Miraz Jordan

I guess it depends how you define "people" — clearly "people" do still want to visit the square — to shower, poop, hang washing:

Hamilton City Council is wrestling with what to do about people showering in a central city fountain. …

there are [also] people defecating, hanging clothes lines, taking drugs, begging and displaying threatening behaviour in the square. …

If you reach a stage where … people don't want to go to Garden Place anymore then I suggest it's time to make a change.

Via: Hamilton grapples with people showering in town square | RNZ News.

Clearly there's a need for some kind of facility to cater for the needs of the people using the square in unintended ways. How about finding a way to create that facility, rather than just talking about moving those people on? Then you can talk about which behaviours are acceptable in which places.

Our health care in Aotearoa is free, but that excludes teeth. Seeing the dentist always costs a lot, even for a routine checkup.

Report highlights urgent need for “life-changing” free dental care:

almost half of New Zealanders report unmet need for dental care, with higher rates still for Māori (54.1 per cent), Pasifika (57.2 per cent), those with disabilities (53.1 per cent) and those aged between 25 and 34 (57.2 per cent).

“Cost is the single biggest barrier in accessing quality dental care.

So interesting: Witches of Bucha: Ukraine’s women protecting the skies | Al Jazeera (17 minute video):

“No one invites us here to cook borscht or make a pie. We are just here to work with weapons that kill.”

Yesterday I thought I was a bit unwell. Turns out a day of resting up sorted me out. Whew.

I spent part of the day learning a little about Mandarin. BBC - Learn Chinese would have been good, but they did everything in Flash back in the day, so now it's archived but useless.

I had thought a rare 9+ hours sleep would be a good thing, but I rather suspect I'm not 100% well today. Staying in bed for the moment. More sleep is likely. It's lucky there's nothing specific requiring my attention today.

At this time of year the stream outflow from Lake Waiorongomai to the sea is dry. In this dawn photo you can see the inversion layer over the lake at bottom right, while the sun rises on the left.

One billion is a huge number. Look at this billion pixel rectangle to get an idea of how infinitely vast it is: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?

This is occupying my mind a lot at the moment:

The [2024] annual Forbes list of the world's billionaires found a record 2,781 billionaires with a total net wealth of $14.2 trillion.

Surely one single billion dollars can provide for every tiniest want for a person. How can people even be allowed to own more than that when so many people in our world are struggling with the day to day grind of poverty?

This 1.5 minute video is hilarious. 🤣 Dear English Language.

Via: Which word is always misspelt?

Hmmm, just a secretive superpower carrying out warlike exercises next door. Nothing to worry about …

China did not inform New Zealand about their warship activity in the Tasman Sea before an apparent live fire training …

A furore broke out on Friday, after commercial airline staff picked up unexpected radio messages from Chinese navy ships in the Tasman Sea, warning them to divert from an area between New Zealand and Australia, where military drills were being carried out.

Via: HMNZS Te Kaha crew watched China navy ships carry out Tasman Sea exercise | RNZ News.

We have a freestanding oven and cooktop and it's mandatory to have a small gap either side. That gap is exactly the right size for splashes of sauce, random escaped cooking ingredients and crumbs to enter and way too small to get into to retrieve them.

Today I undertook to haul the oven out of its cavity and clean up.

Eeeugh!

Much dedicated scrubbing later and Aaahhh.

Now the struggle to put the oven back in place.

What's real and what's AI? This 20 minute video I tried to prove I'm not AI from Joss Fong and Adam Cole of Howtown gives clear and considered useful information about the problems and possible solutions for proving what's a real photo and what's been tampered with.

Sharing this because it's a cool good news story. Read it, watch the wee video. Smile. 🐶 Meet Bosco, the surfing dog making waves in support of Te ao Māori | RNZ News: