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One thing that the article fails to mention, and some comments here don't seem to understand, is that Environmental organisations such as Greenpeace NZ sanction the fur trade in some NZ mammals (eg. the possum) as they are regarded as such a destructive pest.

My family has a high country farm in the south of the South Island and it used to be overrun with rabbits. Not cute; more like a biblical plague as there are no predators (aside from the occasional hawk). I recall driving up the farm road and having rabbits part in front of me like water. Crazy numbers.

Don't mistake a cavalier attitude to possums/rabbits/stoats/australians for lack of civilisation. It's just a different set of circumstances than what you may have experienced.


Irrespective of your opinion on the complicated topic of abortion wouldn't you agree that contraceptives exemplify a more civilized approach to birth control? Maybe a bad analogy, yes but shouldn't we primarily look for solutions which prevent suffering in the first place?


> possums/rabbits/stoats/australians

Australians. Huh?


Yep. Particularly Queenslanders, victorious Aussie Sporting teams, overly attractive bikini models and other non-kiwi things.


Good on you mate. Queenslander here. Wouldn't trade it for the world. Will see you next year in the World Cup.


> other non-kiwi things

Like respectable rugby teams?


Says someone who has obviously never driven or lived in NZ. The little shits sit in the middle of the road. And these aren't long highways, they're windy little country roads (eg. state highway 1).


You are right, I've never been to NZ but the way of handling the issue implied by the comment didn't put it in a context of "if dangerous then keep on going" but "aiming" for them (i.e. "population control").


I already have an Ikea standing desk. Well it's an Ikea book shelf sitting on a desk.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3z473x9kco92c8f/standing%20desk.jp...

The key ingredient is the adjustable monitor pole so that I can sit on the odd occasion that my legs get tired.

The beauty of this setup is that it works in with the fitted desktops that my company has. I wouldn't be able to remove a section and slot in a normal adjustable desk.


This isn't for city riding. It is for riding on country roads. If you've ever done any road cycling outside of city centres, it can get very risky as the cars are going so much faster and there isn't the same road shoulder. Your ears are not enough. Personally I hate cycling on country roads because of this so I would definitely use this radar.

I agree with an earlier comment about non-visual feedback. An audio queue would be good (thinking like the trackers in the Aliens movies)


Most of the country roads I cycle along (even the ones shown in the video) have enough curves that by the time this device detects a car you would be able to hear it.

Even then I'm not really sure what the point of this device is. If a car comes speeding up behind you what you are supposed to do? Pull over and stop? Drive on the edge and get covered in mud?


Most of my riding is this, and I think the risk here is perceived risk, not actual. Generally getting smooshed from behind is a low-likelihood event. When it does happen it's on fast trunk roads (pretty nasty to ride, but also usually avoidable).

This looks like another techy boondoggle to reassure people. Cycling is littered with 'em.


> Generally getting smooshed from behind is a low-likelihood event.

Doesn't this directly contradict the numbers given in the original linked post (40% of accidents)?

Edit: there's some discussion about this on[1]. Although, even a 20% number seems very relevant, and not a low-likelihood event.

[1] http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/07/hands-on-backtracker-rada...


I have been in a number of driver at fault cycling collisions. Although I was never hit from behind I have had 3 near misses by cars going over 40 mph. It isn't a low likelihood event.


Offers similar functionality to http://chocolatechip-ui.com/


i'm taking note of this website right now

it seems that there's really a lot of javascript framework/ui for mobile and i'm interested to find which one offers the best performance/ui ratio


I am trying to learn Javascript, coming from a Perl / Python / RDBMS background.

What a mess the JS landscape is. There are so many frameworks, and no clear reason to choose one over the other. Angular has a reputation as being one of the better ones, but it seems overly complex, the documentation is terrible, and the learning curve is steep. And its still one of the better of the ones that I have tried.


chocolatechip-ui is a nightmare, at least for me. It has tons of micro-issues. Mostly just awkward interaction / behavior and missing key basic features.


Turtles.

Lots of turtles.


Willpower is like a muscle. Work on it. Build it.

But then I'm here reading Hacker News too so......


On-Premise Cloud is my pet hate. How is that even a Cloud?


You would understand if you were a code ninja.


This. Why bother with all of the cables? Normal usage would surely be one or two only. Having 4 female USB ports seems like a sensible option.

Or am I missing something?


Part of their pitch is that you don't have to carry your cables around (they did include 2 USB ports at the base just in case).

But I guess their mistake is pitching this as an iDevice charger from the start (see their video; very heavy focus on iDevices). And when they couldn't include a lightning connector, it became a deal breaker.


If you buy a phone you get a USB to Lightning cable. You can buy more of these if you want. Why is this a deal breaker?

There are a lot of devices out there that aren't Lightning and would benefit from a system like this, so 4 regular USB ports is a lot more useful than specialized connectors.


I've been using the new Maps for a few months since it appeared in the first beta builds. I live in Sydney, Australia and the search struggles to find places. It's not so bad if you put in the entire address, but a search for a store or location regularly returns nothing.

I've noticed that this has been improving lately. When it first came out a search for "Apple Store Chatswood" (2km from my work) would return stores in the USA. Now it returns the correct destination.

It's still not a trustworthy source of directions and I regularly have to use Google Maps via the browser.

So while this is very frustrating, I can see it improving so am not too worried long term.

Mind you if Google Maps was an App in the Store I'd buy it asap.


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