Legends from New Zealand held that there was a large predator bird, known as
pouakai, that was big enough to carry human beings off to its nest or den. Some people associated stories of Pouakai with the
giant flightless Moa,
extinct in 1773. Others thought it might be another extinct giant bird on the
South Island,
Haast's Eagle (
Harpagornis moorei). The eagle, locally known as Te Hokioi, has been extinct for 500 years,
overlapping with the early settlers by some 200 years. There was some speculation that the giant eagle was a scavenger
due to partially protected nasal openings, which are benefit to protect nasal cavities when digging into carcasses, analogous to features found on
accipitrid vultures. Recent studies have provide
there is proof that the Haast's Eagle was a fearsome predator, with
talons like tigers and the ability to dive on prey at 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph).
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Sep 16, 2009 -
22 comments
The organisers of New Zealand hacking convention
Kiwicon have created some PR the only way they know how, l33t h4x0ring. Using a
XSS bug in NZ's largest newspaper the
NZ Herald they created a fake URL that injected javascript to
rewrite an article there. The URL got passed around and soon ended up with
genuine media coverage in NZ Herald's biggest competitor
Stuff. An earlier effort on the NZ Computerworld site was quickly fixed and got no media coverage.
posted by sycophant
on Aug 28, 2007 -
14 comments
The New Zealand Net Awards have announced their finalists. Picked by a panel of people including Web saavy magazine editors, personal Web site operators, and tech-radio deejays, the NZ awards seem much more even handed, open, and
real than the Webbies (albeit only for NZ sites...)
And, as far as I can tell, they're doing it on almost no budget. Pretty impressive. Why doesn't
this community start something like it?
posted by benbrown
on Sep 3, 2001 -
20 comments
