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?
Yesterday I spotted a Kōtare | Sacred Kingfisher on a flax spear near the house. 🐦
I haven't seen the kingfisher so much lately and this one looks like it's maybe a juvenile.
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.
Eeeugh to Aaahhh
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.
So worth reading! Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words. 📚
Early on the author explains two key concepts:
Grammando: … One who constantly corrects others’ linguistic mistakes. …
wordie describes someone who delights in language’s shifting landscape.
I found this book because I enjoy the podcast That's What They Say : NPR — 5 minutes each week on a language curiosity.
Pained the eye and stunned the ear
I've been slowly reading Anne Curzan's Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words. 📚
In chapter 32, passives were corrected, she quotes from a grammar critic in 1830, who writes:
“For some time past, ‘the bridge is being built,’ ‘the tunnel is being excavated,’ and other expressions of a like kind, have pained the eye and stunned the ear.”
Strong opinions!
How times change …
Back in November 2021 I bought A Cotswolds Murder Mystery Box Set Books 1–4 (Alex Duggins crime mysteries box set) by Stella Cameron. 📚
I thought I hadn't read it yet but the first two stories seemed familiar and then I realised I just didn't really care for the stories so have now officially abandoned it. That's probably what I did last time, without making a note.
Alex is no stranger to trouble, never has been since she was a scrappy young girl
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:
We now have a concrete floor. 🏡
Now nothing happens for a couple of weeks while the concrete cures.
At dawn there were a few gulls and Oystercatchers at the sea edge. Up in the dunes the tiny clump of yucca are flowering. 🐦
My theory is that several years ago someone who thinks of the beach as a convenient dumping ground for garden waste included yucca offcuts and they've now taken root.
The raft foundation went in today ready for concrete to be poured this week. 🏡
a polystyrene ‘pod’ with hardfill, laid over an under-slab polythene ground sheet. This type of foundation is quicker and easier to construct, with less excavation and earthworks, while the polystyrene offers superior insulation.
Having completed the earthworks not long ago, the builders dug chunks of it up again to install the ducting required below the concrete slab to be poured soon. 🏡
Photos supplied by the builder make it look like everything's much closer together than I think (hope) it will be in real life.
Today I made Pan-Seared Chicken Tenderloin and it was delicious. Borderline too spicy, so it's a good thing I left out the Cajun seasoning (because we didn't have any).
Easy to make and would make it again.
LOL: "unshackled himself from the chains of entry-level intelligence and basic human decency" :
That wasn’t Tamaki’s first scientific breakthrough. In 2016, he unshackled himself from the chains of entry-level intelligence and basic human decency to use deep thought and geophysics in deducing that the Canterbury earthquake was a consequence of homosexuality.
Brian Tamaki, disruptive force and super-genius | The Spinoff: