December 2009
51 posts
It’s 8 days past summer solstice and I have 3 layers of clothing on… WTF?!
3 tags
Had a chuckle to see my standing Twitter search for “Telemark” show up that the BBC in the UK were doing a Christmas season screening of The Heroes of Telemark. Plus, picked up the passing of Knut Haugland, the “Hero” who crewed on the Kon Tiki expedition. Here’s a selection of the tweets: @underwurldchris: For a war movie Heroes Of Telemark has some serious...
2 tags
Antarctic Traverse arrives at South Pole →
Marty Smallman - doing a great job of covering Antarctic news.
“The South Pole Traverse is one of the most ambitious projects in recent Antarctic history. The theory was that hauling fuel and other critical supplies to the South Pole overland would be more cost effective than relying on all supplies being delivered by air cargo.
“The traverse is nearly 1,000 miles crossing a very...
“‘We will…be greeted as liberators.’”
– Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003 http://bit.ly/3qKhoG
“It’s the end of the age of irony.”
– Graydon Carter, September 2001 [For the record, Carter now insists he had been misunderstood: what he really called for was an end to ironing] http://bit.ly/83yFFU
“‘Let’s see if they still want to run the business in two or three years.’”
– Bill Gates, on Sergey Brin and Larry Page, 2003 http://bit.ly/2kNT1w
“The Hadron Collider could destroy our planet.”
– LHCDefense.org http://bit.ly/6Nks8S
“The iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.”
– Sir Alan Sugar, February 2005 http://bit.ly/5CsxM
“The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!”
– 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) (via niceevilgenius)
Clarke said it And I thought it was a commentary on an episode of Lost.
(via jackyan)
Roger Shepherd buys back Flying Nun records →
“He announced on Twitter that he’d broken up a long term relationship, and...”
– http://www.sarahstokely.com/100dates/
1 tag
Watch27 years, and this song refuses to wear out the groove it has burnt in my mind. A great band in all their incarnations, XTC were blessed with songwriting talent equal to any. Colin Moulding’s bass caught my ear and my eye in this vid.
I now have a reason to covet an iPhone →
WatchTelemark Dreams - very classy smokin’ action telemark ski movie
Copenhagen 7: Living with Therese →
I live with Therese. We are cohabiting in her apartment these past six nights. It is an intimate arrangement. We share the bathroom. I think she showers at night. I shower in the morning…
WatchVery cool ski-focused film on climate change (17mins). Real-life stories and observations. Beautiful ski and mountain images. Stunning modern skiing & historical shots. “Generations” - Teton Gravity Research. HD download available on iTunes.
Coming decade to be crap skiing? Long-term...
This analysis arrived by courier pigeon from snow-forecast.com this morning. Interesting mention of the impact of solar activity on global temps.
They pretty much nail the explanation of how the NZ season went this year.
——-
El Niño
Several months ago, the onset of El Niño was quickly credited with bringing an early end to the ski season in New Zealand, where most places had a...
The Telemark Dance: Bringing skiers to their knees →
“Anyone that tells you why they telemark and leaves out the fact that it’s damn sexy is lying,” Sethna says. Few athletic plays are as graceful and fluid as a string of silky tele turns.
Parlez-Vous "Bro"? A pocket guide to mountain... →
Javelin CRM
These guys totally get it. http://bit.ly/3UxHF0 Simple & flexible CRM with project management features. Latest feature is multiple contacts on opportunities & cases to address the shortcoming of most CRM (e.g. Highrise). Now I can link the client, suppliers, etc to a single case, making this very useful for managing projects. Customisable fields open huge possibilities for customisation....
“A few people felt that because we could not put a number on the [NZ housing]...”
– Tony Alexander, BNZ Weekly Overview, 11 Dec 09
Dairying Proposals Don't Go Far Enough
The proposal to build indoor pens for dairy cattle in the Mackenzie Basin does not go far enough. There are many other flat areas that could be utilised for the development of our national wealth. While the Mackenzie Basin is an obvious area, which must be approved immediately for GDP maximisation, there are many other suitable sites that offer little other than sightseeing for tourists. Given...
NY Times: China Unsettles the Neighbours →
China it is finding it harder to cast itself as a friendly alternative to an imperious American superpower. Its excess steelmaking capacity equals the entire annual production of the world’s No. 2 steelmaker, Japan.
I don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming,... →
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/... →
Despite 5 popular locations being unsuitable for swimming, Canterbury water is considered to be in “pretty good shape.” Man, our expectations have gone through the floor.
The Vinyl Record Comeback →
Contrary to the story, it is not that we have “turned sentimental for the old pops, cracks and warm sounds emitting from grooves on a record.” Instead, we recognise the sonic superiority of recordings stored in analogue form on vinyl, DESPITE the surface noise.
4 tags
Re: Dairy farming in Mackenzie Basin. If it’s too cold for cows and the soil can’t handle their effluent, then the cows shouldn’t be there! What’s next, feeding lots moored off-shore?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/technology/06apps... →
“People will look back on the iPhone as a turning point in the industry,” says Craig Moffett, a telecom analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “The iPhone will be remembered as the first true handheld computer.”
Good NY Times article giving a rundown on the mobile platform and the apps-centric environment it is fast becoming.
2 tags
eBay & PayPal have lost my business
I just sold an item on eBay to a guy in Belgium. Belgian guy pays money and PayPal puts it on hold for 21 days! Search shows this now normal. Phone call to eBay & PayPal in USA, they are unyielding. There is no way I am sending without cleared funds. Poor Belgian guy will have to get a refund from PayPal. I don’t care about bad feedback, cos I am never using eBay for selling ever...
http://bit.ly/4BFkB0 →
This is really ironic. Flylow teamed up with Cactus (who have a 100% ethical stance of made in NZ, not Asia) until they got enough sales to outsource to… Asia! All power to these tele dudes, but that’s pretty funny.
Just listening to Jonathan Porritt on NatRad re prospects of greening of China. 18m new car registrations p.a.. One new coal-fired power station per week. But also the home of Suntech, whose HQ has the largest building-integrated grid-connected solar array in the world, producing 1MW of power. Huge photo-voltaics and windpower programmes in China. Scary challenges, but cool stuff happening.
Organic farming affects climate change →
Soil is a major store of carbon, the report says, containing three times as much as the atmosphere and five times as much as forests. About 60 per cent of this is in the form of organic matter in the soil. On average, organic farming produces 28 per cent higher levels of soil carbon compared to non-organic farming in northern Europe, according to the report, and 20 per cent higher for all...
Scathing satire of Paul Henry →
3 tags
Wash clothes, save water, power & itching →
Cheesy as it may sound, I use these things & they work exactly as claimed. I’m shouting it out cos they finally have a Web site & I’m chuffed with ‘em. Everything they say is true. Save tons of dosh, no itchy detergent in yer clothing, big reduction in gray water discharged down your household drain. You’re basically washing your clothes in straight water…...
2 tags
Gareth Morgan uses "deleterious" & "concomitant"... →
Gareth Morgan proposes radical tax restructure & guaranteed minimum income http://ping.fm/0crDQ
1 tag
Top 10 green living myths →
the production of a typical modern car causes around 8 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to driving 23,000 miles. Because of this, unless you currently drive a lot in a highly inefficient car, it will often be greener to stick to your existing vehicle than to sell it and buy a new one.
2 tags
McKinsey report on global water →
By 2030, more than a third of the world’s population will live in severely water-stressed areas. We therefore expect water to grow from being a marginal issue to one that is central to all parts of the economy. We also consider water comprehensively, linking the challenge of managing water “upstream” as a critical natural resource, with “downstream” provision of clean water to users.
4 tags
I was researching "Gerry Brownlie" on the Web and... →
Wordnik.com - a great resource for word fiends.