Historian, mainly of science, art, tools and architecture in early modern Europe. Have also been a physicist, mathematician, educationist.
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2026-08-18T22:14:55Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K The several spells of rain today have been as heavy as they were unexpected. The air's quite cold but there's something about these falls that feels like a summer storm, the kind that brings hailstones. The forecasts I read or listened to this morning made no mention of it; even now the weather websites say that it is not raining and that no rain has fallen today. Instead, they tell me that it's windy, which it is not. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Is there a simple or at least inexpensive way to convert a Singer Heavy Duty sewing machine made for the 120VAC supply to run on 240VAC? Same for a kitchen-aid stand mixer. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K There's another effort afoot to bring dirty American crappy food production and animal abuse practices to New Zealand, now with an initial step of government approval. As much as America did for me, and as much as I miss living there, I'm not at all conflicted by the thought that it's high time for that country to close its borders and keep to itself for a few decades while it figures itself out. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K A little quiz: can you identify the New Zealand school lunches? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Where's Hipkins gone? I thought I remembered his staking out a hard line over petrol prices exceeding $3/L – but it seems not to be of concern any more? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K How is the anti-regulation deputy prime minister so comfortable with regulating children's access to social media? Shouldn't he have set one of his paedophiles onto the prime minister and education minister by now? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 this is a soapbox that one should never get off npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev You're more generous than I am. I think that the reporter doesn't know what he's reporting on and hasn't taken the time to learn enough before deadline. And then the editorial tiers approved it with similar ignorance. And so the message – a very important one – has been weakened. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…5w5c @nprofile…kpw3 I tried to get something done about this when I was on a primary school board. But principal and board were never willing either to isolate obviously sick kids at school, nor to send them home. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev I agree but am bristling about how RNZ is talking garbage. It took me a couple of re-readings to see that "two hundred volts went through the toaster" was the reporter's bullshitting, not from the "electrical expert" (whatever that means). npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…jc6e even my dog knows that you cross when the green man appears. He figured it out himself. So did our last foster pup. So both of them would seem better qualified to be prime minister. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Consumer NZ petition to government for less exploitative electricity prices npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K This seems rather more important than the National Clown Party's circus. But the press doesn't seem keen on it, and neither does the opposition. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 I feel like I'm obliged here because, being outside the system, I can say things that insiders would get in trouble for. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Looks like I'm still remembered as one of the good guys in certain circles even though I haven't been in a university or published any research for years. Just got an e-mail asking whether I'd be available to star at a symposium overseas later this year. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 Though my studies covered many things, my physiognomy is limited to knowing that the books exist. I skimmed a few, but that was all. So I'm at a loss to understand why it is that, whenever I see his face, I so clearly think "rapist who works at Harvey Norman". Why is this? It surely shouldn't be so, and the other politicians don't prompt such thoughts, and I've never met him. But it comes through so strongly in exactly this one case. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 Though my studies covered many things, my physiognomy is limited to knowing that the books exist. I skimmed a few, but that was all. So I'm at a loss to understand why it is that, whenever I see his face, I so clearly think "rapist who works at Harvey Norman". Why is this? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 Though my studies covered many things, my physiognomy is limited to knowing that the books exist. I skimmed a few, but that was all. So I'm at a loss to understand why it is that, whenever I see his face, I so clearly think "rapist". Why is this? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…7e94 I've felt for years that he's their only viable option. Hipkins has never been more than a middle-manager with only as much ability and insight as an average car salesman. He was especially smarmy and bureaucratic as education minister, and seemingly nothing but the bad-cop bulldog as Ardern's right-hand man. My direct experience with Sepuloni is that she's anti-Chinese. That's a pretty difficult thing for me to find a way to work around. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev Today's Calvinists are nowhere near that stupid, are they? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Americans, any chance that you could vote for a Dutch protestant or a Calvinist for your next president? I think it'd be really funny if the White House got painted plain white, all the newly added gold stripped off or covered up. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u All of the leaders should have said that. The Speaker should have said that, and called the Herald over to tie Winnie in tabard and tights while the Serjeant at Arms put the mace to practical application. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u I don't think that they ever truly burn the bridges. It's all theatre for the moment, and then when their hands are forced they cry pragmatism. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u Though I was disappointed that Hipkins didn't say something along these lines last week, it's come so late that I feel it's just a voter appeal. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf Of course we are not concerned. We have PM exactly where we want it. But no matter. I speak to you about saving oligarch from libertarian tax and our dream for glorious new empire. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf Of course we are not concerned. We have PM exactly where we want it. But no matter. I speak to you about saving oligarch from libertarian tax and our dream for new empire. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf Of course we're not concerned. We have the PM exactly where we want it. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf and so what if there's an early election? Or what if we have no government for a few weeks? Having no government didn't seem to be a problem for a few weeks following the last election? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u it all seems to boil down to "This is for New Zealanders. I've been out talking with New Zealanders and it doesn't matter where I go – board rooms, the Northern Club, Koru lounges – it's what everyday New Zealanders consistently tell me they want. You're not a New Zealander; I'm not talking to you. Hey Winston, I've got another customer for you." npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u it all seems to boil down to "This is for New Zealanders. I've been out talking with New Zealanders and wherever I go – board rooms, the Northern Club, Koru lounges – it's what everyday New Zealanders tell me they want. You're not a New Zealander; I'm not talking to you. Hey Winston, I've got another customer for you." npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u @nprofile…mf70 can you counter-arrest the assaulter who claims to be arresting you? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…7ndt We used to do that too! We had to pitch policies at assembly and were even allowed to disgrace ourselves with ad hominem reasons not to vote for the other candidates. We also wrote letters to MPs and various researcher experts, and local industry experts, and the teacher would send them off in a bundle, and we'd get replies. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Son came home from school very angry today. He'd been asked to help to organise a panel discussion between the local candidates and an electoral official to mobilise those who are old enough to vote or getting close to it. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 Translation: "Look what a fucking disaster my government has been. In future, you voters can avoid idiots like me by choosing benevolent dictatorship." npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u what's the penalty for paving the road for foreign interests? These days it may well have fallen to nothing more than a parliamentary heckling and a non-apology. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u yes, a hidden surprise for readers who came for the wrong reason npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u I can't agree with that. This is much more serious than benefit fraud. This undermines the military, and hence the state. This is service to foreign interference. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u how about "Luxon perverts Crown military for Party profit" ? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 I meant condemning the racism and the racist, not just the undiplomatic remarks. I don't think that Luxon has shown any concern whatsover that Peters and Jones might not be fit for parliamentary presence or New Zealand citizenship – he's just playing the "I'm just a business dummy" trope again – "he's meeting his KPIs so being racist is ok." It was the same with Nick Smith's violence and drug abuse under régimes not long past. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 Which parties have condemned it? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 crikey. Let a hundred flowers bloom, then cut them all for market. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K remove soil PFAS by bioaccumulation into sunflowers and hemp, then destroy it while making biochar for the fields npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u They've never been against forced labour. Their country was founded on it! It's less obvious to the outside world now, but it still relies on it. Strongman authoritarianism all round, and Hollywood to maintain it as an element of popular Christian Family values. They just don't want others to do it. Much like when they do their "régime change" interference in other countries while insisting that their own régime continues on. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u and that's how it always is. They usually conclude "Oh it's just the Mexican slaves again", year after year. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u A version of this is pretty much annual normality in the US. Usually it's just E. coli, and it shows up in spinach and lettuce alike. They regard it as absolutely fine – just part of the annual TV sensationalism cycle. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 That's good. Every time I've asked for a manifesto preceding recent elections, no one has had one. The closest I've come is a Labour canvasser at a train station telling me that she had them in the car and that she'll have one for me tomorrow, but tomorrow she didn't show up. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…ffxt maybe on the parliamentary petitions website – target the minister for broadcasting and the minister for climate no-change – to hit multiple capons with one stone? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 This risk is peculiarly well known in physiology, yet so effectively downplayed by politicians, reporters, and facebook naysayers. I call for a reality TV show in which groups of them spend a week in a house with gradually increasing CO2 concentration until they can't take it any more, then come out for a debriefing. The social interactions as their cognitive processes shift could make for fascinating viewing. So could their techniques for digging their heels in at the end, refusing to relate the local climate CO2 concentration to global CO2 concentration, refusing the relate the physical climate to the social climate. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Just been helping my son with chemistry, and accidentally flipped the narrative. He was looking at the Haber–Bosch process for making ammonia. I asked him about what ammonia's good for, the timing of the development, the timing of World War 1... npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf I don't know, but I just saw ACT essentialising TOP's policies as "everyone on welfare", and I thought, "What an improvement over just Fonterra, parliamentary paedophile rings, Phillip Morris and friends on welfare!" npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K I decided that I'm going to help out local naggy anglophones who can nae cope with reo Māori, just in case their reason for doing this is intellectual incapacity rather than racism. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf It's been like this for years, predating LLMs. Lots of websites are like this. Designed and built by AI=arsehole incompetence, I gather. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…pg4v @nprofile…yzxf These people fade so quickly from public memory. We need a national museum or something to inform us. Imagine how much better the country could be if happen if Te Papa weren't a useless pile of tourism and artwank shit! npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…yzxf so the issue isn't that she's a Chinese agent, but that Seymour didn't know? Seems to me that the PR stakes here are a bit lower than with not knowing about his paedophilic party chief but I'm clearly contrarian about order and significance. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf What exactly made her resign, though? With the way several recent prime and cabinet ministers have been, one might well think that Chinese political party links are essential to the job. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K I just signed this parliamentary petition to get disabilities support treated as an individual need rather than as a spousal problem. I'm in this boat. WINZ told me to get relief from IRD, and IRD asked "What relief?" npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 I find it hard to tell from the study – they measured a lot and it speaks of statistical significance but I didn't spot whether the effect sizes are clinically worth chasing. The big thing, of course, is that if it works for you, then it works for you. Individual variation is so often far greater than what the study sample or population means do. This is a problem in interpreting a lot of the health studies, and similarly in education studies where governments divert millions of dollars into one-size-fits-all policies that hurt tens of thousands of our children. John Hattie's work is very widely abused to run roughshod over little kids – the NZ government loves it. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K My wife, who claims to have mediterranean heritage, opened my olives TWO MONTHS TOO EARLY so obviously they're zingy and harsh and then asked whether I'd put some weird spice in because they don't taste right. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…wj33 Also a cautionary tale of how shitty your intellect and life skills can be after graduating from a NZ university – presumably in medicine, in this case. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 I hope that it extends to individuals copying and pasting AI-generated text, too. Too many people are abusing it in exactly way they're intended to – in other words, they're using it to abuse other people. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K https://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/ npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…t3ug So close to Nick Smith – "Wades in Faeces". npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…gydw it amazes me how we used to cope back in the days of ASCII and EBCDIC. It's not like there weren't astrological and astronomical calculator apps back then, but they said things like CONJ or I suspect that someone improvised with o- (and o-o for opposition) npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…gydw That's ☌ ! npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev Sepuloni wound me up with her and Ardern's maltreatment of the New Zealand Chinese when she was Ardern's lackey in the Culture and Heritage. Selective racists, the both of them. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Labour putting Hipkins and Sepuloni at the top of their list pretty much guarantees no party vote from me. Two petty middle-managers, no leaderliness or projection of principle in either. I wish they'd offer us a new local candidate, too – our current one has a long, long history of wheedling around to collect entries for her CV; offers help, promises answers and joins boards, then drops commitments whenever they aren't bringing glory. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Would this be a photography glitch or is the school's name really spelt that way? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…5w5c @nprofile…kmch not just ostracised by temporary exile? I thought that it was only for a decade. I think that it could be very worthwhile implementing here – at the same time as you elect a new parliament, you can cast ostraka for the previous one. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 I can assure you that post-editing machine transcriptions and machine translations is horrible work, much more frustrating than doing it from scratch yourself. Managers, however, believe that it's easier because the hard part has supposedly been done and all you have to do is polish an already shiny turd so now they can pay less, and that's really what they care about. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…wj33 Already? It feels like not enough time since the last one! npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 I'm not sure that "vulnerable to" is quite the word I'd pick. The Goldsmith–Willis junta aligns more with "eager for". npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…pu46 I have been battling on that point for months now – meetings with a start time but no end time. And then a whole lot of people leave after an hour to meet other obligations or have run out of energy, and those with stacks of free time stay behind and make decisions as a minority. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K I'm tired of seeing posts here bridged from bluesky. Far too many of them lead to a "you can't see this unless you're logged into bluesky" page. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…7760 The ones planned to go at Te Papa include pretty much the whole sector support division, which means that hundreds of museums throughout the country will grind into the dirt through lack of access to guidance and funding. The press likes to talk about Te Papa being the flagship place that sets an example. They rarely mention that it's also the only guidance and support that little museums throughout the country have. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u Something rarely said about the flying delivery bots is how much noise pollution they add. Installing them in noisy cities isn't just for usage density – it's also about the ambient noise being already so loud that the bots don't generate so many complaints. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…fh5u Why not send a walking bot instead of a wheely one? I've done some work for the people behind these ones, and they're engineered expressly to handle irregular, unstable terrain with unannounced mobile obstacles: http://www.robotlocomotion.kit.ac.jp/ npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K What's going on at the Privacy Commission? They told me to e-mail them to follow up on my Manage My Health complaint, but their mail server tells me that the address that they supplied "is no longer active" so my e-mail's been blocked by "a custom mail-flow rule created by an admin". npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 My teacher read the Odyssey to us when I was about eight. A chapter every day for weeks and weeks and weeks as we sat and lounged on the mat and giant cushions. In English translation, of course. my son has seen but the cover. It'd have been good had the exclusion of classics made space for the inclusion of a new great canon, a culturally broader one that doesn't exoticise the foreign Other, but his literary exposure at school has been merely less. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…5w5c Them's old words; they belongs in musea. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…wj33 His persona is all about lacking the English to understand Schopenhauer in translation. I have no idea how his German is. Or how his English really is, but somehow I doubt that the illiterate fool persona is actually an act. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…wj33 The kind of 'man' who'd read Schopenhauer and mistake him for a fellow genius. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Hot water heat pump was malfunctioning last week. I asked the manufacturer what to do, and they logged a job, then put me on the phone with an engineer who guided me to open it up and diagnose. We both thought that it was likely a thermistor having worked itself a bit loose over the five years it's been running. I couldn't get all the way in (lid stuck!) so they sent out a technician today, after couriering him the spare part overnight. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…awd8 Large-print non-fiction is in especially short supply. Cookbook publishers in particular seem to delight in visual misery – tiny font size, cobweb-thin weight, low-contrast ink colours, glossy paper that catches every reflection possible, ... npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…xpw3 meraviglioso! Though I was sad last time I went to Torino. Piemontese had disappeared from the inner-city signage; it wasn't until I got out as far as the royal tombs that I started seeing it again. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 why would Luxon want one? His few detractors are all sitting on benches so far back that he can't even see them to count accurately, right? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…pp76 I was surprised to see so much car racing coverage on TV over the past week or two with no mention on the fuel consumed. On my long journey home over the past couple of days, we encountered empty pumps at three stations. They don't take down the price sign when this happens so you don't find out until you've already driven in. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…vvev Indeed. It's not about "the science" but about "which science". There are an awful lot of science-rich information streams, though strangely not accessible or credible to those who advise "Do Your Own Research". npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…5w5c @nprofile…xvcz RSA includes the police and firefighters but they get mostly overlooked due to the ANZAC focus. You seem like the kind of person who already knows that, though! npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K Felt like something sweet for afternoon tea today, after coming across my mother's moon cake moulds in her cupboards. Made these little old-fashioned cakes, which is apparently Not The Done Thing this century. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K I'm intrigued that "viral" now carries positive connotations whereas "bacterial," "fungal" and "microbial" still do not. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf What's going on with the three-horned guy in the sky behind him? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf I didn't read that as healing so much as extracting valuables from an old man's brain. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…gtt6 @nprofile…grvd they need a lot more than a supercomputer. They need science communication specialists – technical writers – to say something actually useful. Metservice has decayed into a bluster office over the last few decades. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…t3ug Be careful. They have trans sisters in the electronics, too. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…3e6m I also had a coffee machine because the local coffee joints hadn't heard of a flat white at the time, and they couldn't make a cappuccino to save themselves. They tried for about a month but I couldn't get them past making coffee-tinted hot milkshakes. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…3e6m I had an electric kettle in my dorm room when I studied there. Bought it at Walgreens. It was slower but far from unusable. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…3e6m I had an electric kettle in my dorm room when I studied there. Bought it at Walgreens. It was slower but far from unusable. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 I remember back when the press promised that it was the end of his politics career. Now it's passé. npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 no old photos available of him in that hotel? npub1lc99lfzy9d6rt6qqmvnvg4499gq2d8t9j2d68ec2mlqrqjp6w3mqrmuz05 Alistair K @nprofile…r769 They'd also push urban planning in the direction that pretty much every urban planning expert would have it go, rather than in the opposite direction. Probably also sack all the council planners who don't have an actual urban planning credential. I've met too many who have generic degrees in things like geography. The system stacks the odds against doing a good job.
