Posts by Lucy Stewart

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  • Hard News: Ready for the Big One?,

    Yellowstone Park is quite similar. It has all the features of one of these 'flat' types of volcanoes, but for years geologists couldn't work out where the caldera was. Until the space programme started and they got orbital photos. Basically, the whole of Yellowstone is a volcano. A volcano so big, you can only see the whole thing when you're in orbit. Apparently it's overdue for another blow.

    I highly reccommend the joint BBC/Discvovery Channel docudrama Supervolcano, which not only has a really great scene demonstrating just how big the Yellowstone crater is (filmed on location), but excellent science. It will, of course, scare you shitless, but it should.

    Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, and Pliny the younger (a boy at the time?) wrote about it, according to my recollection of one of the panels at the Te Papa exhibition.

    Yep; the Elder died trying to evacuate people by boat. There is, not incidentally, another great BBC docudrama about this.

    (Yes, I am unnaturally fond of natural disaster movies. Even that awful volcano one with Pierce Brosnan. I took a lot of geology papers, okay?)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Somebody Had To Say This....,

    Is that anywhere near Pembroke, Mass? I know a hospitable New Zealander near there who has a real NZ bloke's shed full of NZ rugby and other memorabilia. He's also a professional baker

    About two hours away, as far as I can tell.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Somebody Had To Say This....,

    Almost equidistant from both Amy and me.* Between the three of us, we could cover the whole Northeast with crazy ideas about New Zealand...

    Hmmm, inaugural New England PAS meet-up? I know a guy who makes pies. I'm on the ginger crunch. And Amy makes a mean (which is to say chef-quality) pretty much everything else.

    I say we go for it. (Among other things, it's a good first step to world domination.)

    Thanks for the tip about the pies, too. The better half is very fond of his pies, and is dislikes the idea of moving to a country which does not understand the concept in the same way he does. I'll save that one for when he's feeling particularly homesick.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Somebody Had To Say This....,

    Depending which part of the country you're moving to, you could always work up to it in stages, starting off with something more mulletesque before going for the full Neil Finn

    College town in rural Massachusetts (Amherst), which, on the one hand, crunchy-granola country, on the other, rural.

    The important thing here, though, is that I've seen photos of my mother in mullets. It's not good.

    I found that short hair did not screw with people, but (innocently) referring to 'my partner' did.

    Oh, I plan to do that as much as possible. As of 2008, there were a grand total of six Brits, five Aussies, five South Africans, and no New Zealanders attending the university I'm going to. The possibilities for giving people crazy ideas about New Zealand are probably endless.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Somebody Had To Say This....,

    Given Brian Tamaki's opinions about homosexuality this seems like a strange co-incidence.

    That's not a lesbian haircut, it's a middle-class-white-woman-over-forty haircut. Then again, given his opinions on women...

    (Incidentally, I am trying to decide whether to get a haircut of this nature before I move to the US in August. It seems like a good opportunity to screw with people.)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: "Creative" and "Flexible",

    In context, I know this is a ghastly thing to say but I wish a couple of dozen fuck-wit looky-loos had been killed yesterday -- but I guess then it would have all been the Gummints fault. I can understand why John Carter is rather pissed off... David and I have elderly friends (one with advanced MS) who live on Lyall Parade -- if they could see a tsunami front out their front window, they're dead. That simple.

    I was kind of plugging for minor but undeniable property damage. Mind you, there are many, many natural disasters that we could do with minor but disturbing verions of to give people a wake-up call. Tsunamis are just the ones in the news lately.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: Still crazy after all these years,

    The guy I bought my latest microwave off told me it was better than the old ones which irradiated food, that was what the standing time was for, to allow the radiation to disperse

    I once had a lab tech tell me not to open the microwave before it had finished beeping because it would give me cancer. Because her husband was an electrician, and he knew these things.

    I expressed appropriate skepticism, but she was so earnestly worried (and, not incidentally, going out of her way to help me out with something that wasn't really her job) that I didn't have the heart to protest too much. And hence do such stories propagate.

    In the case of the NZCPR and TR, it's more to do with distrust of the people wielding a particular technology than a mystical rejection of the theoretical basis for the technology.

    Funny how the level of distrust of the wielders always equates to their level of agreement with the wacky fringe, though, isn't it?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Legal Beagle: All is Forgiven, or: The…,

    My guess is that there are people within the Green Party who fear that if parties are able to spend their own money on election broadcasting, that in some future election, ACT will have a lot of money, and will be able to out-spend (or at least spend to the same level as Labour and National) other parties. That this massive spending will get them lots of votes and they'll use their power/influence to embark on the second revolution.

    There's definitely a need for a cap on broadcast spending - I don't think anyone wants to see saturation ads like US elections - but it needs to be the same for everyone (total cap, that is, public funding aside). Make it lower, if you like; but as much as I disagree with everything ACT is and stands for, they deserve to have the same opportunity to advertise as all other political parties.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: "Creative" and "Flexible",

    Well, Lucy, I'd like to think that in a situation like this every broadcaster would take their civil defence role seriously -- and not seeing (or hearing) any evidence that isn't the case.

    TV 3 were still showing televangelists when I checked, actually...but, dude, it was more that NatRad is the a) official emergency broadcaster b) what I was listening to at the time c) relevant to this thread. It wasn't a slur on anyone else.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: "Creative" and "Flexible",

    So, is anyone still doubting the value of National Radio for civil defence information?

    Dunedin surfers?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

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