Missing on the Moa

It's the first day that is warm enough to not wear a jacket and I've been working with the same eigenvectors most of the day. It is really time to bust out.

But, since I promised Terroni, here is the first installment of New Zealand stories:

National Identities. The kiwi is the name for the fruit, the bird, and the people. New Zealand has this wonderful and strangely focused way of taking fruits from around the world, bringing them to New Zealand, rebranding them, and shipping them all over the world. Take the tamarillo of the Andes, the persimmon of China and Japan and, of course, the kiwi, actually of southern China.

The second kiwi is a very shy, nocturnal, grub and worm eating, flightless bird that somehow became the symbol for the third type of kiwi: New Zealanders. I'm not exactly sure how this became the case but suspect that it was a combination of near extinction of the species and the belief that it was one of the only animals native to New Zealand. While it is not found anywhere else in the world, there is some indication that it may have actually come from Australia. Regardless of the reason why, you must admit that it is a strange choice for people who are widely known as adrenaline-driven risk takers. But maybe that's just another case of rebranding.