insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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I am one very happy Happiness Engineer
I little while ago I had a job interview that I accidentally turned up a day early for. Well, I’ve just been offered the job! I am now a very proud and excited Happiness Engineer at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Cloudup, PollDaddy, Jetpack, VaultPress, Gravatar, Akismet and more. Fortunately turning up a day early…
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Up in flames
This is my first post on my new blog. I started writing a blog because I didn’t know how else to deal with my anxiety after the Christchurch earthquakes. Writing about my fears helped me immensely. It was an awful time. I couldn’t sleep at night and I was always on edge, waiting for that…
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The difference between weather and climate
This is a great two-minute video in which Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the difference between weather and climate (h/t HotTopic). It’s a preview from National Geographic Channel’s Cosmos series. The difference between weather and climate is important to understand because people have a tendency to see variations in the weather as a reason to dismiss climate change. For instance,…
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Cross-stitch porn
A Brisbane artist has merged pornography with cross-stitch in a way that has improved both things considerably more than if they were separate. The cross-stitch lends an air of respectability to the pornography while the pornography offsets the fuddy-duddy image of cross stitch. The artist’s name is Leah Emery and she explains how she got started in cross-stitch porn…
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Life before kids…or not
My mother-in-law is currently staying with us so Ben and I took advantage of her offer to babysit and go out for dinner child-free. This is the first time we’ve done this in more than seven years. I kid you not. We went to Takapuna and left early so that we could walk along the beach before…
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Modern technology connecting people in uplifting ways
This is really wonderful: young Brazilians who want to learn English chat online to elderly Americans in retirement homes. There’s more about this here: Perfect Match: Brazilian Kids Learn English by Video Chatting With Lonely Elderly Americans
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On censorship
There have been some complaints about the moderation of comments in my previous post, It’s a conspiracy! This happens every time Skeptics’ comments get moderated. Moderation is not censorship. If I write a letter to the editor of my local paper it may or may not get published. If it doesn’t get published, is it…
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It’s a conspiracy!
I’ve finally finished reading Recursive Fury: a paper which studied blog comments written in response to the publication of NASA faked the moon landing-therefore (climate) science is a hoax. I’m not going to comment on the moon landing paper other than to say that it explored the connection between the endorsement of free-market economics and conspiratorial thinking.…
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Gavin Schmidt: The emergent patterns of climate change
This is a great TED talk given by Gavin Schmidt about how scientists use climate models to learn more about our climate (h/t Hot-Topic).
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Monster machines, serial killers and bugs
I haven’t written anything on my blog in almost a week which is a long time for me. But I’ve been really busy this past week and this is going to continue for about another month or so. It’s a very enjoyable and challenging busy though, so I’m not complaining. This morning we overheard Elizabeth,…
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Browns Bay, Auckland
Today we took Dad to Browns Bay, a beach suburb on Auckland’s North Shore. Once upon a time it was a summer holiday destination for Aucklanders wanting to get away from the city, but as the city expanded geographically, it engulfed this pocket and turned it into another suburb of Auckland. Now it’s very popular…
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Auckland’s Sky Tower
I thought I should give Dad a break from doing chores around our house so today we took him to the top of Auckland’s Sky Tower, a 328m structure in central Auckland. It took two years and nine months to build and cost NZ$85 million. There are some impressive views from the top, a couple of…
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Happy Easter everyone!
My Dad is visiting us for the weekend. Whenever he comes, we seem to end up visiting Bunnings – a mega hardware store – numerous times. Bunnings is Dad’s temple and since I’ve always got a list of jobs for him to do, we end up making numerous trips there. Although so far this weekend…
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The velomobile: I want one!
Now here’s a really cool bicycle. It’s got three wheels, solar panels and shelter from the elements. It’s fairly pricey at $5,495 but you don’t have to pay for insurance, petrol or rego so overall it’s pretty cheap. The only thing missing, in my view, is space for two children. More about this on Grist.
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A warning to all bloggers and commenters
Joe Karam, a former New Zealand All Black, has just been awarded over half a million New Zealand dollars in a defamation case. The defendants were two individuals who posted defamatory comments about Mr Karam on Facebook and another website. A bit of background: Joe Karam is a long-time supporter of David Bain, who was…
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Bjorn Lomborg economics
I’ve just seen a tweet of Bjorn Lomborg’s from the other day (yes, I’m a couple of days behind) on the cost of climate change versus the costs of mitigation. Here it is: New IPCC: Cost of climate less than 2% GDP in 2070. Cost of policy higher than 6% of GDP. Need smarter policies. https://t.co/kzlsUsHfyi —…
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Volunteering at British schools
I loved everything about the state-funded school my son attended for 6 months when we were in the UK and have written about the experience here. In most respects, I preferred the English school to the New Zealand school he attends now. I say most respects because there was one thing about the English school that was…
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I’m so excited
Lots of good things happening in my life at the moment. I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it. And that’s all I’m saying!
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Cargo cycling
Someone sent me this (thank you!) which shows how fabulous cargo cycling can be for the entire family and more! It’s in German but don’t let that put you off. The visual is the main thing.
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