While I am fairly sure that the folks at MetService try to do their best, the Auckland Regional Rain forecasts specifically have not been particularly dependable. I did have a First world problem where I missed out on hiking this weekend due to acting on MetService’s warnings for the Auckland Region that did not eventuate (except for parts of the Waitakare ranges) until well into the Evening.

It would be timely to Note, this non-expert opinion from myself does not include MetService’s Marine (Swell and Wind), Mountain and inland forecasts, which I hear are at least a little bit more on the mark if not more, with the Mountain forecasts being reasonable enough in the times I’ve needed to refer to them.

I’m not quite sure what it is, I do get the weather is simply the weather, but to date, much of the rain forecasting for Auckland just “isn’t quite there” to be of tangible enough benefit. It’s almost despite advances in technology, we’ve hit right into the walls of diminishing returns, as in, every Dollar being put into improving weather forecasting accuracy is now returning very little, if any improvement… as if we’ve hit a ceiling.

Some critics whom are more critical of the MetService forecasts suggest using MetVUW instead, to be honest, I don’t know how much better MetVUW are… While I’ve found the longer term rain forecasts perhaps slightly more on the mark, they may not be that much more reliable as people are lead to believe.

One of the reasons offered for the current state of Auckland’s rain forecasts appear to be that we’re coastal and that there are far less data points available to go on as opposed to an inland location on a larger continent, where there will often be many more weather stations and monitors in between the said Inland location and the coast.

I’ve called financial market and economic forecasting a “mug’s game” before.  Could the same term apply to weather forecasting at least with regards to the rain forecast specifically in Auckland? It would seem that both forecasting systems rely, at least in substantial part, on computers crunching numbers. Anyway, It would be fair to say, there is undeniably perhaps a bit of “Boy who cried wolf” effect creeping in to my psychology as the MetService has issued multiple rain Warnings in the past only to have no or not very much rain occur in the majority of the Auckland Region.

The plan from here on in. If the MetService issues rain warnings again and we’re planning to head out for a day hike or other activity, on the Morning of the Activity…

• Look at the Rain radar on the MetService website.
• Briefly review the Rain forecast maps on both the MetVUW and MetService website.
• Look out the Windows or go outside to assess.

If the live rain map really is looking dire, then cancel or perhaps delay departure, if not (only patches of isolated rain), then continue with plans. Regardless of the forecast, always be prepared for change of weather, bring rain gear always and be prepared to abort if the weather changes en-route.

General random photos from today. 25th Pasifika Festival at Western Springs during the day and later on “While you were sleeping” feature consisting of an iceberg texture projected on the walls of the Auckland Museum.

Having watched the awe inspiring trailer on the “While you were sleeping” page combined with the word “cinematic” along with the recommendation to “bring a blanket and a themo” at the bottom of the page, I have to admit, I was perhaps anticipating may be some transition to different varied imagery or may be even a few photo snap shots or videos of some Antarctic expeditions being creatively incorporated with the display.

The display itself was more maybe a slow gradual animating texture with an orchestral musical score playing in the background rather than being a “cinematic” show. In my mind, it didn’t quite lend itself to being a “sit back and watch” affair. In order to get the most out of the evening display itself, it requires one to circumnavigate the Museum Building… albeit slowly. Was good in itself as a 10 minute side visit (drop in) while going to or from one’s main evening activities in town.

Parked Vehicle spontaneously catches fire. Fire Brigade called and arrived in 2 minutes.

Not sure what caused it. Neighbour saw it and said the engine bay started smoking. Firefighters did a jolly good job in putting it out. Continue reading “Vehicle Fire” →

This falls well into the Cool Story Bro Category (at least more so than usual), so only read if you have an excess amount of time on your hands.

En route to collecting my Faceborg messenger messages tonight, took a curious side road to look at some 1080 anti- / pro- groups that for some reason which escapes me, regularly gets suggested to me in Faceborg’s User Interface side panel (somewhere)

To this day, I still struggle to see as a common pleb why 1080 is such an explosive topic. I think the first and only discussion I had ever about 1080 was while being driven by a Corporate Cabs Taxi Driver to the Airport (for our Software Conference / Technical symposium in Melbourne for work)… Appears she (The driver of the cab) came from a family of avid Duck Hunters, I mentioned I tramped the Cape Brett track and I was asked. “DId you noticed how quiet it was?”

While I feel perhaps both sides on balance have presented good arguments, a curious glance through the various Facebook 1080 groups, intellectual dialog over the matter appears to be (at least in part) trounced by petty tribalism. it is clear that this issue has turned a select few grown middle age / baby boomer aged types virtually into petulant children.

I imagine if the aforementioned participants in question stepped back for a while, and reviewed their behavior as a 3rd person, then they’ll probably realize how childish they’ve all been acting. (To me, it’s yet another mass pre-occupation away from bigger wider reaching societal issues that I feel matter more to us in the longer term)

All I will say is that “In the Abyss the truth lives” Continue reading “Things one may not understand” →

Flew to Wellington, stayed overnight in Wellington at the Cambridge Hotel near town. Visited Te Papa, Parliament (doing the Parliaments Highlights tour), Botanic Gardens (Taking the cable car up), Mount Victoria.  Weather was wet pretty much the entire time I was there, with some brief periods of the sun trying to break through.

Next day, decided to leave the wet weather behind, grabbed a hire car from the Wellington Thrifty Branch and headed north, via Wairarapa before staying the night in Palmerston North / Manuwatu

On the next morning, the Wet weather had caught me up, visited Manawatu Gorge then drove onwards to Whanganui before heading to Taumarunui for a snooze.

On the final leg, stopped by Ruakuri caves and then headed directly back to Auckland.

Pictures of Epiphyllum Oxypetalum Flowers. Opens only once a year at night.

—

23rd June 2020: This plant is no longer in my possession and has since been given to a relative down country.

Have been receiving the occasional inquiry about where to possibly acquire this plant (or clippings of) from site visitors both locally and overseas. If people know of any Garden centres (or otherwise) in New Zealand that may be able to supply this plant or otherwise assist, please do state in the comments below to help out fellow Netizens :o) Thanks!

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Very short stop at Omeru Falls and a much needed swim in between errands. Pictures (as usual) posted to NUI.NZ

A while ago, there was a project involving setting up some sort of Forum for arranging social events outside of Meetup and Facebook for a group of friends.

Webs Domains were purchased, web space was purchased and Multiple Examples were set up for evaluation including Oxwall, Adhoc BuddyPress, PHPBB3, Family Connections, and some cloud hosted services such as Google+, Google Groups, even a try of Meetup itself (Seriously derailed).

After capitulating last year and allowing myself to be assimilated into the Face-borg collective, I now have an understanding what they really meant by “Forum”, it wasn’t a web based forum at all that I assumed many were thinking of, it’s basically a chat / instant messaging program they were talking about.

After reviewing Slack, Mattermost, Tox Chat among others, came across Riot.IM / Matrix.org. The Riot.IM product appears to cover most of the main points I’ve been looking out for…

• Federated open inter-operable standard. (Can host your own server and get it talk to other servers), much in the same way Email is currently.
• Open Source
• Option to Encrypt the group chat.
• Option to make it private or public.
• Ability to attach pictures
• Emoji’s (All important to some)

The example chatroom I set up “Tarawera” seems to work okay on my Windows 10 Desktop using the Google Chrome Browser and also using the Riot.IM app on my Xperia Z2 Android device.

Now, apparently there’s voice chat available. There’s an Icon on the web-based interface for it, but haven’t tried it out yet,

In short, this is probably my best chance so far at trying to release the grip that the proprietary corporate platforms (Such as Facebook and WeChat) currently have on my friends for communicating with one another.

If anyone would like to try, please contact me and will send you an invite.

Short little walk around Ngaruawahia and up to Hakarimata Summit again. This track gains around 300-350m elevation up mostly stairs. Popular with Waikato locals as an exercise and fitness training track.

Conditions were cloudy on the walk up to the summit, then later started clearing as I made my descent back down.

Did two hikes over the weekend. One was an explore around Waiorongomai, near Te Aroha and a much refreshing stream hike down Piha Valley Stream.