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Month: May 2021

  • Brief History of Fisher & Paykel Top Loading Autowashers [3]: ECS Washers

    In the last part of this series I took a look at the Hotpoint based washers which F&P licensed for assembly in NZ until the 1980s. In 1985, after a five year research process, F&P unveiled its own replacement for what was, by then, becoming a fairly dated design. The new washing machines were called…

  • Labour Health Sector Restructuring Credulity [2]

    So in the first part of this series we had a look at the history of change in the health system in NZ. The biggest and most important innovation of the past 40 years has been the trend to decentralisation, which was first done in the mid-1980s with Area Health Boards, and latterly with District…

  • Drawing Outline Rectangles (Boxes) In Gimp

    The designers of Gimp are at pains to tell us it is not a drawing tool. Yet it can convert a selection into an outline. So we can for example draw a rectangular selection and make an outline from it. Outlines are useful in the NZ Rail Maps aerial mosaics, where a lot of pixels…

  • Gimp Config Files

    Gimp now seems to be consistently storing its config files in ~/.config/GIMP/x.xx (where x.xx is the version/release number). This applies even to the flatpak version, which is supposed to be sandboxed within the var area. The files such as menurc which stores the keyboard shortcuts can be copied from one computer to another using these…

  • Debian Font Reinstallation for Carlito Fonts

    Carlito is a very useful font in Debian but it is not necessarily installed automatically at reinstallation of the operating system. The steps that are recommended to reinstall some useful fonts are: apt install fonts-crosextra-carlito fonts-crosextra-caladea Caladea is the other font that is installed by the above command line. These two fonts are effective substitutes…

  • Brief History of Fisher & Paykel Top Loading Autowashers [2]: Hotpoint Washers

    As noted in part 1, Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in the UK had the British rights to the Hotpoint brand and around 1965 introduced the Hotpoint 1500 automatic washer. These were a top loading design with a number of sophisticated features. Although their exact history in NZ is not too clear at present, Fisher and…

  • Brief History of Fisher & Paykel Top Loading Autowashers [1]: Introduction

    Fisher and Paykel is a major New Zealand appliance manufacturer and has a lengthy history going back over 80 years. About 1938 they started in business as an importer of washing machines from various sources (including Bendix in the US) and soon were assembling wringer machines and Hoovermatic twin tubs in their Auckland factory. Their…

  • Brief History of Fisher & Paykel Top Loading Autowashers

    It’s been decided this post fits better on NZ Techonverse so the series has been moved over there, the first part is now up and the other parts will be progressively added.