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With the last few hours of 2011 heading down the crapper it is time to wish you all a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated life during the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishees.
(Disclaimer 1: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)
Great to see Graham Henry, John Todd and Colin Giltrap get knighted. Unlike many who receive these awards the three gentleman mentioned deserve to be recognized.
On another note. I know that the ONZ is supposed to be the highest award, but can we really be expected to take it seriously when Helen bloody Clark is one of the recipients?
Nobody could ever class her as one of the 20 greatest living Kiwis.
Saw the film “The Iron Lady” last night; found it very sad.
How I wish we had someone in charge in New Zealand like that, someone who just does the right thing rather than seeking popularity or compromise. Rather made me think the NZ Parliament is full of 121 very weak and feeble men and women without principles and indoctronated with socialist ideology.
“Great to see Graham Henry, John Todd and Colin Giltrap get knighted. Unlike many who receive these awards the three gentleman mentioned deserve to be recognized.”
Not so sure BB. Maybe John Todd.
But Graham Henry and Colin Giltrap?
What for?
Colin for making a pile off money?
Graham for doing his job (And making a lot of money in the process)?
What about people like Stephen Bibby?
99 Year Old Man Seeks Divorce From Wife Of 77 Years For Affair In The 1940s:
“The couple have been together for 77 years, but time was no healer when the husband, referred to by Italian lawyers as Antonio C, found evidence of the affair while rummaging through a chest of drawers. Having confronted his wife, who confessed to the affair, he is now seeking a divorce.”
TINTIN: the report back. My review of a much-loved icon.
OK, the animation is just amazing, but I feel the story got lost in a technical computer geek fest (look what we achieved). We were taught at the NY Film Academy that film has three rules : Story, Story, Story. If the story sux (like “Sucker Punch”) then it ain’t worth a can of beans.
She Who Must Be Obeyed LOVED it, but to be honest, I’m tired of the completely implausible swash buckling cum-Indiana Jones hackneyed mush. It’s like ballet on steroids using things to hand (Jacky Chan does that better, his step ladder fight is AMAZING).
I LOVE Tintin, so this was ok. The technics were incredible (but so are boring Pre-Raphaelite paintings).
Snowy was wooden and unconvincing CGI.
The script was the weakest link. Needed a thorough edit and some smarts.
Haddock was just pathetic as a character (a self pitying wino loser and the whiskey joke just got tired).
I didn’t like that the two protagonists were identical twins to their respective ancestors (Sacaryne and Francis Haddock). How?
Shoulda used Geoffrey Rush as Haddock. More edge.
Alan was fantastic and Tintin was perfect. I thought the crooks, especially the ship’s crew and desert town dwellers
(Turks, Asiatics, Arabs, Jews, were fantastic, a Herge strength). Castafiore had obviously been to Jenny Craig.
Some FAILS:
1. Since when do dusty old libraries let yappy wire-haired fox terriers in late at night?
2. Why not sit in the back of the sea plane with the gun and force the pilots to fly it instead of reading the manuel and dying?
3. How did they get the sea-plane to start after shooting the engine and bringing it down?
Ok ok its a cartoon, but Tintin was always about ‘believable’ (even with a UFO in “Flight 714″) unlike Asterix which was not.
It was true to the books, but the Thomson/Thompson bumbling doesn’t work in a movie, only in the books when it was fun in 1920-50s Europe. To bring a children’s story from 1920-50s to a 21st century screen you need more than CGI wizardry. I felt the structure and script was a bit pale compared to, say, “Pans’ Labyrinth” (del Toro?).
At points I felt I was watching sunday cartoons while ironing (Tintin was 20 min. too long) just flashing lights while my brain was elsewhere. Marvel have achieved what i want (1960s cheese made 21st century sophistication with understandable ‘believable’ scenarios [albeit fantastical] viz Cptn America, the Hulk, Spiderman, Ironman, they even managed to pull off Thor!!) but Tintin was just a film version of the books. If that’s all people want, then good, its fun, but it’s just “Happy Feet” with knicker-bockers; a CGI Indiana Jones met Pirates of Carib.
My feeling is film is going to gravitate back to good performances (“Wrecked”, Brodie; “The American,” Clooney, least that’s what I’ll be watching). Overall Tintin thought: Why? Enjoy the books.
Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles and Great Snakes. J.
Sir Father Des Britten, for services to the community (Wellington Downtown Ministry)
A real New Zealander who worked with real people,he really deserves it.
Considering how they ignored the view of 87% good parents in regard the issue of smacking does any think they will really consider what parents and grandparents have to say if it runs counter to their thinking?
For example see page 2 “Children achieve in their own culture”
I wonder if the 9 year old girl who was tortured was with a Maori or European couple who want to take her to Oz before her mother regained custody. To many children have been abused in foster care. Maybe part of the reason is limiting foster or adoptive parents and adoption agencies .
Just a few more million down the drain to support a talkfest of platitudes which will be sifted for views which agree with government policies. There will be rubbish skips full of waffle & korero with numerous references to the Treaty & UN documents. When the last bit of bullshit has been uttered the submissions will be written on goatskin & proclaimed to be the foundations of a new beginning before being filed away in the drawer of some functionary in the Social Development Ministry.
The public’s need for consultation being sated, the bureaucrats will continue doing nothing as is their custom & another small brown baby will be beaten to death by the scum who should protect it.
Scott, that chatbot uses computational linguistics and machine learning in order to mimic a human conversation. The software learns and adapts to new inputs that it has never been seen before from its own knowledge database. The bot must also adopt forward-chaining (FC) and backward-chaining (BC) automated rule inference mechanisms in order to produce a (reasonable) conclusion given a certain state of inputs (facts assertion).
FC and BC automated rule inference processes are exactly how we humans reason everyday. We (human brain) pull-in stored facts (knowledge nuggets or knuggets) from our memory and integrated them into a larger aggregation of facts (conclusion) given an initial sets of inputs (asserted facts). When you ask someone the question, how was your party last week? The answers do vary from person to person, but majority don’t have a (sets of) pre-determined sentences to such specific question stored in his/her brain. What happens is that the brain uses FC and BC inference mechanisms to pull in relevant facts (or knuggets) from memory and string them together (on the fly) into a response (conclusion). The same thing that is being applied for automated software that can solve a narrow task in a specific domain, such as automated software for medical diagnosis , engineering fault detector, telecommunication, power-system.
These technologies are already with us everyday but mostly hidden from the general public. Every computer/cell-phone (including most electronic gadgets in either industrial or consumer devices) have an adaptive DSP (digital signal processor) filter of some form. One of the function is to de-noise unwanted signals that interfered with the device in any environment. Noise-levels vary at different environments, so the DSP itself must adapt on the fly (ie, not pre-programmed) or lean in real-time to deal with smoothing out of that noise interference. There are already chipsets , fuzzy-chip, FFT-chip (fast fourier transform), wavelet-chip, kalman-chip, neural-net-chip, etc,… available commercially today, which are found in our consumer devices. The neural-net type chip was the one depicted (self-learning chip) in the science fiction movie, Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
PS : I used to design photonics-based digital controller devices (some used in medical instrumentations, etc…), so the type of AI technology described above is something familiar to electronic engineers and embedded device physicsits. AI is not a term favoured to engineers/physicists because it is an over-hype term. It is mostly computer scientists (journalists & general public) that are mostly in love with the term AI. It is a misleading term.
Interesting post. I think the term AI is good enough for most people even if it isn’t entirely accurate. When you break down any label, it’s never going to be a perfect fit.
As for the bot… I was interested in the psychological effect it had combined with the clever looping of ‘Evie’s’ sympathetic facial expressions. And these things are only going to get more sophisticated. Won’t be long before people start falling in love with them.
I tried the AI thing – I said, “you’re very attractive” and it said, “how do you know”?
I said because I can see you, and it said “How”?
I said, your avatar, and then it printed the description of what an avatar is.
“The government is calling for input on Reviewing Government spending to get better
results for vulnerable children”
No need for extra spending.
A change of ‘culture’ is needed.
Policy changes and tax changes could do that.
For example……
Tighten up the benefits
Severely restrict the DPB so having kids as a meal ticket isn’t an option anymore.
Simplify the tax system
Get rid of the WFF and other supplements, instead lower the tax rate.
Make working profitable
Don’t increase the minimum wage but lower taxes or increase the minimum wage and lower the company tax.
Stop TOW claims
There are a number of people who have put their life on hold waiting for the big one. Why work if there I a pay-out on the horizon.
Stop ‘racial profiling’ and statistics
The bad statistics are self-fulfilling and are used by both sides for politicking.
Start hiring on merit, get rid of ‘racial’ quotas and special treatment in Universities, it reinforces the stereotyping that some groups are not capable to achieve on merit alone.
Change immigration laws
Make sure New Zealanders are considered first before importing people from overseas.
No more unskilled immigrants from anywhere..
If we had to identify one omnipresent factor in this mess it is the DPB. Strange that the benefit once seen as a way for women & children to escape the misery of violent disfunctional relationships now enables these relationships to start. It is too late to abolish the benefit but its availability should be tightened until it is impossible to use it to support a lifestyle.
Totally agree on your comments re unskilled immigration. Ditch it & the refugee quota too. If there is one thing NZ is not short of it is unqualified bums who wouldn’t work in an iron lung. Incentivising the ones we’ve got to go home wouldn’t damage the nation either. We could give them a free trip home & a stake of say $100.000 per family & still save a fortune against their current cost to the country.
The woman from CHCh who set up ”Pillars” about twenty years ago is a very deserving recipient of an award. Pillars helps prisoners and their families with a special emphasis on the children of prisoners. Her goal is to stop intergenerational crime. This organization has also started programes in Auckland.
The previous Police Commander said the top ten crime families in CHCh all came down from the North Island..probably when the men had long sentences at CHCH men’s. She said there were three generations of criminals in these families..So good on the Pillars woman..I think her name is Verna McFelin.
I reckon that if the 5-octave high pitch voice US pop singer Mariah Carey heard the 2 Tongan soprano ladies who sing Gospel music in the (my mom’s) village, Ms Carey would be impressed, considering that the 2 singers are not professional (ie, no voice coaching professional) but they can reach 3-octave high pitch voice (still below Ms Carey’s capability of 5-octave).
The 2 soprano ladies start their duet at ~ 4-05 minutes onward to 5-55 minutes.
Whenever I take a visit back to my mom’s village, I frequently played with the brass-band in that same choir on some Sundays’ (provided I had no hangover from Saturday night). The guy playing the euphonium (just sitting in front of the the bass player) takes a rest and I play it, whenever I’m back in the village. Sometimes I refused his offer to play the euphonium instead of him (as he’s the regular dude on that instrument), but there are certain times that you just can’t refuse an offer since it is in your DNA. I refused on the basis that I didn’t want to appear as a big shot Aucklander (as the locals do towards US Expats Tongans – mostly view them as arrogant). I’m also very considerate of the band boys because they’re there all the time, they deserve their time to play.
Nasska & Other_Andy, thanks for your interest. Other_Andy you make some very good points. You are quite correct. Money does not need to be spent. It could in fact be saved. One of the causes of child abuse, neglect and poor outcomes is inter-generational welfare dependency and paying children to have children. If this is your view I think it worth responding to the Green Paper at response@childrensactionplan.govt.nz
There are other aspects of the Green Paper worth responding to like the amount of Maori words used in the English version of the paper.
I think I will email and ask I should waste my time with a considered response when the government treated the response of roughly 87% of good parents with contempt in regards the smacking referendum.
I went to see the Iron lady too.
Despite fears of a hatchet job, I thought the film was generally fine and Meryl Streep gave a great performance.
Now, as I commented over at Lindsay Mitchell’s place, I was concerned at the lack of Maori in the audience.
There was just one out 100 or so. The rest , bar an Asian lady, were all middle aged middle class Pakeha.
I am sure Maori could learn much from Margaret Thatcher, especially with regards to breaking down barriers.
Just as Mrs T broke down barriers of sexual and class prejudice, so should determined Maori break down any barriers they might find in their way.
I would like to think there is a Maori Maggie somewhere in the mean street of Manukau or somewhere.
But is there? Is there anyone with Thatcherite guts and determination to succeed like she did?
Pakeha should take note too.
Margaret Thatcher is an inspiring example to us all and we all need more like her.
By the way, did anyone notice how the UN lowered the flag following the death of a North Korean dictator, but did not do do for the death of Czech Democrat Vaclav Havel? Thus, the UN recognises despots but not democrats.
I wonder what Uncle Helen thinks of such interesting choices by her employer?
15 dead already on NZ roads…holiday period not over until 0600 wednesday …whats plod got to say about it? More rhetoric from that awful Paula Rose ? More checkpoints ? More infringement notices ? More blah blah ? Plod…fact of life…people will always die on NZ roads no matter what you try to enforce. No matter how many mantrol ads you try ram down our throats.
Give it up. Focus on some real issues for once.
By the way, did anyone notice how the UN lowered the flag following the death of a North Korean dictator, but did not do do for the death of Czech Democrat Vaclav Havel? Thus, the UN recognises despots but not democrats.
Yep…
And on December 22 the U.N. General Assembly also paid tribute to North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong Il by observing a minute of silence in his memory.
At the start of Thursday afternoon’s meeting, Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser told diplomats it was his “sad duty” to report that Kim died on Saturday.
He asked North Korea’s ambassador “to convey condolences” to his country’s government and people and then invited diplomats “to stand and observe a minute of silence in tribute to the memory of the late leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
The UN is an utterly corrupt organisation. Democracies have been a minority within the UN since 1958.
The UN is controlled by a bunch of corrupt, anti-Semitic misogynistic, dictatorial countries.
It is an organisation where scoundrels and disgraced-failed (labour) politicians go to fill their pockets and ‘do good’ with other peoples’ money.
I see in this mornings Dim Post a Q&A with Dr. James Renwick head of NIWA. He says there is not debate over climate change and compares climate change “deniers” with tobacco companies. He should be sacked immediately for gross incompentance. Most of the science he quotes is known , but what seems to escape him is that gases from man made fossil fuels is miniscule in the relms of total green house gases in the atmosphere, oceans, living matter etc. and it’s effect on the climate. Any rises in temperature can be attributed to El Nino and La Nina events, not rises in green house gases. Climate science is in it’s infancy and he says he knows it all. Unbelievable.
I see in this morning’s Dim Post a Q&A with Dr. James Renwick head of NIWA. He says there is not debate over climate change and compares climate change “deniers” with tobacco companies.
I bet he believes in AGW.
He is on lots of government-funded research programs.
No AGW, no funding so it is in his interest to keep the myth going as long as possible.
Late Professor Augie Auer was one of the few real climatologist-meteorologists.
(http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0706/S00032.htm)
All we have now are hip-cool (Green) political flunkies pretending to be scientists, trying hard to find facts to back up their flawed computer modeled predictions, sponging off the taxpayer.
Perhaps our ex “Dear Leader” was merely showing respect for the passing of a contemporary Other_Andy?
You might not be very far from the truth there Johnboy. Vaclav Havel brought down a dictatorial communist government, the type of government admired and protected by the majority in the UN while Kim’s extreme left dictatorship has held steady under sanctions from the Zionist-Capitalist pigs. Helen and her compatriots probably appreciate that.
Vaclav Havel on the other hand, was a traitor to the cause of the left.
JamesS that cow Thatcher, the one who said to a naval bloke who had been blinded in the Falklands, you must be enjoying the day, that bloody cow ?
Oh what was it she said when hundreds of young argies drowned when the Belgrano was sunk, was it rejoice ?
Fucking pity her son was not clearing the argie trenches alongside the Marines.
Akaroa at 3.46pm
You must lead an interesting life where time goes backwards for you.
Callaghan was Prime Minister BEFORE Thatcher, not after her.
She was succeeded by Major and then Blair.
I see in this mornings Dim Post a Q&A with Dr. James Renwick head of NIWA. He says there is not debate over climate change and compares climate change “deniers” with tobacco companies. He should be sacked immediately for gross incompentance. Most of the science he quotes is known , but what seems to escape him is that gases from man made fossil fuels is miniscule in the relms of total green house gases in the atmosphere, oceans, living matter etc. and it’s effect on the climate. Any rises in temperature can be attributed to El Nino and La Nina events, not rises in green house gases. Climate science is in it’s infancy and he says he knows it all. Unbelievable.
* the amount of Greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is 1 – 2%
* of that percentage, 95% is made up of water, and 3.62% CO2
* of that percentage of CO2, 3.4% is human caused.
* so the amount of CO2 contributed by humans is approx 0.28% in total.
So, really, the amount humans produce is negligible.
Scott Chris 9:36 am. Thanks for the link. However people talk to machines all the time. In the vast majority of cases the conversation is brief and one sided.
Fairfacts Media – 1:39pm I think you are being a bit silly; you can lead people to water but not make them drink – all the opportunities and race based funding in the world will not make Maori actually ‘do’ anything which would be required to achieve success in life. Margaret Thatcher did things.
We can spend $1 billion tomorrow on a race based funding program and it will be wasted, and the program will fail, due to indolence.
We can up the anti and spend $20 billion on a race based funding program ….and it will be fail and be wasted due to indolence.
We can up the anti even further and spend $100 billion on a …(you get the general idea)
On the other hand you can spend a tenner on someone like Thatcher. Or me.
Other_Andy 1:50 pm. That doesn’t surprise me. Assuming a Republican wins in 2012, it could be a chance to defund the UN. It depends on what the new president wants to do ,and what the Tea Party prioritises. Compared with fixing the debt problem, it would be fairly low down the list.
Ideally, they’d be given three weeks to vacate, the US would withdraw. Then the building could be refurbished,and renamed the George.W. Bush Federal Office Building. Most of the existing government office space in NY could be relocated there.
On a serious note, dumping the UN would lessen a lot of the leftists inspired legislation Western governments pass. If you need to do stuff on an international basis. Do it ad hoc ,as necessary.
The picture of Dr. James Renwick in today’s Dom Post makes him look like a weirdo .. I mean, earrings!? Who would take a guy like that seriously? So his comment that there is no debate on climate change has no authority behind it. I wonder if the Dom Post did that on purpose?
Dumping the UN would signal the end of the farce entitled “Climate Change”. ‘Clipping the ticket’ as funds are transferred from wealthy countries to basket case commie dictatorships is the way the proponents of world government intend to fund their activities.
Get rid of the UN & you get rid of this rats’ nest too.
Hans, a middle-aged German tourist on his first visit to Orlando, Florida, finds the red light district and enters a large brothel. The madam asks him to be seated and sends over a young lady to entertain him.
They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she gasps and runs away! Seeing this, the madam sends over a more experienced lady to entertain the gentleman.
They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear, and she too screams, “No!” and walks quickly away.
The madam is surprised that this ordinary looking man has asked for something so outrageous that her two girls will have nothing to do with him. She decides that only her most experienced lady, Lola, will do. Lola has never said no, and it’s not likely anything would surprise her. So the madam sends her over to Hans. They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she screams, “NO WAY, BUDDY!” and smacks him as hard as she can and leaves.
Madam is by now absolutely intrigued, having seen nothing like this in all her years of operating a brothel. She hasn’t done the bedroom work herself for a long time, but she’s sure she has said yes to everything a man could possibly ask for. She just has to find out what this man wants that has made her girls so angry. Besides she sees a chance to teach her employees a lesson.
So she goes over to Hans and says that she’s the best in the house and is available. She sits and talks with him. They frolic, giggle, drink and then she sits in his lap.
Hans leans forwards and whispers in her ear, “Can I pay in Euros?
David Prosser @7.00 – You’re welcome. Yes we do communicate with machines a lot, but I suspect the relationship will become more reciprocal in the near future. Despite it’s obvious flaws, I was rather taken with the AI Evie.
I notice that a few of the blogs and many of the papers are discussing who should be their Kiwi of the year.
Sadly most are opting for Richie McCaw, who after all is said and done is nothing more than a rugby player of limited ability (unless you enjoy the team being led by a cheat)
Have the people of this stupid little nation forgotten the marvellous and tireless work of Bob Parker post the feb earthquake?
It seems that we still have not grown out of our pathetic insecurity complex and continue to insist that the RWC is a major sporting trophy.
It is an insult to the real hero’s in NZ that we would even consider for a moment that McCaw should be worthy of the title.
Kiwiblog attracts some very good writers & IMHO a well stirred up ‘thedavincimode’ would be the creme de creme. In January he handed ‘Redbaiter’ his arse with this beautifully crafted piece:
# thedavincimode (1,145) Says:
January 16th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, somewhere in the mid West –
Red “Judgement Day’ baiter lept to his feet, the M60 snug against His hip. Almost nonchalantly, He thrust His left foot forward against the dying leftist scum prostrate before Him and braced Himself before squeezing the trigger. The M60 commie killer leapt into life chattering into an ear-splitting crescendo while it spewed a torrent of HOT LEAD at the anti-democracy progressive leftist homo scum hand-wringing themselves towards His position. The ammo belt slid over His lightly greased left forearm. Almost inexplicably it occurred to him that although KY was the first thing He always packed when going away with His boys in case He got into a tight situation, this use wasn’t what He’d originally had in mind.
Almost as suddenly as it had leapt into life, the M60 stopped. The ‘death click’. A hail of angry HOT LEAD immediately descended on him; whining, cursing and spitting at him. “Like those lefty progressive scum on Kiwiblog” He thought. He stood there for a moment longer; defiantly, before ducking to cover. What to do now? “RELOAD”, Sarah’s voice seemed to hiss in his ear.
He turned to His companion for another belt of LEAD DEATH, only to find him cowering in the dirt, jabbering incoherently. “Kris, Kris, of all people” he cursed.
He grimaced and slumped, head in hands. It wasn’t the temple wound. “Hell, it was just a flesh wound” He muttered to Himself. The bullet had gone straight through and exited cleanly out the other side. He knew that as long as he kept a level head there would be no further blood loss. “I get worse headaches reading Kiwiblog” He snorted to himself.
No, it wasn’t the temple wound. It was the realisation, whoops, “realization” He corrected himself, that yet again He was the only One holding the line. “First those soft-cocks from Westboro Baptist didn’t even front at the LZ as promised. Some bullshit about a bring-a-cake fund-raiser. And now Kris”. An almost overwhelming sense of desolation and despair threatened to drown him.
But then he felt it. The sudden warmth emanating from his left breast where He had taped Sarah’s swimsuit photo. “Would She get my letter?” He wondered, thinking of the envelope also taped over His heart and addressed: ‘To Be Opened in the Event of My Glorious Death in a Hail of HOT LEAD Whilst Killing Marxist Scum’. “Would She do the eulogy? What if She had a conflicting appointment at the hairdresser?” “Would She tweet?”
He shook himself back to his senses. “No time for that; you’re carrying on like some progressive homo scum”.
He poised, knowing what awaited him Him but also knowing that He would take a lot more of them with Him. But before He could leap to His feet for the final defiant charge to glory, a familiar voice interrupted Him.
“Russell, for the tenth time your dinner is ready. And its the 16th today and if you haven’t put the rubbish out and done the dishes by nine o’clock, then you can go without it for another month …”
JamesS
I am not been silly, I agree with you.
Maori do not need affirmative action or treaty settlements to prosper.
The answer lies within themselves.
They succeed or fail on their own merits, something I have seen among individual maori, as also happens with non-Maori.
But it would be great to see a Maori Margaret Thatcher to see what she might achieve instead of the failure we see to date.
Could someone give Paula Bennett a handbag and pearls!
hedge hog song?
john boy
You can bugger the ram, you can bugger the lamb,
You can bugger the ewe, though the wether’s a sham,
You can bugger the tiger (it may caterwaul)
But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
I reckon that now is a good time to thank our host for making this forum available. His light moderation & quiet weeping as we wreck his blog is appreciated.
I Felt a bit left out as U all celebrated Christmas
so from me
change crisis =opportunity
AGW
GFC
jahad
arab spring
peak oil
occupy
chch
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^…..:
This is the best nation in the world and we can ALL be proud to belong here
December 31st, 2011 at 8:02 am
With the last few hours of 2011 heading down the crapper it is time to wish you all a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated life during the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishees.
(Disclaimer 1: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 8:08 am
Great to see Graham Henry, John Todd and Colin Giltrap get knighted. Unlike many who receive these awards the three gentleman mentioned deserve to be recognized.
On another note. I know that the ONZ is supposed to be the highest award, but can we really be expected to take it seriously when Helen bloody Clark is one of the recipients?
Vote:Nobody could ever class her as one of the 20 greatest living Kiwis.
December 31st, 2011 at 8:09 am
Saw the film “The Iron Lady” last night; found it very sad.
How I wish we had someone in charge in New Zealand like that, someone who just does the right thing rather than seeking popularity or compromise. Rather made me think the NZ Parliament is full of 121 very weak and feeble men and women without principles and indoctronated with socialist ideology.
Very sad all round.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 8:23 am
When will name suppression cease for the alleged Turangi rapist?
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 8:24 am
@BB
“Great to see Graham Henry, John Todd and Colin Giltrap get knighted. Unlike many who receive these awards the three gentleman mentioned deserve to be recognized.”
Not so sure BB. Maybe John Todd.
Vote:But Graham Henry and Colin Giltrap?
What for?
Colin for making a pile off money?
Graham for doing his job (And making a lot of money in the process)?
What about people like Stephen Bibby?
December 31st, 2011 at 8:49 am
otherandy
“Colin for making a pile off money’
No…for giving a pile of it away.
And, there is the added value of him being in a industry that pisses off the Greens, if that does not earn you a ‘k’ then nothing will.
As for Henry, well if nothing else it is the final “fuck you” to all the idiots who thought that Robbie Deans should have got the job.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:02 am
99 Year Old Man Seeks Divorce From Wife Of 77 Years For Affair In The 1940s:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45817406/ns/today-today_people/#.Tv4WMdSO1_g
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:12 am
TINTIN: the report back. My review of a much-loved icon.
OK, the animation is just amazing, but I feel the story got lost in a technical computer geek fest (look what we achieved). We were taught at the NY Film Academy that film has three rules : Story, Story, Story. If the story sux (like “Sucker Punch”) then it ain’t worth a can of beans.
She Who Must Be Obeyed LOVED it, but to be honest, I’m tired of the completely implausible swash buckling cum-Indiana Jones hackneyed mush. It’s like ballet on steroids using things to hand (Jacky Chan does that better, his step ladder fight is AMAZING).
I LOVE Tintin, so this was ok. The technics were incredible (but so are boring Pre-Raphaelite paintings).
Snowy was wooden and unconvincing CGI.
The script was the weakest link. Needed a thorough edit and some smarts.
Haddock was just pathetic as a character (a self pitying wino loser and the whiskey joke just got tired).
I didn’t like that the two protagonists were identical twins to their respective ancestors (Sacaryne and Francis Haddock). How?
Shoulda used Geoffrey Rush as Haddock. More edge.
Alan was fantastic and Tintin was perfect. I thought the crooks, especially the ship’s crew and desert town dwellers
(Turks, Asiatics, Arabs, Jews, were fantastic, a Herge strength). Castafiore had obviously been to Jenny Craig.
Some FAILS:
1. Since when do dusty old libraries let yappy wire-haired fox terriers in late at night?
2. Why not sit in the back of the sea plane with the gun and force the pilots to fly it instead of reading the manuel and dying?
3. How did they get the sea-plane to start after shooting the engine and bringing it down?
Ok ok its a cartoon, but Tintin was always about ‘believable’ (even with a UFO in “Flight 714″) unlike Asterix which was not.
It was true to the books, but the Thomson/Thompson bumbling doesn’t work in a movie, only in the books when it was fun in 1920-50s Europe. To bring a children’s story from 1920-50s to a 21st century screen you need more than CGI wizardry. I felt the structure and script was a bit pale compared to, say, “Pans’ Labyrinth” (del Toro?).
At points I felt I was watching sunday cartoons while ironing (Tintin was 20 min. too long) just flashing lights while my brain was elsewhere. Marvel have achieved what i want (1960s cheese made 21st century sophistication with understandable ‘believable’ scenarios [albeit fantastical] viz Cptn America, the Hulk, Spiderman, Ironman, they even managed to pull off Thor!!) but Tintin was just a film version of the books. If that’s all people want, then good, its fun, but it’s just “Happy Feet” with knicker-bockers; a CGI Indiana Jones met Pirates of Carib.
My feeling is film is going to gravitate back to good performances (“Wrecked”, Brodie; “The American,” Clooney, least that’s what I’ll be watching). Overall Tintin thought: Why? Enjoy the books.
Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles and Great Snakes. J.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:28 am
So, Russell Brand, the UK’s worst export in years, is getting divorced.
“Get Me Away from the Greek, ” Despicable Me.”
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:36 am
Anyone interested in Artificial Intelligence might want to visit this site and converse with the bot.
http://www.existor.com/
Flawed but impressive and quite uncanny. Here’s the original story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44434584#.Tv4gM9SO1_g
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:38 am
Sir Father Des Britten, for services to the community (Wellington Downtown Ministry)
Vote:A real New Zealander who worked with real people,he really deserves it.
December 31st, 2011 at 10:36 am
The government is calling for input on Reviewing Government spending to get better
results for vulnerable children
http://www.childrensactionplan.govt.nz/
Considering how they ignored the view of 87% good parents in regard the issue of smacking does any think they will really consider what parents and grandparents have to say if it runs counter to their thinking?
For example see page 2 “Children achieve in their own culture”
I wonder if the 9 year old girl who was tortured was with a Maori or European couple who want to take her to Oz before her mother regained custody. To many children have been abused in foster care. Maybe part of the reason is limiting foster or adoptive parents and adoption agencies .
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 10:43 am
Des Britten – a great and generous person. An excellent choice for honour.
Vote:He can cook also; I was a regular at The Coachman, many moons ago.
December 31st, 2011 at 10:58 am
Chuck Bird
Just a few more million down the drain to support a talkfest of platitudes which will be sifted for views which agree with government policies. There will be rubbish skips full of waffle & korero with numerous references to the Treaty & UN documents. When the last bit of bullshit has been uttered the submissions will be written on goatskin & proclaimed to be the foundations of a new beginning before being filed away in the drawer of some functionary in the Social Development Ministry.
The public’s need for consultation being sated, the bureaucrats will continue doing nothing as is their custom & another small brown baby will be beaten to death by the scum who should protect it.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 10:59 am
Scott, that chatbot uses computational linguistics and machine learning in order to mimic a human conversation. The software learns and adapts to new inputs that it has never been seen before from its own knowledge database. The bot must also adopt forward-chaining (FC) and backward-chaining (BC) automated rule inference mechanisms in order to produce a (reasonable) conclusion given a certain state of inputs (facts assertion).
FC and BC automated rule inference processes are exactly how we humans reason everyday. We (human brain) pull-in stored facts (knowledge nuggets or knuggets) from our memory and integrated them into a larger aggregation of facts (conclusion) given an initial sets of inputs (asserted facts). When you ask someone the question, how was your party last week? The answers do vary from person to person, but majority don’t have a (sets of) pre-determined sentences to such specific question stored in his/her brain. What happens is that the brain uses FC and BC inference mechanisms to pull in relevant facts (or knuggets) from memory and string them together (on the fly) into a response (conclusion). The same thing that is being applied for automated software that can solve a narrow task in a specific domain, such as automated software for medical diagnosis , engineering fault detector, telecommunication, power-system.
These technologies are already with us everyday but mostly hidden from the general public. Every computer/cell-phone (including most electronic gadgets in either industrial or consumer devices) have an adaptive DSP (digital signal processor) filter of some form. One of the function is to de-noise unwanted signals that interfered with the device in any environment. Noise-levels vary at different environments, so the DSP itself must adapt on the fly (ie, not pre-programmed) or lean in real-time to deal with smoothing out of that noise interference. There are already chipsets , fuzzy-chip, FFT-chip (fast fourier transform), wavelet-chip, kalman-chip, neural-net-chip, etc,… available commercially today, which are found in our consumer devices. The neural-net type chip was the one depicted (self-learning chip) in the science fiction movie, Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
PS : I used to design photonics-based digital controller devices (some used in medical instrumentations, etc…), so the type of AI technology described above is something familiar to electronic engineers and embedded device physicsits. AI is not a term favoured to engineers/physicists because it is an over-hype term. It is mostly computer scientists (journalists & general public) that are mostly in love with the term AI. It is a misleading term.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 11:30 am
FFF
Interesting post. I think the term AI is good enough for most people even if it isn’t entirely accurate. When you break down any label, it’s never going to be a perfect fit.
As for the bot… I was interested in the psychological effect it had combined with the clever looping of ‘Evie’s’ sympathetic facial expressions. And these things are only going to get more sophisticated. Won’t be long before people start falling in love with them.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 11:43 am
I tried the AI thing – I said, “you’re very attractive” and it said, “how do you know”?
I said because I can see you, and it said “How”?
I said, your avatar, and then it printed the description of what an avatar is.
In other words, it wasn’t very smart at all
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 11:46 am
CB & Nasska
“The government is calling for input on Reviewing Government spending to get better
results for vulnerable children”
No need for extra spending.
A change of ‘culture’ is needed.
Policy changes and tax changes could do that.
For example……
Tighten up the benefits
Severely restrict the DPB so having kids as a meal ticket isn’t an option anymore.
Simplify the tax system
Get rid of the WFF and other supplements, instead lower the tax rate.
Make working profitable
Don’t increase the minimum wage but lower taxes or increase the minimum wage and lower the company tax.
Stop TOW claims
There are a number of people who have put their life on hold waiting for the big one. Why work if there I a pay-out on the horizon.
Stop ‘racial profiling’ and statistics
The bad statistics are self-fulfilling and are used by both sides for politicking.
Start hiring on merit, get rid of ‘racial’ quotas and special treatment in Universities, it reinforces the stereotyping that some groups are not capable to achieve on merit alone.
Change immigration laws
Vote:Make sure New Zealanders are considered first before importing people from overseas.
No more unskilled immigrants from anywhere..
December 31st, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Ah. Sir Graham. Sir Des.
Eat your heart out Hag!!
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Other_Andy
If we had to identify one omnipresent factor in this mess it is the DPB. Strange that the benefit once seen as a way for women & children to escape the misery of violent disfunctional relationships now enables these relationships to start. It is too late to abolish the benefit but its availability should be tightened until it is impossible to use it to support a lifestyle.
Totally agree on your comments re unskilled immigration. Ditch it & the refugee quota too. If there is one thing NZ is not short of it is unqualified bums who wouldn’t work in an iron lung. Incentivising the ones we’ve got to go home wouldn’t damage the nation either. We could give them a free trip home & a stake of say $100.000 per family & still save a fortune against their current cost to the country.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 12:15 pm
The woman from CHCh who set up ”Pillars” about twenty years ago is a very deserving recipient of an award. Pillars helps prisoners and their families with a special emphasis on the children of prisoners. Her goal is to stop intergenerational crime. This organization has also started programes in Auckland.
Vote:The previous Police Commander said the top ten crime families in CHCh all came down from the North Island..probably when the men had long sentences at CHCH men’s. She said there were three generations of criminals in these families..So good on the Pillars woman..I think her name is Verna McFelin.
December 31st, 2011 at 12:22 pm
“TWO DAYS IN THE STUDIO AND ADVICE FROM NEIL FINN ”
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=433861703
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 12:35 pm
I reckon that if the 5-octave high pitch voice US pop singer Mariah Carey heard the 2 Tongan soprano ladies who sing Gospel music in the (my mom’s) village, Ms Carey would be impressed, considering that the 2 singers are not professional (ie, no voice coaching professional) but they can reach 3-octave high pitch voice (still below Ms Carey’s capability of 5-octave).
The 2 soprano ladies start their duet at ~ 4-05 minutes onward to 5-55 minutes.
Fale ‘o Sihova (House of Jehovah/God)
Whenever I take a visit back to my mom’s village, I frequently played with the brass-band in that same choir on some Sundays’ (provided I had no hangover from Saturday night). The guy playing the euphonium (just sitting in front of the the bass player) takes a rest and I play it, whenever I’m back in the village. Sometimes I refused his offer to play the euphonium instead of him (as he’s the regular dude on that instrument), but there are certain times that you just can’t refuse an offer since it is in your DNA. I refused on the basis that I didn’t want to appear as a big shot Aucklander (as the locals do towards US Expats Tongans – mostly view them as arrogant). I’m also very considerate of the band boys because they’re there all the time, they deserve their time to play.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Nasska & Other_Andy, thanks for your interest. Other_Andy you make some very good points. You are quite correct. Money does not need to be spent. It could in fact be saved. One of the causes of child abuse, neglect and poor outcomes is inter-generational welfare dependency and paying children to have children. If this is your view I think it worth responding to the Green Paper at response@childrensactionplan.govt.nz
There are other aspects of the Green Paper worth responding to like the amount of Maori words used in the English version of the paper.
I think I will email and ask I should waste my time with a considered response when the government treated the response of roughly 87% of good parents with contempt in regards the smacking referendum.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I went to see the Iron lady too.
Despite fears of a hatchet job, I thought the film was generally fine and Meryl Streep gave a great performance.
Now, as I commented over at Lindsay Mitchell’s place, I was concerned at the lack of Maori in the audience.
There was just one out 100 or so. The rest , bar an Asian lady, were all middle aged middle class Pakeha.
I am sure Maori could learn much from Margaret Thatcher, especially with regards to breaking down barriers.
Just as Mrs T broke down barriers of sexual and class prejudice, so should determined Maori break down any barriers they might find in their way.
I would like to think there is a Maori Maggie somewhere in the mean street of Manukau or somewhere.
But is there? Is there anyone with Thatcherite guts and determination to succeed like she did?
Pakeha should take note too.
Margaret Thatcher is an inspiring example to us all and we all need more like her.
By the way, did anyone notice how the UN lowered the flag following the death of a North Korean dictator, but did not do do for the death of Czech Democrat Vaclav Havel? Thus, the UN recognises despots but not democrats.
Vote:I wonder what Uncle Helen thinks of such interesting choices by her employer?
December 31st, 2011 at 1:40 pm
15 dead already on NZ roads…holiday period not over until 0600 wednesday …whats plod got to say about it? More rhetoric from that awful Paula Rose ? More checkpoints ? More infringement notices ? More blah blah ? Plod…fact of life…people will always die on NZ roads no matter what you try to enforce. No matter how many mantrol ads you try ram down our throats.
Vote:Give it up. Focus on some real issues for once.
December 31st, 2011 at 1:50 pm
By the way, did anyone notice how the UN lowered the flag following the death of a North Korean dictator, but did not do do for the death of Czech Democrat Vaclav Havel? Thus, the UN recognises despots but not democrats.
Yep…
And on December 22 the U.N. General Assembly also paid tribute to North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong Il by observing a minute of silence in his memory.
At the start of Thursday afternoon’s meeting, Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser told diplomats it was his “sad duty” to report that Kim died on Saturday.
He asked North Korea’s ambassador “to convey condolences” to his country’s government and people and then invited diplomats “to stand and observe a minute of silence in tribute to the memory of the late leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
The UN is an utterly corrupt organisation. Democracies have been a minority within the UN since 1958.
Vote:The UN is controlled by a bunch of corrupt, anti-Semitic misogynistic, dictatorial countries.
It is an organisation where scoundrels and disgraced-failed (labour) politicians go to fill their pockets and ‘do good’ with other peoples’ money.
December 31st, 2011 at 1:52 pm
I see in this mornings Dim Post a Q&A with Dr. James Renwick head of NIWA. He says there is not debate over climate change and compares climate change “deniers” with tobacco companies. He should be sacked immediately for gross incompentance. Most of the science he quotes is known , but what seems to escape him is that gases from man made fossil fuels is miniscule in the relms of total green house gases in the atmosphere, oceans, living matter etc. and it’s effect on the climate. Any rises in temperature can be attributed to El Nino and La Nina events, not rises in green house gases. Climate science is in it’s infancy and he says he knows it all. Unbelievable.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 1:58 pm
“Des Britten – a great and generous person. An excellent choice for honour.
He can cook also; I was a regular at The Coachman, many moons ago.”
Quite so, but as I remember he could be a bit heavy-handed with the cheese.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Perhaps our ex “Dear Leader” was merely showing respect for the passing of a contemporary Other_Andy?
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 2:08 pm
I see in this morning’s Dim Post a Q&A with Dr. James Renwick head of NIWA. He says there is not debate over climate change and compares climate change “deniers” with tobacco companies.
I bet he believes in AGW.
Vote:He is on lots of government-funded research programs.
No AGW, no funding so it is in his interest to keep the myth going as long as possible.
Late Professor Augie Auer was one of the few real climatologist-meteorologists.
(http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0706/S00032.htm)
All we have now are hip-cool (Green) political flunkies pretending to be scientists, trying hard to find facts to back up their flawed computer modeled predictions, sponging off the taxpayer.
December 31st, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Perhaps our ex “Dear Leader” was merely showing respect for the passing of a contemporary Other_Andy?
You might not be very far from the truth there Johnboy. Vaclav Havel brought down a dictatorial communist government, the type of government admired and protected by the majority in the UN while Kim’s extreme left dictatorship has held steady under sanctions from the Zionist-Capitalist pigs. Helen and her compatriots probably appreciate that.
Vote:Vaclav Havel on the other hand, was a traitor to the cause of the left.
December 31st, 2011 at 2:58 pm
The trailer for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, a sort-of prequl to Alien, is now out.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 3:08 pm
JamesS that cow Thatcher, the one who said to a naval bloke who had been blinded in the Falklands, you must be enjoying the day, that bloody cow ?
Vote:Oh what was it she said when hundreds of young argies drowned when the Belgrano was sunk, was it rejoice ?
Fucking pity her son was not clearing the argie trenches alongside the Marines.
December 31st, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Hey Grumpyoldhori at 3.08!!
No, mate! She was the greatest. Never pulled a punch and always told it like it is!.
When she went, and Labour lurched into power (Callaghan and clique) I emigrated.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Hope all here have a happy, safe and suitably libacious New Year. Cheers for the years humour and debate.
Now, where is that pinot?
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Long live Margaret Thatcher!
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Akaroa at 3.46pm
Vote:You must lead an interesting life where time goes backwards for you.
Callaghan was Prime Minister BEFORE Thatcher, not after her.
She was succeeded by Major and then Blair.
December 31st, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I see in this mornings Dim Post a Q&A with Dr. James Renwick head of NIWA. He says there is not debate over climate change and compares climate change “deniers” with tobacco companies. He should be sacked immediately for gross incompentance. Most of the science he quotes is known , but what seems to escape him is that gases from man made fossil fuels is miniscule in the relms of total green house gases in the atmosphere, oceans, living matter etc. and it’s effect on the climate. Any rises in temperature can be attributed to El Nino and La Nina events, not rises in green house gases. Climate science is in it’s infancy and he says he knows it all. Unbelievable.
Jimbob, indeed.
According to this helpful PDF – http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/GlobalWarmingPrimer.pdf
* the amount of Greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is 1 – 2%
* of that percentage, 95% is made up of water, and 3.62% CO2
* of that percentage of CO2, 3.4% is human caused.
* so the amount of CO2 contributed by humans is approx 0.28% in total.
So, really, the amount humans produce is negligible.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 6:01 pm
“Scott Chris” and “artificial intelligence” in the same sentence. Gosh, what made me chuckle?
nasska
Another year looms. That means you need to find another 1500 jokes. Get cracking!
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Scott Chris 9:36 am. Thanks for the link. However people talk to machines all the time. In the vast majority of cases the conversation is brief and one sided.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Fairfacts Media – 1:39pm I think you are being a bit silly; you can lead people to water but not make them drink – all the opportunities and race based funding in the world will not make Maori actually ‘do’ anything which would be required to achieve success in life. Margaret Thatcher did things.
We can spend $1 billion tomorrow on a race based funding program and it will be wasted, and the program will fail, due to indolence.
We can up the anti and spend $20 billion on a race based funding program ….and it will be fail and be wasted due to indolence.
We can up the anti even further and spend $100 billion on a …(you get the general idea)
On the other hand you can spend a tenner on someone like Thatcher. Or me.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Never short of asking: http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/12/30/4m-vacation-michelle-seeks-3-backers/
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Other_Andy 1:50 pm. That doesn’t surprise me. Assuming a Republican wins in 2012, it could be a chance to defund the UN. It depends on what the new president wants to do ,and what the Tea Party prioritises. Compared with fixing the debt problem, it would be fairly low down the list.
Ideally, they’d be given three weeks to vacate, the US would withdraw. Then the building could be refurbished,and renamed the George.W. Bush Federal Office Building. Most of the existing government office space in NY could be relocated there.
On a serious note, dumping the UN would lessen a lot of the leftists inspired legislation Western governments pass. If you need to do stuff on an international basis. Do it ad hoc ,as necessary.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Andy
Vote:Is there any truth to the notion that Augie Auer was murdered?
December 31st, 2011 at 7:23 pm
The picture of Dr. James Renwick in today’s Dom Post makes him look like a weirdo .. I mean, earrings!? Who would take a guy like that seriously? So his comment that there is no debate on climate change has no authority behind it. I wonder if the Dom Post did that on purpose?
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:28 pm
DJP6-25
Dumping the UN would signal the end of the farce entitled “Climate Change”. ‘Clipping the ticket’ as funds are transferred from wealthy countries to basket case commie dictatorships is the way the proponents of world government intend to fund their activities.
Get rid of the UN & you get rid of this rats’ nest too.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Hans, a middle-aged German tourist on his first visit to Orlando, Florida, finds the red light district and enters a large brothel. The madam asks him to be seated and sends over a young lady to entertain him.
They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she gasps and runs away! Seeing this, the madam sends over a more experienced lady to entertain the gentleman.
They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear, and she too screams, “No!” and walks quickly away.
The madam is surprised that this ordinary looking man has asked for something so outrageous that her two girls will have nothing to do with him. She decides that only her most experienced lady, Lola, will do. Lola has never said no, and it’s not likely anything would surprise her. So the madam sends her over to Hans. They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she screams, “NO WAY, BUDDY!” and smacks him as hard as she can and leaves.
Madam is by now absolutely intrigued, having seen nothing like this in all her years of operating a brothel. She hasn’t done the bedroom work herself for a long time, but she’s sure she has said yes to everything a man could possibly ask for. She just has to find out what this man wants that has made her girls so angry. Besides she sees a chance to teach her employees a lesson.
So she goes over to Hans and says that she’s the best in the house and is available. She sits and talks with him. They frolic, giggle, drink and then she sits in his lap.
Hans leans forwards and whispers in her ear, “Can I pay in Euros?
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 8:43 pm
What happened to Chthoniid and the Friday posts?
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 8:52 pm
thedavincimode says:- “Gosh, what made me chuckle?”
Heh, Dav thinks I’m pretentious…. reminds me of the shortest joke I know:
“Moi? Pretentious?”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
David Prosser @7.00 – You’re welcome. Yes we do communicate with machines a lot, but I suspect the relationship will become more reciprocal in the near future. Despite it’s obvious flaws, I was rather taken with the AI Evie.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:13 pm
I notice that a few of the blogs and many of the papers are discussing who should be their Kiwi of the year.
Sadly most are opting for Richie McCaw, who after all is said and done is nothing more than a rugby player of limited ability (unless you enjoy the team being led by a cheat)
Have the people of this stupid little nation forgotten the marvellous and tireless work of Bob Parker post the feb earthquake?
It seems that we still have not grown out of our pathetic insecurity complex and continue to insist that the RWC is a major sporting trophy.
It is an insult to the real hero’s in NZ that we would even consider for a moment that McCaw should be worthy of the title.
One day we might bloody well grow up as a nation.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Kiwiblog attracts some very good writers & IMHO a well stirred up ‘thedavincimode’ would be the creme de creme. In January he handed ‘Redbaiter’ his arse with this beautifully crafted piece:
# thedavincimode (1,145) Says:
January 16th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, somewhere in the mid West –
Red “Judgement Day’ baiter lept to his feet, the M60 snug against His hip. Almost nonchalantly, He thrust His left foot forward against the dying leftist scum prostrate before Him and braced Himself before squeezing the trigger. The M60 commie killer leapt into life chattering into an ear-splitting crescendo while it spewed a torrent of HOT LEAD at the anti-democracy progressive leftist homo scum hand-wringing themselves towards His position. The ammo belt slid over His lightly greased left forearm. Almost inexplicably it occurred to him that although KY was the first thing He always packed when going away with His boys in case He got into a tight situation, this use wasn’t what He’d originally had in mind.
Almost as suddenly as it had leapt into life, the M60 stopped. The ‘death click’. A hail of angry HOT LEAD immediately descended on him; whining, cursing and spitting at him. “Like those lefty progressive scum on Kiwiblog” He thought. He stood there for a moment longer; defiantly, before ducking to cover. What to do now? “RELOAD”, Sarah’s voice seemed to hiss in his ear.
He turned to His companion for another belt of LEAD DEATH, only to find him cowering in the dirt, jabbering incoherently. “Kris, Kris, of all people” he cursed.
He grimaced and slumped, head in hands. It wasn’t the temple wound. “Hell, it was just a flesh wound” He muttered to Himself. The bullet had gone straight through and exited cleanly out the other side. He knew that as long as he kept a level head there would be no further blood loss. “I get worse headaches reading Kiwiblog” He snorted to himself.
No, it wasn’t the temple wound. It was the realisation, whoops, “realization” He corrected himself, that yet again He was the only One holding the line. “First those soft-cocks from Westboro Baptist didn’t even front at the LZ as promised. Some bullshit about a bring-a-cake fund-raiser. And now Kris”. An almost overwhelming sense of desolation and despair threatened to drown him.
But then he felt it. The sudden warmth emanating from his left breast where He had taped Sarah’s swimsuit photo. “Would She get my letter?” He wondered, thinking of the envelope also taped over His heart and addressed: ‘To Be Opened in the Event of My Glorious Death in a Hail of HOT LEAD Whilst Killing Marxist Scum’. “Would She do the eulogy? What if She had a conflicting appointment at the hairdresser?” “Would She tweet?”
He shook himself back to his senses. “No time for that; you’re carrying on like some progressive homo scum”.
He poised, knowing what awaited him Him but also knowing that He would take a lot more of them with Him. But before He could leap to His feet for the final defiant charge to glory, a familiar voice interrupted Him.
“Russell, for the tenth time your dinner is ready. And its the 16th today and if you haven’t put the rubbish out and done the dishes by nine o’clock, then you can go without it for another month …”
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Mails and Booms.
Vote:nasska is a cracker, poet and didn’t know it
December 31st, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Outstanding!
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Scott Criss
Seamless
I do not want machines to have any personality I just want them to do wot i want.
That is were “AI” belongs forget ” HAL” you just need intuitive interface and response
BB
you are right rugby racing and beer
long gone
‘
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Steve
Most of the poetry I know is along the lines of “Eskimo Nell” & worse. Probably best not revealed on a family blog such as this.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:38 pm
What does Evie say about a blow job? just hang about
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 9:56 pm
JamesS
Vote:I am not been silly, I agree with you.
Maori do not need affirmative action or treaty settlements to prosper.
The answer lies within themselves.
They succeed or fail on their own merits, something I have seen among individual maori, as also happens with non-Maori.
But it would be great to see a Maori Margaret Thatcher to see what she might achieve instead of the failure we see to date.
Could someone give Paula Bennett a handbag and pearls!
December 31st, 2011 at 10:00 pm
hedge hog song?
Vote:john boy
You can bugger the ram, you can bugger the lamb,
You can bugger the ewe, though the wether’s a sham,
You can bugger the tiger (it may caterwaul)
But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
December 31st, 2011 at 10:08 pm
I reckon that now is a good time to thank our host for making this forum available. His light moderation & quiet weeping as we wreck his blog is appreciated.
Thanks DPF & Happy New Year to you all.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 10:22 pm
I Felt a bit left out as U all celebrated Christmas
so from me
Vote:change crisis =opportunity
AGW
GFC
jahad
arab spring
peak oil
occupy
chch
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^…..:
This is the best nation in the world and we can ALL be proud to belong here
December 31st, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Yes. Happy New Year to the kblog host and residents.
May you all reap what you sow.
Vote:December 31st, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Everybody have a healthy and prosperous New Year with family and friends.
Kia kaha
God bless New Zealand.
And DPF, thanks…
Vote:You’ve been a great host.