Alistair K
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libroraptor.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy
Alistair K
@libroraptor.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy
Historian, mainly of science, art, tools and architecture in early modern Europe.

Research thesis supervisor.

ICOM-UMAC.

Editor and writer of academic and […]

[bridged from https://mastodon.nz/@libroraptor on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
@va2lam @joncounts @inlaing They have something similarly iced: the black-and-white cookie or half-moon cookie. In New Haven they were about 15 cm across and the line between the black and the white was never centred, never straight, and the icing was often mealy or drippy. It's hard to get it […]
Original post on mastodon.nz
mastodon.nz
December 19, 2025 at 10:03 AM
@joncounts @inlaing One of the greengrocers here was saying a couple of weeks ago that he always sells more stonefruit and strawberries at double price before they're ready than when at normal price in peak season because people have such a strong need for stonefruit and strawberries for Christmas.
December 19, 2025 at 9:54 AM
@joncounts @inlaing They taste like cheap artificial vanillin to me – they're missing the deep cookie flavour from the butter and flour.

There was a Mrs-something brand that sold at little street kiosks, freshly baked, something like the big soft chewy ones that you get in New England, but I […]
Original post on mastodon.nz
mastodon.nz
December 18, 2025 at 9:21 PM
@joncounts These cookies puzzle me immensely. They're popular far beyond their quality, in my opinion. But I suppose that my opinion is grossly unpopular.
December 18, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Alistair K
One of the scariest parts of this project was learning more about Starlink's orbital operations. I had always assumed they had some kind of clever configuration of the satellites in the orbital shell that minimized conjunctions, and we would see the number of conjunctions grow over time. But no! […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 11, 2025 at 2:39 PM
@Niall @davemosk Good people rarely get press unlike these media frequent fliers in parliament and federated farmers. The system's designed to make us feel alone and weird.

A little group of us are starting a timebank here that's already helping to make apparent the normality and reality that […]
Original post on mastodon.nz
mastodon.nz
December 14, 2025 at 7:13 PM
@davemosk Maybe farmers, and the rest of us, could shift from fearing the law to doing what we should.
December 12, 2025 at 8:49 PM
@jevvv I don't think that you can get the US-style buttermilk here, so what you make won't taste like the US one. I've had it over there and was impressed but not in a positive way. It's basically junk food flavours.
December 10, 2025 at 8:14 PM
@grumpyyetamusin.bsky.social Given Collins' return from the dead, paranormal activity does not seem off-limits for the National Party.
December 10, 2025 at 8:11 PM
@pixelpusher220 I must post a listing for the double-ended knife I've been developing – cut twice as fast, both ways at once!

I even save YOU money but not wasting it on a handle!
December 10, 2025 at 3:52 AM
Reposted by Alistair K
Today we are calling on institutions around the world to take control of their #digitalsovereignty, including their social accounts. Governments should communicate directly with their citizens on open platforms, not through the mouthpiece of a corporation […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 9, 2025 at 11:07 AM
@grumpyyetamusin.bsky.social My current one once told me that she'd talk with the DHB and St John's about their handling of people in psychiatric distress (a psychotic friend, specifically, deep in hallucinations and paranoia, whom I'd been calming down while my wife phoned for help that never […]
Original post on mastodon.nz
mastodon.nz
November 27, 2025 at 9:29 PM
@SimonCHulse @cloventt We clearly need a feline precedent...
October 31, 2025 at 8:03 PM
@SimonCHulse @cloventt so my cat to driving a car is not illegal in the same way as for a Tesla algorithm driving a car? Because I don't recall any laws forbidding cats from doing this. Nor much else – plays right into the hands of those who say (erroneously) that the Law recognises the rights […]
Original post on mastodon.nz
mastodon.nz
October 31, 2025 at 7:54 PM
@cloventt I suspect that this is because we have old laws written by people who reasonably presumed that cars would have human drivers, and therefore didn't explicitly legislate a requirement for one.
October 30, 2025 at 11:05 PM
@lucky automation of so many kinds saps the joy from so many things
October 28, 2025 at 6:10 AM