Munden's Bar

Been wandering around today as if I have a concussion, finding it hard to think straight, to remember thing to get things done. I've been not very observant, being surprised by things I should have seen earlier, etc. and my head has felt woolly and on the verge of illness. I've pushed on through it, getting a new hoover for half price at Farmers, and number of little things done round the house. But if this keeps up, I'm not going to be up to any new year partying. Which would be a shame, as I have many invitations.

I have got nowhere near as much done this week as I had hoped, I suspect mainly because of the lure of Skyrim, finding GOG, and the fact that a lot of what I want to get done involved sorting stuff of mine, and that is always distracting, as one discovers something one hasn't actually read or looked at in detail yet, or going off on tangents associated to what one finds.

For instance, finding GOG was a result of trying to throw out ancient photocopied manuals for ancient PC games, that I had copied back when I was in the air force in the eighties. I reasoned to myself that if I could find online PDF copies of these manuals I didn't need to keep the stack of photocopies. Searching on the game manuals led me to a link that described how GOG had bundled Wing Commander I & II, with no DRM, in a form that would run on Windows along with official PDF copies of the manuals, and the original "Bible" distributed to those working on the Wing Commander projects. At GOG I discovered several free games I remembered and found myself buying several of their games that I missed being able to play on more modern machines at half proice because of their holiday sale...

That became some tangent, huh? All from trying to throw out a small pile of paper.
See why I don't get anything done?

There has been an awful lot of linkage and discussion about geeks, depression, and Asperger's, on the web recently, culminating in the inclusion of suicide in Violet Blue's latest column due to the suicide of one of Diapsora's founders. It's interesting, I have never, ever, considered suicide during my life, because it always felt to me that doing so would be to admit defeat, and letting the bastards win. "Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light" has been my motto with regard to death ever since I read that poem. It's stuck with me since school, from the one few high school English syllabus parts I really got into, the war poets.

I've had situations in which suicide would have been considered a potential option by some people, so much so that I've even had people worried for me in that way, but the closest I have come is that potentially fatal recklessness one gets when one just doesn't care, and I guess I have just been lucky when in those moods

Oh, I got my packet of random shirts from Tee Fury today too. It was full of win. There was only one shirt I had to look up to figure out what it was about, and having done so, I might be forced to give it to someone who likes bacon.

Last Friday I turned fifty.

The previous night, I had attended Thursday Night Curry, starting in the Fork & Brewer with adrexia, Joel, Jacob, & Martin. seraphs_folly joined us at Dawaat, along with others regular TNC-ers.

I'd taken my birth day off of work, after seraphs_folly expressed surprise that I hadn't already arranged to. I had intended just to go to work as normal and head into the party after work. Had I done so, I might have gotten to the party on time! As it was I slept in at seraphs_folly's place.

When she awoke I was presented with a marvelous gift, two beautiful limited edition resin Studio McVey miniatures that had had been masterfully painted by Rachel (of Iron Halo. The first is "ar Fiach" a modern/steampunk fantasy avian elf creature with a musket perched on a brick chimney, sculpted by Yannik Hennebo, and the second is a lovely rendition of "Pan" sculpted by Jaques-Alexandre Gillois.

  

  

Yes, those are tiny naked green fairies in the Pan picture, and while ar Fiach is wearing a fancy jacket (probably stolen from a washing line somewhere) she sure ain't wearing a shirt!

I think you'll all agree Rachel has definitely done these sculpts justice. She went town on adding fairy forest detail to the "Pan" base, and added an entire roof to "ar Fiach", as you''ll see if you go and look at the originals on the Studio McVey site (I can't provide a direct link because they have a silly Flash-based site). I spent some time examining the detail on these miniatures in sunlight. I would have loved to show them off to people at the party, but I was afraid of potential damage. Not that anyone would do so intentionally, of course, but they are resin and very fragile. Anyway, you really need sunlight, or really good artificial light, and a very close look to see the detail, so photos are probably more useful to get the full effect.

Following that lovely start to the day, we toddled down to Caffiend's in Petone for a late brunch, where I made my first mistake of the day, leaving my Samsung Galaxy SII sitting on the table when we left. Of course I didn't realize this until somewhat later.

After returning from Petone, my lady retired for further rest and I proceeded to play Borderlands on my Envy17, as I had recently purchase the PC version complete with all downloadable content for the minimal fee of $7.49 during Steam's Halloween sale.

It was then that I made my second mistake, of not keeping a proper eye on the passing time, and suddenly realized I should have been at the Fork & Brewer five minutes ago. It was also at this stage that I realized I no longer had my cell phone, as it is my primary timing mechanism. Then had to wait while my lady got up, as I was also supposed to have woken her with time to get up, so in the end I didn't get to the bar until almost ten to six. Sorry to keep people waiting!

Despite the late start, Part One was good, with people from mutilple "families" turning up. Certain people were being naughty in the corner of the booth, not that I minded, but as a result certain ladies might be interested in the picture that wyldcard pxted to me... Moving on, I received a number of presents, including a dice bag complete with dice flogger, a book on bootleg whisky during WWII, and some white curacao from my D&D dungeon-mistress.

The Fork & Brewer's beer selection was good and I discovered a couple of new brews that I will drink again, though I stuck mainly with the good old Emerson's Bookbinder.

I would have stayed longer in the bar, but some people wanted actual food ( I don't know why, it just soaks up the alcohol quicker!), so we cruised off to a Korean place Sophie knew which was too small/full, and ended up instead at a nearby Vietnamese place.

Got back home not too late and fell asleep.

Saturday morning I got up early, as I'd gone to sleep pretty early for me, and then played Borderlands again until seraphs_folly woke up, when I got showered & dressed and headed down to Caffiends and luckily recovered my Galaxy, did some shopping on the way back, and then waited until it was time to go to Yum Cha at Dragons with the family.

My mother and sisters came down from Levin, the first time I'd seen them in quite some time, Ele & Ben came over also, but the big surprise was ferrouswheel turning up with tatnja, all the way from Hong Kong! Thanks for that Joel, it was a nice surprise, and I'm sure others appreciated seeing you too! :)

seraphs_folly tells me Ben tried all of the strange foods, and thomasdequinc seemed to get on well with Ben also. The food was good (I <3 coconut buns), but I had to sneak into Joe's Garage afterwards for some real coffee.

Then it was back to Harbourview for more Borderlands before needing to prepare for Part Two. Yes I know I should have been playing SkyRim, but that would have involved taking my PS3 round too, and anyway seraphs_folly's TV isn't big enough. *grin*. I have actually shown great restraint in not playing SkyRim over the last few days. I think it's wearing thin though, maybe I'll give in tonight.

I put out all the snacks with assistance from others at the the flat, and the first selection of drinks, and then got a bit flustered as the first people were arriving as I had discovered the secondary hard-drive on my lap top, where the play list I had set up was stored, seemed to have failed. Anyone happen to have a spare 1TB laptop drive anywhere? Hopefully I haven't lost too much in that crash, as the first sign of the drive going was the back-up failing, and I thought it was the the back-up drive and it's drivers that was the problem initially, so I don't have a recent back-up of the drive.

Luckily all the actual music was on the main drive, and wyldcard expressed his love for 80's music, volunteering to be the de-facto DJ for the night, so we managed to work around the hardware issue.

More people arrived, and I got other presents including new music from panda_pitt booze of various varieties, including a nice looking Laphroiag, and books. tyellas insisted on feeding me a chocolate-coated strawberry, not that I needed much convincing.

I'm not sure what time I ended up getting into the spa, but it was after the first round of savouries, and there were a lot of other people already there when I got in. Obviously, one does not talk about the spa, but I feel it's OK to talk about a few fun things around the periphery, such as how evie_fae and jarratt_gray's choice of Bruichladdich Rocks as a gift went down really well. Coming after the strong peatiness of the 16 yr-old Lagavulin (trust adrexia to go straight for the good stuff when sent out for another bottle!), it's easy to see why this spa event was particularly memorable.

The one draw-back of the spa is that there were people that I'd intended to talk to, that I never really got the chance to, and even some gifts that were left for me that I didn't get to thank people for in person. I know pombagira left me some witchy bath salts, so thanks for those, Polly! Apologies to anyone else I didn't manage to spend time with, and thanks for coming!I don't even know if any fire-spinning occurred out front, as had been rumoured to occur.

Once the spa party finished up (not sure when that happened, someone may be able to let me know) I found myself involved in a long session of interpretive dance with adrexia to the soundtrack of Bob Dylan's "Blood On the Tracks" (primarily). I'm sure we must have been amusing to those socializing in the kitchen, but it was a lot of fun, even if I am not the most co-ordinated of dancers, and the one or two lifts I attempted were abortive, despite adrexia's co-operation. I hope we didn't scare the hare too much. The dancing was eventually ended, I believe, by car pool people needing to leave, and I do not know if I said good-bye to all the people remaining, I was, after all, somewhat drunk.

After everyone left, I found myself lying in bed with seraphs_folly listening to songs on my Galaxy SII (Tori's Bells for Her seemed appropriately beautiful to my mood) whilst exchanging tweets and Facebook entries with other party-goers who had also not yet gone to sleep.

On waking in the morning I found my legs very weak and wobbly. I blame the combination of several hours soaking in hot water, followed by the interpretative dance. Overall though, I felt pretty good. My commiserations to those who did not, and/or who had to get up & go to work.

My lady & I got up relatively early, to head into town to pick up her latest cat from the airport, which had been kindly brought up from Christchurch by argentbear, whom it was good to catch up with during the car ride, and then did some party clean-up.

After I got back to Wolf Castle I found a large pile of parcels had arrived while I'd been away, including a large order of RAFM miniatures that had been spending several months making it's way toward me across the sea, so before crashing I unpacked and processed some of that stuff. My lounge really looks like I've only just moved in now. So many figures, so little time.

To sum up though, I have fun memories from a great weekend into which many people put effort to make it lovely and memorable. Thanks to all, though especially thanks to seraphs_folly for hosting us and transporting me when I was drunk, and arranging beautiful gifts, and being accepting of me sharing significant & meaningful times with others. Thanks to those others, and to all, for your hugs, kisses, gifts of song and joy, your presence, your assistance when needed, your energy, and your love.

I am now fifty, but I've had a spring in my step on the way to work this week, and am not at all feeling old, because of you all. <3

I'll leave you with a song from the party play-list that is one of my favourites, from Simple Minds, the title of which I think sums up my attitude at present : Alive & Kicking

You turn me on, you lift me up
And like the sweetest cup I'd share with you
You lift me up, don't you ever stop, I'm here with you

Yesterday turned into the least boring** day I have spent here so far.

The day was horribly hot and bright, but I allowed myself to be dragged out to brunch overlooking the ocean, and other than the amount of interest the ants found in my legs, it was quite nice sitting in a little shaded gazebo drinking pineapple juice and eating pancakes.

Later I was also convinced to go swimming in the ocean, and to go para-sailing, which I have to say was absolutely terrifying. Being strapped into a harness that is old & worn, and then being dangled over shark-infested waters several hundred feet up with nothing but the skill of a bored boat-driver keeping you from crashing into the hard water and being drowned by the parachute canopy (they didn't give us knives for cutting our way out of the parachute and it's lines, and we weren't wearing quick release harnesses either) is not my idea of fun.

Possibly it's because I know far too much about what happens when you hit the water in a parachute from training in the Air Force. Possibly it's because the people running the operation actually forgot to put us in harnesses in the first place, and I had to remind them. Possibly it's because it felt like I was going to fall out of the harness at any moment, and I spent the entire time I was up in the air trying not lean forward too far. Anyway, I doubt I'm going to do that particular trip again.

I will admit that in the brief moments I managed to distract myself from the terror, the view was wonderful, and the soaring swooping motions the parachute would make as the wind changed and the boat driver adjusted for it, were great fun. I found the driver's skill at being able to winch us in and land us standing on the deck of the boat impressive.

After having survived that, I needed a drink, and my lady bought me a "bananarama", something quite alcoholic with bananas in it, that may or may not have been a political comment, and was accompanied by deep fried bananas and ice cream. I chased that with a big glass of pineapple juice to deal with dehydration.

This was followed by another dunking in the ocean to cool off, as all that flying around had resulted in quite a bit of heat being captured my skin. Playing in the ocean is a lot of fun here, as long as you avoid all the wild-life.

After that we crashed for a few hours back in our room.

We got up at around 7pm and walked to the resort next door for dinner at Cross. Cross is the most expensive of the restaurants attached to the Raddisson, It's run by Richard Cross, an ex-Christchurch chef, and I can heartily recommend it. Every course was superb, from the ciabatte garlic bread entree, thru the beef main, to the kava ice cream dessert. The beef was probably the best I have ever had, cooked perfectly even though it was inches thick, served with cubes of a wonderful cheese, shiitake mushrooms, & potatoes au gratin. The kava ice cream was presented with a tower of spun green toffee almost as thin as candy floss, home made marshmallows, and a pina colada to wash it down. My lady had a huge Akaroa salmon steak, and their "chocaholics" dessert, both platters being presented in such wonderful style, I wished Id brough my camera with me to photograph them.

The service was superb also. My lady asked for water melon juice, and though they didn't have it on the menu, they came back with freshly crushed water melon in a glass. Naturally the meal cost more than most, but in this case, I think the meal was totally worth the price.

Today we woke up late. I haven't bothered with any breakfast as yet. Weather outside is a bit oppressive.

Only about another two weeks of this hell to endure before I get back home.

(**Yeah, I'm afraid beach resorts largely represent boredom to me. There's only so much of sitting around waiting for other people to do nothing I can take. Thank Gaia for Inotia 3 on my Galaxy SII. I also don't get this fascination that other people have for exposing themselves to the radiation from an un-shielded fusion reactor.)

We've fixed all the bugs. Now we just have to wait to deply the damn thing. So let's clear a few tabs from my browser. 

Top Ten Myths about the brain  This article should be publicized on nation-wide TV! Especially the last one.  (hat tip : threemonkeys )

music by Googe. This looks interesting. Am signing up for the beta. I most interested in what their client will be like, as reportedly it will import from both iTunes and Windows Media Player.

Go Tejas!  Civil disobedience against the TSA at the state level.

Big Crazy Gun! I love the design of the Chrysler TV-8

Boozy Office Party Results in Super-Conductor! 

Viruses harnessed to split water This is a bit older, but it has Angela Belcher again, demonstrating a virus-templated catalyst solution.


TermKit  Modern UNIX Admiinstration using WebKit

Get Your Game On  Web-based  Sports Administration by someone you may know

Chest of Colours Nice miniatures site.

Cameron McKechnie pointed out in a Facebook comment on Will Marshall's journal :

I thought surely this can't be right ? Surely the bill would define file-sharing more accurately?

But no. Here's the definition of file sharing from the relevant section 122A :
and

The internet is itself a "network" that "enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users", a web server is also an "application" that "enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users", and in order to read a web page, the web browser must "download" the page. There is no clause that says the "application" in question must be on the infringer's machine, or that the term "network" excludes the web or the internet itself.

This means any viewing of web pages that do not explicitly give the user permission to copy them automatically constitutes an infringement under this poorly draughted law.

There doesn't even need to be an explicit copyright statement on the page to trigger this, as under the Berne convention copyright automatically applies. In fact, only an explicit statement of permisison to copy, in one form or another, will make your web content legally readable by the masses. So, seeing as I'm not a bastard :


NZ File-sharing Law Makes Using Your Browser An Infringement
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

There are no further clarifications or restrictions of these statements in the rest of the bill. Probably because the representatives of commercial rights-holder organizations didn't want to be restricted by any more specific definitions that would later become obsolete. But in their desire to have maximum coverage, they have effectively created a law that is too general to ever be workable, and one which can be used against them, because in order for them to discover a file-sharing infringement, they will have to go onto the web and infringe the law themselves.

I think I'm in love. :)

Unfortunately I'm old enough to be her father. . 

I finished work last Wednesday and headed home to pack and prepare, and to get washing done before leaving. With that out of the way, I drove to seraphs_folly 's place and settled in for the night. She was excited, finding it hard to get to sleep, and I didn't really her blame her, though of course one must act blase about these things.

As our flights weren't until the early afternoon we didn't need to get up quickly so we had a long lazy awakening, followed by a leisurely drive to Courtenay Place during which almost everything that could go right with regards to the changing of traffic lights and finding parking places, did go right. We had brunch at Sweet Momma's, I had the waffles and multiple coffee's, seraphs_folly had her normal eggsadoo and EBT, and we shared some curly fries. Finishing brunch we drove to the airport, checked in, and looked at books and DVDs.seraphs_folly picked up the first of the Maximum Ride novels. I discovered there's both an Iain M. Banks and a Peter F Hamilton I want to read, and also that the fantasy section had been totally overwhelmed with supernatural romance novels. I don't often go to book stores you see.

Then we went through security and waited to board.seraphs_folly commented that normally we are on opposite sides of the security barrier and it was nice to be on the same side for once. We boarded and sat down and then had to get up to let the window seat person in. When I first saw this person I was convinced that it was a slightly unshavenfraser_by_proxy , so I said "Hi" and acted overly friendly until I realized it wasn't, and had to tell him why I was being so friendly. Still, he was cute. Later in the flight I pointed out a line in Maximum Ride I found amusing, and seraphs_folly read it aloud, which our seat companion pointed out was potentially not a good thing to do on a plane, seeing as the line was something like "Bombs! I love bombs!".

We got to Auckland, bought donuts, and took a taxi to the Quay West, which was an older hotel, but stylish enough to have marble columns and curved stair cases with thick balustrades in the foyer. I noticed as she provided our room keys that the lady behind the counter had Kushiel's dart. The room was old but well kept, and had a great view between two towers down to the ferry terminal and the edge of "Party Central". We stood on the huge balcony and looked down on the DFS Galleria building which had fancy peeks with iron railings round them. I noticed some previous hotel guest had "scored a basket" with one of the cushions from the hotel on one of the fenced peaks. .seraphs_folly had pre-ordered a chocolate platter for the room. After that arrived, and we had the fold-out sofa made up for R, seraphs_folly 's very cute friend from Christchurch, we filled in time waiting for R to arrive.

When R did arrive, after the usual pleasantries, we all ate donuts and chocolate platter, becoming quite full. We decided we would take the free bus to the concert which was leaving from just up the road outside the Sky Tower, and also decided we wouldn't hurry to get there in time for JayZ, none of us being particularly keen on the fellow. R wanted to take us to dinner, and we all thought we didn;t need that much food, so the idea of Japanese was floated, and we went out to hunt a restaurant. Unfortunately for our waist-lines, as it turned out, right next door was the Kabuki teppanyaki. It had interesting solo kabuki performances on video tow watch, and it also had some wonderful sounding set menyius, and we made the mistake of committing to far too much food. It seems the ladies hadn't had full-blown teppanyaki with the egg throwing before which made for a fun meal. We were so full that we made the faux pas of trying to leave before dessert, the female maitre'd was not happy . Thanks, R, it was a lovely meal! But so much for a light Japanese meal!

We rolled up the hill to the busses and snaffled the back seat of the bus, arriving at Mt. Smart Stadium just in time to see JayZ finish off with his Linkin Park collaboration on "Numb",. We then got stit and watch the set-up for U2 which was very interesting form a technical perspective. For those familiar with Warhammer 40K, the 380 stage looked like a cross between a Tyrannid Trygon and a Slaaneshi warmachine. Without lights it was four legged monstrosity with green skin and orange nodules pierced thru the centre by a huge arcane staff. We watched as some of it's crew were winched into their dangling cockpits hanging beneath the creatures knees.

Finally the show started. At first I was worried, the wall of sound and light that was thrown at us seemed to overpower any nuance of the song, and I began to hope that the whole show was not like that. But I needn't have worried, it seems the opening number was just to sensitize people and perhaps they needed some final adjustments to deal with a stadium full of people, because after the first song things became more distinct. R and seraphs_folly, along with much of the crowd, stood up from the beginning and started to wiggle around. I decided to pace myself, and didn't get up until a few songs in.

I really can't do justice to the entire concert here, so will focus on a few memorable moments.

The show started with David Bowie's Space Oddity and ended with Elton John's Rocket Man Overall, it was a celebration of technology, human  achievement and love.

Perhaps the most memorable moment was when Bono spoke of the loss the country had suffered at Pike River, and said that in Ireland people sang to relive their grief, and launched into One Tree Hill, whilst the video display showed the list of the missing. I doubt there was dry eye in the stadium by the time the last few words rang out without musical accompaniment :


Several times during the night Bono found it unneccessary to do much singing as the crowd did it for him, perhaps most noticeably during I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, and one of the encore numbers With Or Without You.  

At one point spotlights were directed at either end of the central tower to reflect off of giant disco balls. I forget the song because of the effect that this caused. During the set, the Auckland weather had clagged in a bit, giving some reasonably low cloud. The spotlights, designed to reflect of the disco balls also as a side effect silhouetted the upper disco ball against the clouds, and we were treated to a"Spectre of the Broken" style creation of four moons. hanging over the stadium. I don't think that description really captures the effect of what we saw, and it was hardly something that could have been planned for in the stage design, but, wow. the atmosphere it gave was uncanny.

Throughout the huge video display was used to greate effect, from the poem recited by the captain of the International Space Station floating in  free-fall after footage of his childhood playing wth rockets, to the disembodied head of a happy Desmond Tutu talking about us all coming together as one.. which of course lead into One. The 360 degree screen had been there all night, interspersing live video footage with animation and canned footage and colours and patterns, but I think anyone who hadn't seen the show before would have been surprised when the screen suddenly started coming apart and rotating as it descended downwards toward the stage creating a cone like a rocket's, in the centre of the creature that was now a spaceship as "lightning" flashed up the central tower. Lights changed the colour and texture of the creature-craft throughout, at one time purple and gold, at another mottled in camouflage green., and then covered by flickering white fire and traceries of energy like an Eldar Falcon  entering the web way. 

But all this technical wizardry didn't detract from the music it merely made it, combined with the bass pedals vibrating your chest, a complete sensory experience. in fact with the right songs, like City of Blinding Lights  and Vertigo the effects complemented the songs perfectly. I really want to buy the blu-ray of the 360degreeTour now.

Still It had to end, and with U2 hustled through the underground pipe to their waiting helicopter we started leaving the stadium. The three of us held hands to stay together in the crush, so there I was, in the centre, a cute girl on each hand, wandering thru a magical misty night in a crowd of thousands. There was a little tension getting onto the buses. The gorls got on and then I had to release R's hand as the press split us apart... it was almost like a scene from a movie, beautiful waif-like girl's hand reaching across the pack to the person whose hand she had lost grip on.. In fact, I think R's lost look was responsible for a couple of people letting me through when they might not have otherwise. But we got on board in the end and drove back to the CBD, walked down Albert St with the girls singing Auld Lang Syne, and crashed for the night.

Well, it's after midnight and that was Thursday. I'll have to cover the rest of the weekend later. I say I'll have to, because while that night would be unbeatable, the rest of the weekend was awesome in special ways, and deserves rembrancing also. 

I'm not at Speed Of Sound tonight, for a variety of reasons. Mainly, I think, because I'm in a bit of hermit mode.

Work is difficult. Not in a bad way. For the first time in a long time I'm actually being challenged by what I'm doing. A week or so ago I was actually trying to solve simultaneous equations in anger, working on a Java-script image manipulation package that the customer wanted rubber-band zoom added to.

This week I've been trying to chase down bugs in part of a RichFaces web application that has a more complicated UI than any native code GUI application I've worked on in the past. It doesn't help that the toolkit's only have very rudimentary documentation, and while they state how to use individual UI widgets, they don't state what happens when you put together a whole pile of them together in a highly ajax-ified page with multiple display areas updating separately. Every time I find and fix one bug, the fix causes other stuff to stop working, and what doesn't help is that I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that there are significant bugs in the tool-kits as well.

Still at least I'm not bored at work.

Thing is when I've actually been using my mind, I end up feeling like doing nothing but blobbing when I get home. I've fallen asleep on the train on the way home most nights this week. 

The time of year doesn't help either. Cold, always getting dark while traveling home, dark when I get up. My body is telling me it's hibernation time.

Finally I think I'm becoming more boring and stay-at-home. I actually enjoued Coronation Street this evening, and wouldn't have wanted to miss the episode where a killer's wife confronts her husband about killing her lover several months ago.  I think I'm finally turning into an old man. 

OTOH, last night I did have dinner with two sexy ladies, jumped into a hot tub with those two and another lady, and then watched the 20:20 program on burlesque with a commentary from the three ladies because they knew most of the women on the show due to having studied with them.  

So maybe there may be some hope left for me.   :)

From this article by Rob Oram, discussing  a recent KPMG report on why farming in New Zealand is going to go bankrupt :

Even in a typical good year the surplus might be only $35,000 or so on a business with revenues of $750,000. And any improvements in payouts or productivity are immediately capitalised in higher land prices.

This is such an insane game that dairy farmers quadrupled their debt in the past decade to $43 billion, dramatically driving up land prices in the process while the underlying profitability of the industry remained unchanged. This is a sure way to go broke, which indeed many farmers are.

It's among the reasons why people like the Crafars don't don't deserve any sympathy.