RobiNZ Personal Blog

John Key’s affordable housing solution?

Seen in Huapai, his electorate, today. A reasonable re-locatable family home that should be quick to build. Auckland and Christchurch housing problem sorted. Read more →

Mothers Day: got her new washing, drugs and gambling!

It was actually some new bed linen, collected her (prescription) pill pack and a Lotto ticket but that sounds less dramatic! Also had a nice family lunch and (takeaway) roast dinner. A good day! Read more →

Red Bull Crown Range drifting? Tried it on a bike!

I’m not a fan of drifting, waste of tyres I reckon, but this video got my attention. I’ve ridden the Crown Range road twice, both East and West, so have been up and down the hill shown on a bicycle. Although the downhill was extremely fast (maybe 70-80km/h?), extremely fun, the uphill was probably more life threatening. At one stage on the steepest bit a car coming down the hill stopped a few hundred metres ahead of me. The tourist driver got out to take my photo, saying: “You’re an extremely brave man!”! I could only gasp in response “Foolish!”... Read more →

The importance of being wrong: the Big Bang and precision cosmology - Professor Richard Easther

This sounds interesting. I hope to get to to his inaugural lecture as found Richard’s Auckland Skeptics in the Pub cosmology talk (October 2011) and the discussion after really interesting. Although my Physics education ended at High School, so probably won’t understand much, i still enjoy learning what I can. The importance of being wrong: the Big Bang and precision cosmology Inaugural lecture by Professor Richard Easther Department of Physics A generation ago, “precision cosmology” was an oxymoron. Since then, advances in observational astrophysics let us measure global properties of the universe -- age, expansion rate, composition, temperature, smoothness --... Read more →