Pete's April 2022 update
How to name your hedgehog
No Hoglets at Dawn
Young hedgehogs are called hoglets, you guys! Well, in our case, the first two hoglets we saw were called “Hokey” and “Pokey”.
Let’s go back a bit.
In the beginning New Zealand had no land mammals. Then came rats and mice and rabbits and stoats and ferrets and weasels and hedgehogs. (Oh my!) We have rabbits and rats and mice on our property, so I set some rat traps around our compost bins. The traps are in special wooden boxes that make sure only the right things get in and that retribution is swift and certain.
But the rats and mice were getting cheeky and taking all the chocolate without setting off the traps. So I got creative and, one night, set the trap closer to the metal grate at the front of the trap, to make it more difficult for them to manoeuvre the bait from the trigger.
And the next morning I learned that we had a hedgehog.
Had.
It was enormous.
A few days later we saw a couple of small hedgehogs wandering around the garden, catching some sun. So cute! They wandered under some flax plants and we lost them.
But that evening at dusk our neighbour called to say she spotted them in our vege garden. That’s a big no-no. So I popped down and rolled them into a box so I could relocate them. Our neighbour named them “Hokey and Pokey”.
Left the box in the orchard. Next morning they were gone, never to be seen again. (But alive, y’all. They just wandered off.)
Cut to a few days later when Lucy sees an even smaller one curled up on the grass in the sun. (The first photo, up top.) Now we do some research and learn that they’re nocturnal would only be out in the sun if it’s sick or have been disturbed. (Y’know, the way you might feel if you’re a tiny hoglet and your parent and two siblings have been taken away from you… 😢) But all the info was from the UK and pretty much said a) take it to a hedgehog rescue place (ummm), and b) it’s probably too late to help it.
So we put some water and a box out for it, and hope for the best.
We came back later that day and it was gone, never to be seen ag— wait!
Late dusk. It’s dark, and I’m heading up from the woodshed. In the wide beam of the headtorch I see a small lump at the bend in the path. It’s the littlest hoglet! It scurries into the Macrocarpa hedge, but it’s alive. It’s OK.
So we named it “Okie Dokie”.
April highlights
Startups supported: 16. Most through Giants, UNSW, INCUBATE, and Antler.
I discovered my car has dedicated physical buttons for setting the clock in the dashboard. In an era of touch screens and hidden settings I find that utterly delightful. Quaint, even! Does Japan even have daylight savings? (Internet says: “The previous DST change in Japan was on September 8, 1951.”)
Lit our first fire for the year.
“I dug another hole.”
Not really. I’ll be doing that soon enough, though, to put some fences up around our property. I did, however, build another thing. A few things, actually, including a sliding gate that matches our deck. It took hours to attach those balusters one-by-one.
Doing all this cutting and drilling and whatnot with only hand tools makes me think there’s some kind of metaphor re handtools vs machines and code vs no-code. But it’s really not the most relatable metaphor.
Applied for NZ drivers licence, which is a long story in itself. It took four visits to two libraries and two visits to the AA (Automotive Association, equivalent to NRMA in Australia) to get all the paperwork printed and accepted. 🙄
Made lots of coffee, chocolates, hot cross buns and bread. I also had a birthday; one that, for the first time since 2019, went to plan.
Earned a whopping US$31.26 on Medium for March, sold a few more books, and good traction on the Generalist jobs board. But I haven’t been putting much time into anything, as much as I’d love to be. 👇
My week is broken into two extremes: long days in front of the computer with little movement; and weekends outside doing physical work and listening to books. I could feel a bit frustrated that there’s more creative stuff I’d like to be doing, but it’s also really nice to just be doing things that make our two lives a little bit nicer. An audience of two (100% retention!) and a few appreciative birds and invasive mammals.
Watch! Listen! Read!
[Read: 5 minutes] Algospeak. Cory Doctorow explains how people have adapted how they speak and write to avoid algorithmic censorship.
[Read: 5 minutes] Reading a book about a protagonist with Tourette Syndrome. A wholesome Reddit post. Scroll through the comments to see a little story unfold.
[Watch: 5 minutes] Moonlight Sonata dubstep remix. The title and editing and captions are very much a product of today’s style of clickbait and immediacy and storytelling. But it’s also pretty cool.
[Read: extremely long read] Wait But Why massive deep dive on picking a career. I read a bit of it in batches, then skimmed to the end. Some interesting concepts, but I’ve just been through much of this process so didn’t need to read it too closely: https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html
Audiobooks: Kaiju Preservation Society (John Scalzi) is a ‘pop song’ romp of an adventure novel, and very enjoyable if you enjoy that kind of thing.
Just One Damned Thing After Another (Jodi Taylor) is another adventure romp that mixes musty academia with technology, heists, and villains.
Light from Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki) combines violins and deals with the devil and queer experience and science fiction.
Still Just a Geek is Wil Wheaton’s revisit of his 2004 memoir, with annotations from 2021 Wil Wheaton and then audio annotations he made while recording the audiobook version — some of which made me laugh out loud.TV: The Snowpiercer series ended well, which was a pleasant surprise. The final season was pretty much the way it had to be in 2022. (The movie is still terrible.) Unfortunately we watched the latest season right after re-watching the Battlestar Galactica (2004 reboot) and there was a LOT of themic similarity. I recommend them both, just not in succession.
[Watch: 6 minutes or 60 minutes] Stumbled on this Harvard lecture on American music as metaphor by Wynton Marsalis. This short clip explores the road to the kit drum as we know it today. The whole lecture is worth watching (1 hour): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2SOU6wwxB0tGvaMpGCoEnS2EI8GSlf2u
“Stories are a Trojan Horse for the human heart. Rather than repel them, we gladly bring them inside where they change us from within.” — Author Hugh Howey
Echidna infants are “puggles”; but native to Australia/PNG unlike your hedgehogs. Any possums?