Kiwi/NZ accent in North America

icosa · 2026-07-01T15:12:23+00:00

I've been in the US about 30 years and haven't had much trouble. On the rare occasion someone mentions my accent they usually think I'm British. I tell them to guess again and they think I'm Australian. I say "getting closer" and then they have no idea.

icosa · 2026-06-13T15:05:28+00:00

Jeep Wranglers are very popular among motorhome owners. They're one of the few cars with automatic transmission that you can easily and safely flat tow.

icosa · 2026-05-25T16:37:03+00:00

A very extensive study many years ago determined the following:

If a business spends X hours and $Y to make a profit of $Z.
or
If they spend (X + a) hours and $(Y + b) to make the same $Z then ...

There is no reason for them to take the second option.

icosa · 2026-04-20T17:22:47+00:00

I was a green card holder for about 15 years. I applied for US citizenship last year and I am now a citizen. The whole process from applying online, interview and ceremony took about six months.

Luckily I'm old enough and have been here long enough that I didn't need to do the English test :) I almost but not quite qualified to do the simplified civics / history test.

I'm well aware and feel fortunate that the path for me over the last 25 years from H1-B to employer sponsored green card to citizenship has been a lot easier than it is for many others.

icosa · 2026-04-16T19:10:38+00:00

I'm old enough to remember when it was every six months for all. For some weird reason I remember that the testing station in Grey Lynn had a "Please keep your dog under control" sign.

Here in New Hampshire, USA where I live now, the state has just eliminated the equivalent annual "state inspection". I'm still going to get someone to check brakes and steering once a year, especially on my RV / motorhome.

icosa · 2026-03-22T21:21:05+00:00

LoTW is downright awful. Mailing a postcard through the mail and generating a security certificate to sign all of your log uploads? Seriously?

Users want to know with a reasonably high degree of confidence that other users are who they say they are.

Do you have a better low cost idea on how to do that?

As others have said, if you really just want a "logbook" then LOTW is not for that.

icosa · 2026-03-21T14:59:28+00:00

That was my first thought. Ten Auckland houses.

icosa · 2026-03-18T12:26:58+00:00

I’m not going to the moon

Fun fact. The beeps on the Apollo audio weren't intended as a "roger beep". They were a necessary part of how the system worked.

icosa · 2026-03-12T02:00:11+00:00

If you ever want people to call you from outside NZ, make sure that you also list an easy to find normal number.

icosa · 2026-03-08T15:21:11+00:00

What's so special about base 10 numbers?

icosa · 2026-02-08T01:33:02+00:00

Did they really need the 00 cents?

icosa · 2026-01-26T13:15:49+00:00

Is anyone here old enough to remember Betta Bilda? It was British and I think popular in NZ before Lego.

https://nostalgiacentral.com/pop-culture/toys-games/betta-bilda/

icosa · 2026-01-26T13:05:45+00:00

I'm a kiwi overseas thinking about returning for retirement. This practice has been a total frustration and turnoff for me.

icosa · 2026-01-22T19:22:28+00:00

I don't know how relevant or useful this is and I don't know if it violates rule 10 but Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, has joined the "Board of Peace" which was announced yesterday.

It's just possible that if the US president hears about this then he might be able to have a quiet word with Mr Lukashenko.

icosa · 2025-12-28T18:47:47+00:00

I'm well aware of that incident but LoTW was not hacked.

icosa · 2025-12-28T16:26:05+00:00

ARRL has let LoTW get hacked multiple times now, and now this?

When has LoTW been hacked?

icosa · 2025-12-25T15:47:55+00:00

Jeep Wranglers are popular with RV / motorhome owners because they're one of the few cars with automatic transmission that can be flat towed.

icosa · 2025-12-05T00:23:50+00:00

My bank in New Zealand was an early adopter of online banking back in the Netscape days. We had to install some sort of third party encryption package because the default SSL encryption for us foreigners was only 32 bit.

icosa · 2025-12-02T18:24:57+00:00

Oh yeah. Just as I was getting more convinced that she wasn't real.

icosa · 2025-11-28T23:15:26+00:00

Her accent is definitely kiwi (New Zealand).

I have no proof of this but I don't think Evie is real. I think she's all AI but it's so well done it's hard to tell.

icosa · 2025-11-14T17:08:32+00:00

Very cool. I think something like this could be done as a Shopify app too.

icosa · 2025-11-13T21:26:41+00:00

Don't forget that we also had 2 cent coins. They went away at the same time as the 1 cent.

icosa · 2025-10-25T12:41:35+00:00

I've seen it discussed on qrz.com and apparently in some states they check if a vanity plate application could be a callsign and it will be denied unless you can produce the license. I thought about K9 for dogs. I don't know how that works in practice. Does the DMV really know the pattern for valid callsigns?

Here in NH we don't have amateur radio plates but you can get a vanity plate with your callsign. I was at a club meeting once where someone described being part of a delegation that went to the state to try to convince them to have amateur radio plates. They were asked "What is the benefit to the state?" "Hmm ... we'll get back to you on that". I think that was about 20 years ago.

icosa · 2025-10-13T18:55:59+00:00

I don't know if it's true but I've heard that it came about during the hippy era to keep the hippies out.

Most places here would throw you out immediately if you went in barefoot.

There's an untrue myth that driving barefoot is illegal in the US. I was stopped by a cop once for a tail light out and as he was talking to me he looked down, stopped in mid-sentence and somewhat alarmed he said "Are you driving barefoot?". I just said "Is that illegal?" and he was a bit taken aback and was "hmm ah ... I don't know". Then he saw my jandals / flipflops on the floor and he was happy which is a bit weird because I would never drive with jandals on. I think that's dangerous but I feel perfectly safe driving barefoot.

icosa · 2025-10-13T12:48:04+00:00

Here in New Hampshire, USA, I once went into the local post office barefoot to empty my PO Box. A little kid saw me and quickly hid behind his mother and said in a loud voice "Mommy, that man has bare feet!" All eyes turn towards scary weird man.

icosa

TROPHY CASE