Richard Elwin

Instant coffee tolerator. Dumpster fire explainer.
tweets my own
@[email protected]

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@pcgamer

[Joseph Mooney MP @JosephMooneyMP]

RocketLabs success could not have happened unless the last National Government heard a young guys pitch, and established a light touch regulatory model for the Space sector (the sector could not exist without that).

Fast forward a few years, and @RocketLab has now made New Zealand the third most frequent orbital launchers of satellites on the planet - ahead of very other nation on earth except the United States and China.

Australia implemented space legislation way before us - but (in my view) it was far too complex and far too punitive. As a result they still have no launch capability.

I say this because I did a self directed law paper at university on space law (and another one on space politics) and studied this. They were self-directed papers because no-one was really thinking about space law in NZ to my knowledge when I went to law school.

You see what you focus on.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@Steveo11011 @NavyLookout I suspect the chances of the US Congress voting for warships to be built in Japan is zero, regardless of the economics or scheduling.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@cjsbishop @EricCrampton There’s an outside chance the council isn’t bullshitting about there being complexities. There’re just not saying the quiet part that the complexities are the barriers the council puts in the way building anything or doing anything.

[Alessio Patalano @alessionaval]

🤣 - if this doesn’t make you laugh, nothing will today. Remember the golden rule: you never know you’re doing the right thing until the party propaganda machine strongly goes against it.

[Sir Humphrey @pinstripedline]

This TOP SECRET map from 1954 shows how the UK MOD planned for New Zealand to assume defence responsibility for UK and allied islands in the South Pacific in the event of WW3.

Short thread on how even in the 1950s, the UK saw NZ as a key partner in the event of global war.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@RebeccaJEmm @markothoughts I don’t get how the things he counts up are greater than the bill for infrastructure. Sure there have been some stonkingly terrible white elephants but how is spending in Moa point the reason we haven’t spent enough on sewage?

[Jason Kenney 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @jkenney]

Lots of weird takes on the Hungarian election result from both left and right here.

Peter Magyar is a socially conservative immigration restrictionist who wants to cut taxes and double the defence budget. He criticized Orban for admitting too many guest workers, and wants to increase Hungary's already generous pro-natal incentives.

On virtually every issue, his platform is well to the right of centre, by European standards.

His foreign policy is to end Orban's alliance with Putin, remove the Hungarian veto on EU loans to Ukraine, normalize relations with the European Union while opposing more Euro integration, and strengthen relations with Eastern Europe's anti-Russian governments, e.g. Poland.

His election was not a sudden shift to the left, but a rejection of Orban's corruption, the failure of his interventionist / statist economic policies, and the humiliation of his relationship with Putin.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@fundypost @JoelMacManus The problem is the regulatory system you’re defending here hasn’t delivered what you want AND has made building anything much more expensive leading to too few homes and sky high rents.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@fundypost @JoelMacManus Correct, it is not a house. It's 6 homes and a cafe and now styled blandly enough to get council approval.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

Some new enshitification - marvelous.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@Haimonaetc I'm guessing the common ritual he's talking about is imposing religious observance on people.
Bring on the beers.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@EdithaTogo @NZFreeSpeech @GraemeEdgeler I think the reasonable middle ground is that if a platform gleefully generates harmful sexual content then other organisations can choose to use alternative platforms. I mean who are these imaginary people who only get their information on CoNZ from X?

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@EdithaTogo @GraemeEdgeler @NZFreeSpeech This article kinda pits the bits together.

https://t.co/KaBesdrekn

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@EdithaTogo @GraemeEdgeler @NZFreeSpeech I’d put money on it being all about the CSAM and undressing content X was serving up.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@GraemeEdgeler @NZFreeSpeech Fixed it.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@RebeccaJEmm @j_har_ford Not sure anyone back then would have predicted Harre ending up the most beclowned of that group.

[john clarke @JohnAClarkeEU]

New Zealand and USA, closely followed by EU, Brazil and India.

[Richard Elwin @richardelwin]

@metro_mim I wonder if there’s any NZ local body politician who has voted for as many bad policies and decisions as Foster. Given how bad things have been in Wellington and how long he was on council he must hold the record.