Here in Wgtn the wind appears to have diminished from hurricane to gale force….maybe a little trouting is in order. The Ruamahanga has been very generous this season, lots of good well conditioned fish.
The chickens have started being cruel to one another: my take is that they are discussing where supporters of Shearer sit in the pecking order. My jersey bennies produced only a small crop despite the loving attention given, again I feel David may be influential in this result.
A runner bean appeared and was consumed raw yesterday, the first of many. Proof enough for me that there must be a deity.
The garlic this year was also a let down against previous years after much TLC was assigned, it seems if it’s a good year it’s a good year and vice versa.
Beans on the way along with the Tom’s but unlike last summer I don’t think the rain gods will bless us with a bumper tom crop.
Its the old rule with the toms, dont water much until they have set, then keep roots damp. I have a pile of dwarf toms in a plastic tunnel and they have gone mad, the outside ones are very variable. garlic, mine too, pretty crappy.
had heaps of broad beans. been out pricing tech on a budget; think I’ll stay I-cafe for a while, being the Luddite I am. Defers (lots of synonyms) all the connectivity, firewall, speed, virus, location,tr%llin’ issues, the Unlimited rate is reasonable + it’s yet another social outlet. I’m not sure if watching the House is relevant, it’s just a farce most of the time and I started getting bored towards the end of the year.I still cannot believe how incoherent nearly all of the NAct members are, and some of the Opposition front bench. Memorable standouts;
David Cunliffe
David Clark
Lianne Dalziel
Charles Chauvel
Damien O’Connor
nearly all of the Greens, Hone, and Denis O’Rourke.
(other than The Standard, where do we find the best written political commentary?)
Yes R.T.been a bumper garden year here in Cambridge.Been eating potatoes since September . Eating bean and all salad .Had so many carrots we were in danger of turning orange. However tomatoes are a bit slow and there are not many bees around,but our dwarf fruit trees are loaded .
The chickens have started being cruel to one another:
Yes, my budgies are a bit scratchy at the moment. My most ardent admirer (a greeny-blue) won’t have anything to do with me any more. I think it might have something to do with the arrival of 4 new chicks – jeolousy?
My number one hen is far too snooty to be associated with such a lowly creature as me…unless I have sunflower seeds, raspberries etc. Has me well trained.
Sunday Morning on duty selling raffle tickets and collecting the last of asset petition. At
LP stall in Victoria St Cambridge .
Come and say hello and perhaps give us a hand.
Drat (a acronym for what I was really saying). My order for a SATA RAID tower for home still hasn’t arrived. I ordered the darn thing on the 30th. Took to the 7th for the payment to clear (frigging banks and their holidays). I was hoping it’d show up this week. But the order status still says “Awaiting Goods”.
I guess that puts paid to removing the remaining hard disks form the workstation (it has solid state drives these days) and putting all of the slower high volume storage hanging off the quieter server. I’m wanting to actually be able to suspend the workstation with its noisy fans trying to cool a 6 core CPU. At present I can’t do it because the case I got for the server has no room for disk drives. The idea was to put them out in a easy access case – like this one….
… so surely if it doesn’t arrive this arvo you will see it monday
That will be good. I’ll be able to pull my server workstation and server offline, flip the disks around, get the server to mount them, move the DLNA server and music servers to the server, redirect the TV and sound systems to their new data sources, change the required firewalls for backups and other access points, create NFS wrappers over them on the workstation, and test that everything works in my copious spare time during the working week……
/sarc off… 🙂
Problem is that I did all of the other work shifting my server from an old windows 2003 R2 system after it’s hardware died a few months ago. I got the right type of box for how I want the server to run when I did the emergency fix. Set it up as as a Linux server rathe rthan running windoze again. Stuffed the few remaining windows apps in a Virtualbox and deferred the move of the services that should be on the server but which were on the linux workstation until I had time to move them. The main thing was to move the disks off the workstation to the server.
That time had arrived 12 days ago………. My free time is now gone. Oh well lets hope I still have next weekend free.
But I did get a lot of DIY done during the vacation.
I just love tecky people, i used to be a dj for a community radio station,playing country
music and the guy who started it all talked like you lprent, he also started the country
radio station here in the south which is on 105.20 fm,still going and country wide now,
i learned alot about the technology of radio thanks to him.
Have a great weekend.
Aren’t the SSD’s rather small in size like 256 GB – 450GB and expensive something like 90c a GB? and at those specs, and cost, all i would use is one of them for is a boot disk. I do like the speed. But not the cost of SSD’s. I’m looking for some 1 or 2 terabyte SATA drives for a file/web server I am building. But being on a SB, (and yes I used to be a Painter) they will probably just stay a dream for now.
Yep they are costly compared to a HDD. But the main purpose of my systems are to either write code or to run server services. And I’m not on a budget because this is how I make a living. Computers are the tools of my trade.
I don’t need terabytes for anything except backup and video edits. And apart from the object code, most of my files are pretty static.
It isn’t the $/GB that matters, it is $ for the type of GB you need that matters.
So I have a server with a 120GB SSD (~$150) for the main system and web testing. It is a dual core, fast enough for the job and absolutely quiet – really important in a small apartment.
On the workstation has an AMD with 6 cores and whines with fans when I start compiling or start playing games, but is quiet otherwise. I have a slow 60GB boot (~$80) for the operating system root. /home is fast SSD 128GB (~$180) for development code. The ~/dev/build where all of the generated and compiled code goes is a tmpfs in RAM (I have 16GB of RAM). Have to do a full recompile each time I boot the machine, but I’d do that anyway after pick up code form the offsite version control systems.
I also have 2x2TB HDD’s (~$300) and 2x1TB HDD’s (~$300) in RAID 1 where backups, video edits, and anything that isn’t too important lives. Hard disks fail pretty regularly, really slow on reads compared to SSD’s, and are bloody noisy as well. What they are good at is storing large amounts of data pretty cheaply.
I’ll be happy to go to work this weekend if this heat keeps up – they at least have air-conditioning. I’m finding the heat at home today a bit debilitating.
Psyching myself up to go back to work on Monday – yuk. Not too sure what to make of my new boss and besides I’m of retirement age, so a decision needs to be considered.
If you have a freehold house then you will be able to live on the pension. So do it retire .Do a bit of voluntary work and make the most of your retirement. Get up,each morning and do what you want to , within reason. Your dead a bloody long time .If you have worked for a long while call it a day.
My wife and I have enjoyed every day of retirement all on the pension.
Hi Pink Postman – yes we have a freehold house, thank goodness and I have decided to retire, as you say we’re all dead a bloody long time and I want to be able to enjoy what time I have to the full and enjoy our grandchildren being able to stay with us – I can now convert my office back into a bedroom, having worked from home for several years. I have also been in KiwiSaver since it’s inception and have a few dollars to put away for a rainy day! I’ll be typing my resignation letter tomorrow! There’s plenty of voluntary work to be done in the area I live in.
I am back at work on Monday too. Only 2 more sleep-ins before that 6am alarm. I have 2 years to go to retirement but lots of people at my work well past that age so I too will have to decide when I want to go.
One good thing about where I am in the states. There is fast, inexpensive internet. Can’t get 280 GB a month with 25 mb a second for $70 a month in NZ.
Then maybe you need to change ISP’s Slingshot even roll over the data you don’t use so you don’t lose it at the end of the month. And they have good prices.
Yep! William Hartnell as First Doctor W (elderly rather incompetent coot who had to be rescued by his assistants – 2 adult – teachers, natch! -and one yoof) How things have changed -o tempora, o mores!
The trouble with going away for the weekend when immune-compromised is that every bug in over-crowded enclosed spaces is waiting. For the nth time this winter I’ll be staying at home and recovering from a bleh cold.
Still… it means more time for reading. I’ve started on the Denise Mina Garnethill trilogy that just saying recommended. It’s quite good really.
Got a massive load of plums ripening – but how do I beat the birds!!
Dreaming of swarthy, spicy plum sauce and maybe more preserved in some sort of alcoholic beverage … with lashings of whipped cream on a chocolate torte. ..damn those birds.
If you can’t net the whole tree it’s good to net at least a part or parts for yourselves. On the other hand, even if you can net all the fruit, it can be nice to leave a part open for the birds to enjoy 🙂
I’m sharing my strawberries with the birds. If they get too voracious I’ll net some off.
Ha! Some years ago, down the road from some winery in the Hawkes Bay, where I was working, lived a retired English military sorta guy who was a grape grower and one of our suppliers. His house and vineyard sat on a nice little delta between the main highway and a couple of rows of seaside homes – a fine old homestead, with a verandah out the front. Summertime, he’d sit out there on the verandah in an old easy chair and take pot shots at the birds!
We could hear him up at the winery. He’d call in and tell us how well he was doing, too, totally on a mission to protect those grapes.
Sorry but if he loses 500 words, then he has turned off the Autosave And that is designed to save your work in case of a power outage. As for the cable like I said to him if all else fails, MOVE the Table Problem of the cord solved easily. That’s not tech, that’s just plain old common sense.
Kia Ora,I try to keep most my posts without a paywall for public interest journalism purposes. However, if you can afford to, please consider supporting me as a paid subscriber and/or supporting over at Ko-Fi. That will help me to continue, and to keep spending time on the work. Embarrassingly, ...
There was a time when Google was the best thing in my world. I was an early adopter of their AdWords program and boy did I like what it did for my business. It put rocket fuel in it, is what it did. For every dollar I spent, those ads ...
A while back I was engaged in an unpleasant exchange with a leader of the most well-known NZ anti-vax group and several like-minded trolls. I had responded to a racist meme on social media in which a rightwing podcaster in the US interviewed one of the leaders of the Proud ...
Hi,If you’ve been reading Webworm for a while, you’ll be familiar with Anna Wilding. Between 2020 and 2021 I looked at how the New Zealander had managed to weasel her way into countless news stories over the years, often with very little proof any of it had actually happened. When ...
It's a long white cloud for you, baby; staying together alwaysSummertime in AotearoaWhere the sunshine kisses the water, we will find it alwaysSummertime in AotearoaYeah, it′s SummertimeIt's SummertimeWriters: Codi Wehi Ngatai, Moresby Kainuku, Pipiwharauroa Campbell, Taulutoa Michael Schuster, Rebekah Jane Brady, Te Naawe Jordan Muturangi Tupe, Thomas Edward Scrase.Many of ...
Last year, 292 people died unnecessarily on our roads. That is the lowest result in over a decade and only the fourth time in the last 70 years we’ve seen fewer than 300 deaths in a calendar year. Yet, while it is 292 people too many, with each death being ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The Regulatory Standards Bill, as I understand it, seeks to bind parliament to a specific range of law-making.For example, it seems to ensure primacy of individual rights over that of community, environment, te Tiriti ...
Happy New Year!I had a lovely break, thanks very much for asking: friends, family, sunshine, books, podcasts, refreshing swims, barbecues, bike rides. So good to step away from the firehose for a while, to have less Trump and Seymour in your day. Who needs the Luxons in their risible PJs ...
Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the Auckland City Centre Advisory Panel and a director of Greater Auckland In 2003, after much argument, including the election of a Mayor in 2001 who ran on stopping it, Britomart train station in downtown Auckland opened. A mere 1km twin track terminating branch ...
For the first time in a decade, a New Zealand Prime Minister is heading to the Middle East. The trip is more than just a courtesy call. New Zealand PMs frequently change planes in Dubai en route to destinations elsewhere. But Christopher Luxon’s visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 5, 2025 thru Sat, January 11, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
The decade between 1952 and the early 1960s was the peak period for the style of music we now call doo wop, after which it got dissolved into soul music, girl groups, and within pop music in general. Basically, doo wop was a form of small group harmonising with a ...
The future teaches you to be aloneThe present to be afraid and coldSo if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists…And if you tolerate thisThen your children will be nextSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Do you remember at school, studying the rise ...
When National won the New Zealand election in 2023, one of the first to congratulate Luxon was tech-billionaire and entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk.And last year, after Luxon posted a video about a trip to Malaysia, Musk came forward again to heap praise on Christopher:So it was perhaps par for the ...
Hi,Today’s Webworm features a new short film from documentary maker Giorgio Angelini. It’s about Luigi Mangione — but it’s also, really, about everything in America right now.Bear with me.Shortly after I sent out my last missive from the fires on Wednesday, one broke out a little too close to home ...
So soon just after you've goneMy senses sharpenBut it always takes so damn longBefore I feel how much my eyes have darkenedFear hangs in a plane of gun smokeDrifting in our roomSo easy to disturb, with a thought, with a whisperWith a careless memorySongwriters: Andy Taylor / John Taylor / ...
Can we trust the Trump cabinet to act in the public interest?Nine of Trump’s closest advisers are billionaires. Their total net worth is in excess of $US375b (providing there is not a share-market crash). In contrast, the total net worth of Trump’s first Cabinet was about $6b. (Joe Biden’s Cabinet ...
Welcome back to our weekly roundup. We hope you had a good break (if you had one). Here’s a few of the stories that caught our attention over the last few weeks. This holiday period on Greater Auckland Since our last roundup we’ve: Taken a look back at ...
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partnerSometimes I feel like my only friendIs the city I live in, The City of AngelsLonely as I am together we crySong: Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, Flea, John Frusciante.A home is engulfed in flames during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area. ...
Open access notablesLarge emissions of CO2 and CH4 due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra, Torn et al., Nature Communications:Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and ...
It's election year for Wellington City Council and for the Regional Council. What have the progressive councillors achieved over the last couple of years. What were the blocks and failures? What's with the targeting of the mayor and city council by the Post and by central government? Why does the ...
Over the holidays, there was a rising tide of calls for people to submit on National's repulsive, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, along with a wave of advice and examples of what to say. And it looks like people rose to the occasion, with over 300,000 ...
The lie is my expenseThe scope of my desireThe Party blessed me with its futureAnd I protect it with fireI am the Nina The Pinta The Santa MariaThe noose and the rapistAnd the fields overseerThe agents of orangeThe priests of HiroshimaThe cost of my desire…Sleep now in the fireSongwriters: Brad ...
This is a re-post from the Climate BrinkGlobal surface temperatures have risen around 1.3C since the preindustrial (1850-1900) period as a result of human activity.1 However, this aggregate number masks a lot of underlying factors that contribute to global surface temperature changes over time.These include CO2, which is the primary ...
There are times when movement around us seems to slow down. And the faster things get, the slower it all appears.And so it is with the whirlwind of early year political activity.They are harbingers for what is to come:Video: Wayne Wright Jnr, funder of Sean Plunket, talk growing power and ...
Hi,Right now the power is out, so I’m just relying on the laptop battery and tethering to my phone’s 5G which is dropping in and out. We’ll see how we go.First up — I’m fine. I can’t see any flames out the window. I live in the greater Hollywood area ...
2024 was a tough year for working Kiwis. But together we’ve been able to fight back for a just and fair New Zealand and in 2025 we need to keep standing up for what’s right and having our voices heard. That starts with our Mood of the Workforce Survey. It’s your ...
Time is never time at allYou can never ever leaveWithout leaving a piece of youthAnd our lives are forever changedWe will never be the sameThe more you change, the less you feelSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan.Babinden - Baba’s DayToday, January 8th, 2025, is Babinden, “The Day of the baba” or “The ...
..I/We wish to make the following comments:I oppose the Treaty Principles Bill."5. Act binds the CrownThis Act binds the Crown."How does this Act "bind the Crown" when Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which the Act refers to, has been violated by the Crown on numerous occassions, resulting in massive loss of ...
Everything is good and brownI'm here againWith a sunshine smile upon my faceMy friends are close at handAnd all my inhibitions have disappeared without a traceI'm glad, oh, that I found oohSomebody who I can rely onSongwriter: Jay KayGood morning, all you lovely people. Today, I’ve got nothing except a ...
Welcome to 2025. After wrapping up 2024, here’s a look at some of the things we can expect to see this year along with a few predictions. Council and Elections Elections One of the biggest things this year will be local body elections in October. Will Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Canadians can take a while to get angry – but when they finally do, watch out. Canada has been falling out of love with Justin Trudeau for years, and his exit has to be the least surprising news event of the New Year. On recent polling, Trudeau’s Liberal party has ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Much like 2023, many climate and energy records were broken in 2024. It was Earth’s hottest year on record by a wide margin, breaking the previous record that was set just last year by an even larger margin. Human-caused climate-warming pollution and ...
Submissions on National's racist, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill are due tomorrow! So today, after a good long holiday from all that bullshit, I finally got my shit together to submit on it. As I noted here, people should write their own submissions in their own ...
Ooh, baby (ooh, baby)It's making me crazy (it's making me crazy)Every time I look around (look around)Every time I look around (every time I look around)Every time I look aroundIt's in my faceSongwriters: Alan Leo Jansson / Paul Lawrence L. Fuemana.Today, I’ll be talking about rich, middle-aged men who’ve made ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 29, 2024 thru Sat, January 4, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Hi,The thing that stood out at me while shopping for Christmas presents in New Zealand was how hard it was to avoid Zuru products. Toy manufacturer Zuru is a bit like Netflix, in that it has so much data on what people want they can flood the market with so ...
And when a child is born into this worldIt has no conceptOf the tone of skin it's living inAnd there's a million voicesAnd there's a million voicesTo tell you what you should be thinkingSong by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N'Dour.The moment you see that face, you can hear her voice; ...
While we may not always have quality political leadership, a couple of recently published autobiographies indicate sometimes we strike it lucky. When ranking our prime ministers, retired professor of history Erik Olssen commented that ‘neither Holland nor Nash was especially effective as prime minister – even his private secretary thought ...
Baby, be the class clownI'll be the beauty queen in tearsIt's a new art form, showin' people how little we care (yeah)We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fearLet's go down to the tennis court and talk it up like, yeah (yeah)Songwriters: Joel Little / Ella Yelich O ...
Open access notables Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored, Ecker et al., American Psychologist:Recent academic debate has seen the emergence of the claim that misinformation is not a significant societal problem. We argue that the arguments used to support this minimizing position are flawed, particularly if interpreted (e.g., by policymakers or the public) as suggesting ...
What I’ve Been Doing: I buried a close family member.What I’ve Been Watching: Andor, Jack Reacher, Xmas movies.What I’ve Been Reflecting On: The Usefulness of Writing and the Worthiness of Doing So — especially as things become more transparent on their own.I also hate competing on any day, and if ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by John Wihbey. A version of this article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections on Nov. 11, 2008. (Image credits: The White House, Jonathan Cutrer / CC BY 2.0; President Jimmy Carter, Trikosko/Library of Congress; Solar dedication, Bill Fitz-Patrick / Jimmy Carter Library; Solar ...
Morena folks,We’re having a good break, recharging the batteries. Hope you’re enjoying the holiday period. I’m not feeling terribly inspired by much at the moment, I’m afraid—not from a writing point of view, anyway.So, today, we’re travelling back in time. You’ll have to imagine the wavy lines and sci-fi sound ...
Completed reads for 2024: Oration on the Dignity of Man, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola A Platonic Discourse Upon Love, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Of Being and Unity, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola The Life of Pico della Mirandola, by Giovanni Francesco Pico Three Letters Written by Pico ...
Welcome to 2025, Aotearoa. Well… what can one really say? 2024 was a story of a bad beginning, an infernal middle and an indescribably farcical end. But to chart a course for a real future, it does pay to know where we’ve been… so we know where we need ...
Welcome to the official half-way point of the 2020s. Anyway, as per my New Years tradition, here’s where A Phuulish Fellow’s blog traffic came from in 2024: United States United Kingdom New Zealand Canada Sweden Australia Germany Spain Brazil Finland The top four are the same as 2023, ...
Completed reads for December: Be A Wolf!, by Brian Strickland The Magic Flute [libretto], by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder The Invisible Eye, by Erckmann-Chatrian The Owl’s Ear, by Erckmann-Chatrian The Waters of Death, by Erckmann-Chatrian The Spider, by Hanns Heinz Ewers Who Knows?, by Guy de Maupassant ...
Well, it’s the last day of the year, so it’s time for a quick wrap-up of the most important things that happened in 2024 for urbanism and transport in our city. A huge thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and supported us in our mission to make ...
Leave your office, run past your funeralLeave your home, car, leave your pulpitJoin us in the streets where weJoin us in the streets where weDon't belong, don't belongHere under the starsThrowing light…Song: Jeffery BuckleyToday, I’ll discuss the standout politicians of the last 12 months. Each party will receive three awards, ...
Hi,A lot’s happened this year in the world of Webworm, and as 2024 comes to an end I thought I’d look back at a few of the things that popped. Maybe you missed them, or you might want to revisit some of these essay and podcast episodes over your break ...
Hi,I wanted to share this piece by film editor Dan Kircher about what cinema has been up to in 2024.Dan edited my documentary Mister Organ, as well as this year’s excellent crowd-pleasing Bookworm.Dan adores movies. He gets the language of cinema, he knows what he loves, and writes accordingly. And ...
Without delving into personal details but in order to give readers a sense of the year that was, I thought I would offer the study in contrasts that are Xmas 2023 and Xmas 2024: Xmas 2023 in Starship Children’s Hospital (after third of four surgeries). Even opening presents was an ...
Heavy disclaimer: Alpha/beta/omega dynamics is a popular trope that’s used in a wide range of stories and my thoughts on it do not apply to all cases. I’m most familiar with it through the lens of male-focused fanfic, typically m/m but sometimes also featuring m/f and that’s the situation I’m ...
Hi,Webworm has been pretty heavy this year — mainly because the world is pretty heavy. But as we sprint (or limp, you choose) through the final days of 2024, I wanted to keep Webworm a little lighter.So today I wanted to look at one of the biggest and weirdest elements ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 22, 2024 thru Sat, December 28, 2024. This week's roundup is the second one published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, ...
We’ll have a climate change ChristmasFrom now until foreverWarming our hearts and mindsAnd planet all togetherSpirits high and oceans higherChestnuts roast on wildfiresIf coal is on your wishlistMerry Climate Change ChristmasSong by Ian McConnellReindeer emissions are not something I’d thought about in terms of climate change. I guess some significant ...
KP continues to putt-putt along as a tiny niche blog that offers a NZ perspective on international affairs with a few observations about NZ domestic politics thrown in. In 2024 there was also some personal posts given that my son was in the last four months of a nine month ...
I can see very wellThere's a boat on the reef with a broken backAnd I can see it very wellThere's a joke and I know it very wellIt's one of those that I told you long agoTake my word I'm a madman, don't you knowSongwriters: Bernie Taupin / Elton JohnIt ...
.Acknowledgement: Tim PrebbleThanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work..With each passing day of bad headlines, squandering tax revenue to enrich the rich, deep cuts to our social services and a government struggling to keep the lipstick on its neo-liberal pig ...
This is from the 36th Parallel social media account (as brief food for thought). We know that Trump is ahistorical at best but he seems to think that he is Teddy Roosevelt and can use the threat of invoking the Monroe Doctrine and “Big Stick” gunboat diplomacy against Panama and ...
Don't you cry tonightI still love you, babyAnd don't you cry tonightDon't you cry tonightThere's a heaven above you, babyAnd don't you cry tonightSong: Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so”, said possibly the greatest philosopher ever to walk this earth, Douglas Adams.We have entered the ...
Because you're magicYou're magic people to meSong: Dave Para/Molly Para.Morena all, I hope you had a good day yesterday, however you spent it. Today, a few words about our celebration and a look at the various messages from our politicians.A Rockel XmasChristmas morning was spent with the five of us ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). 2024 has been a series of bad news for climate change. From scorching global temperatures leading to devastating ...
The Green Party welcomes the extension of the deadline for Treaty Principles Bill submissions but continues to call on the Government to abandon the Bill. ...
Complaints about disruptive behaviour now handled in around 13 days (down from around 60 days a year ago) 553 Section 55A notices issued by Kāinga Ora since July 2024, up from 41 issued during the same period in the previous year. Of that 553, first notices made up around 83 ...
The time it takes to process building determinations has improved significantly over the last year which means fewer delays in homes being built, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “New Zealand has a persistent shortage of houses. Making it easier and quicker for new homes to be built will ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden is pleased to announce the annual list of New Zealand’s most popular baby names for 2024. “For the second consecutive year, Noah has claimed the top spot for boys with 250 babies sharing the name, while Isla has returned to the most popular ...
Work is set to get underway on a new bus station at Westgate this week. A contract has been awarded to HEB Construction to start a package of enabling works to get the site ready in advance of main construction beginning in mid-2025, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“A new Westgate ...
Minister for Children and for Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Karen Chhour is encouraging people to use the resources available to them to get help, and to report instances of family and sexual violence amongst their friends, families, and loved ones who are in need. “The death of a ...
Uia te pō, rangahaua te pō, whakamāramatia mai he aha tō tango, he aha tō kāwhaki? Whitirere ki te ao, tirotiro kau au, kei hea taku rātā whakamarumaru i te au o te pakanga mo te mana motuhake? Au te pō, ngū te pō, ue hā! E te kahurangi māreikura, ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says people with diabetes and other painful conditions will benefit from a significant new qualification to boost training in foot care. “It sounds simple, but quality and regular foot and nail care is vital in preventing potentially serious complications from diabetes, like blisters or sores, which can take a long time to heal ...
Associate Health Minister with responsibility for Pharmac David Seymour is pleased to see Pharmac continue to increase availability of medicines for Kiwis with the government’s largest ever investment in Pharmac. “Pharmac operates independently, but it must work within the budget constraints set by the government,” says Mr Seymour. “When this government assumed ...
Mā mua ka kite a muri, mā muri ka ora e mua - Those who lead give sight to those who follow, those who follow give life to those who lead. Māori recipients in the New Year 2025 Honours list show comprehensive dedication to improving communities across the motu that ...
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Here in Wgtn the wind appears to have diminished from hurricane to gale force….maybe a little trouting is in order. The Ruamahanga has been very generous this season, lots of good well conditioned fish.
The chickens have started being cruel to one another: my take is that they are discussing where supporters of Shearer sit in the pecking order. My jersey bennies produced only a small crop despite the loving attention given, again I feel David may be influential in this result.
A runner bean appeared and was consumed raw yesterday, the first of many. Proof enough for me that there must be a deity.
The garlic this year was also a let down against previous years after much TLC was assigned, it seems if it’s a good year it’s a good year and vice versa.
Beans on the way along with the Tom’s but unlike last summer I don’t think the rain gods will bless us with a bumper tom crop.
Its the old rule with the toms, dont water much until they have set, then keep roots damp. I have a pile of dwarf toms in a plastic tunnel and they have gone mad, the outside ones are very variable. garlic, mine too, pretty crappy.
bean eating heaps of beans, runner and dwarf yellow, that we grew, along with cauli, brocoli, beetroot, cabbages (small ones)
meanwhile, surveillance of the climate,
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/australia-is-the-canary-in-the-global-warming-coal-mine/19579/
by The Rolling Stone at NewsNow
oh, and courgettes
Great year for courgettes and broad beans, yeah!!!!!! Bad year for koalas and eucalyptus.
had heaps of broad beans. been out pricing tech on a budget; think I’ll stay I-cafe for a while, being the Luddite I am. Defers (lots of synonyms) all the connectivity, firewall, speed, virus, location,tr%llin’ issues, the Unlimited rate is reasonable + it’s yet another social outlet. I’m not sure if watching the House is relevant, it’s just a farce most of the time and I started getting bored towards the end of the year.I still cannot believe how incoherent nearly all of the NAct members are, and some of the Opposition front bench. Memorable standouts;
David Cunliffe
David Clark
Lianne Dalziel
Charles Chauvel
Damien O’Connor
nearly all of the Greens, Hone, and Denis O’Rourke.
(other than The Standard, where do we find the best written political commentary?)
-Rogue
On the contrary, Eucalyptus thrives following bushfires – it’s part of their life cycle.
Yup and scaloppine , a real delight as can be eaten young or allowed to get like pumpkins and stored accordingly.
Yes R.T.been a bumper garden year here in Cambridge.Been eating potatoes since September . Eating bean and all salad .Had so many carrots we were in danger of turning orange. However tomatoes are a bit slow and there are not many bees around,but our dwarf fruit trees are loaded .
The chickens have started being cruel to one another:
Yes, my budgies are a bit scratchy at the moment. My most ardent admirer (a greeny-blue) won’t have anything to do with me any more. I think it might have something to do with the arrival of 4 new chicks – jeolousy?
My number one hen is far too snooty to be associated with such a lowly creature as me…unless I have sunflower seeds, raspberries etc. Has me well trained.
Grizzlies and canola
Sunday Morning on duty selling raffle tickets and collecting the last of asset petition. At
LP stall in Victoria St Cambridge .
Come and say hello and perhaps give us a hand.
Drat (a acronym for what I was really saying). My order for a SATA RAID tower for home still hasn’t arrived. I ordered the darn thing on the 30th. Took to the 7th for the payment to clear (frigging banks and their holidays). I was hoping it’d show up this week. But the order status still says “Awaiting Goods”.
I guess that puts paid to removing the remaining hard disks form the workstation (it has solid state drives these days) and putting all of the slower high volume storage hanging off the quieter server. I’m wanting to actually be able to suspend the workstation with its noisy fans trying to cool a 6 core CPU. At present I can’t do it because the case I got for the server has no room for disk drives. The idea was to put them out in a easy access case – like this one….
Oh well, I’ll find something to do this weekend….
Thats a smart looking beer fridge Lynn!
The link you included says logistics centre stock can take up to 5 days extra, so surely if it doesn’t arrive this arvo you will see it monday.
That will be good. I’ll be able to pull my server workstation and server offline, flip the disks around, get the server to mount them, move the DLNA server and music servers to the server, redirect the TV and sound systems to their new data sources, change the required firewalls for backups and other access points, create NFS wrappers over them on the workstation, and test that everything works in my copious spare time during the working week……
/sarc off… 🙂
Problem is that I did all of the other work shifting my server from an old windows 2003 R2 system after it’s hardware died a few months ago. I got the right type of box for how I want the server to run when I did the emergency fix. Set it up as as a Linux server rathe rthan running windoze again. Stuffed the few remaining windows apps in a Virtualbox and deferred the move of the services that should be on the server but which were on the linux workstation until I had time to move them. The main thing was to move the disks off the workstation to the server.
That time had arrived 12 days ago………. My free time is now gone. Oh well lets hope I still have next weekend free.
But I did get a lot of DIY done during the vacation.
I just love tecky people, i used to be a dj for a community radio station,playing country
music and the guy who started it all talked like you lprent, he also started the country
radio station here in the south which is on 105.20 fm,still going and country wide now,
i learned alot about the technology of radio thanks to him.
Have a great weekend.
Aren’t the SSD’s rather small in size like 256 GB – 450GB and expensive something like 90c a GB? and at those specs, and cost, all i would use is one of them for is a boot disk. I do like the speed. But not the cost of SSD’s. I’m looking for some 1 or 2 terabyte SATA drives for a file/web server I am building. But being on a SB, (and yes I used to be a Painter) they will probably just stay a dream for now.
Yep they are costly compared to a HDD. But the main purpose of my systems are to either write code or to run server services. And I’m not on a budget because this is how I make a living. Computers are the tools of my trade.
I don’t need terabytes for anything except backup and video edits. And apart from the object code, most of my files are pretty static.
It isn’t the $/GB that matters, it is $ for the type of GB you need that matters.
So I have a server with a 120GB SSD (~$150) for the main system and web testing. It is a dual core, fast enough for the job and absolutely quiet – really important in a small apartment.
On the workstation has an AMD with 6 cores and whines with fans when I start compiling or start playing games, but is quiet otherwise. I have a slow 60GB boot (~$80) for the operating system root. /home is fast SSD 128GB (~$180) for development code. The ~/dev/build where all of the generated and compiled code goes is a tmpfs in RAM (I have 16GB of RAM). Have to do a full recompile each time I boot the machine, but I’d do that anyway after pick up code form the offsite version control systems.
I also have 2x2TB HDD’s (~$300) and 2x1TB HDD’s (~$300) in RAID 1 where backups, video edits, and anything that isn’t too important lives. Hard disks fail pretty regularly, really slow on reads compared to SSD’s, and are bloody noisy as well. What they are good at is storing large amounts of data pretty cheaply.
I’ll be happy to go to work this weekend if this heat keeps up – they at least have air-conditioning. I’m finding the heat at home today a bit debilitating.
The trick is to go trouting (or even just pretend to)…you stand in a cool river under a willow tree. Delightfully cooling.
We’re in for a hot weekend folks courtesy of Aussie.
Tips on how to keep cool – if you don’t have a cool river and a willow tree nearby:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Health-risks-as-weather-heats-up/tabid/423/articleID/282753/Default.aspx
Thanks. Yes – water, and my fan helps.
a few words from the Archdruid on the topic
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/wrong-kind-of-magic.html
test
Psyching myself up to go back to work on Monday – yuk. Not too sure what to make of my new boss and besides I’m of retirement age, so a decision needs to be considered.
If you have a freehold house then you will be able to live on the pension. So do it retire .Do a bit of voluntary work and make the most of your retirement. Get up,each morning and do what you want to , within reason. Your dead a bloody long time .If you have worked for a long while call it a day.
My wife and I have enjoyed every day of retirement all on the pension.
Hi Pink Postman – yes we have a freehold house, thank goodness and I have decided to retire, as you say we’re all dead a bloody long time and I want to be able to enjoy what time I have to the full and enjoy our grandchildren being able to stay with us – I can now convert my office back into a bedroom, having worked from home for several years. I have also been in KiwiSaver since it’s inception and have a few dollars to put away for a rainy day! I’ll be typing my resignation letter tomorrow! There’s plenty of voluntary work to be done in the area I live in.
I am back at work on Monday too. Only 2 more sleep-ins before that 6am alarm. I have 2 years to go to retirement but lots of people at my work well past that age so I too will have to decide when I want to go.
Anyone tempted by the 11 incarnations of the Doctor?
Not a big enough data limit for youtube indulgences 🙁
One good thing about where I am in the states. There is fast, inexpensive internet. Can’t get 280 GB a month with 25 mb a second for $70 a month in NZ.
Maybe but we also dont have the paranoid and insane gun nuts running around over here either…
Then maybe you need to change ISP’s Slingshot even roll over the data you don’t use so you don’t lose it at the end of the month. And they have good prices.
Already have it on QuickFlix. Tell me why do I need sky or whoever?
Fatso have a better selection 😉
Yep! William Hartnell as First Doctor W (elderly rather incompetent coot who had to be rescued by his assistants – 2 adult – teachers, natch! -and one yoof) How things have changed -o tempora, o mores!
Oh yes A pity they are not showing every episode but one has to take what one can get.
The trouble with going away for the weekend when immune-compromised is that every bug in over-crowded enclosed spaces is waiting. For the nth time this winter I’ll be staying at home and recovering from a bleh cold.
Still… it means more time for reading. I’ve started on the Denise Mina Garnethill trilogy that just saying recommended. It’s quite good really.
Got a massive load of plums ripening – but how do I beat the birds!!
Dreaming of swarthy, spicy plum sauce and maybe more preserved in some sort of alcoholic beverage … with lashings of whipped cream on a chocolate torte. ..damn those birds.
Net the tree is your only real solution unless you’re a crack shot and have time on your hands.
If you can’t net the whole tree it’s good to net at least a part or parts for yourselves. On the other hand, even if you can net all the fruit, it can be nice to leave a part open for the birds to enjoy 🙂
I’m sharing my strawberries with the birds. If they get too voracious I’ll net some off.
The good thing about plums is that if you have the freezer space you can pack em up in recipie sized lots and make up more plum sauce when needed.
The good thing though about plum sauce is that it’s at it’s best a few years after making – dark black and thick and just delicious.
All true D of Smith. Plus they stop us old wrinklies having constipation.
I HAD 2 cherry trees full of fruit, the operative word here is HAD. Bloody birds. If only firing a shot gun in town were legal.
Ha! Some years ago, down the road from some winery in the Hawkes Bay, where I was working, lived a retired English military sorta guy who was a grape grower and one of our suppliers. His house and vineyard sat on a nice little delta between the main highway and a couple of rows of seaside homes – a fine old homestead, with a verandah out the front. Summertime, he’d sit out there on the verandah in an old easy chair and take pot shots at the birds!
We could hear him up at the winery. He’d call in and tell us how well he was doing, too, totally on a mission to protect those grapes.
I lost all my cherries too.
Next year they are going under netting for sure. None for the birds – they got their share this year.
For all you non-techo types like me, the following is a must read…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10858583
You will recognise your own experiences immediately.
Sorry but if he loses 500 words, then he has turned off the Autosave And that is designed to save your work in case of a power outage. As for the cable like I said to him if all else fails, MOVE the Table Problem of the cord solved easily. That’s not tech, that’s just plain old common sense.
David H, I think he was using a little bit of license to produce an amusing story with an element of reality about it. Sort of… laughing at himself.