RobiNZ Personal Blog

Missing Greg at the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival 2023

Today it's the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival 2023. This time last year I was in Hokitika, mid-ride on the West Coast Wilderness Trail, and had hoped to see, Kiwi musician, Greg Johnson performing at the 2022 festival. It was a bizarre coincidence as his music played a significant role in my decision to take off around NZ on a bike and he lives in Los Angeles. When I rode the trail was decided, by other fixed events, before I even realised the Festival was that weekend, never mind Greg was performing. That our paths crossed on the remote West Coast of... Read more →

My last Car?*

I just cancelled my print subscription to Car (magazine U.K.). I have been buying it monthly, one way or another, since February 1979. It was probably the Fiat 131 Racing on the cover which first got 13-year-old Robin’s attention, but the contents had me hooked. ** It's not because of their product, more than physical delivery has been so erratic and have lost interest in what the motoring industry has become. I don't care about dull SUVs, Utes, yet another iteration of Porsche 911 or overcooked overweight cars, both ICE and electric, which are irrelevant to what I like about... Read more →

I offended Microsoft Bing's Chat 'artificial intelligence'

I asked the new Bing AI chat about me. "What is the new Bing? The new Bing is like having a research assistant, personal planner, and creative partner at your side whenever you search the web. With this set of AI-powered features, you can: Ask your actual question. When you ask complex questions, Bing gives you detailed replies. Get an actual answer. Bing looks at search results across the web to offer you a summarized answer. Be creative. When you need inspiration, Bing can help you write poems, stories, or even share ideas for a project. In the chat experience,... Read more →

My photo in "The Conversation"

I like 'The Conversation' website and get the NZ edition weekly email newsletter. Read it today and thought a photo, on an article about arts funding, looked a bit like one I took in Auckland Art Gallery. Clicked on the link to find they had picked up my photo from Flickr 🙂 It was taken in Jan 2022, visited the Gallery before the The Big Bike Film Night screening We need to break the cycle of crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand’s arts and culture. It starts with proper funding James Wenley, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Aotearoa’s... Read more →

A wonderful Antarctic Sketchbook and Blog

Clicked on a LinkedIn comment, on a post by a CAD world connection, and thought I recognised an Antarctic location in the profile header photo. A web search soon had me at Margaret Plumley's lovely sketchbook from a trip similar to my 2019 Dr Karl Expedition. Her blogs about trip are here, and the sketchbook... Margaret Plumley - Antarctica 2021 sketchbook - Sketches and paintings from the trip Published on Dec 29, 2021 Read more →

Cycling to look at the new electric and hybrid Italians

The Fiat 500e, but not yet the Abarth 500e, is just being launched in NZ. I got an email invite from Andrew Sims who had the 500e press preview car for test drives today (Sat Feb 11) & tomorrow prior to the Autumn public release. Decided not to waste their (limited) time booking one—as I won't be buying—but was curious to see the 500e in the metal. I typically go for a bike ride on Sunday but with Cyclone Gabrielle approaching, forecast arrival Sunday evening through to Tuesday, Saturday was a better bet. The morning was dedicated to my usual... Read more →

Congratulations Adventure South, 30th Anniversary!

So true, I didn't write the script for this video, but could have because experienced it... Congratulations on thirty years Adventure South NZ, who I've travelled with since 2003. Read more →

Antarctic memories in QGIS

I was doing some QGIS training, testing, experimenting and the dataset provided was Antarctica. Had to spend a few minutes mapping where I've been! Initial dataset Our Antarctic 2019 Trip Landing Map | Credit Oceanwide Log Landings and activities plotted Location on Antarctic Continent Read more →

Cycling across town on Auckland's wettest day

Although a tropical storm was forecast it wasn't expected Friday January 27, 2023, would be Auckland's wettest day on record. Our average January rainfall, remember a summer month, is ~52mm and we got ~260mm on one day. It was raining all day but peaked in the early evening, at times over 60-80mm/hour depending where measured. It turned out to be devastating for many; four lives lost and massive property damage city wide. I was fortunate not to be impacted at all; the house was fine, and we just had an overnight power cut. This post isn't about the event, the... Read more →

The most average sized thing in the known universe?

Listened to this while riding the Hamilton Te Awa River Ride. It looks at a listener's question What's the most average sized thing in the known universe? I guessed before hearing and was way out. They look at it several ways, end up with some surprising answers. https://www.radiolab.org/episodes/middle-everything-ever Read more →

Te Awa River Ride | Hamilton to Cambridge | Time Out 2021-22

A new section of the Te Awa River Ride (Waikato River) recently opened; from Hamilton Gardens to Tamahere. It links the Ngaruawahia-Hamilton and Tamahere-Karāpiro sections I've previously ridden so I shot down to Hamilton for the day to complete the set. This ride concentrates on the new part as already covered the Hamilton CDB and Cambridge path in those earlier posts. Ann St Park I threw my Tern BYB folding bike into AHBART (Abarth 500 Esseesse) and headed back to Ann St Park, Beerescourt, Hamilton, near the CBD. Found it when I rode the Ngaruawahia-Hamilton section and was a good... Read more →

2022 Blogging Highlights

2022 Blogging Highlights post on the other blog Read more →

NZTA 'Road to Zero' advert crashes?

Noticed something odd in a NZTA 'Road to Zero' ad (below). It shows a car on the highway in perfect weather swerving to miss a possum (you shouldn't), losing control and crashing into the roadside barrier. The odd part is at 0:00:38 police appear and claim credit for 'keep[ing] your speed nice and safe around here'. They haven't, he just crashed! It's bizarre, they should be arresting the driver. What's the message? Read more →

Twitter shit show goes on...

My abandoned Twitter account may soon be deleted: Twitter Support ban announcement earlier today This goes beyond their previous action to ban posting social links in content. My account has been like this since I abandoned it. My Twitter Account with @Mastodon in username But then... Twitter deleted tweets and policy | twitter.com/JuddLegum What a shit show the liar billionaire is creating, by the minute! Whatever, I don't particularly care about the site the billionaire liar has destroyed anymore. Another for the lengthy list of Elon lies. Find me at @robincapper@mastodon.nz Read more →

Free Mubarak Bala

I live in country where blasphemy is not a crime. The offence of blasphemous libel had not been prosecuted in New Zealand since 1922 but the law was only repealed surprisingly recently, in 2019. Freedom of belief is a precious and rare thing in our world. This short BBC documentary highlights the price Mubarak Bala and his family have paid for stating he was an atheist on social media. His guilty plea was against legal advice and possibly not a free choice itself. I heard Leo Igwe, Nigerian Human Rights Advocate featured in the documentary, speak at the Humanist International... Read more →

The Abarth 500 Esseesse LEGO upgrade

Watching the current Aussie* LEGO Masters TV show prompted me to actually acquire the only full-size LEGO piece that fits (really well) on a real Abarth. Had seen lots of others, mostly in the UK, do this engine bay mod. The official LEGO® 4-stud Storage Brick lid fits perfectly, with a bit of trimming, to tidy up the slightly scruffy battery area. It's entirely appropriate given the 'fun little toy' character of the Abarth too 🙂 I was sceptical it would cope with the engine compartment temperatures but, apparently, it is fine. Time will tell?! * The best of the... Read more →

My inadvertent long-term sleep experiment | Time Out 2021-22 After

I've been wearing a Samsung Active 2 Watch to track sleep for several years and inadvertently, combined with lifestyle changes, it became a sleep behaviour experiment. The Samsung Health app popped up a summary, 12 months of records from my year of mostly cycle touring, and I realised it could answer a question I had long wondered about. While the sleep records of a consumer device are probably not that accurate, given it has all been with the same device, they are likely consistently inaccurate so can still be used for comparison. My 'normal' sleep, or not... I've always been... Read more →