The large dark sky reserve here in NZ uses 2000K LEDs for all street lighting.
I can’t find an article detailing the streetlights they use. Like you’ve noted, and the bollard pictured in that article, they’re designed to spill zero light above horizontal.
Coprolites might not be my favourite fossil, but they’re a solid number two.
You’ll probably find too that most microwaves have a rated power only around 1200W, and I’m betting not all of that is making it into the food either.
With British kettles allowing up to 3000W (230V 13A), I expect we’re talking more like a third of the time than a half.
I was assuming that was supposed to be a cassowary.
So strongly, in fact, that I missed the platypus tail entirely 😄
I worked on Avatar 2 & 3. Babysat moviemaking in an otherwise-empty building during covid lockdowns. Long days and working weekends. Friendships strained, the odd one ruined.
I’ve held the Oscar which Avatar 2 won, and my name is in the credits of both.
What I have not done is watch either film in its entirety. Bits and pieces during the creation process sure, but neither from start to finish.
After close to 9 years of every work day somehow tracing back to one or the other film, the overwhelming feeling at the completion of Avatar 3 was relief, above all else.
And to be clear it’s not that I remotely think they’re bad films, quite the contrary. Technology was created which will define an era of visual effects, and irrespective of what anyone says about nuance of the story, they are undeniably experiences (a point on which perhaps I agree with the writer of that article, around in-theatre viewing).
Over-exposure to anything will really change your worldview.
Interestingly, I was just reading an article about that on the bus ride to work this morning:
https://slate.com/culture/2026/01/avatar-3-fire-and-ash-movie-box-office.html
One thing to note (for what it’s worth I use Island rather than Shelter, but the end result is the same), Microsoft can’t get their shit together. While most things work normally with “Work Profile” apps, a couple of things don’t.
The biggest annoyance by far for me is I cannot answer Teams calls on Android Auto. Perversely, I can reply to messages (DMs or group chats, but not channels) hands-free by talking to the car, but if a call comes in the UI only appears on the phone and not the car’s display.
I’m sure Microsoft could fix this, but it’s been broken for the ~2 years since they started supporting Android Auto in any capacity, so I’m guessing they aren’t going to.
Overall though, my favourite feature has to be the one-click toggle that disables all of the work apps. No notifications, no syncing in the background, no nothing. As soon as my phone connects to my home WiFi, an automation turns it off for me. Glorious, glorious silence.
“Anyone who says they hate farts is choosing to have less joy in their life, but the same amount of farts”
Also Lenovo, who were the first ones to give than nonsense a whirl (X1 Carbon Gen 2, 2014).
Lenovo’s was present for just that single generation. Apple kept it for 6 generations over 7 years. Dell 4 generations, 3 years.
Can’t say I’ll miss any of them.
Really the most you can hope for these days is to encounter two broken TVs of the same model, with different faults.
Luck holding, this lets you wind up with a single working unit.
Any introduced species becomes classified as a pest here in NZ if it either directly harms, or competes with for food any native animal.
On the subject of magpies specifically, some regional councils take a more aggressive stance than others.
The shit-list contains a few that are frequently a surprise to non-NZers, like hedgehogs.
You’d find almost the exact same items here in NZ too, though “Omo” detergent is branded “Persil” here.
A British quart is larger than a litre (≈1.14l), US quart is smaller (≈0.95l).
The closest cemetary to my house has a natural burial section, which seems to be becoming increasingly popular.
No headstones, no embalming, untreated softwood coffin, and a native tree (around two dozen species to choose from) planted above.
Regenerating native forest is definitely a nice side effect.
From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
The fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt.
Published in 1979, so nearly a half century old idea 😉
The other 1/3 realise it already has?
I was given an S50 for Christmas.
Where we were staying was fortunately right on the edge of suburbia and it was a clear night, plopped it down on the deck and apparently we’re twins? Because the first picture I took was also Orion.
(this was only a couple of minutes, so doesn’t look amazing)
Even just counting metric there are far too many sizes of hex bits. Adding inch sizes further complicates things, and as you say, the similarly of some of them to their metric counterparts isn’t helping; is 5/32 close enough to 4mm to not break things? Who knows!
With that said, torx is really no picnic either. T6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25, 27, 30, and 40 all seem to be in relatively common use, and I’m not sure they all need to be. Not to mention the (relatively common) security variants of at least the 10 through 40.
I think #1 - #4 square are the only ones I’ve ever seen in the wild, though I’m informed security versions of at least #2 - #4 exist too.
Link contains spoilers for season 1, if you’ve not seen it.
You can view the history of the cul-de-sac they built in the historical aerial photos (click the icon with the globe and anticlockwise arrow): https://earth.google.com/web/@35.16545569,-106.74621795,1675.42242618a,303.69425338d,35y,0h,0t,0r/, which gives a nice insight into how long it took to make season 1.
They broke ground somewhere between 2023-05-30 (area completely undisturbed) and 2023-08-30 (only first level of houses finished construction).
The next images, a year later on 2024-08-30 is from the filming of episode 7.
There are two more from 2025-05-30 and 2025-09-30, which don’t show much of anything.
Obviously they don’t need to build the houses again, but clearly a heck of a lot of time went into the rest of season 1, so a similar wait for season 2 doesn’t seem unexpected.
Forget no more!
https://youtu.be/evV05QeSjAw