Daniel Collins
Water, climate change, science, policy, and people. Particularly floods, adaptation, and uncertainty. Dad, Pākehā/Ngāpuhi, MIT PhD, Ōtautahi/New Zealand.
- A new creative project: postage stamp mosaics. It's not unique, but I can find ways to add my own flair. Here: the 1982 24-cent map of NZ, tiled to reflect lat-long divisions. I have plans to explore other themes and other silhouettes, and possibly also an online market place. Any requests?
- On removing Māori words from early readers: "Languages are living and local. As such, our educational resources should support our tamariki's evolving communication needs here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Structured literacy need not exclude cultural legacy." www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/3607...
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- Can anyone help my to identify the artist? It's from an old family photo, probably taken in France.
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- For Christchurch folks, I'll be giving a talk at the art gallery on the water cycle as seen through art. I'll be weaving together art, science, history, politics, and geography to build a story of hydrology and hydrological change. Come along if you can! Or let's chat if you can't!
- ✅ Submission on the Regulatory Standards Bills. With limited time & technical expertise I focused on the Principles. ❌ They ignore personal well-being; public goods; Te Tiriti; etc. No balance. ❌ They presume values & costs of legislation can be monetised. ❌ They are un-Kiwi. Into the bin with it.
- Cake decorating videos are a lie. They make it look much easier than it is 😫 Buttercream frosting does NOT. STICK. TO. SPONGE. CAKE.
- It's not as crystal clear as scientific measurements, but looking at historical postage stamps (NZ) can paint a picture of retreating glaciers. Particularly for the Fox Glacier (bottom).
- These stamps of Aoraki/Mt Cook are from 1898. Among the earliest stamps globally not to feature portraits. On the left, the Hooker Glacier is probably the white area beneath the mountain. But would the view on the right also have included the glacier?
- This 1946 NZ stamp shows a view of Lake Matheson on the West Coast, with Aoraki and Mt Tasman visible in the distance. It also shows a sliver of the Fox Glacier, just above the distant trees - alas, not a view we can see today.
- How long should it take large firms to pay invoices from contracted consultants? It's now 4 weeks, with two reminders. If there were two bread-winners in the house, or if I had more time outside parenting to bring in work, it wouldn't be so dicy. ... The burdens of the precariat.
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- For people in Christchurch, the Linwood Community Arts Centre has their annual exhibit of artists new to exhibiting. Go check it out! There's even a piece by me, melding scientific data and historical art to comment on our shrinking glaciers under climate change. www.linwoodarts.org/first-steps-...
- Happy Pi Day! May your Ides turn into pies, with a simple rotation of the 'Id' by π.
- The NZ government's new school lunch programme is disgraceful, poor quality, wasteful of food and funding, and dangerous. www.nzherald.co.nz/gisborne-her...
- For something completely different from my normal fare, a piece of glaciological art I recently completed. 'Fox Glacier, not looking up' Draws from a 19th C watercolour, glacier length time-series, and reference to a painter who drew inspiration from a geologist.
- Along my te reo Māori journey, I am enamoured by the kupu hou 'wahapū', relating to either eloquence or to the mouth of a river (etc).
- What are good* alternatives to Facebook? Friendica and Diaspora seem up there. * similar functionality * low hurdle for adoption * better privacy
- Q for artists & art gallery staff. I wish to make some transformative art based on digital images of copyright-lapsed, NZ works. Respectful, but manipulated. Obv I approach gallery owner. Is permission necessary, or just good manners? Could it just come down to whether they like the creative idea?
- With apples and pears galore, the 'pop' of the lids is the happy sound of PV = nRT in action.
- The most audacious treasure hunt I've prepared for my 5 y.o. son yet. A 2-day trip to and through the Waitaki. 🪨 Rocks 🐧 Wildlife 🛝 Playgrounds 🖍️ Art 🎸 Tom Petty 🤯 Core memory
- I'm doing some research for a talk on water (and climate change) as seen through art, and I'm finding some poignant gems. Particularly Colin McCahon's blurred landscape 'Tomorrow will be the same but not as this is' (1958-59). Can you say 'non-stationarity'?
- Reposted by Daniel CollinsScientists developed the first climate models in the late 1960s (for which the Nobel Prize in physics was recently awarded!). How have these models held up against what happened in the real world after they were published? Surprisingly well, it turns out:
- A new letterbox, for when your street needs more colour, puns, and literary references.
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- I find it a happy coincidence that 'tika' (te reo Māori) and 'tickety-boo' (English) have very similar meanings.
- My second year learning te reo Māori done ✅ NZ Certificate in te Reo level 4. The journey started as a way of being a better Dad; emboldened by racism. Toitu te reo.
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- To the tune of 'Blue Skies': Bluesky smiling at me Nothing but Bluesky do I see The blue bird’s tweeting has gone Followers transferred, from now on Never saw a spike in social media flight Sever their links to the hell site Noticing the folks finding their tribe When they arrive, feeling the vibe
