Richard Easther

Father, husband, scientist, UoA prof; my opinions. He/him

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[Richard Easther @REasther]

@Samuel_Gregson Isn't JP in some sort of beef-and-benzos induced coma, in any case?

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@WKCosmo @skdh They drop off in the winter?

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@JosephMooneyMP Too early to say; so why not both :-) Bezos is right about there being no actual show-stoppers from a physics perspective I think. But there are multiple things that could derail it, and it is probably more a matter of decades than years.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@JosephMooneyMP But I do try to be as clear-eyed as I can be -- "space" has a far greater fraction of carpet baggers, hucksters and hype merchants than most fields and as someone who does a fair bit of media and commentary on the topic I think my job is to be a realist, not a cheerleader.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@JosephMooneyMP I am not in any way skeptical about the space sector and I've been championing this as an opportunity for New Zealand for, I suspect, longer than most people. And I am involved with actual space missions.

And I am pretty comfy with where I sit on the "scientific method".

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@CburgesCliff (You can use them as a credit card on a phone -- so I loaded an account with yen when I was in Japan and didn't pay transaction fees that my kiwi bank would charge)

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@CburgesCliff Effectively, possibly not "full" accounts in practice, but you can receive transfers -- so I got Euros (which was a bank with a Belgium address) shifted them to NZD inside Wyse and then transferred them to my local bank.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@JosephMooneyMP (It's a nice example of some late 19th C physics turning up in a very 21st C problem.)

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@JosephMooneyMP Why the snark? (Is that snark?) The answer to the problem is that the radiators are smaller than the solar panels and Bezos is right that the pure physics problems are less complex than they might appear.

The execution / engineering problems are where the challenges live.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@CburgesCliff No idea how it works in detail since the "accounts" may only be used occasionally-- and they must have squared the regulatory side so the "know your customer" verifications are just done the once.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@CburgesCliff You create an account in the country or region (in the case of Euros) that they pay the money into, and then you transfer it "home" with Wyse. (So Euros gets paid from Italy to my account in Belgium, then converted to NZD inside Wyse, and sent here) 1/2

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@LewSOS Thought you were imply that our Northern correspondent here was Chris Bishop's alt. Could be, I suppose.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@astrogrant My friends at Rocket Lab seem pretty happy.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@secondzeit TBF, if column inches paid off in votes, ACT would be at 20% -- from twerking on DWTS to sending out press releases like a million monkeys on meth who were SUPPOSED to be writing Hamlet -- they are in the news all the time.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@welt_woman @WKCosmo My 2c is that in the US North East you know it is going be v. hot in summer and v. cold in the winter and build accordingly - but the UK still sees itself as being "not that hot" at a gut level, so why would you put in an AC? But that prior has not caught up with 40 degree days.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@welt_woman @WKCosmo Something's killing y'all though :-/ When I was a kid nobody in New Zealand had AC but it is becoming common here because people are putting in heat pumps, which are mostly sold b/c they are more efficient at warming in winter, but are also lovely in summer...

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@HanumanKiJaiHo @DarrenWatson_NZ As others have pointed out, if they are sitting close to 5% whether they get over it or under it will be a key factor in forming the next parliament. I'd say they are newsworthy.

[Richard Easther @REasther]

@smallfry676 @dairymanNZ Seymour has fairly minimal private sector experience (if you don't count Canadian think tanks) and he is an effective politician.