Posts by Lucy Stewart
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I'm unsure if that means he will see us through a world war, or if he'll get shot and die way too young.
Until he's sent a SOS by coconut, I say the comparison is meaningless.
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Good to see the PASers checking in. Shame about those chimneys, Ian, but I'm glad to hear that you're otherwise fine. I'm hoping that we might hear from HarvestBird soon...
She's been quite active on Twitter, all seems to be well.
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Maybe we should re-write the Dewy Decimal system to classify books by weight so's the big ones go on the bottom shelves.
;-)University libraries are Library of Congress, not Dewey Decimal. </pendant>
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The pic of the Avon in Hagley Park in a link upthread is pretty wild -- it looks like the riverbed might now be higher than the playing fields, which is where all the water presently is.
I have a very distinct memory of biking down that street, ooh, a month ago, about quarter past eight on a lovely crisp winter morning with the mist hanging over the Avon and rolling up onto the playing fields under the willow branches, and thinking "This is really lovely, I'm glad I saw it before I went."
Now I'm really glad.
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WHAT'S ALL THE EXCITEMENT...NEW ZEALAND'S ON "THE RING OF FIRE" AND DOOMED TO DISAPPEAR UNDERWATER, SOONER OR LATER...
Ah, it's that rare beast in the world of fail: the epic geology fail (as distinguished from its more common cousin, the epic geography fail.)
I am still wondering if that was the best earthquake protection a library could buy? Will Wellington library stacks do the same domino topple, in the event?
I imagine you could build earthquake-resistant shelving, but given that books are pretty hard to destroy by throwing them on the ground and that the books are all going to fall off anyway, unless you use barriers which would make day-to-day use impractical, on a cost-to-effort ratio it's probably easier to just make them sturdy and set them upright again when they fall over.
There's also the mobility issue - if you're going to want to move the shelving or have the option of doing so, it's hard to fix it against earthquakes. Maybe by weighting the bottom shelf? There must be someone who's an expert on this sort of thing...
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It turned out that one of the "completely trashed" houses actually suffered two broken crockery bowls and the CD rack had fallen over.
You want to see completely trashed? This is completely trashed (pics on right side of page).
In my experience, when things are tight (like during a recession maybe?) insurance is one of the household expenses that gets shunted right to the bottom of the priority pile because spending money on something that will probably never happen is far less pressing that eating and keeping warm.
We're having a really interesting time getting advice on who to get contents insurance from in America, because no-one seems to have it - or know who does good insurance - on the grounds that "they can only sue you for what you have if the house burns down, and if you're a student you won't have anything anyway!"
The concept that you might want to make sure, for a reasonably small sum of money (smaller than I paid in NZ, for more coverage) that if a disaster does happen you can replace your possessions - or that you might have a moral obligation to make sure your landlord is compensated if you burn the house down - doesn't seem to occur. It's a bit bizarre.
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It's also quite a good sports drink, it's not practically much different to the ones you buy at about 1/30th of the cost. Useful if you're working hard repairing your house or something.
Mmm, nothing like electrolytes on a hot day.
This Christchurch civil defence report from 2004 has a liquefaction hazard map on p18.
About, oh, six weeks ago I was looking at my Environmental Geohazards notes from 2005, including that particular report, and thinking "Oh, well, it's not like I'll ever want to refer to these again. Into the recycling with them."
Given this, and what else I threw out, the next thing we can expect is an invasion of eleventh-century Norman knights bent on reclaiming the Holy Land. Well, that, or some really efficient oil-eating bacteria.
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And how on earth is the same afternoon "too late" for the PM to get to Christchurch on a military flight?
If he'd been properly prepared he would have been there early. Twelve hours late is just slack.
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So I'm not the only person who roams around Pak 'n' Save, picking out (and avoiding) the least dignified spot to be crushed to death.
The cleaning aisle, surely. Nothing could be less dignified than being crushed by baby food and nappies.
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Was anything in Christchurch not damaged? I've heard rumours.
I know with this kind of event it's normal for media, and everyone, to focus on damage, and understandably. It can sometimes give a skewed picture of things though.
Most of my friends live in the student area of Sockburn/Upper Riccarton/Riccarton and there seems to be nary a piece of structural damage, bar the old stone church at Church Corner, which took it quite hard. They all report TVs and bookshelves down but that's about it.
Basically it's down to liquefaction; that area of the city doesn't have nearly as much potential for it, and so damage was limited. The eastern suburbs did experience liquefaction, and got properly munted.
(I have to say: there's a certain amount of academic satisfaction in seeing the stuff I got taught would happen in an earthquake of this magnitude actually occur.)