on dec. 14th 2005, a small government-chartered airplane (the smallest airplane that i’ve ever been on) took a total of 4 passengers to a small island off the coast of a small island off the coast of new zealand: codfish island [G] (whenua hou in maori language) is located east of steward island, which is just south of NZ’s south island.

in the 1980s all non-native predators (possums, rats, stouts, cats, …) were eradicated from the island, which is now one of new zealand’s bird sanctuaries. apart from endangered species like the kākā¹, kākāriki² and the southern short-tailed bat³, it is also (and most importantly) the home of the kakapo (strigops habroptilus).
to be exact, it’s one of the two homes of the kakapo: codfish and chalky island.

the kakapo is a critically endangered parrot species that has some pretty exceptional qualities. i’ll just name a few:

• it can’t fly, and weighs up to 4kg (which makes it the heaviest parrot).
• it’s nocturnal.
• it has facial feathers like a typical owl, and “whiskers” like a cat.
• it has a sophisticated “lek” breeding system (unique in the order of parrots).
• courtship behaviour also includes “self-inflating” of the males until they look like green basketballs, then producing very low-frequency sounds (”booming”) to attract the females.
• it only breeds every few years, probably depending on rimu fruit abundance.
• it’s probably the longest-living bird overall (the oldest living kakapo, richard-henry, was captured over 30 years ago and is believed to be about 50 years old).
• and - much to its disadvantage - it doesn’t really know what to do when a predator is near, which is why there are only 86 (!) individuals left on.

i was already …”in the general area” (new zealand, that is), so i seized the chance [more...]

my old bank recently sent me a letter, asking whether i’m still a student. if i didn’t send them a confirmation, they would have to change my “free” student bank account into a regular one, it said.
i had switched banks (and suspended my account there) more than a year ago.

totally unrelated:
i’m currently in the market for a waistcoat.
when i asked at one store, the salesman spoke very slowly, trying to get his answer to not sound rude. he ended up telling me (in the nicest way he could) that, since nobody under the age of 50 is wearing that anymore, they don’t stock that kind of clothing.
the general reaction was similar at several stores - and yet, there are a few stores that do still sell waistcoats…

in the recently-published book “hibernation” by clive roots, one of my bat-photos was used to illustrate the size of the smallest hibernating mammal:

gotta post this as long as it’s fresh:

i’m just boldly assuming that you already know the free hugs video from sydney (thx caro).
my friend lisa saw it too, and she decided to start the same thing here in innsbruck…
 

it seems strangely …unreal and long ago now (just 12 hours later), but it was incredible.
i stopped by to take photos and enjoy some hugs myself, and the reactions that i witnessed were just amazing.
some people were just smiling and silently sneaked by, others were hesitant and seemed to think “i could give it a try”, and lots of them* just did it. there was so much positive energy!
* my general impression of tyroleans involves adjectives like stubborn and close-mouthed (relatively, of course), so i was REALLY surprised about how many passersby went for the free hugs.

[view photos: free hugs in innsbruck]

more photos will be posted here in the course of the day…

even more links: [more...]

just another bunch of unsorted cellphone snapshots…

the photo on the right comes with an additional soundfile.

the background: humanities campus consists of just about the crappiest of all university buildings - some of the lecture rooms had to be closed down because parts of the ceiling were coming down. its system of elevators is the only one in innsbruck (that i can think of) that i absolutely don’t trust.
when there was a fire alarm two weeks ago, i also noticed that every floor seems to have their own alarm signal. i set my mp3-player to record when we walked down two storeys and out of the building, and you can hear a mix of the different signals.

in case you’re wondering: voice#1 says “you have to leave this building”, and voice#2 (that’s me) asks whether it’s a real fire alarm, which #1 doesn’t know either.
in the end, it turned out that one of the janitors hat unintentionally cut a wrong wire…

[view photos: more cellphone snapshots]

a few days ago, i came across the scenery of a geek-fight in innsbruck:

the second SSID is HimmelsTor (gate to heaven), and apparently somebody named their own wireless network Schlund_der_Hölle (hell’s abyss) in response.

back at sydney’s airport: 15 minutes after the plane started rolling to the runway, the captain announced “it may feel like we’re driving all the way to new zealand, but we’re not. in fact, we’ll be at the runway in a few minutes!”

i received a warm welcome to new zealand by julieanne and her friend martin, who spent a lot of time showing me around, and …basically made me feel like they were my personal 24-hour-tourguides (i was also staying at julieanne’s).
they took me out on scenic drives around the banks peninsula [G], namely to the port of lyttelton (the location of one of the last working time-balls) and akaroa, a little town way out in the east of the peninsula.

back in 1840 (the same year that the british claimed the south island), the french created a settlement there and tried to establish a colony. it’s still considered an artsy french town, and still has lots of french place and street names.

[more...]