The NZ Prime Minister has announced her new Cabinet, including more Māori than ever. Hooray!
In the Press Conference, when journalists asked some of their questions in Te Reo Māori, I had to really concentrate to be able to (partly) understand the questions and answers.
Excellent: NZ’s May 2021 Census:
will collect data on gender and sexual identity … [with] questions on a person’s sex at birth, gender identity and sexual identity.
[In 2018] we just had ‘are you male or female’ that’s neither sex nor gender
First time in months I took my ‘big' Fuji X-T2 with zoom lens to the beach; first time ever I saw 9 Royal Spoonbills together (I had hoped for 2). What a wonderful way to start the week! Nine of these amazing birds!
Aotearoa New Zealand has a lot going for it. One of those things is most definitely not its incredibly dreary National Anthem. Though the linked video in NZ Sign Language, Māori and English makes it seem positively peppy.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is absolutely my favourite sci-fi writer, but in a shocking first I was bored by Thieves: A Diving Novel. It was part of a Kickstarter Bundle, and especially odd because The Renegat was superb.
Hooray! Greens accept Labour’s offer for ‘cooperation agreement’:
James Shaw … Climate Change Minister and Associate Environment (Biodiversity), while Marama Davidson … Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and Associate Minister of Housing (Homelessness).
In a world where there are millions of statues of men, there is now one more of a woman. ‘Hands-on activist’: Statue of Hilda Ross:
Dame Hilda Ross was … Minister of Social Security, … of Welfare of Women and Children and …of Child Welfare … [she] died in 1959 at the age of 75.
Excellent: even though Labour won our election outright, they’re bringing the Greens on board with a couple of Minister positions using their expertise on Climate change, homelessness, sexual violence (provided Green members accept the deal). It’s not a Coalition though.
When bots are used to fight for good: More than 200,000 abusive tweets towards female candidates during elections:
a tweet goes through … filters … once it scores 90% ‘most likely to be toxic’, the bot replies with a positive tweet.
Worth a read.👍
It’s meant to rain today — we already had a brief but heavy fall around 4 am. As I look east I see very dark cloud over the hills, and some weird rolling waveforms.
The day has all but disappeared and many tasks remain undone. Read an excellent book though whose details I can’t reveal at the moment so that was a real bonus.
Cannabis will remain illegal in Aotearoa New Zealand. That means that instead of state control on quality and distribution, it will remain in the control of gangs and other criminals who will take profits without regard to the humans affected.
Disappointing result on cannabis law reform. Final results could change as remaining votes are counted:
The euthanasia referendum has passed the public vote, with 65.2% voting in favour, but the cannabis question has 53.1% voting ‘no’
Glad to see the End Of Life Choice 👍.
Amazing video: Interviews with Titanic Survivors done in 1979 about the events of 1912.
Lining Figures are also available in Apple Pages, as the screenshots attest. Art Kavanagh wrote:
I just posted “Lining figures” in Microsoft Word: You learn something new every now and then.
I've found some old archive DVDs and am importing them to my MacBook Pro. This video from December 2000 shows my then 16 year old Blue Burmese and 10 year old Fox Terrier.
Woohoo, after I suggested our local Library buy this, the Library replied 📚:
… Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley. The library has reviewed your suggestion today and the item will be ordered as soon as possible.
I’ll get to read it after all. 🤓
Oh yes, my favourite crime show trope (along with ‘enhance’, of course): zoom in on the security camera footage, zoom, zoom, zoom a bit more and we have the number the victim was texting! 🤳🏻
One for the Scrabblers: tmesis —
separation of parts of a compound word by the intervention of one or more words
For example, un-f****ing-believable!
First used in 1550.
Last night, while watching Discovery, I had a new experience of my own: shimmering at the top and right edges of my vision in both eyes. No pain, no nausea and I don’t think I’ve ever had a migraine. It cleared up in about 15 minutes, but was very disconcerting. Monitoring…