Jo Simons (she/her)

I just won the Nordic finger painters prize for best teaching small children to make paper snowflakes and not throwing a tantrum myself

Pedro Pascal in a dark red suit and black turtleneck

Classical Electrodynamics by JD Jackson, white print on red cover

Since I'm home sick and X-Twitter may soon expect me to pay for access, I am going to recreate this here: 🎢 ⚛️

Pedro Pascal as classic physics textbooks: a thread

YouTube video by NZ Book Awards for Children & Young Adults Li Chen - Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat (including activity and Q&A)

The delightful @exocomics.com did a great talk yesterday, including how to draw Detective Beans! You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlRo...

University of Auckland opens new Pacific space honouring Fa’anānā Efeso Collins An intimate ceremony filled with singing, tears and laughter marked the opening of a new Pacific student space at the University of Auckland's general library dedicated to Fa'anānā Efeso Collins.

University of Auckland opens new Pacific space honouring Fa’anānā Efeso Collins

The Aotearoa New Zealand Online Meetup is on this weekend, Sunday 7 December at midday.

All are welcome! Come along to connect with other Wikimedians, share what you've been working on, and learn some new tips and tricks 💻✨

w.wiki/GVpS

New recycling tech recovers nearly pure nickel and cobalt from old EV batteries Researchers have developed an eco-friendly recycling tech that extracts 99 percent pure nickel and cobalt from waste batteries.

If anyone cares at all, EV battery recycling is now hitting 99% recovery for important metals

Please remind me again what the recycle rate for fossil fuels is

interestingengineering.com/energy/recyc...

#SecretSantaAoNZ don’t forget to do a quick skeet and maybe a picture of your parcel for your Santa so they can relax knowing it’s in your hands AND give the rest of us a little joy too 🎄🎁🥰 a few Santa’s are curious

Links to the digital tools I've been developing during my residency have already been added into the SLV's LibGuides to help people researching buildings and houses! https://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/victorianbuildings

The image is of a comic. Panel one depicts Santa Claus. He says, "Have you been naughty or nice?" Panel two depicts a happy dog. He says, "I am ALWAYS a good boy." Santa responds "Very nice!" Panel three depicts Santa again. He says "...And you?" Panel four depicts an orange cat climbing a Christmas tree, turning his head to look back at Santa.

www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2025...

Yes that was the first thing I noticed, even before the weird url

"FOMO is not a strategy" -- @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social giving me my new mantra for the foreseeable future during this (brilliant!) opening keynote for #ff2025

Want to support my sewing o'clock habit?

I always order a few contingency spares when I do a tea towel pre-order run, in case of misprints (usually a stray piece of lint, 'tis the nature of natural fibres, it happens).

Order one of these now and I'll stitch it up for you next week.

#BuyNZMade

Yep, the phone number was the first thing I noticed, which made me take a good look at the very strange url …

Screenshot of a phone message from a +63 number saying it’s from NZ post who couldn’t deliver a parcel because it needed a signature. Website is wrong. This is a scam message

Hey #SecretSantaAoNZ, I know we are all waiting on parcels so please be aware that there’s an active ongoing SMS scam sending messages pretending to be from NZ Post. Please don’t click the links. Got one today.

Do jingly Christmas earrings and red tops count? This is my carolling look (as worn yesterday while on our work carols crawl) #SecretSantaAoNZCostume

When your country's collective ability to bullshit on the internet is extensive enough to shape AI slop.

Association between COVID-19 infection and risk of mental disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis - PubMed Our findings suggest an association between COVID-19 and risk of mental disorders, as well as the prescriptions for psychotropic medications. It is imperative for individuals to become vigilant of mental health problems that may arise following COVID-19.

“Twenty-eight cohorts with a total of 977,434,207 participants... We revealed a 40 % increased risk…of mental disorders in patients with COVID-19 compared with non-exposed individuals”

Read that again: A 40% INCREASED RISK OF MENTAL DISORDERS

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41086559/

People Watching: HomeGround - Auckland City Mission's housing, healthcare & social services centre, central Auckland, on a Tuesday morning

Cory Doctorow coined the word ENSHITTIFICATION & found that a little vulgarity helps people engage with abstract technical questions.

On the Future Knowledge #podcast, he explains why the web became hostile & how we can make it work again.

🎧 Listen ⬇️
futureknowledge.transistor.fm/episodes/ens...

Pūkeko Who-keko is in The Listener’s ‘50 Best Books for Children’ for 2025! If you or someone small you know likes the sound of ‘sassy assemblage of outrageously rhyming constructs will have you cracking up’ - it might make a good Christmas present, just saying quietly…

Photo of a black and white medium haired kitten, standing up on his back legs, trying to pee out of the door in a veterinary exam room.

Marcel does not like this vet-themed escape room. Zero stars.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree. Ate it.

140 Berries of Privet (Ligustrum vulgare and Holly (lex aguifolium) Illustration

🖼️ Edith Holden

A photo collage of some of my art with the message 'Find me on Folksy: A northern lapwing Glencoe mountains A winter landscape with trees and frost Badgers in a bluebell patch A barn owl in flight

My little art shop is 'The Wee Owl Art' on Folksy.
Lots of unique original art gift ideas and you will be supporting a real human doing human made art!
folksy.com/find/shop/th...

#Birds #Landscape #Animals #OriginalArt #Drawing #Painting #Artwork #GiftIdeas #ArtShop #ShopIndy #ChristmasGifts #bsnm

Graph showing excess mortality for the period 2020-2024 in 40 selected countries across the globe.

Worldwide mortality experience since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2024) shows excess deaths over that period in almost every country measured. Australia (+6%) was below average, and New Zealand (+0.1%) the lowest we measured.

Digital badge with cartoon fox and kitty characters in an air balloon with the words Gift Sent Dec 2025

Ooh I do love a badge #SecretSantaAoNZ. and this one comes with a nice dose of smug. All wrapped and posted. I’m sure the “Oh no will they like it?” fretting can be put off til tomorrow 😂

.. but it was tooooo late (shudder)

I do love me a hebe.

Felt pen drawings of riverbed forget-me-not Myosotis uniflora. Top drawing shows lots of yellow flowers among tiny greyish green leaves while the bottom shows a single yellow flower.

It's time to vote again! This time, there's a shortlist of 40 amazing native plants which are contenders for NZ's favourite native plant. OK, some of the contenders are a little obscure, but who couldn't love a rebel forget-me-not!
Voting links here. You don't need to be in New Zealand.