Who gets to build the broadband network?

Unsurprisingly Telecom (well Chorus) over much of the country, but they don't get Christchurch!

Enable Networks get Christchurch and Rangiora and outlying settlements. Enable are owned by the Christchurch City Council (ie publicly owned) and they've been building a dark fibre network in Christchurch for a while now.

Herald story covering all areas
More and More - media releases on Voxy about Christchurch + Enable.

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I'll be watching the Telecom/Chorus split with some interest - assuming the shareholder vote is just a formality will Chorus (to become C2) be a listed company, adding a fraction of desperately needed depth to our stock market?

Part 1: Rape links, and the importance of Assent

This link came through my FB feed. Feminists don’t think all men are rapists. Rapists do. I wish I'd had this link to smack someone in the face with in KAOS chat a little while ago.

It includes the statistic that 6% of college age men, slightly over 1 in 20, will admit to raping someone in anonymous surveys, as long as the word "rape" isn’t used in the description of the act. . It's not clear in the original post that that is a link (poor design), but it is and after a couple of clickthroughs I got to a Yes means Yes blog post dedicated to the relevant studies which includes the actual text of the questions and some analysis.

Now before anyone starts saying "but this doesn't happen here" - yes it fucking does. Even within KAOS I'm aware of instances - I can't compare the frequency in any qualitative fashion, but it happens (without even going into situations involving emotional blackmail...). The lines around consent aren't drawn anywhere near as clearly as some like to claim they are and the social penalties for breaching or bending consent aren't any clearer - or enforced any better - than anywhere else.

Perhaps the most important corollary to the no means no rule, which I saw quoted in the comments from one of the above links but rarely emphasised, is "Silence does not mean yes". In a supposedly permissive environments it's all too easy to assume that a lack of dissent is the same as assent. To tie this into another exchange I was involved in yesterday - bzzzt wrong. A lack of dissent only means you are being denied permission to communicate. That's a NO.

An assent requires an active response. This obviously doesn't have to be verbal, but it must be there. If you come up to me and put your arms around me and I just sit/stand there (as I have done a bit recently in lieu of punching people and yelling "get out of my space") that should be a pretty clear indication you aren't welcome.

The second part of this is going into a filter as it gets pretty personal and delves into some dark places in my psyche. Anyone who particularly wants to see it is welcome to ask.

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(I apologise for use of the word rape in the title, it's not one I emphasise lightly but there didn't seem a gentler/potentially less triggering alternative given the content of the post.)