Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Oh, look, the Herald is giving us all a late but much-appreciated Christmas gift. He might not be going quietly, but FSM be praised, he's going.
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Hard News: Nobody wanted #EQNZ for Christmas, in reply to Islander,
Yeah, the Alpine Fault is in New Auckland Volcano territory (except for being in the middle of Auckland.) It had been assumed - prior to September - that when a seriously destructive earthquake hit Christchurch, the Alpine Fault would be the cause, and that there would be damage across the South Island. Assuming it doesn't happen in the immediate future, at least Christchurch might survive that one better - if the rebuilding is done with that in mind. Which it bloody well should be.
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Hard News: Dispatches from Summer, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
There was about a decade where nothing even slightly whiskey related passed my lips after an evening involving very cheap bourbon and a boy who liked me less than I thought he did.
Whiskey was also involved, but for some reason I got over that about five years sooner - I think mainly through those awful bourbon and coke alcopoppy things. Which I now won't touch, but for reasons having to do with the non-alcoholic component. Funny how much one's tastes can change over the years.
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Hard News: Dispatches from Summer, in reply to Ross Mason,
I have to say, the Chinese brew still triggers a violent rejection response via the olfactory organ whenever similar bottles are opened.
It took me about seven years to be able to stomach the smell of gin after a particularly ill-planned bout of teenage revelry. The body is apparently smarter than the mind, in some things.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to nzlemming,
iPads don’t do Flash, from memory. I don’t use one myself, but that’s what I remember from the launch.
Indeed, they're notorious for it.
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Hard News: Nobody wanted #EQNZ for Christmas, in reply to Tamsin6,
Back to sitting here weeping helplessly at my desk.
Useful skills this year has taught me: how to sob discreetly at work.
I guess I should be happy not being in Christchurch at the moment, but to be honest I really feel I should be there. it is properly absurd but.
This. All I'd do is clog up the place for people trying to get stuff fixed but I want to be, anyway. I was pretty set on trying to get back home in 2012, but this makes me determined to.
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I saw the Geonet email and started crying. Just - god, it never stops.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Lilith __,
You said a bunch, Sacha. By the looks of the Geonet map it was centred out under Pegasus Bay. Lots of jiggy aftershocks. Could really do without this.
Christ. Assuming we would have heard if a tsunami *had* happened, but a slightly bigger one out there and Brighton is fucked. That's the worst-case tsunami scenario.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Kumara Republic,
And we haven’t yet got to snail-mail robocalling to dead coal miners.
To be fair the explanation given at the end of the article is not terrible, but it does boggle the mind a little that it hadn't occurred to the responsible office that not everybody elected to councils would be there for the full three-year term. At least double-check the list once a year. If Santa can manage it...
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Stewart,
Personally, I have no desire whatsoever to live for ever and the idea of it fills me with disgust. Accept that what you’ve got is what you’ve got and it is temporary .
See, I think there's a difference between trying to lengthen life at all costs and trying to lengthen it when it's possible and rational. Sure - all of us, having this discussion; we're going to die, one day, we have to come to terms with that. Life is what it is, and what it is, is finite.
But does that mean there's no value to the attempt to make humans live much longer - even forever? I don't think so. It reminds me of the school of thought that says we should stop worrying about the space program and worry about caring for the planet we have - why can't we do both? Accepting our current state with grace does not mean that dreaming of other states is wrong, or that those states would be. There are costs to everything. Right now we don't know what the cost to immortality would be, because it doesn't exist. The only way to know is to give it a go.