Aotearoa / New Zealand

It’s one of those moments in the year when many parents wonder why they lie to their children about a magical rabbit that leaves Easter eggs in the garden.

In our multicultural society, there are various approaches to the concepts of Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy. At a guess, for the majority of New Zealand children, these fictional characters are real — at least in the first few years of their lives. After all, New Zealand Post receives more than 100,000 letters each year addressed to Santa at Christmas.

But there are some, whether it is for religious or ethical reasons, who don’t raise their kids to believe in these fictional characters.

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

When it cools down and autumn hits in New Zealand, office kitchens and staff rooms are suddenly abundant with the sweet smell of our widely available little fruit – the feijoa.

But spare a thought for Kiwis who have made Australia home – where they don’t seem to understand our feijoa fantasy.

Piera Maclean, who has lived in Melbourne for a decade, longs for the taste.

“Normally at this time of year in New Zealand everyone's having feijoa crumble all the time and making cakes. They've got so many. Whereas here it's like if you find three, you know you're feeling very lucky and it's the best day ever.”

Severe weather is continuing to batter the top of the North Island as Cyclone Tam brings heavy rain and strong winds.

Towards Friday, the storm will begin to arrive in Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and the north of the South Island.

What you need to know:

• A large weather system is delivering heavy rain and strong winds to the upper North Island.
• Here's what you need to know as the bad weather hits.
• Around 25,000 properties had no power overnight in Northland and there are many outages in Auckland too.
• Cellphone towers have been damaged in Northland, landlines are still working. ONE NZ is working on opening up Satellite Text as an option for those with 4G.
• Air New Zealand has cancelled some flights, some ferry services in Auckland are either cancelled or suspended. See here for the ferry specifics.
• Up to 180mm of rain could strike Northland with possible thunderstorms, and strong wind warnings also in place.
• Auckland is experiencing high winds and rain.
• Rain is also forecast to spread into the South Island on Thursday.
• Warnings are in place for motorists using Auckland Harbour Bridge due to strong wind gusts.

Just keep digging. 🐕🕳️

Seriously though, did this guy think that, if he argues long enough, they would just give up?

Proposed Driver Licence Changes: Government May Remove Second Practical Test, Cut Back on Eye Exams

Honestly, this sounds like a recipe for disaster. The driving standards out there are already sketchy enough without lowering the bar even more.

If you're in Auckland and love a good cinnamon bun, you have to try these, seriously, they’re amazing. It’s just a bit of a downer seeing big overseas companies come into NZ and start throwing around cease-and-desists at local businesses that have been doing their thing for years.

Feels a bit like the whole Popeyes situation all over again.

Support local where you can!

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/17769069

The results are in!🎶

Hey everyone, I'm glad to announce that after fighting my lazyness, I have gathered the votes submitted until now, and am able to announce the results of the second edition of Lemmyvision! Thank you so much for participating, by sending a song together with your community, leaving feedback, or voting!!

This first ranking is based on the average position out of every vote:

1. Flomb!, Pe Krieger - #unplugtrump (avg. rank: 3.6)
2. Lambrini Girls - God's Country (4.7)
3. Alien Weaponry - Mau Moko (4.9)
4. Rezz, Virtual Riot, One True God - Give In To You (4.9)
5. Bibiza - Aufnimmawiederschaun (5.2)
6. Ultra Vomit - Dead Robot Zombie Cop From Outer Space 2 (5.3)
7. Billie du Page - Fake Friends (5.3)
8. Elisapie (ᐃᓕᓴᐱ) - Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy) (5.7)
9. Gurridyula - From The River To The Sea (5.8)
10. Cie Les Petites Mains - L’Anamour (6.2)
11. Lina Mayer - Raj (6.2)

Now here's a ranking based on how many time each song was ranked first :

1. Flomb!, Pe Krieger - #unplugtrump (17 times ranked first!)
2. Lambrini Girls - God's Country (8)
3. Alien Weaponry - Mau Moko (7)
4. Rezz, Virtual Riot, One True God - Give In To You (6)
5. Gurridyula - From The River To The Sea (4)
6. Ultra Vomit - Dead Robot Zombie Cop From Outer Space 2 (4)
7. Billie du Page - Fake Friends (3)
8. Elisapie (ᐃᓕᓴᐱ) - Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy) (2)
9. Bibiza - Aufnimmawiederschaun (2)
10. Cie Les Petites Mains - L’Anamour (1)
11. Lina Mayer - Raj (none😥)

Some interesting data: #unplugtrump by Flong! and Pe Krieger seems to be a clear favourite congratulations to https://feedbeat.me/@Pe and https://mastodon.social/@FLOMB !! All the other songs are pretty close to each other. There has been more participation overall (more submission, more votes than last year), and a lot of people from non participating instances voted (their top 3 is so diverse I can't manage to discern a pattern), thank you!

A heartfelt thank you to the participating instances, I loved listening to your songs:

• Cie Les Petites Mains - L'Anamour (French Sign Language - !pi_sourd@jlai.lu)
• Bibiza - Aufnimmawiederschaun (Austria - !austria@feddit.org )
• Ultra Vomit - Dead Robot Zombie Cop From Outer Space 2 (France - !france@jlai.lu)
• Billie du Page - Fake Friends (French Canadian - lemmy.ca)
• Gurridyula - From The River To The Sea (Australia - !rage@aussie.zone)
• Rezz, Virtual Riot, One True God - Give In To You (English Canadian - lemmy.ca)
• Lambrini Girls - God's Country (United Kingdoms - feddit.uk)
• Alien Weaponry - Mau Moko (New Zealand - lemmy.nz)
• Elisapie (ᐃᓕᓴᐱ) - Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy) (Inuktitut - lemmy.ca)
• Lina Mayer - Raj (Slovakia - !slovakia@sopuli.xyz)
• Flomb!, Pe Krieger - #unplugtrump (Germany - feddit.org)

This marks the end of the second edition of Lemmyvision, of course the community will stay open if anyone wants to submit songs they'd like people to discover, or have feedback on the event. I'm going to work on making the rules clear but inclusive because there were a lot of cases I didn't think about, hopefully the third edition will be super easy to get into.

Thank you again for participating, it's always fun to see communities get together, and to discover songs from other cultures, I hope you've had a great time!!

Until then, see you at Sunnyvision, somewhere around summer 🌞

Cheers!

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

Auckland Zoo has welcomed its first meerkat litter in more than a decade.

Four pups were born in-habitat last month, bringing the zoo's meerkat collection to seven.

Their mother is Adia, who arrived at the zoo in November.

When an extremely rare native plant was discovered during road works on the iconic Forgotten World Highway, SH43, local iwi leapt into action.

The nationally endangered plant Brachyglottis turneri, or Manawa Kawa, as it has been named by iwi, is similar to an orchid with a heart-shaped leaf and small yellow flower that blooms from November to December.

It can only be found in 11 locations in Taranaki and a handful of places in Whanganui.

In December 2023, to ensure the plant population wasn't impacted by the sealing project, Ngāti Maru representatives took cuttings from the plants under the guidance of horticulturist Phillip Smith, from Totora Glen Nurseries in Palmerston North.

Smith propagated the cuttings and cared for them until they were ready for replanting in the gorge.

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/17384631

Hey everyone, thank you again for participating, and for your submissions!

I'm glad to announce that the voting form is completed, and you can now cast your votes and select your favourite songs. Everyone is welcome to vote, even if your instance or community did not participate! This is a great opportunity to discover new music, cultures, and bridge the lemmyverse together.

The voting form is available here: https://tally.so/r/wvzg8d

I created a playlist so that you can easily listen to the submitted songs, it's available at the following links:

• Piped: https://watch.leptons.xyz/playlist?list=PLznyfib6djoSvfy23noSOy7axFMuMJD7U
• Invidious: https://inv.nadeko.net/playlist?list=PLznyfib6djoSvfy23noSOy7axFMuMJD7U
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLznyfib6djoSvfy23noSOy7axFMuMJD7U

Here's the full list of submitted songs:

• Cie Les Petites Mains - L'Anamour (French Sign Language - !pi_sourd@jlai.lu)
• Bibiza - Aufnimmawiederschaun (Austria - !austria@feddit.org )
• Ultra Vomit - Dead Robot Zombie Cop From Outer Space 2 (France - !france@jlai.lu)
• Billie du Page - Fake Friends (French Canadian - lemmy.ca)
• Gurridyula - From The River To The Sea (Australia - aussie.zone)
• Rezz, Virtual Riot, One True God - Give In To You (English Canadian - lemmy.ca)
• Lambrini Girls - God's Country (United Kingdoms - feddit.uk)
• Alien Weaponry - Mau Moko (New Zealand - lemmy.nz)
• Elisapie (ᐃᓕᓴᐱ) - Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy) (Inuktitut - lemmy.ca)
• Lina Mayer - Raj (Slovakia - !slovakia@sopuli.xyz)
• Flong!, Pe Krieger - #unplugtrump (Germany - feddit.org)

The form will be available until around the 8th of April, I will then collect the results and publish them shortly after. I hope you'll have a lot of fun listening to the 11 songs submitted for this edition. Don't hesitate if you have any question!

Cheers!

Comedian Dan Boerman arrived in Wellington jetlagged and delirious, but he had a plan. On Monday afternoon, in front of a raucous crowd on Cuba Street, he would perform his ability to fold a fitted sheet to all.

“I’m ballparking about 700 people showed up, and from the videos, there were people standing on bins to try and see. It was like a Fred Again concert.”

“Loads of people were saying to me afterwards, ‘This is so silly, this is what we needed in Wellington’ and it was kind of profound in a sense. I was just being silly and putting together something nonsense but people felt real good coming together and chanting on a stranger: ‘Fold that sheet!’

Good Summary of the report on the sinking of Manawanui. I have not seen much coverage on this thought some people here might be interested.

The presenters pronunciation of Maori words needs some work, but he does try. 😊

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

King was born Deaf and uses New Zealand Sign Language full-time, leading the primary school class using every tool in his kit that is not the spoken word.

“I can read your lips and when the children are talking to me I can read their lips, but I don’t speak myself, I don’t use my voice,” King explains through an interpreter.

To begin, King led the class from the front while an interpreter would stand at the back of the room speaking the words (the interpreter would also be around for staff meetings, parent/teacher interviews and seminars).

Gradually, King would ask the interpreter to “turn their voice off” in class – and over time, with plenty of preparation, planning and perseverance, their time in the classroom was wound back, until they did not need to be there at all.

“When I sign it has to go to the interpreter who then talks and it's quite a bit of time, whereas if we can sign together I can talk to you directly and so we can have that interaction and that builds a better relationship instead of having to go through another person,” King said.

“So last year … when the interpreter left, all of them [the students] were so happy to have the interpreters gone … and I actually took a picture and I will never forget that moment.

“I was so shocked … they were just … invested in having me as a teacher.”

We're bringing back the concord!

This is actually very reasonable, rail enabled, bigger than what we currently have, but not the absolute monsters that were planned.

I wonder if the ability to operate fully under electrical power for part of the crossing has been retained?

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?