Blog Archive

How clean is clean enough? Where's the boundary between hygiene and morality when it comes to cleaning your house?

Can you tell a real image from a fake? AI can't, but it can make fakes. And it can recognise your face. Scared yet? Should you be?

How good at generating language is AI? Surprisingly good, particularly for a baby.

There are so many great reasons to spend time in the mountains...

Will AI enhance or impede human creativity? And should it be trained on the copyright works of humans?

Who fired the missile that killed two Polish nationals this week? Why wouldn't they own up? And how come no one tracks missiles?

Can money make up for doing the wrong thing? Including climate change? Or are some things too precious to be bought and sold?

Wearing masks is not normal, then it becomes normal, then it becomes not normal again. What is normal in the time of COVID Scrabble variants?

Lawns are a symbol of luxury. Yes, really. Can we free ourselves from chasing appearance of luxury to reduce consumption and simplify our lives?

In South Korea English is often used to denote luxury to very entertaining effect ...

Travel is one of the best ways of increasing international understanding AND personally contributing to climate change ... what to do?

What do ponds and courier services, weeds and subsidies have in common? In our case, neither pond nor service is working properly and both are complex to fix.

New Zealand took a major step in its COVID-19 trajectory this week, removing the traffic light system which (theoretically) controlled behaviour according to numbers of cases of COVID-19. Are we glad to see it go?

Having bought an EV which we can charge off our PV panels, for the first time in my life I almost like driving. But is this a good thing?

Will our future be dominated by AI because we have created a world more complex than humans can deal with? Farming is one example where bureaucracy is creating a nightmarishly convoluted planning and reporting environment.

To wear a mask or not? It's still a question in New Zealand in August 2022, as opposed to Britain where masks were abandoned months ago. Social stigma vs disease avoidance, the choice is hard.

Are MPs fair game for the media? Should they, or anyone else, be hauled over the coals for a teenage misdemeanour now 22 years in the past? Where is the balance between free press and bullying?

How did the COVID-19 pandemic start? The scientific evidence now suggest the origin was the Huanan wet market. Do we need to know more?

Can cycling be a viable alternative to driving? Media personality Mike Hosking doesn't think so. I beg to disagree.

It's been a relief being in a country where COVID is not the constant topic. What will returning to NZ from Slovenia be like?

Are you only indigenous if you were first in a country? Can you belong in a place if you aren't indigenous? Can these questions be answered?

Sometimes there is a total mismatch in communication style and you wonder if it's you that's mad or the people to whom you are talking…

What is an appropriate balance between risk and safety? When can and should you make your own decisions in the mountains? Our Slovenian experience.

How have our stories about vaccination changed over time? Here's our current story, as told to our antivax friends.

We were discussing climate change with Sarah – it is hard to avoid discussing climate change with a young person, particularly when that young person recently graduated with their PhD which investigates climate change and government policy. We were talking about the relatively narrow set of options for the United Kingdom, if it is to markedly reduce its carbon gas emissions. Sarah said, “Obviously we need more nuclear power stations.” In contrast, Chris and I had an instinctive negative reaction to the idea of nuclear power stations saving the day.

We made it to the other side of the world in the face of COVID-19 and Putin’s threats. The best thing about escaping the hermit kingdom is exposure, once again, to the great variety of human life beyond that existing in New Zealand. It is so easy to assume that the way one does something, or the way things are done by the people one normally sees, are the only ways of acting. We don’t even assume it. We just don’t think about it.

This post is not about whether there is consensus around the world’s climate changing rapidly and anthropogenic greenhouse gases having a significant role in that change. If you don’t believe this, I am not going to be able to convince you, nor am I going to spend time trying. The changing climate seems to be ever more evident, both in New Zealand and overseas. Friends of ours in Canada have bought a property at 54.5 degrees N, between Smithers and Prince Rupert, because the summers where they currently live at 49 degrees N have become too hot and forest fires are a regular feature. Somehow that drummed home to me the changes humans are going to have to make at an ever increasing pace as temperatures change.

I have been thinking about broken things of late because our Rav4, which I recently mentioned in light of wanting to replace it with an EV, broke terminally. The gear box failed and we discovered that it would cost about the sale value of the car to replace it. And it isn’t just that the gear box will cost $7500 to replace, it is way too much money to sink into a vehicle that has driven more than 200,000km and which might be subject to other ailments requiring additional healing.

This week three things that I read and heard have been coalescing in my brain:

I have participated in Facebook for a number of years, for a variety of reasons, including:

We ordered a new electric vehicle this week ( the Kia EV6 ). We should all shift to electric vehicles rather than fossil fuel powered vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), right? I have been watching electric vehicles for about the past three years as our Toyota Rav4 has become more expensive to service and significantly more rattly. Rapidly increasing fuel prices is another spur to action. The Kia is finally an EV which can drive from Gibbston to Christchurch without needing topping up (at least in theory) and can charge for a 100km of travel in 4 minutes. It also can tow – we constantly need to tow trailers living on a lifestyle block in the country. And it can have a roof load, if we want to put skis on it in winter.

Having ranted about tourism last week I am recanting, but only a little. I like it when my friends come as tourists, I just don’t want everyone else! Clearly that’s hypocritical – everyone else wants their friends to be able to visit Queenstown, or New Zealand, not just my friends. OK, I will allow everyone in New Zealand’s friends and family to come visit, but you can only land upon our shores if you have a resident here that you are specifically coming to visit. How about that as a method of limiting tourist numbers? I reckon it is at least as sound as any idea the government has come up with given that I haven’t heard them come up with any!

We have just finished a mini cycle tour from Gibbston to Milford Sound via Queenstown and Mavora Lakes . We stayed two nights at an Alpine Club hut near the Homer Tunnel, partly to miss the rain, and partly to be able to go up to both Homer and Gertrude Saddles for their wonderful views. These walks, together with the absolutely spectacular ride along the Milford Road, made this a trip to remember. Lots of cyclists we know are taking the current opportunity to cycle the Milford Road without traffic. Once the eighty buses going to Milford Sound daily from Queenstown return, the road will no longer be enjoyable to cycle. The great god of the motor engine must be appeased by offerings of roads that then cannot be used by other forms of transport.

Absence can be a positive or a negative and its weight is totally relative to the person feeling the absence. For me, absence of people in the back country is a huge positive, as is a relative lack of people where we live. Why do I love places where there aren’t people, when I spend quite a bit of time being social? I don’t know, other than I love the absence of human beings! I was laughing internally when a new neighbour remarked upon how she likes their house’s view of Nevis Bluff because she can see car headlights. Car headlights makes her feel less lonely. Less lonely seeing car headlights? I would rather see no signs of human habitation and the presence of car headlights, as evidence of humans to whom I have no particular attachment, would be unlikely to make me feel less lonely.

We went to a house concert last night in Hawea. House concerts allow musicians to continue to earn a living from live music, at a time when most larger concerts are being cancelled. It was a lovely evening with around 30 people sitting on the grass outside. It was hard to imagine that, as we listened to Jed Parsons (and occasionally his children’s music alter ego Jeff Parsnip) entertaining us, people in Kyiv were huddling in subways and basements as Russia attacked their country and city.

Given the depth of feeling at present around vaccine mandates, it seems timely to consider their effectiveness. The Economist had a look at this and suggested, based on Canadian and European data, that they can be effective. Here’s what happened after Canada, France and Italy and Germany introduced vaccine mandates. France barred unvaccinated people from restaurants, theatres and long distance trains. Italy (and Greece) made it mandatory for all residents over 50 (and 60) to get vaccinated.

This week’s headlines have followed the ‘protest’ in Parliament’s grounds. Last night it was hoped that turning on the sprinklers, together with forecast rain, might dampen the protestor’s ardour to the extent they would depart. Diffusing protests with sprinklers sounds great from the point of view of peaceful resolution. However, the protestors covered the sprinklers with road cones and made a social media call for plumbers in the crowd to assist; human resilience at work.

I have been somewhat slow posting this week because I have been at music camp in Martinborough. I was so excited that music camp was not Omicronned (interestingly, spell check suggested Omicrobbed as an alternative). Of course, I personally could get Omicronned on my flights (I could be like Jacinda!), or at camp . Travel within New Zealand suddenly seems like a fraught activity, with the potential that one could have to suddenly self-isolate for two weeks in a place that is nowhere close to where one lives. That would be seriously inconvenient, although at least I would have my guitar!

I got to go back to the mountains and swim in a few more high lakes (I promise to give you a break from alpine lake pictures after these). Some more stellar summer weather took us up the Wilkin Valley to visit Lakes Lucidus, Castalia and Diana, beneath the stunning peaks of Castor, Pollux and Ragan. We had a relaxed trip with enough walking to keep us honest but not too much exhaustion. I was amused while up there to be reading a book by Matt Haig entitled ‘ Notes on a Nervous Planet ‘. I read his book ‘ The Midnight Library ‘ recently, which is an excellent novel about a woman who is thinking of committing suicide, ends up in a library of all the lives she might have lived, and tries out a bunch of them for size.

We just got back from four great days in the mountains. Sitting in the Lake Hawea bar, with people around me extolling the virtues of flush toilets, chips and beers, all I could think was “I wish I was still in the mountains and I don’t care about flush toilets, chips or beer.” To be fair, having had high blood sugar, I don’t drink beer or eat chips any more so they aren’t going to be my reward after tramping. Maybe I was also feeling a little down side because there was nothing on the bar menu that I thought would fit with my food requirements which focus on fibre and vegetables. I could even have been feeling over-virtuous about waiting to have the remains of our tramping food in a sandwich once we left the venue, while everyone else happily ate large numbers of fat-enhanced calories that Herman Pontzer would say we don’t need, even if we have been doing a bit more exercise than usual.

Over a year ago I wrote a post asking ‘ Are we nearly there yet? ‘. My conclusion at the time was that we were not nearly anywhere, in relation to COVID-19. I often want to ask whether we are nearly there yet when picking our row of raspberry canes, as it takes around 2 hours to pick the whole lot. It’s not Chris’s favourite thing but he generally comes and assists if I ask nicely, which takes it down to 1 hour each. One hour still feels like quite a lot of raspberry picking time when it needs doing every 2 to 3 days.