Flooding, Saying goodbye, Religious spam and more...

As most readers will know, I live in Auckland, which has been subject to torrential rain this weekend, resulting in wide-spread flooding, and three people dead, so far. It was certainly a record-setting event, with close to 300 mm of rain recorded over a 36 hour period at one site, and nearly 250 mm of rain at Auckland Airport (which was closed due to the resulting flooding). It's fairly safe to say that the amount of rain we got can be attributed, at least partly, to climate change. Expect more of the same in coming years.

This past week has been quite sad for me. We had to say goodbye to our dog Darwin. I hope you'll indulge me in some reflections on the experience.

One of the most frequent questions I encounter, whether serious or not, is about driving an EV in the rain, or through a carwash. Of course, EVs are well built, and the normal expectation of driving is that they encounter wet weather all the time. Of what use would windscreen wipers be otherwise?

Over the past couple of weeks, people have been reporting getting unsolicited messages via Facebook Messenger from various religious accounts. I got one myself, and thinking it was just ridiculous, immediately blocked the account. Here's a couple:

For years, my hobby has been to walk the streets and collect up religious propaganda – most commonly, multicoloured 'Free Tickets to Heaven'.

Henry VIII was the sixteenth century Tudor king famously known for having six wives with mainly scandalous fates - divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, and survived. It is less known that he also had an interest in amateur medicine. This interest went further than most, fuelled in particular by a painful and persistent ulcerous sore on his leg that came upon him early in his reign, and what appears to be some sort of unpleasant sexually transmitted infection.

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