Book covers with pictures of ladies (often holding candelabras) running away from ominous houses with one light on in an attic room

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Niche? Not as much as you'd think - check out this little lot from Moritica's Morgue found at Neil Gaiman's blog who was himself surfed to from the Wellington City Library Teen's blog

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The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

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It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

W. C. Fields quotes

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The office has all been moved around - new desks (with starter handles to raise and lower them), new high(er) speed network and ... the same old work. At least I have a differing view of the world, my team (well, the team I'm a part of not "my" team) is a lot closer - finally - and it's like an office from the 80's ... or even a classroom. But I still have time to move the crap off the PC : ------ Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! Who stole the cork from my breakfast? Now don't say you can't swear off drinking, it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they alwa...

The Hīkoi Has You Charged Up But The Work Starts Now

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The hīkoi mō te Tiriti  was the calling card, a start, a bringing people together from across the nation so that the work can now begin. Why? The Act party is already rallying it's members around the messages it wants to flood the select committee with. It is here they think they can insert their divisive messages. Act, David Seymour, and his backers (notably Atlas, but also other foreign neoliberal billionaires) are willing to play the long game, this is merely the start for them. Having said that, I suspect they've probably taken a small step back due to the sheer amount of people saying, "No, we do not accept this" culminating in today's 45,000+ show of will, but that won't mean anything in the coming weeks. Tomorrow the hard work starts. Let's not get too work-y though, first up something simple, add you voice to the  Stop the Treaty Principles Bill - TOITŪ TE TIRITI!! petition which is, as I write this, at 250,738 signatures, more than the total num...

Hīkoi Hits the Streets: A March for the Future

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Well, folks, it's been a while since we've seen a hīkoi of this magnitude. Thousands are taking to the streets, their voices echoing down the Golden Mile, demanding change. This ain't no walk in the park – this is a protest, a call to action, a damn good old-fashioned hīkoi. People have been walking from the very top of the north island, the bottom of the south island, and even overseas , congregating in Wellington later today. Now, I'm not one to get all political, but when you see a sea of people, young and old, Māori and Pākehā, all united by a common cause, you can't help but get a bit stirred up. These folks aren't messing around. They're marching for their rights, for their future, for a fairer Aotearoa. So, what's got everyone so fired up? It's a complex issue, but at its heart, it's about Te Tiriti / the Treaty of Waitangi and how the right-wing Act party, enabled by National, are wanting to re-write the nation's founding document. T...

"Right Wing" Comedians

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Too many people comfortably plump themselves into an army of one type or another . Surrounded by those that sound like you, listen to you intently whilst nodding, and echo your thoughts on why the fight is a good fight and that the other side are such bad terrible people. I used to be more like that than I am nowadays ... hmmmm, aren't we humans meant to become more conservative and reactionary as we age, strange Mike. These thoughts have me thinking of two UK comedians that have been tagged as "right wing", which is putting them into an army for the benefit of someone but, I suspect, not them. First up,  Simon Evans who makes me laugh when he's talking about his family, kids, and life in Brighton. He then hit my ears big time with: Simon Evans Goes to Market , has had six seasons, delighting audiences with his witty and insightful take on the comedically unpromising territory of economics, all of which prove among the most popular downloads on the Sounds App. On the...

This Is My (Blog) Life

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I did it (below) I've shared some fascinating outputs , but what do I think about it, how do I feel? You know the audio podcast I create, using fancy AI , based upon blog posts ... you don't, oh, well now's a good time to pop over and do a little background listening. So, those episodes have all been fairly targeted, about specific things even if there was plenty of info for "them" to discuss. How would the fancy AI tackle a smattering of posts about me from across the years? Ones that represent Mike Riversdale, my views, what makes me laugh, and how I've lived my life through it's ups and downs? Can I get it to create a sort of, " This Is Your Life ", about me? Let's give it a go - I'm gonna add the following to NotebookLM alongside this post and let's see what it thinks about me and what I am about: My Mastodon introduction Photos page The life story, one more time: Chapter One: The First traveling Years Life story, Chapter Two: The...

On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going?

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So many people have had me ask them this simple question, " On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going? (where 1 is as low as it can get)" Once the person responds, you then simply askm " Is there anything I could do to help move it from a 6 to a 7? " (or . . . "from a 3 to a 4" or "from a 10 to an 11"). Just reach out and ask ... I cannot recommend this highly enough as both for support people / friends / family that are keeping an active eye on someone in their life, but also just as a great way to connect not matter what the situation. So where did it come from - this is a technique that Jane McGonicall  ( @avantgame ) picked up from her friend Michael, a philanthropist and entrepreneur and uses in a Super Better "quest" called Plus-One Better - here are the complete instructions. QUEST: Plus-One Better Pick three people: 1. Someone who would like to hear from you 2. Someone you would like to hear from 3. Some...

Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine

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I can't recall the time I was able to add a signature to an email, don't think it was back in the very early Demon days in the mid-1990s, anyways, since for my Internet use was a baby, and still, my email signature has ended the phrase: Life is too short to drink bad wine. Is it really a Winston Churchill quote, I don't think so, hang on .. [Googles] .. definitely didn't originate with Churchill, but of course he may have said it just like I am, it has a life affirming positive message. Aha, potentially this 'misattribution' attribution would be more appropriate: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist (Misattributed) Often attributed to him, but not found in Goethe's works. The attribution, though, may come from translators' commentary on Goethe's West–Eastern Diwan, "The Book of the Cup-Bearer" (1819/1827), that refers to a poetic passage as deriving from Diez's 1811 translation of the Book of Kabus...

It's All Going To Change

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Exponential is gonna make this world of humans very very different. What the fuck is " exponential change " Mike? I, you, and all humans are built to see change in a linear way. A wolf accelerating at a set rate is going to slowly catch us, but we know when, and therefore where (see how clever we are), so we get tricksy and make plans to not be there and then, hah, take that wolf! The wolf starts out at 1 kmh, but speeds up at 2 kmh. It's now at 3 kmh, but hang on it's still getting faster, now at 5 kmh. Christ this wolf is still going, 7 kmh. Meh, we can run at 10 kmh. It adds another 2 kmh, ok, it's catching up. 9 kmh, we're starting to worry and make plans. Wow, the wolf is now 11 kmh, probably a blur but s'ok as it is slower than a bike so maybe we use that. Oh noes, another 2 kmh, that's 13 kmh. A spurt from the wolf and it's now 15 kmh, and one more boost, up to 17 kmh. Within only 9 steps this damn wolf is now running at us at 17 kmh. We...