Or "death march".
10,886 karma · joined September 25, 2013
It wasn't locked down for months on end while the rest of NZ was having fun in the sun, it was locked down the same as the rest of us initially, then it wasn't, then it was locked down again because a strain with a high lethality was present in the city. That strain was first detected in a rest home where it killed multiple elderly people.
The second lockdown wasn't for shits and giggles.
I really struggle to understand why Aucklanders don't understand this, and fixate on "We were locked down for months, unlike the rest of New Zealand, and it was really bad for our local economy" when the second lockdown was to save lives in Auckland and the lives of other Kiwis, because if it had spread from Auckland, there would have been plenty more dead Grandmas around the motu.
As in, the most lethal variant of Covid.
But never mind that, it was bad for the local economy, right? You know what's worse? Excessive deaths due to Delta.
Today I learned an interesting new word, which is led me to its analogues:
Turns out, when you get a lawnmower on top of a steel toed boot, you get a _lot_ of sparks.
I feel you're dealing with a different level of lawn mowing if you're towing a mower, not pushing one.
Genuine question, I thought monarch larvae predominantly feed on milkweeds? Do you get milkweeds occurring naturally in your grass? Or are they feeding on something else?
Shit, the bar is low these days.
Then he drives across a one-way bridge, and tracking shot above the car captures the big arrow New Zealand paints on the exit lane indicating you should drive in the *left* lane (started doing this after few too many tired tourists from RHD countries reverted to habit upon leaving a one-way bridge causing a head-on collision further down the road). They could've edited the arrow out, surely.
TL;DR thought Canada in a movie looked like New Zealand, it was New Zealand.
It caught me out a few times when I'd go to buy a bulk of German confectionary from a Lidl or Aldi to take back home for colleagues and my kids, and of course, I was flying out on a Sunday, so they were closed, so I had to pay airport prices for them.
All that said though, even the stuff that was open on a Sunday would generally shut earlier than usual, because after all, it _is_ Sunday bru, and the trains ran on a sparser schedule which meant my attempt to go to the Eagle's Nest museum, ended up with me getting there just as it closed, and then realising that the next train back to Munich from Berchtesgarden was in 4 hours (IIRC), and my dinner with my colleagues was in 3 hours... But the locals were so lovely and patient with my poor German, and they directed me to catch the next bus to Salzburg, and then catch the ICE to Munich from there.
It blew my Kiwi mind that they're like "Oh yeah, the fastest way back to Munich is to just catch a bus into Austria" real casual like. Schengen is pretty awesome.
That made $154 million profit on $5.3 billion revenue in 2024. So about 1.1% (rounding up) return on capital.
While Fortescue (FMG), still not the largest Aussie mining outfit, made a profit of $5.6 billion on revenue of $18.2 billion in the same period, with assets of $30 billion, so about 19% (rounding up) return on capital.
But yeah, totally, MR is a mining "giant".
For some reason, I don't think emulating them would be a very good idea.
_Conflict of interest disclaimer:_ I did a consulting gig for FMG several years back, but have absolutely no dog in this fight aside from being sick to death of breathlessly naïve and exaggerated "reporting" any time some C-suiters do something stupid AF involving AI.
* Unloading fish on a wharf during a violent snowstorm, at night.
* Doing the stop/go signs on roadworks for 12 hours in the rain.
* Carrying heavy boxes of government records up 5 flights of stairs from a basement for eight hours, and the next day, carrying them up 2 flights of stairs to their new home - blew out the medial meniscus in my right knee doing that
* Carrying what Americans call drywall, but like the kind with noise deadening material in it that makes it heavier, non-stop for three weeks during the construction of an art gallery. Ever had that thing where your body just says "no" because you've been pushing your muscles too hard and your fingers go nerveless and involuntarily release? I got a written warning for that because I dropped the expensive drywall. Only kind of drywall that was worse was the drywall used to line X-ray rooms in medical centres.
* Working the recycling trucks - the bins we emptied into the sorting tray had drainage holes in the bottom, and you had to lift them above your head to tip them into the sorting tray, so when you did, a lovely mixture of coagulating milk / wine / beer / whatever other fluids came from unclean recycling would run down your arm and until I learned to tape up the cuffs of my overalls, inside your overalls. And when we went to offload, rubbish dump dust would stick to your sweat / recycling juice, so every day ended up stinking and filthy.
* Kitchenhand in an airport kitchen so poorly managed I was the longest serving dishpig they'd ever had when I stayed there six months. I outlasted about 8 cooks, I suppose they had options.
* Case worker in social security - understaffed, pressured to achieve unrealistic numbers, and often directed by policy to not help people who needed help.
* Oh, and roguing for wild oats in wheat fields in near 100°F heat.
Those jobs really help me appreciate how privileged and lucky I am to be a developer.
Fienne's biography of Shackleton is a great read, it captures the complexity of the man that spent most of his life near bankruptcy because he refused, out of romance or ethics or similar, to monetize his explorations unlike his contemporaries.
Oh, and his brother may have stolen the Irish Crown Jewels.
Hell, it's why one of our former PMs had a referendum to try to replace our flag.
He got seated under an Aussie flag once at an international big important meeting, thus he decided to spend $21 million getting people to vote on whether or not to adopt a flag that looked like the logo a meat company would stick on a frozen leg of lamb being exported to the EU [0]. We ultimately voted against the meat wrapper.
My personal preference was for either the Black Jack [1] (because I loved how it co-opted the Union Jack with Māori design elements - the curved white koru) and tbh, we do love the colour black, or...
...Seeing as we're having a bit of a silly referendum anyway, good ol Laser Kiwi [2] (the white feather thing is the silver fern/ponga, adopted as our national plant when pteridomania was running rampant in the British Empire, and is often used as a logo for national sports teams, and for naming several female sports teams - Silver Ferns, White Ferns, Black Ferns), because who doesn't love the idea of shooting lasers out of your eyes?
John Oliver had a lot of fun with the whole debate. [3]
Oh, and fun fact, I believe during the anti-ICE protests, some Minnesotans were inspired by Laser Kiwi and brought about Laser Loon. [4]
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[0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/NZ...
[1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/NZ_flag_...
[2]: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/sites/default/files/styles/wide/pu...
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2tL--HMIo
[4]: https://images.thespinoff.co.nz/1/2026/02/Tinas-FeatureImage...
Our flag has red stars, no bonus commonwealth star, and for some reason, whoever designed our flag decided that ε Cru could go fuck itself.
And I love him to bits for insisting that in the future, Australia would surely have a) become a republic and b) embraced the Aborigine first peoples. It's a remarkably hopeful vision of the future for a movie where he ends up running around without eyes saying creepy shit.
* Their Southern Cross is more astronomically accurate (it includes Epsilon Crucis) our one omits it
* They have an additional seven pointed star to represent the six territories/states of Australia, the seventh point being added when they took control of Papua to represent anything else they added to the federation as time went on
* Their stars are white, ours are red
But fully agree, I loved that it the Union Jack was replaced with the Aborigine flag at Sam Neill's behest, because after all, it _is_ the future right?
What does your oddly aggressive reply say about you? Other than your username is at best, aspirational, and good luck with that.