Yeah I feel your pain. Tutoring in particular is a pain in the arse - Although cat stroking lowers your blood pressure. I won't kill you - I'll become dumber by the day.
Thanks? Unfortunately I'm so busy at the moment that I'm conciously avoiding it. Being a full time student, working part time, tutoring and marking, getting a cat, and living away from home (yet still an hour's travel from uni) tends to do this. ...kill me
Richard, you've inspired me by merely MENTIONING MSN to be on it more. So I will try to catch you on at some point, because you're one of the few people in the Universe by and large that when I speak to, I feel like I'm learning something. That's about a big a compliment as I can pay to you sir.
NEVARRRR! No of course I don't mind, I don't use it often though but I'll be more than happy to add you back
I just added you on MSN, hope you don't mind
Just rapid heat to rapid freeze, I'm not keen on that. My body hasn't really adjusted to that kind of thing so I don't know how I'm supposed to react. I go from beach wear to hoodies and fleeces from 5pm to 7pm. It's really bizarre! That is a most valuable venture actually. I can understand why you enjoy what you do. And at least it's a sector that isn't bloated with unnecessary middle management - unlike here. You're actually attempting to improve the environment whilst making transport methods more efficient (if I grasped that correctly) and well anything that can ease traffic congestion, make transport easier whilst improving our surroundings is a win by me. Especially the whole analysing the reasons why people travel the way they do without examining the alternatives. Kudos!
Define horrible? We had our first actual frost yesterday, although I think with the winds we've been having it's probably like the 15th sub-zero morning of the year. Hmm. I hate this question. I'd refer you to Facebook, but I'll try explain it. I work part-time (around study) for The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation (ISCR). I work as a research assistant, utilising GIS to support a variety of econometric studies. Essentially, the organisation tries to convince public and private sector entities to become (paid) members, and we do research for them. Often, we do the research first, to convince them of how badass we are, and get them to be members. We supplement this by publishing parallel bits of research in appropriate academic journals. At the moment, I am working on a project using data from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). It's an econometric model of residential choice and car ownership. The best way to think about it is this: cities across the world are trying to grapple with the external harms caused by road traffic. They try things to reduce them -- like changing relative prices of different modes of travel (bus and train tickets, petrol...) or adding new services or what have you. But the problem is, we often don't know what the effect of these are. Do some interventions do nothing but cost a lot? Do some interventions make things worse? Which are 'good', and for what purposes? the data I have from the NZTA is an on-going travel survey (this). I extracted commuter information from it (because it covers all kinds of trips, but the ones we consider relevant for policy are regular trips to work that are amenable to change, unlike your trip to your aunty's two towns over), and now have a commuter database. Therefore I know all about everyone captured in the survey who travelled to work: the location of their house (secured information, I had to get ethical approval, and it was the first time it was released ), their age, occupation, family structure, the location of their work (and all intermediate destinations travelled to on the way), etc. The econometric model (and I'm not an expert on it... I'm the (geographic and other) data guy, not the econometric guy (that guy is my boss, who has a PhD in Finance)) requires that we analyse the 'observed decision': you live where you live, you own two cars, and you commute by bus. You live where you live for a number of reasons--the price, it's close to the bus route which takes you close to work, it's sunny, it's zoned for a really good school which happens to be (let's say) Catholic, like your children are. You own two cars because you're wealthy enough, and have children who need driving to sport on a Saturday. Then we need to evaluate other alternatives that you could have chosen. Why didn't you live in the next suburb over? Why don't you only own one car? If you keep asking these questions, it becomes: why didn't you live in any one other of the 150,000 residential addresses across Wellington city? Why don't you own 0,1,2...6+ cars? This is called a conditional logit model. It's my job to get the GIS to be able to evaluate the potential travel decisions of each (real) person in my database from their actual home to their actual work, and then again from each of the (unchosen) possible residential alternatives across Wellington to their actual work. We need to know how long it would take them (if it is even possible), and how much it would cost on foot, by bike, by car, and by public transport (train, bus, ferry and cable car). Then, we can use this ****ing huge matrix of data to compute utility functions and work out which aspects of the built environment are the most important determinants of decisions relevant to policy. Maybe those who live only a short distance from relevant public transport own very few cars? This is important to know; and not only will we know it, but we'd have quantified it quite precisely. The existing literature (and this is probably the best in it) has a limited array of alternatives and a piss-poor attempt at GIS. That paper only considers 10 other residential alternatives across the entire NYC... I am considering 4504 alternatives across Wellington. Their GIS used estimates of travel time. I am constructing a comprehensive multimodal network dataset (think Google Maps, except instead of a little web interface, I can change absolutely any parameter I want, and get it to automate route solves for (literally) the 800,000 iterations I need to do per travel mode, and write the output to a database. ...OK that was probably a lot more than you were expecting; I'm just really passionate about it. I really like going to work haha. I've been meaning to write that into my journal too, so thanks for le motivation.
That sir, I could understand. We'll simply chat when we can, seems about right! Winter is horrible! We went to Melbourne last week and the temperature was so similar to home (and the fact Melbourne even LOOKS like Manchester) I thought I actually was for a few days! I've a horrible cold I can't shake either. I'm looking forward to Spring - not Summer, as I'm not insane and 45C is NOT fun. Where do you work incidentally?
We do! I really need a day of nothing where I can just catch up on the Internet in general. I've finished classes for three weeks, only to be pulling 10 hour shifts. And the last thing I want to do after spending a day at a computer is spend more time at a computer. How's winter treating you?
We really need to talk more my friend.
Thanking you.
This ... is mostly why Prestige+ exists haha, just so you get the idea
I like passing things! I'll be expecting my grad certificate in the post my good man But there's not a tremendous amount of skilled work available here either - there's programmes most evenings about how the mines are enticing foreigners to try to attain work here but ending up in trailer parks waiting for an opportunity. You would expect an influx to Europe and America perhaps, but then the European markets are weak at best (some would say months away from the single currency collapse) and then America has it's many many problems as we've already noted in threads on here. These are strange waters we're sailing in.
Haha, and there you hit the nexus of our current problems. You have passed NZECON 101. Most of our graduates are leaving for Australia. The Opposition uses the term 'Wellington to Wollongong' on a daily basis. I can see myself doing it, and most of my graduate friends have made the move.
I know you're always going to be reliant on foreign trade but depending on others is risky - investments can be pulled and then what happens? Where is the plan B? And yet having a large domestic market is no catalyst to success - look at the Eurozone for evidence of that. It's a complex and entirely fluid crisis - reactive to the slightest tremor in the global market. I suppose the economic management of a smaller country can be just as troublesome as a large one. You make some very valid points though, especially about your workforce - but once you train someone to be that productive, where is the motivation to stay in NZ where there's extensive possibilities elsewhere?
