doldge

Just want to call out that these are both not great examples?

High performance sports teams have a captain that is often elected in some form from the team.

Likewise the crew of a pirate ship used to elect their captain.

Both examples serve contrary to your point, and there's no reason you couldn't have something similar in business: a cooperative that elects a CEO, rather than it being done by a board of other CEO's.

similarly in NZ.

The health care system is pretty abysmal here which I think is why the government is acting so strongly now; The city I'm in has just 18 ICU beds for a population of around 500,000. We're heading into winter as well and from what I've heard the government is expecting to hit peek case-rates in August.

If that is the case, I expect the full lockdowns will be a periodic thing over the coming months in order to keep cases manageable.

Too early to really tell how this is going to play out, but I don't think the current financial measures are enough; I expect we'll continue to see them expand in the coming weeks in an attempt to keep businesses a float.

If you are a New Zealander, then you should know better. Freedom of speech is NOT an unalienable right in NZ, nor has it ever been.

The ridiculous scare-mongering by some of the sibling comments on this post about this being "the start of the end for NZ" is not representative of: A) New Zealand B) Most countries outside of the US.

(Because it's a continuation of existing policy; That not all speech is protected).

As a society, at some point we have to make the decision: Where do we draw the line with speech designed to incite hate and violence; and where do we draw the line on those that enable that speech to reach the masses?

In the US, the answer has been "We don't". In NZ, the answer has been "some speech is reprehensible and we will not tolerate it." This means there's an expectation that anyone of the scale and influence of Facebook should be able to moderate violent speech as it pertains to NZ (Keep in mind that something like 80% of the countries population is on FaceBook. That's an enormous amount of influence they have on the nation).

I'm also a New Zealander, and I work in tech; I agree with the Government here. Facebook will effectively benefit from this event in multiple instances:

1) It drives engagement with there platform (outrage -> views -> engagement) 2) It's more data for there technical god, which will in turn use it to better sell the people (political/fear-mongering?) adverts.

The easiest solution, and one that I think is entirely reasonable, is to not offer live videos in New Zealand. If they're unable or unwilling to moderate the content with regards to NZ law, and given the scale of there operations in NZ (even if that's small fry compared to facebook's scale in other nations) then it's reasonable for the government to impose restrictions on them.

(More generally, I feel government exists to ensure the collective safety and security of society. NZ's government serves the collective safety/security of the people of NZ; That's their role. If they feel the existence of facebook's live streaming threatens NZ's security, then bringing action against it is the reasonable response.)

that's a very American stance to take. I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that Americans value individual liberty above all else.

That isn't the case in NZ; Most of the population trusts the government and value's collective good above individual liberty, the policies and responses to events like these are born out of our culture and focus on those values. It's apples & oranges with the US culture of valuing individual liberty.

I do feel that to say that it's solely personal responsibility is to disregard easily mislead demographics (specifically the youth). Of course the plan is to educate them so that they can reason these situations out for themselves, but until then it's societies duty to look out for them, and to ensure they're not being exposed to unnecessarily harmful views.

Personally, I believe some people can't actually be reasoned with all that well; You can try, but eventually you exhaust yourself without ever changing there mind; What's the saying about "the world changes when old men die"?

As a final counter-point. My understanding is that Osama Bin Laden never personally attacked the US. It was his hate speech that incited violence, it was his ideology that was his weapon. The response to that was to condemn a man who was not US citizen to death without ever having a trial. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been killed; I'm asking why one incitement of violence, of hate speech; is acceptable and should be allowed when another is not? (keeping in mind that both are in relation to a terrorist attack).

see my reply to the sibling comment. I would also ask you to be charitable in your reading of my words.

depending on the scale of your operations, absolutely yes. This already exists in most nations specifically for eCommerce websites once they're earning more than a set amount from direct sales in that region.

Should Facebook, a company who profits by directly selling the data of the population, not be beholden to the laws that govern the people who's data they're selling?

Once a company is profiting from a certain number of people within in a given region, it seems reasonable for them to then be beholden to the laws that govern the people in that region. Otherwise it's too easy to skirt the legal system of a given country.

I don't know the size of the company in the original comment, so it's possible that they're not at that threshold with regards to the NZ population they serve, but companies like facebook and google are. It seems to reasonable to expect there offerings within NZ to comply with NZ law. Equally other websites should as well once they reach the given threshold (where-ever that is set).

I'm unclear on why the police, in the course on investigating a terrorist attack, asking for information about people who may be associated with the attacker (who was a non-national of the country he attacked) who are non-nationals themselves, would make you uncomfortable.

actions have consequences; whether those actions take place online or not. If what he did was hate speech, then it makes sense to charge him with it.

That he did it online, or didn't realise that saying vile things would have undesirable consequences shouldn't excuse the behaviour.

(N.B I think he should be charged with something, but I don't think prison time is a fair response to his actions).

in what world is that concerning? They've been trying to discern if there was a cell of people around who harbour the same intent as this man, or if he was acting alone. New Zealand, a sovereign nation, has every right to request that information. The email was simply a case of whether the maintainer of the site would respond reasonably to a request from the NZ judicial system, or whether they would need to subpeona the information using the US judicial system. If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.

As a part of there investigation into the act this man committed, they're looking at all activity around the event and the sort of people engaging with it. From a quick look at that website and the thread you linked, I expect (and at least hope), that most of the people who frequent it are now on a watch list after the events of last week.

trying to be charitable here; could you perhaps expand on the point you're trying to make by posting this exchange?

It otherwise looks like a very insensitive, small-minded person responding overly aggressively to what is otherwise a very reasonable and restrained request from the NZ Police.

This is tangential, but I believe vanity has been increasing with every generation for a while now. Each generation is more vain then the generation that came before it.

I don't know if that statement holds beyond the last 100 years, but certainly it does till then. I would chalk it up to being the result of the communications expansion, with each year our audience increases (by virtue of our increasing ability to travel the world, and by the ever expanding internet), and with that expanding audience comes a desire for us to be liked by the greatest number of them, which involves out-competing everyone else.

So I'd like to learn more about modern C++ and how to write it, but I'm not really sure where to begin. I've tried a couple of times, but coming from a C background, my code tends towards C styling with only the occasional use of C++ features.

Is anyone aware of a good tutorial or reference list for writing good modern C++ (C++11 or newer, I guess)?

This is entirely off-topic; But you've misread that table. those are the stats for the north island, The total split is actually:

57% hydro, 16% gas, 16% geothermal, 5% wind, 4% coal. As an aside, the South Island generates 98% of it's electricity via hydro, so if he's in the south island it would be fair to say his PC is powered entirely by hydro.

Are you able to add any further info to this? I assume you know about this courtesy of your position in the developer community, but do you know what's being upgraded, when it's expected to hit, or can you point us at a press release / etc?

I would second this. The way the AI was pervasive and controlling, without ever being obvious / well-known.

Definitely an underrated show, and one I suspect that more or less nailed its predictions of how AI will eventually be used/abused to control and manipulate populations.

One fairly interesting note there is that the electric engine that propels the rocket runs at 95% efficiency, in contrast to the 50% efficiency of the standard gas engines of the larger rocket. Is anyone familiar with A) why this is, and B) why the larger companies aren't investigating the use of these electric engines more? Is it too costly/difficult to do at a larger scale?

Cross-posting from my FB feed:

Here's some of the interesting stuff I've found on the internet about today's earthquake (that they're now calling a 7.8):

1) real-time Buoy data, for helping to determine the likelihood of a Tsunami: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/ Interestingly, the quake only caused a tiny change in the sea level (in the region of 5 cm's) but the expected swells on land are in the region of 3-5 meters. I believe this is because as the wave gets closer to land, it get's funneled into a smaller area, meaning the 5cm change in sea level gets amplified. Which is why it's hard for the civil service to accurately predict whether a tsunami is likely when these events occur (That, and the nearest working buoy is in Tonga), which would by why they almost always say yes, and then retract the warning later.

2) the USGS science-y explanation for what actually happened. The take-away seems to be that this may have increased the stress on the primary fault in NZ. Interestingly, their's a a suggestion that the rupture was across the hope fault, rather than along it, which helps to explain why the after shocks have been so varied (by location): http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000778i#...

3) also from USGS, a map indicating affected regions, with town populations, and the likely economic impact of the quake: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000778i#...

4) The Canterbury Police shared a link earlier that indicated 3-5 meter swells is around the maximum we should expect from a locally generated earthquake (due to the nature of fault lines in NZ), that's not to say we can't experience a larger tsunami, but that said tsunami would have to be generated externally (like say, south america), which should in theory give us more time to prepare. But like all things, this isn't a hard and fast rule.

5) there's a pretty cool video of what purports to be lights in the sky over wellington during the earthquake (probably has something to do with magnetic interference from the energy released by the quake): https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%...

6) stuff have had pretty good live coverage here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/86416304/live-north-canterbu...

7) The USGS website indicated that the quake lasted around 2 minutes, with the highest intensity coming around 50 seconds into the quake.

(can someone change the link? the stuff website is probably a better choice, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/86416304/live-north-canterbu... )

Local website[0] for tracking the magnitude and location of the quakes has it as a 7.5.

Unfortunately it's still the middle of the night there, so the full extent of the damage won't be known until morning. In contrast with the earthquake in 2011, this quake appears to have had a longer duration, and more of a "roll" to it. The 2011 earthquake in Christchurch was fairly short with a violent shake to it.

Judging from Buoy data[1] and recent reports, a Tsunami is very likely.

[0] http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt/moderate [1] http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

I believe the only native mammal in NZ is actually a fruit bat [0].

(although Wikipedia includes sea mammals, such as dolphins and sea-lions as well.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammals_of_New_Zealand

that's interesting, I (used to) live in Christchurch, and the statement is what we had at the time. Most of the folks I knew were more rural, and either had adsl, dial up, or a 3G usb stick.

That's fair, and it's something I've noticed at supermarkets in Dublin as well. I think the price of eating out is comparable though.

That said, I've noticed the portions of food tend to be smaller here in Dublin as well (I suspect being a metropolitan area the supermarkets cater more to individuals whereas the supermarkets back home tend to cater to families). For example, it's next to impossible to buy 1kg of Cheese here in Dublin as the largest you can get from a supermarket is 400 grams.

I believe most folk are worried, and the media has been referring to it as a "housing crisis". Notably the price increase has been limited to Auckland though (and Queenstown, but Queenstown is the NZ equivalent of Aspen, Colorado; which is to say it's a bit of a millionaire's club).

Unfortunately the currently in power government has done a lot to court this outcome, and so has mostly been avoiding doing anything about it. I think they did recently step in to make it harder for Chinese investors to purchase property in NZ though.

In the major cities you can get unlimited fiber with 100Mbit/s connection for around $90 NZD a month.

in more rural area's the internet tends to be standard ADSL.

(side note; the governments "fiber to the door" roll out is apparently 68% complete for urban areas as of June this year).

I wouldn't exactly call New Zealand expensive? It's more expensive than say, south-east Asia (or similar regions), but then most places are.

I would consider it cheaper than the US and parts of the EU for most things. Exceptions being certain imports (like cars) being more expensive due to the cost associated with shipping them. From experience this doesn't hold for smaller tech devices, for example I priced up a camera there vs my current residents (Dublin, Ireland) and it was about $1,000NZD cheaper to purchase in NZ (most likely due to being parallel imported from South East Asia).

Reference: grew-up in NZ, and have been living in Dublin for the last year.

If we're throwing names around, there's also SMTP2Go https://www.smtp2go.com/pricing

With a free plan that allows you to send 1,000 emails a month.

(Disclaimer: I work for SMTP2Go).