I have been writing this blog for over ten years. I am not particularly prolific; there are around 100 posts in total – less than once a month and sometimes closer to once a year. Apparently I only write when I have something to say along with the time to say it. For me, the … Continue reading The Writing Life: An Update on the Blog
I chalked up a personal first yesterday; I saw an aurora with my own eyes and it was every bit as remarkable as I could have hoped for. I was not alone in sharing this special moment – anyone outside before midnight without clouds overhead in New Zealand (and, in fact, much of the world … Continue reading Keep Looking Up
Amongst everything else that happened in 2023 a key anniversary for a landmark in our understanding of the Universe passed largely unnoticed – the centenary of the realisation that not only was our Sun one of many stars in the Milky Way galaxy but that our galaxy was one of many galaxies in the Universe.
There is insight in the stories that numbers can tell, and for some of us that insight offers a sense of calm in turbulent times. Which may be why In the midst of this year’s rains I started making graphs of the accumulated rainfall and how it stacked up against previous years.
For now I am taking heart from an adage from Usenet days; that the internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it – new social media sites are popping up aiming to catch the flavour of the old Twitter while perhaps avoiding some of its weaknesses.
Watching a group of people come together to do something this hard and this unprecedentedly complex – often in the face of administrative inertia – reminds me that it is not only possible to reach for our dreams but that sometimes we manage to take hold of them.