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Reposted by Mike Dickison

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 10h

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 14h

When living on the Coast I grew weary of the "staunch characters" in charge of multi-million-dollar budgets and decisions about climate change response whose competence was perhaps up to running a small gold dredge.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 14h

Opinion piece.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 15h

Sorry, missed out the word “surprised”.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 15h

Grant argued that unless you’d had surgery you weren’t “really” trans, just a silly kid experimenting with an alternative lifestyle. It was pretty gross. So if you were assuming a trans mayor will be cool and progressive and not just capping rates, think again. www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/3607...

The Press

www.thepress.co.nz

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 15h

When I lived in Hokitika we started getting this thing in our letterboxes. Anti-vax, anti-fluoridation, pro-Putin; the usual cooker nonsense. So I was to find Jacqui Grant, now mayor of Westland, appearing in it.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Great Southern Bioblitz @gsbioblitz.bsky.social · 2d

Join the Mahoe Reserve Bioblitz in Lincoln!
🗓 Sat 25 Oct 2025, 2–4 pm
Help Canterbury Museum & Lincoln Envirotown record local species for the #GSB2025.
🦋 Explore, identify & learn — all ages welcome!
📱 Bring iNaturalist & your curiosity!
#BioBlitz #Christchurch #CitizenScience #Nature

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 15h

Sadly I shall be in Portugal.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Idiot/Savant @norightturnnz.bsky.social · 23h

Today is a reminder that the next government will need to start its term with an Omnibus Repeal Bill, to revert all National's bullshit to the status quo ante pre 2023.

And if Labour won't commit to that, you should vote for parties who will.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 22h

Have been reading this history of 20 years of xenophobic gunboat diplomacy and massacre by psychopathic Portuguese as they kickstarted globalisation 500 years ago, and it’s maybe not the best prep for a trip to Portugal.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

We do now!

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

Yup, Grant is def Cooker-aligned.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

Live tweeting the queue at Duck Island Ice Cream #Ōtautahi

Happy people waiting for ice cream on a lovely warm evening

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 2d

Good on you mate!

Reposted by Mike Dickison

the Juice Media @thejuicemedia.com · 2d

The Government of New Zealand has made a new tourism ad and it's surprsingly honest and informative!

Honest Government Ad | Visit New Zealand!

YouTube video by thejuicemedia

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Idiot/Savant @norightturnnz.bsky.social · 2d

Current progress so far:

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 2d

It's #NautilusNight!⁣ The common name "paper nautilus" for the genus Argonauta comes from the Greek ναυτίλος nautílos, meaning "sailor". People once believed these octopuses used two of their arms as sails, as seen in this #SciArt from "Zoography" (1807) www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/54312693 🧪

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Join me online in few minutes if you want to help with this.

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Here's how you can help make a book of 19th century fairy tales available for everyone to read for free.
Frances Brownes was a 19th century Irish poet ("the blind poetess of Donegal"), whose best-known work is Granny's Wonderful Chair, an 1857 fairytale collection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

The only photo of Frances Browne, circa 1879

Frontispiece from the 1906 edition of Granny's Wonderful Chair, illustration by Dora Curtis.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 3d

lede = introductory section in journalism

bury the lede = hiding the most relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information

Allegedly, it’s spelled ‘lede’ to avoid confusion with ‘lead,’ which was the strip of metal that would separate lines of type.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Here's how you can help make a book of 19th century fairy tales available for everyone to read for free.
Frances Brownes was a 19th century Irish poet ("the blind poetess of Donegal"), whose best-known work is Granny's Wonderful Chair, an 1857 fairytale collection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

If you're on the OU campus, join @thneed.bsky.social in the library's seminar room 2 at 12:30, or me online at whereby.com/wikimeet at 11:30, for a quick Wikisource lesson so you can help with transcribing. We might be able to get the whole book done in time to share with the festival attendees.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Why do this, when with a bit of sleuthing you can find multiple scanned editions online? Wikisource produces a nicely-formatted EPUB, which works with an eReader or screen reader—good if you're vision is impaired. And the out-of-copyright book and images can be freely shared and remixed.

Category:Granny's Wonderful Chair, and its Tales of Fairy Times (1857 1st ed.) - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

But @thneed.bsky.social and I thought it would be great if there was a transcribed, proofread version of the book's first edition available too. So I've set up a Wikisource crowdsourced editing project; anyone can help out. en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:G...

Granny's Wonderful Chair (1857) frontispiece by Kenny Meadows.

Granny's Wonderful Chair (1857) illustration by Kenny Meadows; frightened children, malevolent woman, cat, huge raven—hitting all the buttons here.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

There's now an annual Frances Browne literary festival in Ballybofey-Stranorlar, and Tom McLean, Professor of English at Otago, is over there at the moment to give a talk and run a workshop on writing a Wikipedia article about Granny's Wonderful Chair. www.francesbrowneliteraryfestival.com

Excerpt from programme: "A fascinating workshop with Professor Thomas McLean on how to find and use historical letters for research and writing inspiration." and "Learn how to update Wikipedia with local knowledge."

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Here's how you can help make a book of 19th century fairy tales available for everyone to read for free.
Frances Brownes was a 19th century Irish poet ("the blind poetess of Donegal"), whose best-known work is Granny's Wonderful Chair, an 1857 fairytale collection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

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