidying it up to get rid of the crimes, but as weve seen with the recent law changes, the Government isnt above making decisions for us. Say your final good byes to freedom.
China has been described as accidental capitalism.They initially opened up a few special economic zones in an attempt to trial capitalism and after seeing its success decided to run with it.But at their core they are still loyal to the idea of communism, and that gives them their political strength within their borders as they can justify absolute central control and roll back capitalism at a whim when it is beneficial for them to do so. Perhaps their model is better than the west, as their entire country can act as a single unit when required to.That being said, a heavy hand comes with its own risks, and Xi appointing himself as a life long dictator with no clear successor has lined China up like a set of dominoes, ready to fall hard if he doesnt do something soon.
Trevor IS talking about now, imagine if Hillary was in that seat right now.Hes talking about how we would be doing today if we followed Hillarys policies instead of Trumps, such as her policy to instigate a no-fly zone over Syrian to induce a war with Russia - As explained by US military generals prior to the election.
Martin Cocker, the head of Netsafe, in charge of keeping children safe in New Zealand, says that Discord isnt a standout player in the voice chat market???How is he supposed to do his job when he clearly doesnt use the internet for anything other than reading the news and sending emails.Hes out of touch with the very children weve hired him to protect. Perhaps a case could be argued for his exceptional managerial skills, but what ever you do, dont let him put his boots on the ground.
No one mentioning the emerging technology to upload someones facebook pictures without consent to produce a 3D model for use with this..This is why I tell all my relatives not to upload photos of me - and to no avail.Everyone is more naive on this matter than they realise, even those who think theyre keeping up with the latest tech news.
You must be talking about the remaining redacted sections of the Carter Page FISA application, which the democrats were asking to be declassified because it proved that the Russian Collusion investigation is legitimate.But then immediately after the Republicans started to make moves to actually declassify the full document the Democrats did a full 180 and now no longer want anyone to see whats in there.
Its based in the USA, so you can stick it right back. Sorry, Linus let you down.You need to pass through multiple VPNs in multiple jurisdictions (at least once outside the Five Eyes) to achieve what you think youve achieved.Also, if you dont choose a country outside NZ/AU then they can use timing attacks to work out your traffic.Example: You go to www.Google.co.nz at 10:00:00 AM, all they see is an encrypted message to your VPN provider, then at 10:00:01 AM they see your VPN provider go to www.Google.co.nz, and so they know it was you.Also you left javascript and cookies turned on, youre still logged into Facebook which follows you around on every webpage, and you have about 100 tabs open in your browser to a specific unique subset of websites which are generating constant traffic which forms a fingerprint to identify you.As far as they are concerned, you just teleported to central Auckland when you turn on your VPN, but they still know its you.
Another problem this use of data faces is various biases such as ageism, sexism etc.In The States a supermarket algorithm sent a young girl advertisement leaflets for baby products - it had determined her pregnancy before she had told anyone.So you can see how taking input data such as eating and spending habits but leaving out pregnancy status will still lead to bias against pregnant women when calculating expected workable hours. Those data sets are deeply entwined, and youd need to tell the algorithm to specifically not ignore, but consider, pregnancy status in order to account for it affecting the other data.I think the important question is: Are we going to allow algorithms or AI to generate laws for us?Because the way we are going, AI is going to outstrip the law makers, and the legal boundaries are going to become too complex and abstract for a human to consider, so we need AI that will be able to make that consideration for us when regulating the AI and algorithms that companies will build in the near future.
Just because the car is looking at you doesnt mean it wont run you over.But if the car doesnt see you then you know it certainly will run you over.So at least I can be assured of when I need to start running.
Always makes me laugh when I see real estate agents saying that we need to convince people that what they are selling isnt worth what they think it is.As if supply and demand isnt mature enough to take care of itself, we need real estate agents to step in and tell us what to do.
Its possible that they are using the battery to charge capacitors and then discharge from the capacitors. Which means there will be a downtime in-between shots, but that would solve the problem youve raised.
I might be wrong, and I have very little knowledge on the matter (so dont hate me for asking this), but is there a financial motivation behind this? As I understand, the Auckland council charges for waste water taken away from the property, and so if you connect your rain water to your drain youre by law supposed to pay for it.Obviously, any finances made from this will ideally go towards increasing the capacity of the drains etc, so Im not claiming the council is morally deficient (fair enough for those using the drains should pay for them). Im just checking if anyone here has an opinion on any additional motives/perspectives not mentioned in the article.Also, where does the council want this water to go? I assume they want the water to be left on the property (mud)?Are the drains on the road (rain water flows off the property onto the road), connected to a different pipe system than where these illegal down pipes are plugged into? If not then this wouldnt help much with the original problem, which is the pipe system is over capacity and needs extending.
I have no particular issue with depegging from gold. Its not like we still use grain as currency anymore is it?The abstraction of currency from food/grain to precious metals to signed notes to bank ledgers to digitised credit has been a good thing and built the ponzi scheme that has made our western societies so successful (we rely on new investment to pay off our debts, generating even more debt, but attracting even more investment. So long as other countries fund our growth we will absorb everything they produce and leave nothing left in their home countries to share with their own people).The problem is that were still using old metrics to define success, which makes it look like were doing poorly when were not actually. Investment (attracting debt) is a new form of income and not actually a bad thing. And if we crash it will be those other countries that are invested in us who take the fall.
I have no doubt that the point behind this is 100% 1 (that plastic comes from people on land), but you also need to consider that bays (as were mentioned in this article) act as traps for plastic flow as their waters are calmer. So you cant just say that because we found plastic in this bay then that proves the plastic must be originating from this bay.You also need to look into the great pacific garbage patch which is no where near humans, but has formed because of the way the pacific ocean flows. Again proving that where plastic is doesnt teach us (directly) where it came from.Plastic floats, and could be coming from all over the world.
I can see a lot of single-use rubbish bags and single-use plastic bottles, but I dont see many multi-use plastic shopping bags in these photos..Just this week I had a newly trained New World checkout attendant ask me if Id like a plastic bag to carry my groceries in.
I was about to berate this article/study, until I saw Aaron Gilberts response at the end, that set the record straight. Bravo.Proving that paying the cheapest funds doesnt yield the best returns is a strawman argument and disingenuous. You are supposed to prove that paying more fees yields more returns.Because it is you, by charging higher fees, that is making the claim that you will yield us higher returns and so the burden of proof falls on you to justify your fees on your accounts.Aaron also pointed out another key aspect that wasnt even considered in the study: Risk.Presumably those more expensive fees go into more actively managed funds where your account can go up and down unpredictably, and it might not be there when you need it most.Risk comes at a cost, and they didnt account for it.
Eaqub is disingenuous when he misrepresents his academic peers counter arguments against free trade:Perhaps the simplest counter argument that I can pass here is that free trade undermines developing industries in developing countries, which we have indeed seen in practice: Without appropriate tariffs, an established competing country can undercut your countrys industry prices through established economies of scale and government subsidisation (which only the wealthy countries can afford) and once your industry has collapsed the more wealthy country can then return prices to normal.This is anti-competitive and leads to inequality and inefficiency across the globe.We have seen this with free trade deals between the EU and African nations. The EU holds the African nations to their free-trade contracts that state they cannot impose tariffs to protect their developing industries (lest the EU cut all trade ties to that country), meanwhile the EU undercuts those industries with subsidies.I find this article to be highly offensive, especially the use of slippery slope arguments, such as claiming that protectionist trade policies may lead to genocide.
I dont think this idea has been abandoned yet, I think it is still preliminary.But I am saying that the less sunlight issue was considered to be a very minor issue, and thats what I am highlighting: That CO2 absorbing light is considered to be the main driver behind global warming, but yet changing the Sahara from reflective sand to dark forest does not contribute to global warming in a major way.Despite that the Sahara desert would clearly be more impactful than CO2 given its coverage and efficiency at absorbing light.The main problem with the Sahara forest idea, beyond destroying the Sahara desert, is to get the water for that forest, which in doing so will deal a lot of damage to the environment from where ever you take that water from.
Everyone is talking about cheap labour, because that is what made China successful.But cheap labour is a finite resource and it has dried up in China, and factories are now moving into South East Asia and Chinas trying to stop it. The cost of living in China has exploded as workers migrated from farms into the cities to work in factories - housing and food prices have skyrocketed.Meanwhile in Europe/The West R&D into automation is driving manufacturing costs down and China has been buying out those companies that build the machines that China uses to manufacture - Most manufacturing is automated and cheap labour can only cut costs so far.Experts predict in the coming decades well see a shift from manufacturing in countries where there is cheap labour towards manufacturing in the consumers countries as labour prices are replaced with automation and Freight costs become the next major way to reduce costs.Take Chinas OBOR initiative for example, which is in part another attempt to bring down freight costs so manufacturing will stay inside China for another 20 years.
Hyperbole aside:Dems about to launch civil war - Hes condemning war (and aggression), not inciting it.Rudy Giuliani: Robert Mueller Implicated - Hes quoting The Presidents lawyer, not pushing fake news.Infowars Banned: Patriots stand up for free speech - I see literally nothing wrong with this and if you do then you are bias.Do you get paid to make these posts? Because no one here was even talking about Alex Jones, and now youre trying to get people to defend him in some sort of straw-man argument that you think you will more easily win, rather than participating in the already existing discussions here on free speech.
End-to-End encryption is a farce; it provides no protection against MITM attacks (unless otherwise stated), and between one end and the other is your ISP (and by extension the Govt.), the service youre using (i.e. WhatsApp) and any additional attackers out there.If WhatsApp (or any of the above others) wanted to record what youre talking about they can, they just need to be incentivised to tweak their code a little.There are additional steps that must be taken in combination with end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp uses a security code verification shared between any two users, but that code itself had to pass through WhatsApp unverified, originally.
If I buy a device that reads my brain for me so I dont have to do everything manually, then will I be allowed to encrypt the data or would that offend the FiveEyes sensibilities?
If a supermarket employee whose job is to understand product pricing was trying to tell the world how to get the best deal on bread at supermarkets, I would take it with a grain of salt and try to work out what is in it for them.I checked the OCR over the years from 2003 til today to try discern a pattern between the NZD and the OCR. I also checked the retail rates as given by the reserve bank, and they seem to behave differently to the OCR, but its similar enough.RR = B1. Floating first mortgage new customer housing rate (sitting at 5.85% Aug 2018).June 08 OCR: 8.25%Aug 08 RR: 10.9%April 09 OCR: 2.5%Nov 09 RR: 5.9%April 15 OCR: 3.5%May 15 RR: 6.7%Mar 16 RR: 5.6%Nov 16 OCR: 1.75%Dec 16 RR: 5.6%April 17 RR: 5.8%Correct me if Im wrong on anything, thanks.
If it exploded like you say then it must have been safety glass, which is no different than a shower of little pebbles (except they weigh much less than stone). Because a normal glass window would have broken into jagged sheets instead, which can kill a person.
When they made the prediction that the Earth will grow 1 degree C warmer over the next x years they were actually taking an average of about 20+ different models, some of which nose dive and predict it will get colder.Its just that most of their models trend upwards and so its reasonable to expect that the most likely outcome is up.But that said, they dont solely rely on any one of those models, because none of them are perfect/accurate.
The one interesting thing to come up from QAnon believers is that they have caught onto the fact that there are over 30,000 sealed documents on PACER (they believe these documents mean that Trump is going to drain the swamp... but anyways..).PACER is a web service that allows people to check court filings online, and that count was from a few months back now, and they had been consistently growing since the end of 2017.Documents only become sealed if the court believes that: if the subject of the document knew about it then they would act on it (such as by fleeing the country or some other action); so they have to pass through a court and be judged appropriate.There are usually far less sealed documents per year (a few hundred to a few thousand, but not tens of thousands), and they tend to be unsealed as the cases are resolved, instead these ones are building up as time goes on.So whatever these documents are (they could be indictments, but they could also be surveillance warrants and a few other things), something big is going on. I just hope QAnon is wrong and Trump doesnt plan on rounding up his entire politcal opposition, even if he does so legally.
3% IS NOT SMALL:If every year 3% of all available homes leave the NZ market then after just 5 year you are left with only 86%.Which in purely mathematical conditions would then lead to a 16.5% increase in house prices, in only 5 years.This is not how it works in practice, but this shows how the maths behind the 3% is way bigger and more important than it has been portrayed.
Not to mention AI and automation integrated into their vehicles.Or that quantum algorithms can decrypt almost all communications (due to reliance on RSA).
Thats interesting to know, apparently they produce the Hydrogen by taking it from Methane (probably because Methane is rich in Hydrogen so it will be more efficient than using H2O), which then produces CO2, presumably in the same quantities as if you had burned the Methane.Fortunately, Hydrogen can be produced by using only water, which will produce no CO2 in the process, but I assume that process is quite inefficient, as all good things are..Another possible mitigating factor, like some methane power plants, you could bulk produce the hydrogen in a factory that captures its own emissions (which a fossil fuel car cannot do).My point in bringing up hydrogen was that its a clean alternative fuel to power mobile engines such as cars, and potentially cleaner than using chemical batteries if its produced from water.
CGT is double dipping and makes no sense.You work for your money, saving it up and get taxed at that time, then you use your money, it doesnt even trade hands, and you get taxed a second time through CGT, then you finally spend your money and you get taxed a third time thanks to GST.The major flaw here is what youre taxing isnt even an exchange of money from one person to another, instead youre taxing money that someone has placed to sit in the right place; youre taxing sitting money.Ultimately, this tax wants you to spend it up large on alcohol, travel overseas and live in an expensive apartment, and then in your old age, to live off the tax from others until you pass. There are less and less incentives every day to choose saving up over having fun and making the most of your life, and make no mistake, this is a purposeful propagandist move to increase spending and boost money flow in the economy at our expense. The people who will have the biggest impact to their way of life thanks to this tax will be those at the bottom of the passive income ladder, those who are wondering whether or not if they have an obligation to pass on an inheritance to their children, and after this tax they will find their answer and fall off that ladder to go make the most of their lives because saving money just isnt what it used to be anymore.
Was that mid 2014 or mid 2015?Because in hindsight..The NZD had just taken a plunge from July 2014 to Sept 2015, and the Reserve Bank began to drop the OCR in June 2015 to address this issue, until Nov 2016.Perhaps they couldnt have foreseen the NZD drop coming back before mid 2014, but after that had happened they definitely should have known that the OCR was going to drop from mid 2015 onwards.Between mid 2014 and mid 2015 there was no real change in interest rates.
By far the best solution to replace fossil fuel power plants today is to replace them with Nuclear power plants.The biggest concern today with Nuclear power plants is the radioactive waste they produce. If the same level of funding that goes into solar panels (which produces large amounts of toxic e-waste and requires large amounts of open land) instead went into proper handling of radioactive waste then this wouldnt even be an issue.This is something that is easily solvable today, and is financially viable today, and the only reason it isnt happening right now is because of the political pressures from the same greenies that want to save the Earth who also misunderstand how low the level of risk involved is with modern Nuclear power these days (Which is actually becoming more risky because we are pulling funding out from underneath the feet of existing Nuclear power plants causing budget cuts and reducing vital upkeep maintenance which in turn causes degradation and risks).
What most people dont see is that there is a rich underground of facts on social media websites that brings to light things that politicians and corporations would rather not have brought to light.This war on fake news is blatantly an attempt to shut down the underground of facts that the mainstream media cannot compete with, and they dont want people to find it. These are YouTube channels that evolved out of criticism, it only takes 10 seconds to google search and fact check any claim made by in YouTube video. Then comment about it with harsh words and everyone will vote it up to the top, so that it appears right below your video where everyone can see it and shame you. With thousands of people critically watching your videos, many of whom disagree with you, it forces you to create only the most infallible arguments, backed up by statistics, research and facts.Not only do these videos have to be fool proof to avoid criticism, they also have to be fast, bite sized, and to the point.Recently things have changed however, YouTube has purposely reworked its model to change this environment and undercut this way of life.
Your generation is the reason we had the loudness wars, and Michael Jackson was the forefather of looks taking over musicianship, not saying he was bad but he was the one that always wore a single white glove which (single handedly, get it?) turned music into a fashion statement.What people dont realise is that music, like every other industry on Earth has evolved and exploded in complexity. What you see on TV is what was made for TV, but if you know where to look you can find legitimate music, and lots of it.
Actually, Fox news was the only station that was directly saying that the migrant caravan isnt a threat to USA before the elections and not to worry about it.Oops Fox news isnt fake news after all, thats not going to fit in well with your indoctrinated beliefs that Fox is fake and CNN is real!!
Because they believe that God created everything, including atoms, subatomic particles, and physics itself. Not just biology.. But they also see life as special, and many believe you cant create life and if you did it wouldnt have a soul. So on that front you just cant ever win with them, how could you ever hope to prove you created a soul?
The problem is when kiwibank gets pressured into refusing her as well, or when kiwibank is no longer around, or the management changes...Good luck to you if you want to petition or whistle blow on any one of the banks, and say good bye to your day to day life as you know it.
When was the last time you noticed the streets full of delivery vehicles at 1 am?Surely, during work hours expect to see a steady stream of documents and small packages fly over head, but its not like youll fly them straight from A to B, its more likely the drones will fly the package to a nearby van and the whole batch will be driven across the city to a drop off point where more drones will finish the delivery.Its also inevitable that commercial delivery drones will be confined to following the roads underneath - imagine if one drone dropped onto a pedestrian or a persons house.
I think were more likely to identify users who fit the stereotype, and those who dont go on to live their lives like everyone else and we dont realise it when we meet them in our day to day interactions.
Ultimately you can consider all the internal happenings inside the Earth to be a closed system, and simply measure the amount of energy (radiation) that goes in, and how much comes out - this is the purpose of discussing albedo. You are right that CO2 absorbs light in a spectrum outside the visible range (in fact it absorbs the infrared spectrum) - this is the radiation that is emitted from heated objects such as the planet surface.The leaves are great at absorbing incoming light, such as visible light (all except green, as leaves reflect green light) which means less light is reflected back - and more light will become heat radiation.So to compare apples with apples, consider how much infrared radiation each contributes to the Earth. Consider how much the leaves heat up by blocking out visible light (minus the infrared radiation that the sand would have produced if you didnt plant the trees - sand is reflective and has a higher albedo and so it reflects a lot of the visible light back to space instead of heating up). This net-heat is thus how much infrared radiation the forest will generate (and this radiation will heat up the Earth).Versus how much CO2 absorbs and blocks infrared radiation from escaping the atmosphere - as this keeps the Earth warm.((Forest - Sand) * 1.8%) vs (CO2 * 0.04%)
This could become very complicated when you start considering how the store layout and back drop decoration (including lighting) plays into it.Im not saying it cant be done, Im saying theres a lot of potential here.I think the key advantage this has over eye tracking someone walking through the actual store, is as they explain: you can rearrange all the shelves with the push of a button, and you dont have to actually build the set.
Those Foreign Exchange (Forex) Reserves were accumulated via Exchange Rate policy, whereby China has devalued their own currency by buying up other currencies (and other forms of reserves).They did this so that their exports are more competitive at lower prices, and as a byproduct, importing to China is comparatively more expensive (due to the Exchange Rate).This is what international economists have condemned for years as being unfair, and is a major contributor to the trade deficit between China and other countries. Which in turn served as Trumps justification to declare a trade war, he and others have called it currency manipulation which is a dirty word.However, the reserves dont come from nowhere: Naturally the Yuan should be valued much higher, and so exporters (and anyone who is holding Yuan) in China should own more wealth than they do, but they dont due to the decreased value of the Yuan.The effects on the economy of this arent necessarily negative, but one obvious point is a decrease in money flow and investment as the Government is subtracting from these to build up those reserves.Another key point is that China plans to implement a Petro-Yuan, backed by the same reserves. So this trade war could negatively impact that plan.
Just because the parties probably wont go for it doesnt mean we should give up without trying.If we make this worth even 5% of the vote by putting our partisan voting aside, that can be the deciding factor whether a party gets into power or not, and that is enough to get one party to support such a policy - all you have to do is be prepared to vote for the party you dont like, so long as they support this one key policy.
Interesting to find out more about the medicine. However, the first paragraph is quite alarmingly selfish. Imagine if the same advice was given to her partner:Your sexual energy is first and foremost yours, for your own pleasure and vitality. Your work to claim it needs to be for you first then you get to choose who you share it with. Of course that might sound harsh from your partners perspectiveAlthough, I am aware that people only read magazines and seek advice because they want someone else to give them the permission to do what they are already set on doing, and I suppose Salisbury is no different.
You can still support your party by doing your research and being vocal about their policies to your friends.Dont be confrontational about it, and dont pretend you know more than the locals (even if you do), but be helpful and you might just get a vote or two for the right people.
I support the schools right to freedom of suppression.If we start young then our police force can enact the same when our children graduate from college, and before we know it we will be competing on the world stage with other great states such as China and Singapore, for the most friendliest country award.
Should you be taxed for saving NZD cash in a shoebox?What if it was gold instead, should you be taxed then? Whats the difference?What if it were money from a foreign country such as USD? Is that different to NZD as well? Should that be taxed too? At what point does it become fraud, if you have $1000 USD left over from your recent trip to the states?Should you be taxed for inflation? All things rise relative to NZD thanks to Government spending.All those things are income in the eyes of CGT, with the exception of NZD which is special.I dont want to be taxed by the Govt because I own something other than NZD and this year the Govt decided to drive inflation up 3% per anum.
The encrypted communication software used by Edward Snowden at the time was later found out to be decryptable.A trusted-definitely-not-nsa software developer kept tweaking the encryption strength on the software until it reached a point that someone at home on their laptop could crack the messages in seconds.Even if the NSA didnt know at the time, if they simply stored the encrypted communications for later (which they undoubtedly did) then they can decrypt them in retrospect.This will prove 1 for all communications reliant on RSA encryption (which is to say all non-military communications in the world) in the coming years, which is well understood by all those in the business. Thats why the CIA are buying up data centres like there is no tomorrow, because before long there wont be a tomorrow.
The issue is that banking is such a major aspect of life and integral in a persons ability to operate in society (i.e. the ability to take out a full page ad in the paper becomes a lot harder when you cant crowd source and you have to slowly deliver cash physically).What happens when someone goes up against the banks? What if their credit rating is low and they go up against the banks? What happens if their credit rating is low because of the banks doing something wrong, and they speak up? What if youre a whistle blower, do all banks have a right to end ties with you?Suddenly it becomes a lot harder for them to organise and function and defend themselves and others.
I would like to see Governments around the world withdraw their hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into solar energy and instead put that same investment into the cleaner and more promising Fusion Energy - a cup of water will power a city and there are no radioactive materials involved.Solar panels just arent ready yet, and they dont even show the promise of ever being more financially viable than fossil fuels. Meanwhile Fusion energy does show this promise.If we can reduce the cost of electricity via Fusion then we can also reduce the cost of fossil fuel alternatives for vehicles - Either by using electric/hybrid vehicles, or even using hydrogen as fuel. Renewable energy sources have so far only served to increase the cost of electricity prices, keeping people away from switching to electric vehicles sooner.
She made Gowdy look stupid?!Clearly you didnt watch the same questioning I did, unless by stupid you mean she openly lied to his face knowing there was nothing he could do about it.It doesnt bother you at all that, as Gowdy pointed out, the first commission charged with investigating Benghazi phoned up the witness and told them not to testify before congress because they would be a bad witness? The same witness that a month to the day before the attack sent an email warning of impending attacks? That doesnt seem like a miscarriage of justice to you?You also do realise what it means when they ask Hillary to hand over emails, and they ask the person she was emailing to do the same, and then they both provide different sets of emails, right? It means that they were trying to delete their correspondence, to hide something and botched it up.As much as Hillary should have been investigated properly, it would have been clearly wrong for Trump to be the one to make that order, as doing so would set a terrible precedence for future elections and presidencies. My point wasnt to say investigate Hillary too! it was clearly to say that any investigation against anyone for political purposes is clearly wrong.But clearly you dont seem to understand that part - its wrong and doesnt matter who it is.
Misinformation?It was Trumps administration that only recently added the question of Are you a legal American citizen? to the census, for this exact reason and he was decried for doing so by the media.And yes, driving, hunting, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and watching adult movies, is relatively mundane compared to voting for the direction of the country.
Moving over $100k through a roadside stall? From the back of a van?Trying to avoid responsibility (to any degree) that the thieves could be storing these Avos for later in the season (when the questions have died down and the fruit has changed colour) to reintroduce these Avos back into the markets as surplus to their own yield on their own farms.All the while throwing roadside honesty boxes under the bus. Presumably because they cut out the middlemen like yourself, Seeka.Our wholesale markets want to know where the fruit is from All it takes is for the thieves to have their own farms, and have dodgy friends willing to buy the discounted fruit for their farms, to explain where the fruit came from.Question: Does Seeka take any steps to verify the yield quantities from year to year from their suppliers to detect any suspicious fluctuations that could indicate black market movement? Or would doing that scare off some of your farmers from selling through you, so you dont bother printing off those reports.In all likelihood the thieves were farmers themselves, with knowledge of where they can pawn these Avos before they pinched them, and the equipment and know how to pull this off.
If the authorities detect high entropy data on the wire coming out of your house youll be charged with trafficking in encrypted data. They will also get a search warrant to seize your computers and hard drives.Whats your next move? Youll have to use low entropy encryption, which means in order to encrypt 1 gigabyte youll end up with 10+ gigabytes of encrypted data you need to transfer.
As I saw explained more elegantly elsewhere, the vast majority of the bills that pass through congress get voted on unanimously from both sides. Its only when a bill comes through that gets public attention due to controversies that the senators then pick sides such as conservative vs liberal.Further, in Trumps efforts to endorse congressional candidates in various states weve seen that Trump can either help or hinder a candidate (in flip flop states his endorsement scares voters away, and in red states his endorsements gains them votes).So lot of Republicans consider Trump to be a massive problem for the party (think Russia Collusion and how that looks + All his other controversies), and Im sure you can agree you wouldnt want Trump on your team even if he was going along with all your ideas and supporting you.Also, not all of Trumps policies align with Republicans nor conservatives.I think that the fact the Republicans did well in 2017 cant be attributed (and isnt attributed by Republicans/Conservatives) to Trump.I also think that a lot of Democrat-leaning people believe that the Republican party is now the party of Trump, like you said, and that is why he has been scaring voters away from voting Republican (and why Republicans dont like Trump as much as you think they do).
Don Brash speaks at boisterous Auckland University debate, punctuated by protests
If you want to see what real hate speech looks like then announce to all your Che Guevara shirt totting, university educated twitter followers that you support free speech now and see how long you last.
Free speech group raises $50k to challenge Auckland Council over far-Right speaker ban
Let them come.
Visa rejected after Australian man told his wife is his sister
66 to 1 is a 1.5% chance of being wrong... thats a lot of denied visas.Also, I see no mention of whether they both know their mothers in this article, so perhaps one or both of them were adopted, but that being said 1.5% is still a massive probability.
Plastic bag makers say their product isn't to blame for damaging the environment
Since the Govt. is only banning single use plastic bags, does that mean the supermarket will still hand out bags to those of us who dont throw them away when we get home?Perhaps to make it legal I just have to verbally promise to use them a second time later, when Im checking out?I see no problem with that!
National cannabis bill would not allow any smoking
They are trying to undercut any possible, more liberal bill that the current Government will try to bring in next year.
Can a businesses reject customers based on religious beliefs?
Tomorrows article:Hindu butcher, rude, intolerant and in breach of human rights for not serving beef cuts when requested.
NZ not ready for gender neutral department floor: marketing expert
I dont understand, are the clothes shaped to fit a female form or a male form?Or do they just mix the clothes together so its harder to find ones that fit?
John Chow for Auckland mayor? His 'arm could be twisted'
Wow, did he really just say help Aucklanders be great again. ?!Hes not even out the gate and hes already associating himself with Trump.Dont get me wrong, Im a big fan of Trump, but clearly doing that is political suicide in the New Zealand environment.I dont think he knows how to draw lines in the voter population properly and will lose out on votes unnecessarily, especially since hes running as representing Auckland as an asian city, I think that might go down well with some and badly with others.That being said, who is running against him?
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Look at what is happening in Xinjiang and then ask yourself if that is the kind of allies we want to be with.
Avocados worth $100,000 stolen from Far North farm
I imagine thats why they only picked fruit in the middle of the orchard - so theyd be able to spread the theft over multiple trips.These thieves must run their own farms, and the stolen avocados will appear on the balance sheet as a miraculously high yield for that year (or perhaps they manage to produce this high yield every year through dubious means..)They could also sell the surplus to their unscrupulous friends who run other farms, to spread out the miracle yield and go undetected by authorities who would be asking pesky questions like wow how did you manage to yield so many avocados from such few trees??But given that these fruit wont ripen for human consumption it leaves me wondering if there are other uses for this fruit (cooking oils perhaps?) - So Id be looking to farms that sell in those markets as potential suspects. The other possibility is that the thieves have a use for the fruit themselves such as feed or fertiliser (hey, Im no farmer, so I dont know what they can use them for).
Google and Mastercard cut a secret ad deal to track retail sales
I dont know about Qwant, but Duckduckgo purposely leaks your information to practically every major tech company except Google (its built using various technologies that give those tech companies access in one way or another to your searches).The guy who built Duckduckgo made his millions by selling the userbase from his previous website, so hes clearly in the know how on monetising user data.
Power of Auckland mayor's office curbed after lashing by ombudsman
Thats because socialists know whats best for all of us even if we disagree, were just children to them with a superficial understanding of the great work theyre doing.. Theyre utilitarians and were the selfish ones!
Australian homeware company Adairs alleged to have copied Kiwi artist's design
The quote itself isnt original, and nor is the general theme (batmans head above the quote): There are many prints for sale online.However, they clearly chose the most similar font to the original, but Im not sure if Nagao can claim copy right on that particular font style, especially considering they changed it slightly anyways..It certainly looks like they copied the original, but the original wasnt particularly unique to begin with and they have made enough changes that I bet it will be hard to defend.Her only option now is to use social media to get justice, and maybe get in the news about it.
'Don't leave plastic bag change up to customers'
If I wanted to use my own bag instead of the plastic ones provided then I would have brought my own bag along - I dont need you to ban plastic bags to help me make up my mind. Unless your intention was to force me to do something I dont want to do, in which case you know where you can shove your reusable bags.
High-paid families feeling the squeeze
Here is an ideal, how about a world where you can have children and pass on your home like the generations did for millennia before you. Not really too much to ask for is it?
Legal action planned against Massey vice-chancellor
Because we as a society made the mistake of allowing those who control the speaking venues to disproportionately benefit from left leaning policies, which has changed the opinions of those in positions of power to personally favour left leaning proponents.For example, a university lecturer thinks universities are great and will fix the worlds problems, so left leaning policies that make university free must be helping fix the world, and he will talk about that in his lectures, perhaps as side comedy or perhaps to make a point.This isnt a matter of corruption though, this is simply a matter of influence.Arguably this is made worse because some on the left believe they are morally justified in retracting the freedoms of others because they believe that those others are in turn trying to retract the freedoms of vulnerable groups.Although this same leap in logic can occur in any group that believes what they are doing right. So I believe it must hinge on the fact that there is an expectation for those on the right to justify themselves using rationale, while those on the left are presumed to be correct by default because their emotions align with their beliefs.Also the liberal ideology is a nanny state whereby the people are not capable of making the right decisions for themselves as evident in how society has evolved throughout history (implying that we are always in a constant state of being wrong), and so the people who are right must step in and decide things on the peoples behalf. In this case, the VC is that authority protecting people from being brainwashed by this danger-speech.
Tax Working Group reaches consensus on introducing capital gains tax
Classic Labour tactic of divide and conquer; announce a new tax on 40% of the population so you have the support of the other 60% who the taxes will be spent on, then after you pass that tax you move onto the next 40% demographic and keep going until everyone is being taxed.
Legal action planned against Massey vice-chancellor
I support Free Speech and in this instance I agree with the Free Speech Coalitions proposed actions of taking these people to court.But I am not a part of the Free Speech Coalition and I would appreciate if you would consider these current actions of the Coalition based on their own merits, and not use the Coalitions other actions as a way to detract from these ones.That being said, this is a good opportunity to criticise the Coalition, if you so choose, but please do so in a way that doesnt appear to conflate the Coalition with their actions discussed in this article.
Legal action planned against Massey vice-chancellor
It should speak volumes to you that you have never heard of those two before and yet, so many others had heard of them and wanted to see them talk.You might want to ask why you have never heard of them before, if they are so famous and such important speakers to some?Perhaps this could serve as a red flag to you that they were already silenced long before they even got here.They have a worldwide following of millions.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Id rather be a slave to America and Australia than China.
Tax Working Group reaches consensus on introducing capital gains tax
I would like to remind everyone that Ireland was sued by the EU for having such low taxes as it has been stealing tax revenue from other member nations, and consequently becoming rich off their businesses. So much so that instead of disputing the the lawsuit they happily paid out the fine and will continue doing so, because having one of the lowest tax rates in the world affords them great business and employment, think Facebook and Google.Businesses would prefer to be operated locally, they will even pay our higher taxes to do so, but its just not enough in their financial interests to move their headquarters back over from Panama unless we make it so.
New Zealand to ban single-use plastic bags
Ridiculous, in terms of weight they make up nothing in the landfill, and in terms of pollution, when was the last time you were strolling through the forest or out at sea and decided to throw out a plastic bag? That just doesnt happen, plastic bags are a non-problem, you only see them floating around cities and think its a problem because you never get out side.Heres a real problem: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.Bigger than Texas (2.5 New Zealands in size), with estimates ranging up to the size of Russia.Where does all this plastic come from? 60% is from fishing gear, not people living inside cities throwing plastic bags out into the ocean.. Get priorities straight and create tougher measures on fisheries being responsible for their gear/nets, and force them to practice retrieval.Also, why do people think that stricter laws in NZ are going to make any noticeable impact? We will have a much greater impact on the Earth if we deploy our charismatic leader to negotiate trade deals with places like India so we can then negotiate for human rights and environmental protections with them. Rather than telling our own people to produce slightly less rubbish than they did before.
Legal action planned against Massey vice-chancellor
How is abolishing segregation in parliament divisive? By the very definition it is unification.Regarding harmful, perhaps you have a valid point there, and you should elaborate further, starting with explaining how losing out on Government benefits (land handouts, parliamentary seats etc) is not a return to normal but is in fact bringing them below the normal.Just because Hobsons pledge is politically motivated doesnt mean it should be banned, the motivation behind speech doesnt determine whether its contents are hateful or not.Even if their purpose was solely to take away from minority groups it would only be hateful if you were to show that they chose to target minority groups, not because of rational reason, but instead because they simply didnt like their race. Then that would be hateful.
NZ-China relationship more complex than 'sensational' headlines
The issue isnt about whose business practices in NZ are more immoral, China or the US? its about how do we get concessions from our American ally who has neglected investment in us over the past few decades, which we do by accepting investments from China.Both countries see NZ as valuable, but while China is putting money into NZ, USA is trying to guilt trip us to get our loyalty for free.Keep in mind that China is employing a tried tactic that was once employed by the US: They are investing heavily into countries (infrastructure/one belt) that cant afford to pay back those debts, to which those countries will one day default on and then concede ownership of their assets to China. The key point here is that we should feel free to form deals with China that benefit us, but try not to sell off the country at the same time, like other countries have done. We need to strike a balance between short term and long term gains.
Petition to ban gay conversion therapy presented to Parliament
Clearly if they are being forced into it then they need legal protection, but if they choose to have a gay marriage or they choose to go down the path of conversion therapy then they should be allowed to do that and it should not be made illegal.Which ever choice they think will help them live their lives to their happiest should be an open option to them.
Visa rejected after Australian man told his wife is his sister
It is possible that the 66 to 1 odds is NOT referring to the accuracy of the DNA test, but its actually the chance of them being related, and there is no way for the test to be more certain than that.Sort of like how you can be 100% certain that your odds of rolling a 3 with a six sided dice is only 1 in 6, but checking how many sides are on the dice a second time wont change those odds.For example, they might share similar Genes, which have a 1 in 67 chance of being entirely coincidental and a 66 in 67 chance that the reason behind that is because they are related. But the test is 100% certain that they both have those similar Genes.In such a case re-testing will achieve nothing.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Democractic to whom, the Han?
Rich-listers' wealth grows six-fold in two decades, much faster than rest of economy
They are far more talented than you can imagine a human to be.And I can assure you that they dont mentally clock out at 4 PM to day dream about that cold beer waiting for them at home.
Uni students tell us what they really think about free speech
Exactly, I wanted to make that point as well, and felt bad that I left it out!Too often I see people conflating religion with race, if anything religion is closer to a form of culture, but it also often overlaps with state and should be open to criticism in the same way that proposed laws can be criticised.I believe that only attributes that a person are born with should be under any kind of protection.You are free to choose your religion, culture, and economic policies, but youre not free to choose your race or gender. So differentiating between those things is important to me.
ASB offers KiwiBuild buyers a 95 per cent mortgage
If your interest rate is say ~5% on your 95% mortgage, and your deposit was only 5% of the house, then the interest you have to pay back every year is the same amount as your initial deposit.So if you had issues with not being able to make a bigger deposit than that, then how on Earth do you expect to afford the interest?
Inheritance tax good economics, and the politics may be better than they seem
Quantitative easing, one of the driving factors behind inflation, is already a tax on inheritance.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Its different with China because they are making an organised effort to influence their neighbours through immigration, lobbying and unpayable debts, as weve seen in other countries.The big problem is that the mainstream news doesnt cover even a fraction of what is going on and gives the perception that nothing bad is happening around the world in regards to China, and when they do cover something people think its a propagandist effort to make China look bad, but its the complete opposite. Our media has to be careful about how they cover China because if we covered everything then China would pull out of trade with us and crash our economy - No one wants to be the first to stand up to China and thats what China is counting on.Just look at whats going on in Xinjiang.
Money-saving DIY solar heat collector attracts plenty of attention
I saw this online years ago, didnt mention anything yesterday because there was no need to be overly critical.Almost the exact same design too, just search DIY Heating on YouTube and it is almost 5 years old.Give the YouTube channel a look, he does many amazing DIY designs.
Hillary Clinton takes aim at US President Donald Trump in scathing new essay
It was only a few years ago that everyone agreed that American elections were just a vote for the lesser of two evils and that both parties were essentially more of the same just a different flavour.And everyone agreed it was terrible how the Kennedy, the Bush and the Clinton Families were running the country as their own mini monarchy.Not to mention the lack of term limits for congress where senators live their entire lives in power over the country or the many Govt departments loaded to the brim with technocrats that answer to no one but themselves.But now that Trumps elected, any position that even so much as hints at an organised or corrupt state is blasphemy.Where did all the liberals of yesteryear go, the ones that used to decry Government control and power abuses?Are they now the same liberals such as yourself who today are now asking for more state entrenchment to protect it from the evil individual, and his few merry men, known as Trump?
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Every time something negative comes up about China there is an army of supporters trying to deflect with what about USA.Heres a list of reasons why USA is better than China:Taiwan (already been attacked, invasion planned to take place by 2050), Djibouti (debt trap + military base), Sri Lanka (debt trap), Tibet, Burma, Falun Gong (religious persecution and organ harvesting), Uighurs (bar codes on homes, forced detention, political and religious reeducation, forced into orphanages, forced to live with and sleep in the same room as Govt.employees), Vanuatu (debt trap), Buddhism (fake Govt. appointed successor to Dalai Lama), Organ harvesting prisoners, south China sea, burning churches (authorities burning the cross in public), intellectual property theft (including infiltrating R&D corporations and military deparments), social score system (facial recognition and bans on flying/leaving the country), pollution, constitutional dictator, public authorised kidnappings (Fan Bing Bing, head of interpol, journalists, protestors), and many more.
Uni students tell us what they really think about free speech
The thing that makes what they did not Free Speech is primarily the fact they were using their speech to smother and obscure other speech.Some further red flags that show why it might not be free speech include:They were not engaging in conversation, they were broadcasting.They were not broadcasting to people who wanted to hear their speech.What they had to say was not constructive arguments with premises and a follow through with logic, but were instead simple offensive statements.They were not invited to speak at the venue, they did not organise this event.
Urinal survey suggests homophobia and transphobia issues among Christchurch male pubgoers
I wouldnt agree to someone being forced to participate in conversion therapy, just as I dont agree to them putting up posters and handing out coasters that have the opposite effect.I also dont agree to paying taxes to have those taxes be used to fund someone who wants to change my mind and tell me how to think on a personal matter.This is all happening out in the open, in public places and businesses; where is the backlash like there was with the calls to have conversion therapy centres shutdown? This is no different, and objectively worse.
Hillary Clinton takes aim at US President Donald Trump in scathing new essay
Not just Russia but China too arrests their political opponents under the guise of anti corruption campaigns where the political opponents are charged for committing fraud.Which is ironically exactly what Muller IS doing and not just talking about it. So yes the righties agree with you on this one; witch hunts are bad mmkay??
Chinese scientists say they have developed a 'laser AK-47' that can set fire to targets from 800m
I cant help but think that the capabilities presented here will turn out to be grossly exaggerated (enough power to ignite 1000 pairs of clothes at 1 km range and weigh less than 3kg battery?).And I also have to assume that the Americans have already given this a good shot.I think the main point here is that attaching a hot laser onto a small powerful battery isnt a major leap forward in technology.It is however, very likely to be illegal under international law (Geneva convention?) that prohibits weapons that cause permanent injury such as blindness, which is the main reason the west hasnt deployed laser technology themselves.
Money-saving DIY solar heat collector attracts plenty of attention
Just to be clear, its a brilliant idea, but Im pointing this out since it appears people have begun to believe that this is a new idea.There are other videos stretching back to early 2008 that show the same designs. So there are other DIY geniuses out there who arent getting the due attention they deserve; who have YouTube channels you can check out if youre into this kind of stuff.
'Weapons of Math Destruction' or a force for good?
I always knew that before my life was over theyd be hooking my head up to some magnets and telling me if I have nothing to hide then I have nothing to worry about. But I never believed Id see the people begging for it to come sooner.With the way the world is going with plastic bans, sugar taxes and Chinas social score system, I expect well see them abuse technology to shame and coerce the people into the behaviour of their choice.As it is right now, theyre just trimming the edges of behaviour, tidying it up to get rid of the crimes, but as weve seen with the recent law changes, the Government isnt above making decisions for us. Say your final good byes to freedom.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
China has been described as accidental capitalism.They initially opened up a few special economic zones in an attempt to trial capitalism and after seeing its success decided to run with it.But at their core they are still loyal to the idea of communism, and that gives them their political strength within their borders as they can justify absolute central control and roll back capitalism at a whim when it is beneficial for them to do so. Perhaps their model is better than the west, as their entire country can act as a single unit when required to.That being said, a heavy hand comes with its own risks, and Xi appointing himself as a life long dictator with no clear successor has lined China up like a set of dominoes, ready to fall hard if he doesnt do something soon.
Hillary Clinton takes aim at US President Donald Trump in scathing new essay
Trevor IS talking about now, imagine if Hillary was in that seat right now.Hes talking about how we would be doing today if we followed Hillarys policies instead of Trumps, such as her policy to instigate a no-fly zone over Syrian to induce a war with Russia - As explained by US military generals prior to the election.
The dark side of gaming: Why child gamers are at risk from predators
Martin Cocker, the head of Netsafe, in charge of keeping children safe in New Zealand, says that Discord isnt a standout player in the voice chat market???How is he supposed to do his job when he clearly doesnt use the internet for anything other than reading the news and sending emails.Hes out of touch with the very children weve hired him to protect. Perhaps a case could be argued for his exceptional managerial skills, but what ever you do, dont let him put his boots on the ground.
Can 'techno sex' ever be as good as the real thing?
No one mentioning the emerging technology to upload someones facebook pictures without consent to produce a 3D model for use with this..This is why I tell all my relatives not to upload photos of me - and to no avail.Everyone is more naive on this matter than they realise, even those who think theyre keeping up with the latest tech news.
Hillary Clinton takes aim at US President Donald Trump in scathing new essay
You must be talking about the remaining redacted sections of the Carter Page FISA application, which the democrats were asking to be declassified because it proved that the Russian Collusion investigation is legitimate.But then immediately after the Republicans started to make moves to actually declassify the full document the Democrats did a full 180 and now no longer want anyone to see whats in there.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Often politicians coincidentally earn more after they retire..
Internet society fears 'Five Eyes' could be about to undermine the Net
Its based in the USA, so you can stick it right back. Sorry, Linus let you down.You need to pass through multiple VPNs in multiple jurisdictions (at least once outside the Five Eyes) to achieve what you think youve achieved.Also, if you dont choose a country outside NZ/AU then they can use timing attacks to work out your traffic.Example: You go to www.Google.co.nz at 10:00:00 AM, all they see is an encrypted message to your VPN provider, then at 10:00:01 AM they see your VPN provider go to www.Google.co.nz, and so they know it was you.Also you left javascript and cookies turned on, youre still logged into Facebook which follows you around on every webpage, and you have about 100 tabs open in your browser to a specific unique subset of websites which are generating constant traffic which forms a fingerprint to identify you.As far as they are concerned, you just teleported to central Auckland when you turn on your VPN, but they still know its you.
'Weapons of Math Destruction' or a force for good?
Another problem this use of data faces is various biases such as ageism, sexism etc.In The States a supermarket algorithm sent a young girl advertisement leaflets for baby products - it had determined her pregnancy before she had told anyone.So you can see how taking input data such as eating and spending habits but leaving out pregnancy status will still lead to bias against pregnant women when calculating expected workable hours. Those data sets are deeply entwined, and youd need to tell the algorithm to specifically not ignore, but consider, pregnancy status in order to account for it affecting the other data.I think the important question is: Are we going to allow algorithms or AI to generate laws for us?Because the way we are going, AI is going to outstrip the law makers, and the legal boundaries are going to become too complex and abstract for a human to consider, so we need AI that will be able to make that consideration for us when regulating the AI and algorithms that companies will build in the near future.
The cars have eyes: the self-driving 'eye pod' that stares at pedestrians
Just because the car is looking at you doesnt mean it wont run you over.But if the car doesnt see you then you know it certainly will run you over.So at least I can be assured of when I need to start running.
Real estate's next challenge: Sellers' expectations
Always makes me laugh when I see real estate agents saying that we need to convince people that what they are selling isnt worth what they think it is.As if supply and demand isnt mature enough to take care of itself, we need real estate agents to step in and tell us what to do.
Chinese scientists say they have developed a 'laser AK-47' that can set fire to targets from 800m
Its possible that they are using the battery to charge capacitors and then discharge from the capacitors. Which means there will be a downtime in-between shots, but that would solve the problem youve raised.
New Watercare testing seeks out illegal down pipes
I might be wrong, and I have very little knowledge on the matter (so dont hate me for asking this), but is there a financial motivation behind this? As I understand, the Auckland council charges for waste water taken away from the property, and so if you connect your rain water to your drain youre by law supposed to pay for it.Obviously, any finances made from this will ideally go towards increasing the capacity of the drains etc, so Im not claiming the council is morally deficient (fair enough for those using the drains should pay for them). Im just checking if anyone here has an opinion on any additional motives/perspectives not mentioned in the article.Also, where does the council want this water to go? I assume they want the water to be left on the property (mud)?Are the drains on the road (rain water flows off the property onto the road), connected to a different pipe system than where these illegal down pipes are plugged into? If not then this wouldnt help much with the original problem, which is the pipe system is over capacity and needs extending.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
I have no particular issue with depegging from gold. Its not like we still use grain as currency anymore is it?The abstraction of currency from food/grain to precious metals to signed notes to bank ledgers to digitised credit has been a good thing and built the ponzi scheme that has made our western societies so successful (we rely on new investment to pay off our debts, generating even more debt, but attracting even more investment. So long as other countries fund our growth we will absorb everything they produce and leave nothing left in their home countries to share with their own people).The problem is that were still using old metrics to define success, which makes it look like were doing poorly when were not actually. Investment (attracting debt) is a new form of income and not actually a bad thing. And if we crash it will be those other countries that are invested in us who take the fall.
Plastic in seas around NZ pose biggest risk in world's seabirds
I have no doubt that the point behind this is 100% 1 (that plastic comes from people on land), but you also need to consider that bays (as were mentioned in this article) act as traps for plastic flow as their waters are calmer. So you cant just say that because we found plastic in this bay then that proves the plastic must be originating from this bay.You also need to look into the great pacific garbage patch which is no where near humans, but has formed because of the way the pacific ocean flows. Again proving that where plastic is doesnt teach us (directly) where it came from.Plastic floats, and could be coming from all over the world.
China's ban on importing other countries' waste shakes up plastic war
I can see a lot of single-use rubbish bags and single-use plastic bottles, but I dont see many multi-use plastic shopping bags in these photos..Just this week I had a newly trained New World checkout attendant ask me if Id like a plastic bag to carry my groceries in.
Cheapest funds aren't the best performers, new report suggests
I was about to berate this article/study, until I saw Aaron Gilberts response at the end, that set the record straight. Bravo.Proving that paying the cheapest funds doesnt yield the best returns is a strawman argument and disingenuous. You are supposed to prove that paying more fees yields more returns.Because it is you, by charging higher fees, that is making the claim that you will yield us higher returns and so the burden of proof falls on you to justify your fees on your accounts.Aaron also pointed out another key aspect that wasnt even considered in the study: Risk.Presumably those more expensive fees go into more actively managed funds where your account can go up and down unpredictably, and it might not be there when you need it most.Risk comes at a cost, and they didnt account for it.
Forces of nationalism a spoke in the wheels of trade
Eaqub is disingenuous when he misrepresents his academic peers counter arguments against free trade:Perhaps the simplest counter argument that I can pass here is that free trade undermines developing industries in developing countries, which we have indeed seen in practice: Without appropriate tariffs, an established competing country can undercut your countrys industry prices through established economies of scale and government subsidisation (which only the wealthy countries can afford) and once your industry has collapsed the more wealthy country can then return prices to normal.This is anti-competitive and leads to inequality and inefficiency across the globe.We have seen this with free trade deals between the EU and African nations. The EU holds the African nations to their free-trade contracts that state they cannot impose tariffs to protect their developing industries (lest the EU cut all trade ties to that country), meanwhile the EU undercuts those industries with subsidies.I find this article to be highly offensive, especially the use of slippery slope arguments, such as claiming that protectionist trade policies may lead to genocide.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Was it the story about the person who didnt have to be here and whose ancestors and siblings havent contributed to this society at all?
"Trump says climate change not a hoax, but he's not sure of its source",
I dont think this idea has been abandoned yet, I think it is still preliminary.But I am saying that the less sunlight issue was considered to be a very minor issue, and thats what I am highlighting: That CO2 absorbing light is considered to be the main driver behind global warming, but yet changing the Sahara from reflective sand to dark forest does not contribute to global warming in a major way.Despite that the Sahara desert would clearly be more impactful than CO2 given its coverage and efficiency at absorbing light.The main problem with the Sahara forest idea, beyond destroying the Sahara desert, is to get the water for that forest, which in doing so will deal a lot of damage to the environment from where ever you take that water from.
Apple vs Donald Trump: Who is right?
Everyone is talking about cheap labour, because that is what made China successful.But cheap labour is a finite resource and it has dried up in China, and factories are now moving into South East Asia and Chinas trying to stop it. The cost of living in China has exploded as workers migrated from farms into the cities to work in factories - housing and food prices have skyrocketed.Meanwhile in Europe/The West R&D into automation is driving manufacturing costs down and China has been buying out those companies that build the machines that China uses to manufacture - Most manufacturing is automated and cheap labour can only cut costs so far.Experts predict in the coming decades well see a shift from manufacturing in countries where there is cheap labour towards manufacturing in the consumers countries as labour prices are replaced with automation and Freight costs become the next major way to reduce costs.Take Chinas OBOR initiative for example, which is in part another attempt to bring down freight costs so manufacturing will stay inside China for another 20 years.
Uni students tell us what they really think about free speech
Hyperbole aside:Dems about to launch civil war - Hes condemning war (and aggression), not inciting it.Rudy Giuliani: Robert Mueller Implicated - Hes quoting The Presidents lawyer, not pushing fake news.Infowars Banned: Patriots stand up for free speech - I see literally nothing wrong with this and if you do then you are bias.Do you get paid to make these posts? Because no one here was even talking about Alex Jones, and now youre trying to get people to defend him in some sort of straw-man argument that you think you will more easily win, rather than participating in the already existing discussions here on free speech.
Internet society fears 'Five Eyes' could be about to undermine the Net
End-to-End encryption is a farce; it provides no protection against MITM attacks (unless otherwise stated), and between one end and the other is your ISP (and by extension the Govt.), the service youre using (i.e. WhatsApp) and any additional attackers out there.If WhatsApp (or any of the above others) wanted to record what youre talking about they can, they just need to be incentivised to tweak their code a little.There are additional steps that must be taken in combination with end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp uses a security code verification shared between any two users, but that code itself had to pass through WhatsApp unverified, originally.
Artificial intelligence knows what you'll choose before you've made up your mind
If I buy a device that reads my brain for me so I dont have to do everything manually, then will I be allowed to encrypt the data or would that offend the FiveEyes sensibilities?
Here's how to save money on your mortgage
If a supermarket employee whose job is to understand product pricing was trying to tell the world how to get the best deal on bread at supermarkets, I would take it with a grain of salt and try to work out what is in it for them.I checked the OCR over the years from 2003 til today to try discern a pattern between the NZD and the OCR. I also checked the retail rates as given by the reserve bank, and they seem to behave differently to the OCR, but its similar enough.RR = B1. Floating first mortgage new customer housing rate (sitting at 5.85% Aug 2018).June 08 OCR: 8.25%Aug 08 RR: 10.9%April 09 OCR: 2.5%Nov 09 RR: 5.9%April 15 OCR: 3.5%May 15 RR: 6.7%Mar 16 RR: 5.6%Nov 16 OCR: 1.75%Dec 16 RR: 5.6%April 17 RR: 5.8%Correct me if Im wrong on anything, thanks.
More than seven years after Christchurch earthquake, Wellington scrambles to secure dangerous facades
If it exploded like you say then it must have been safety glass, which is no different than a shower of little pebbles (except they weigh much less than stone). Because a normal glass window would have broken into jagged sheets instead, which can kill a person.
Powerful new supercomputer ready to provide glimpse into NZs climate future
When they made the prediction that the Earth will grow 1 degree C warmer over the next x years they were actually taking an average of about 20+ different models, some of which nose dive and predict it will get colder.Its just that most of their models trend upwards and so its reasonable to expect that the most likely outcome is up.But that said, they dont solely rely on any one of those models, because none of them are perfect/accurate.
Reddit bans r/greatawakening board, home to QAnon conspiracy theorists
The one interesting thing to come up from QAnon believers is that they have caught onto the fact that there are over 30,000 sealed documents on PACER (they believe these documents mean that Trump is going to drain the swamp... but anyways..).PACER is a web service that allows people to check court filings online, and that count was from a few months back now, and they had been consistently growing since the end of 2017.Documents only become sealed if the court believes that: if the subject of the document knew about it then they would act on it (such as by fleeing the country or some other action); so they have to pass through a court and be judged appropriate.There are usually far less sealed documents per year (a few hundred to a few thousand, but not tens of thousands), and they tend to be unsealed as the cases are resolved, instead these ones are building up as time goes on.So whatever these documents are (they could be indictments, but they could also be surveillance warrants and a few other things), something big is going on. I just hope QAnon is wrong and Trump doesnt plan on rounding up his entire politcal opposition, even if he does so legally.
3 per cent of house sales to foreigners
3% IS NOT SMALL:If every year 3% of all available homes leave the NZ market then after just 5 year you are left with only 86%.Which in purely mathematical conditions would then lead to a 16.5% increase in house prices, in only 5 years.This is not how it works in practice, but this shows how the maths behind the 3% is way bigger and more important than it has been portrayed.
Chinese scientists say they have developed a 'laser AK-47' that can set fire to targets from 800m
Not to mention AI and automation integrated into their vehicles.Or that quantum algorithms can decrypt almost all communications (due to reliance on RSA).
Quick! Save the Planet: We must confront climate change
Thats interesting to know, apparently they produce the Hydrogen by taking it from Methane (probably because Methane is rich in Hydrogen so it will be more efficient than using H2O), which then produces CO2, presumably in the same quantities as if you had burned the Methane.Fortunately, Hydrogen can be produced by using only water, which will produce no CO2 in the process, but I assume that process is quite inefficient, as all good things are..Another possible mitigating factor, like some methane power plants, you could bulk produce the hydrogen in a factory that captures its own emissions (which a fossil fuel car cannot do).My point in bringing up hydrogen was that its a clean alternative fuel to power mobile engines such as cars, and potentially cleaner than using chemical batteries if its produced from water.
Capital gains tax punishes hard work
CGT is double dipping and makes no sense.You work for your money, saving it up and get taxed at that time, then you use your money, it doesnt even trade hands, and you get taxed a second time through CGT, then you finally spend your money and you get taxed a third time thanks to GST.The major flaw here is what youre taxing isnt even an exchange of money from one person to another, instead youre taxing money that someone has placed to sit in the right place; youre taxing sitting money.Ultimately, this tax wants you to spend it up large on alcohol, travel overseas and live in an expensive apartment, and then in your old age, to live off the tax from others until you pass. There are less and less incentives every day to choose saving up over having fun and making the most of your life, and make no mistake, this is a purposeful propagandist move to increase spending and boost money flow in the economy at our expense. The people who will have the biggest impact to their way of life thanks to this tax will be those at the bottom of the passive income ladder, those who are wondering whether or not if they have an obligation to pass on an inheritance to their children, and after this tax they will find their answer and fall off that ladder to go make the most of their lives because saving money just isnt what it used to be anymore.
Here's how to save money on your mortgage
Was that mid 2014 or mid 2015?Because in hindsight..The NZD had just taken a plunge from July 2014 to Sept 2015, and the Reserve Bank began to drop the OCR in June 2015 to address this issue, until Nov 2016.Perhaps they couldnt have foreseen the NZD drop coming back before mid 2014, but after that had happened they definitely should have known that the OCR was going to drop from mid 2015 onwards.Between mid 2014 and mid 2015 there was no real change in interest rates.
Quick! Save the Planet: We must confront climate change
By far the best solution to replace fossil fuel power plants today is to replace them with Nuclear power plants.The biggest concern today with Nuclear power plants is the radioactive waste they produce. If the same level of funding that goes into solar panels (which produces large amounts of toxic e-waste and requires large amounts of open land) instead went into proper handling of radioactive waste then this wouldnt even be an issue.This is something that is easily solvable today, and is financially viable today, and the only reason it isnt happening right now is because of the political pressures from the same greenies that want to save the Earth who also misunderstand how low the level of risk involved is with modern Nuclear power these days (Which is actually becoming more risky because we are pulling funding out from underneath the feet of existing Nuclear power plants causing budget cuts and reducing vital upkeep maintenance which in turn causes degradation and risks).
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
He gets 50c per post, google it.(maybe more because its translated)
Fake, misleading social media posts exploding globally, study finds
What most people dont see is that there is a rich underground of facts on social media websites that brings to light things that politicians and corporations would rather not have brought to light.This war on fake news is blatantly an attempt to shut down the underground of facts that the mainstream media cannot compete with, and they dont want people to find it. These are YouTube channels that evolved out of criticism, it only takes 10 seconds to google search and fact check any claim made by in YouTube video. Then comment about it with harsh words and everyone will vote it up to the top, so that it appears right below your video where everyone can see it and shame you. With thousands of people critically watching your videos, many of whom disagree with you, it forces you to create only the most infallible arguments, backed up by statistics, research and facts.Not only do these videos have to be fool proof to avoid criticism, they also have to be fast, bite sized, and to the point.Recently things have changed however, YouTube has purposely reworked its model to change this environment and undercut this way of life.
Explainer: What's behind the US-China tariffs and who stands to be hurt?
Nets are more expensive in the US.
Princess Chelsea: Sweet like sugar, sharp as a knife
Your generation is the reason we had the loudness wars, and Michael Jackson was the forefather of looks taking over musicianship, not saying he was bad but he was the one that always wore a single white glove which (single handedly, get it?) turned music into a fashion statement.What people dont realise is that music, like every other industry on Earth has evolved and exploded in complexity. What you see on TV is what was made for TV, but if you know where to look you can find legitimate music, and lots of it.
White House shares doctored video to support punishment of CNN journalist
Actually, Fox news was the only station that was directly saying that the migrant caravan isnt a threat to USA before the elections and not to worry about it.Oops Fox news isnt fake news after all, thats not going to fit in well with your indoctrinated beliefs that Fox is fake and CNN is real!!
Is Batman an atheist? Why superheroes might not believe in God
Because they believe that God created everything, including atoms, subatomic particles, and physics itself. Not just biology.. But they also see life as special, and many believe you cant create life and if you did it wouldnt have a soul. So on that front you just cant ever win with them, how could you ever hope to prove you created a soul?
Christchurch woman lobbies to make it a human right to have a bank account
The problem is when kiwibank gets pressured into refusing her as well, or when kiwibank is no longer around, or the management changes...Good luck to you if you want to petition or whistle blow on any one of the banks, and say good bye to your day to day life as you know it.
Drone promise not yet delivering
When was the last time you noticed the streets full of delivery vehicles at 1 am?Surely, during work hours expect to see a steady stream of documents and small packages fly over head, but its not like youll fly them straight from A to B, its more likely the drones will fly the package to a nearby van and the whole batch will be driven across the city to a drop off point where more drones will finish the delivery.Its also inevitable that commercial delivery drones will be confined to following the roads underneath - imagine if one drone dropped onto a pedestrian or a persons house.
US pot industry wants to see 'stoner' stereotype go up in smoke
I think were more likely to identify users who fit the stereotype, and those who dont go on to live their lives like everyone else and we dont realise it when we meet them in our day to day interactions.
"Trump says climate change not a hoax, but he's not sure of its source",
Ultimately you can consider all the internal happenings inside the Earth to be a closed system, and simply measure the amount of energy (radiation) that goes in, and how much comes out - this is the purpose of discussing albedo. You are right that CO2 absorbs light in a spectrum outside the visible range (in fact it absorbs the infrared spectrum) - this is the radiation that is emitted from heated objects such as the planet surface.The leaves are great at absorbing incoming light, such as visible light (all except green, as leaves reflect green light) which means less light is reflected back - and more light will become heat radiation.So to compare apples with apples, consider how much infrared radiation each contributes to the Earth. Consider how much the leaves heat up by blocking out visible light (minus the infrared radiation that the sand would have produced if you didnt plant the trees - sand is reflective and has a higher albedo and so it reflects a lot of the visible light back to space instead of heating up). This net-heat is thus how much infrared radiation the forest will generate (and this radiation will heat up the Earth).Versus how much CO2 absorbs and blocks infrared radiation from escaping the atmosphere - as this keeps the Earth warm.((Forest - Sand) * 1.8%) vs (CO2 * 0.04%)
Massey University PhD student shaping a new virtual reality for market research
This could become very complicated when you start considering how the store layout and back drop decoration (including lighting) plays into it.Im not saying it cant be done, Im saying theres a lot of potential here.I think the key advantage this has over eye tracking someone walking through the actual store, is as they explain: you can rearrange all the shelves with the push of a button, and you dont have to actually build the set.
Explainer: What's behind the US-China tariffs and who stands to be hurt?
Those Foreign Exchange (Forex) Reserves were accumulated via Exchange Rate policy, whereby China has devalued their own currency by buying up other currencies (and other forms of reserves).They did this so that their exports are more competitive at lower prices, and as a byproduct, importing to China is comparatively more expensive (due to the Exchange Rate).This is what international economists have condemned for years as being unfair, and is a major contributor to the trade deficit between China and other countries. Which in turn served as Trumps justification to declare a trade war, he and others have called it currency manipulation which is a dirty word.However, the reserves dont come from nowhere: Naturally the Yuan should be valued much higher, and so exporters (and anyone who is holding Yuan) in China should own more wealth than they do, but they dont due to the decreased value of the Yuan.The effects on the economy of this arent necessarily negative, but one obvious point is a decrease in money flow and investment as the Government is subtracting from these to build up those reserves.Another key point is that China plans to implement a Petro-Yuan, backed by the same reserves. So this trade war could negatively impact that plan.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
Just because the parties probably wont go for it doesnt mean we should give up without trying.If we make this worth even 5% of the vote by putting our partisan voting aside, that can be the deciding factor whether a party gets into power or not, and that is enough to get one party to support such a policy - all you have to do is be prepared to vote for the party you dont like, so long as they support this one key policy.
Dear Mrs Salisbury: Did the contraceptive pill kill my libido?
Interesting to find out more about the medicine. However, the first paragraph is quite alarmingly selfish. Imagine if the same advice was given to her partner:Your sexual energy is first and foremost yours, for your own pleasure and vitality. Your work to claim it needs to be for you first then you get to choose who you share it with. Of course that might sound harsh from your partners perspectiveAlthough, I am aware that people only read magazines and seek advice because they want someone else to give them the permission to do what they are already set on doing, and I suppose Salisbury is no different.
Quick! Save the Planet: We must confront climate change
and animals are not people.
‘Serious storm clouds’ threaten NZ democracy - report
You can still support your party by doing your research and being vocal about their policies to your friends.Dont be confrontational about it, and dont pretend you know more than the locals (even if you do), but be helpful and you might just get a vote or two for the right people.
Online bullying hits record-high - these are the people trying to stop it
I support the schools right to freedom of suppression.If we start young then our police force can enact the same when our children graduate from college, and before we know it we will be competing on the world stage with other great states such as China and Singapore, for the most friendliest country award.
Capital gains tax punishes hard work
Should you be taxed for saving NZD cash in a shoebox?What if it was gold instead, should you be taxed then? Whats the difference?What if it were money from a foreign country such as USD? Is that different to NZD as well? Should that be taxed too? At what point does it become fraud, if you have $1000 USD left over from your recent trip to the states?Should you be taxed for inflation? All things rise relative to NZD thanks to Government spending.All those things are income in the eyes of CGT, with the exception of NZD which is special.I dont want to be taxed by the Govt because I own something other than NZD and this year the Govt decided to drive inflation up 3% per anum.
Internet society fears 'Five Eyes' could be about to undermine the Net
The encrypted communication software used by Edward Snowden at the time was later found out to be decryptable.A trusted-definitely-not-nsa software developer kept tweaking the encryption strength on the software until it reached a point that someone at home on their laptop could crack the messages in seconds.Even if the NSA didnt know at the time, if they simply stored the encrypted communications for later (which they undoubtedly did) then they can decrypt them in retrospect.This will prove 1 for all communications reliant on RSA encryption (which is to say all non-military communications in the world) in the coming years, which is well understood by all those in the business. Thats why the CIA are buying up data centres like there is no tomorrow, because before long there wont be a tomorrow.
Christchurch woman lobbies to make it a human right to have a bank account
The issue is that banking is such a major aspect of life and integral in a persons ability to operate in society (i.e. the ability to take out a full page ad in the paper becomes a lot harder when you cant crowd source and you have to slowly deliver cash physically).What happens when someone goes up against the banks? What if their credit rating is low and they go up against the banks? What happens if their credit rating is low because of the banks doing something wrong, and they speak up? What if youre a whistle blower, do all banks have a right to end ties with you?Suddenly it becomes a lot harder for them to organise and function and defend themselves and others.
Quick! Save the Planet: We must confront climate change
I would like to see Governments around the world withdraw their hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into solar energy and instead put that same investment into the cleaner and more promising Fusion Energy - a cup of water will power a city and there are no radioactive materials involved.Solar panels just arent ready yet, and they dont even show the promise of ever being more financially viable than fossil fuels. Meanwhile Fusion energy does show this promise.If we can reduce the cost of electricity via Fusion then we can also reduce the cost of fossil fuel alternatives for vehicles - Either by using electric/hybrid vehicles, or even using hydrogen as fuel. Renewable energy sources have so far only served to increase the cost of electricity prices, keeping people away from switching to electric vehicles sooner.
Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen under FBI investigation for tax fraud
She made Gowdy look stupid?!Clearly you didnt watch the same questioning I did, unless by stupid you mean she openly lied to his face knowing there was nothing he could do about it.It doesnt bother you at all that, as Gowdy pointed out, the first commission charged with investigating Benghazi phoned up the witness and told them not to testify before congress because they would be a bad witness? The same witness that a month to the day before the attack sent an email warning of impending attacks? That doesnt seem like a miscarriage of justice to you?You also do realise what it means when they ask Hillary to hand over emails, and they ask the person she was emailing to do the same, and then they both provide different sets of emails, right? It means that they were trying to delete their correspondence, to hide something and botched it up.As much as Hillary should have been investigated properly, it would have been clearly wrong for Trump to be the one to make that order, as doing so would set a terrible precedence for future elections and presidencies. My point wasnt to say investigate Hillary too! it was clearly to say that any investigation against anyone for political purposes is clearly wrong.But clearly you dont seem to understand that part - its wrong and doesnt matter who it is.
Trump reckons you need photo ID to buy groceries
Misinformation?It was Trumps administration that only recently added the question of Are you a legal American citizen? to the census, for this exact reason and he was decried for doing so by the media.And yes, driving, hunting, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and watching adult movies, is relatively mundane compared to voting for the direction of the country.
Stolen avocados likely being sold at roadside stalls
Moving over $100k through a roadside stall? From the back of a van?Trying to avoid responsibility (to any degree) that the thieves could be storing these Avos for later in the season (when the questions have died down and the fruit has changed colour) to reintroduce these Avos back into the markets as surplus to their own yield on their own farms.All the while throwing roadside honesty boxes under the bus. Presumably because they cut out the middlemen like yourself, Seeka.Our wholesale markets want to know where the fruit is from All it takes is for the thieves to have their own farms, and have dodgy friends willing to buy the discounted fruit for their farms, to explain where the fruit came from.Question: Does Seeka take any steps to verify the yield quantities from year to year from their suppliers to detect any suspicious fluctuations that could indicate black market movement? Or would doing that scare off some of your farmers from selling through you, so you dont bother printing off those reports.In all likelihood the thieves were farmers themselves, with knowledge of where they can pawn these Avos before they pinched them, and the equipment and know how to pull this off.
Internet society fears 'Five Eyes' could be about to undermine the Net
If the authorities detect high entropy data on the wire coming out of your house youll be charged with trafficking in encrypted data. They will also get a search warrant to seize your computers and hard drives.Whats your next move? Youll have to use low entropy encryption, which means in order to encrypt 1 gigabyte youll end up with 10+ gigabytes of encrypted data you need to transfer.
Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen under FBI investigation for tax fraud
As I saw explained more elegantly elsewhere, the vast majority of the bills that pass through congress get voted on unanimously from both sides. Its only when a bill comes through that gets public attention due to controversies that the senators then pick sides such as conservative vs liberal.Further, in Trumps efforts to endorse congressional candidates in various states weve seen that Trump can either help or hinder a candidate (in flip flop states his endorsement scares voters away, and in red states his endorsements gains them votes).So lot of Republicans consider Trump to be a massive problem for the party (think Russia Collusion and how that looks + All his other controversies), and Im sure you can agree you wouldnt want Trump on your team even if he was going along with all your ideas and supporting you.Also, not all of Trumps policies align with Republicans nor conservatives.I think that the fact the Republicans did well in 2017 cant be attributed (and isnt attributed by Republicans/Conservatives) to Trump.I also think that a lot of Democrat-leaning people believe that the Republican party is now the party of Trump, like you said, and that is why he has been scaring voters away from voting Republican (and why Republicans dont like Trump as much as you think they do).