#DinnerTonight was an attempt at spinach pide. Neither had quite the right shape but they were fun to make and tasty. http://recipetineats.com/pide-turkish-flat-bread/

#food #cooking

Got 90% of the way toward buying a new car (an EV!), and then backed out at the part where I sign the loan because I'm fundamentally opposed to fees. (Fees are theft. It's how rich people become rich - not by working, but by stealing tiny amounts of money from a large number of other people.)

So now I will wait out the next three months until I can pay for the whole thing in one go without having to do a loan.

My morning commute starts out with lots and lots of going east. For the past month, I was walking it while waiting for the sun to get high enough up that I could scoot or bike without being blind.

But wait! Daylight Savings! Let's instant replay the whole sun in my eyes thing for another month!

T.T

I seem to have lost the ability to favourite posts. :|

Today I learned that tofu imported from overseas is a quarter of the price of tofu made in New Zealand. o.O

Today I learned that the tune to Battle Hymn of the Republic, which is a patriotic song that children learn in the US, is also the tune to Solidarity Forever.

Last night we sang the latter to close out a union-hosted political debate, and my brain was short circuiting on the words. >.>

also, not pictured: plunger coffee from a guy who just started roasting locally, also from yesterday's market. :)

#food Breakfast this morning: handmade bagels from yesterday's market, spread with chili goat cheese from yesterday's market. A winning combination!

father-in-law to spouse: "all but one political party wants to raise taxes on your future inheritance. Think about that when you vote."

me (much later after the conversation was over): "would you rather give him a pile of money, or for him to have access to high quality publicly funded healthcare in his old age? Would you rather give your grandkids money, or for them to have access to high quality public education so that they have a good start in life?"

(Now to figure out how to start another argument about politics I guess.)

#nzpol

Update: I went back to the store and got it swapped out with another one.
Then I cooked and ate the new one, before it could swell up at me.

There were two other packages of tofu involved in #DinnerTonight that were always fine. Mapo tofu uses up a lot and then we eat so much of it at once that there's never enough leftovers, alas.

Umm... so... What do I do if the tofu has clearly produced a ton of gas in this package?

CHINA BUILDS.
WHILE WE CONSULT 💎

I watched this video this afternoon:

What China Is Building Today Is Almost Impossible to Believe.
https://youtu.be/5qUfZ2FRQtk?si=D3lqpaV0-x1f2G5b

The title is breathless, I know, but the underlying story is worth discussing.

China is not just building bridges, railways, power lines, cities and tunnels.

It has built an enormous capacity to build.

Construction equipment is being produced in highly automated factories. New cities are being designed with utilities underground from the start. Vast power transmission systems move electricity thousands of kilometres. Water is diverted across entire regions. Rail, roads, logistics, energy and manufacturing are being developed together rather than as isolated projects.

It is staggering.

In Xiongan, for example, infrastructure that older cities struggle to retrofit is being designed in from the start. China has also built thousands of kilometres of underground utility corridors so power, water and communications can be maintained without repeatedly digging up streets.

Now, I am not suggesting that everything China builds is wise.

Some projects carry serious environmental, political and strategic costs. Speed and scale do not automatically equal good government.

But I keep coming back to something else.

WHEN DID SO MANY OF US LOSE THE ABILITY TO BUILD BIG THINGS?

We seem increasingly good at discussing, regulating, consulting, reviewing, financing, objecting and delaying.

China still seems capable of deciding that something enormous should exist...

And then it makes it exist.

I don’t think the answer is to copy China.

But it does mean asking an uncomfortable question about ourselves.

How did wealthy, technologically advanced societies become so hesitant about building the physical future?

Housing, rail, energy, water, public transport, infrastructure.

None of these things is mysterious.

They require planning, money, engineering, political commitment and the willingness to keep going for longer than one election cycle.

China’s great advantage may not simply be that it builds faster.

It may be that it still thinks of infrastructure as a system, rather than a collection of individual problems dealt with one at a time.

We do not need less democracy.

But perhaps we do need to remember that democracy is also supposed to be capable of doing things.

@3goodthings
@DigitalCoup
@meditation
@economics_that_works

#China #Infrastructure #Cities #PublicTransport #Engineering #Future #democracy #infrastructure #energy #future

Spring has sprung. There's useful sun reaching the ground in the front yard again. It only lasts a couple hours so far, but long enough that it's worth putting out the solar farm. #solarpunk

Update: I've just found out that there's an electricity plan available at Genesis that would allow charging an EV at ChargeNet stations for the same price as home charging. There's a ChargeNet station down the street from us (within walking distance). So maybe I'll just do that then! Problem solved!

Switching to an EV as a renter Step One:
Move to a house with an internal access garage that has a plug outlet.

I still can't afford to buy anything because I'm too old to be trusted with a mortgage, and the housing market steadfastedly refuses to crash, so now I need to find a place to live with lots of available rentals.

So, Step One: get a job that lets me live in a place with lots of rentals.

Le sigh.

It occurs to me that if we were to guillotine one NZ billionaire and divide up his $billion equally amongst the other 5 million of us, we'd each have $200 million.

So... I guess the best way to improve my personal lot in life is to bring down capitalism.

I found recipes for Dominican dumplings, so basically I ended up just boiling everything as is. Worked fine with the marinara sauce I had going. It wasn't haute cuisine, but we did end up fed.

#food #cooking #pasta

Suppose that I was super optimistic about making pasta from semolina flour. And then it turns out I don't have anywhere near the physical strength to knead and roll the dough into actual pasta.

What are my options for what to do with the dough next? I've kneaded it into minimal elasticity, and then hand cranked it through the widest rollers once, and I'm definitely done with my aerobics and strength training workouts for the day.

Meanwhile spouse and I are hungry. o.O

#DinnerTonight was spinach feta gozleme (https://www.recipetineats.com/gozleme/).

I slid the slider from four servings to two, and wish I hadn't, because the proportions of dough ingredients came out really weird, and then I improvised, and the end result wasn't quite right. Overall it was still very tasty though.

On the bright side, making the dough was inspirational. It really did turn into a clean elastic ball! Now I'm likely to make stuffed flatbreads out of all sorts of fillings, and I'm more motivated to try pasta.

#food #cooking

#nzpol

Getting it in at the last minute (due tomorrow at noon!), but here's what I've just submitted:

I oppose the Conservation Amendment bill because Aotearoa's land is not a commodity to be bought and sold, nor otherwise exploited, for private profit. I oppose the bill because I oppose the greater mission of this government to take apart everything that makes this country great and sell off its parts. 

The Conservation Amendment bill should be abandoned. Public land is for the public, for the wildlife, and for all of nature which has a rights to be. 

The parliament website to submit at is here: https://www3.parliament.nz/en/ECommitteeSubmission/54SCENV_SCF_BD7D0F89-D8CB-42F7-9C5F-08DEABEDA048/CreateSubmission

And ideas for what to write can be found here: https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/story/conservation-amendment-bill-submission-guide/?utm_medium=nickofnz&utm_content=postid-77702&utm_source=mastodon