Getting a little tired of these calls from "New Zealand Immigration Service" that claim to have an urgent document for me to sign. Also offended that they presume to greet me with 你好。That's grossly over-familiar for Cantonese diaspora. And all the more so when I "press 1 for English" – doesn't […]

Is anyone sharing old world war ditties with Luxon on Spotify?

I have been told that the shop is not "called Rebels-port" but "Rebel-sport", and it's noun rebel, not verb rebel.

Angry bats. ‘Northumberland Bestiary’, London ca. 1250-1260. LA, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS. 100, fol. 37r.
#medieval #medievalart

Apparently I'm meant to pronounce "copilot" with the stress pattern with "glow pilot" rather than "crap a lot".

Probably not going to change, though.

You got it easy kid

Firefox should really strip down the browser to the core, make that performant and secure. Maybe even improve extension interfaces and then deliver whatever "AI" nonsense they want through extensions. Would make it so easy to stop having to talk about kill switches and how "hard" those are […]

Annoyed today because I'm editing an education paper in which the researcher draws on neuroscience that he gets wrong to build a pedagogy. He's talking about a neuron system that doesn't even exist!

And to think that he's handsomely salaried for this and influences curriculum....

My son's just complaining that his searches for jobs needing no experience are bringing up options like gynaecology.

We just saw hot cross buns spotted at Woolworths, only three days after Christmas!

In 1980 the United States led a boycott of the Olympic games in Moscow due to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Sixty countries joined the boycott.

The 2026 World Cup is mostly in the United States.

[Yes, this post is about Venezuela.]

In Torah portion Shemot (שְׁמוֹת) Moses encounters the presence of God in the burning bush. Just look at the dog! #ParashahPictures
BL Add 27210; the 'Golden Haggadah'; 14th century; Spain, N.E.; f.10v

A night in with the pets for company

BL Add 19776; the 'Coburg Pentateuch'; Germany, Central (Coburg); 1390-1396; f.54v

I think I've invented a new map projection.

My son told his mum that he'd eaten a good healthy breakfast of eggs.

He avoided mentioning that the eggs were in the form of pavlova.

Nick Smith talking bullshit again... I wonder whether he'll fix it by proposing a re-setting of earthquake risk categories, like he did to fix our polluted waterways?

https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/08/19/nelson-mayor-wants-to-stop-a-3m-promise-for-new-museum-building/

Spent the morning judging art entries at the local science–technology fair. Lunchtime conversation included substantial grumbling about how several of the works are so much more conceptually and technically substantial, and communicate more clearly, than the gratuitous self-aggrandising bullshit […]

I saw some Lemonade apples at the greengrocer. Just cut one to try it. Tastes of nearly nothing!

Is there a particular use that these are especially good for?

Some speakers of the house need to grow a spine.