Biology educator, science communicator (I'm retired but still doing both!), foodie, dog-lover, avid reader, & somewhat addicted to cycling for pleasure. Occasional blogger: https://blog.waikato.ac.nz/bioblog/
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Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Nurses are correct, ministry and government are lying! No wonder they are striking! #NZPol
#ItsTheMEN #AmericaHasaWhiteManProblem
Isn't Luxon enamored of the UK education system?
Isn't Luxon enamored of the UK education system?
Exactly!
I adored "Alternate Reality" (even though you did have to change floppies each time you went into or out of a building).
This seems a really important point. The zeal to change the capital model to something that *seems* more ideologically congenial – fees, levies, rates – has inflationary implications. Those things are part of our cost of living.
This is an absolute disgrace. The Public Service Act imposes duties of stewardship on chief executives, and the job of the service is to be effective as well as efficient. How can you know if this is happening if you don’t evaluate the effects of restructuring? #nzpol
All the socks I've done lately are from 2 colourwork socks books by Charlotte Stone. Very clear instructions & great illustrations & charts. Thanks to her I can now do short-row heels!
The rib, heel, & toe are on 2.25mm dpns, & the colourwork uses 2.5mm. (Or whatever it takes to get the tension right.) Usually when I knit plain socks it's all on 2.25s. Our neighbour is over the moon about them ❤️☺️
Was about to say that very thing. House price inflation, here we come.
Our first "home computer" was a little Atari that you plugged into the TV. It did basic word-processing but we mostly played games (using floppy discs). We thought it was soooo cool.
Appalling.
That is so pretty. I'll have to keep an eye open for it; I'd love to have it on the wall next year.
Ryan has also been busy - he's in charge of the 2026 Bird and Beach Calendar. The proof has arrived, so this week we're taking orders from stockists*, and it will be available for pre-order when the new website launches. *Know a great store you think might be interested? Please let us know!
Tulip socks for spring! (Theyre a gift for our lovely neighbour.)
Well, this sucks (like pretty much everything else this govt does). Plans to grant Conservation Minister sole authority over land www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
Much medical research uses, or has used, only men in the RCT stage.
While serving as mayor has been the greatest privilege of my life, I am looking forward to focussing on outcomes for mana whenua. But I’m also looking forward to standing up to bullies and harassers. The shackles are off and I refuse to be silent. Let’s fight back together.
The direction in whichSimeon Brown is pushing us. NZ’s shift to more private healthcare will likely raise costs and reduce quality: what the evidence tells us www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-...
You can vote in the New Zealand local elections from 9 September to 11 October 2025. 😁 If you are wondering who to vote for or want to look into what policies the candidates have, then I highly recommend checking out this handy website. 👇👇👇 policy.nz/2025
Terrifying (& I don't mean how that stupid driver felt).
Hot off the virtual presses: Housing emergency grants plummeted from 2,388 in June 2023 to 198 in June this year. Also: Leaked data shows Hospital ED treatment times falling well below Govt targets and Labour is more trusted on cost of living than National #nzpol thekaka.substack.com/p/housing-em...
tax policy written by farmers? oh well, goes with the gun policy written by gun lobbyists, the environment policy written by mining companies, the employment policy written by uber...you get the drift. #nzpol
Please read Andrew’s piece for a clear glimpse of how MoE passes the buck, deflects & ignores the science on clean air in schools. Stanford and Seymour so desperate for parents to be at work & the optics of kids in class, but health and safety are inconvenient hassles for MoE & school BoTs. #nzpol
I’m going to need Armando Iannucci to stop writing this Government because it’s only funny when it’s happening in someone else’s country. Please and thank you.
Where is this coming from? There's no financial case for it when solar & batteries are so cheap. Is NZ First funded from overseas donors? Or are its politicians being paid off? Someone needs to follow the money here.
After defunding the Sciences? Great move...
Well-worth knowing about. www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/5...
Last summer, almost the only bees working in our garden were the bumbles; it was rare to see even a single honeybee 😥
I'm somewhat amused that there's almost always a couple of people in Auckand who report feeling them. Even for mild quakes or those way down in the South Island. 'Moderate' quake hits Marlborough Sounds www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Wonderful photo! I love watching them on the flowers in our garden..
That ornate, narrow one in the LH photo is lovely. (My knees would hate it, but I can dream!)
I see and I hear and I speak no evil; I carry no malice within my breast; yet quite without wishing a man to the Devil one may be permitted to hope for the best. -“An Ethical Grook” by Piet Hein
Something for Simeon & Bish.
Yes! Left to himself he always bought stuff that wasn't on my list (& forgot stuff that was).
So, looks like the July geek data confirms big fiscal is back. You might have missed it. Let's have a look what's going on... Govt has pumped $26bn of cash into the economy over the last 12 months - but a third of that ($8.5bn) was in the last two months. Big moves. [🧵1/n]
Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”
The scolding article about everyone feeling good, having fun, and wishing It Would Happen, is going to be very funny.
Nothing like a bit of context, eh?
there’ll be a huge collective sigh of relief from across the pond if he has to cancel the state visit
And this is number of actively registered passenger cars and vans per driving age capita since 2017. Some lockdown affects, but it is another dataset suggesting peak car.
RFK Jr seen rushing to White House with a tray of leeches...
This is a Bad Thing.
This morning the GBM, me, and the tiny hobbit went for a walk in the neighborhood, got some brunch, did weekly groceries, loaded child and groceries in the wagon and walked back. The tyranny of the 15min city I tell you. The oppression. It’s unbearable to get fresh air and passive exercise 😫😖😣
Bluesky right now ...
Friends, LinkedIn has failed me 😑 but I know the politically engaged community I follow here won’t. I'm chairing the Karangahape Candidates debate at Double Whammy on Tues ahead of the local gvt elections - and I’d like your input. What's got you rarked up about Auckland? Questions please 🙏
#nzpol Nicky: - no boats - no new supermarkets - no-one getting $250 a fortnight - no debt reduction - no jobs - no pay equity - no child poverty reduction - no Central Bank Bosses left - no hope The quiet whispers of leadership must be getting louder
This is why if I'm sick, I don't send Himself to do the shopping.
I miss the old brand #CDC
In today’s Weekend Herald #nzpol
I’m headed out to the beach for sunrise soon, and the stars in the early morning sky are brilliant here in dark sky te Tairāwhiti. This is an iPhone photo of Matariki, the appearance of which is Aotearoa/New Zealand’s first indigenous holiday. (This cluster is also known as Pleiades)
Spent or squandered-Where are your Health dollars going? Dr Bagshaw (can we make him NZ Health Minister please?) points out the 'secret' scam that is public-private partnerships-also know as dirty 'ol privatisation-DR GARY PAYINDA #nzpol #health #PPP #privatisation open.substack.com/pub/drgarypa...?
On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution. But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable
Nasty, vindictive, petty little tyrant. Donald Trump cancels Kamala Harris' Secret Service protection www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/5...
If I had said, in 2005, that 20 years later the Republican Party would be even *more* systematically opposed, not only to domestic action on climate change, but to action on climate change anywhere in the world, I would have been dismissed as a hysterical partisan.
I can see more outbreaks of food-borne illness in the future for the US. Hard to see how this fits with the MAHA slogan.
My heart. Members of the US Public Health Service (the uniformed service branch no one has ever heard of, who serve at the CDC and elsewhere in the US), massed within the CDC property, saluting their departing uniformed leaders who were escorted out by security today after resigning on principle.
“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
He's horrid.
Done.
We're all in trouble, not just citizens of the US.
Those 4 well-beings that this govt considers irrelevant are things that make towns & cities places where people enjoy living.
TIL that in Aotearoa New Zealand the average life expectancy at Auckland City Mission is 55 and I feel that more people should know this
$671m + $13m = Still no boats www.nzherald.co.nz/business/com...
I did, until the point where 8kg of sopping-wet cat landed on my legs! For some weird reason he likes getting Really Wet & then letting us know all about it.
I get a "page not found" message 😥
“I am choosing to walk away on my own terms & with my mana intact” ✨ Under Tory: +More social housing +New water plan, $, entity +40km new cycleways +200k new trees +More arts $ +Golden Mile started +Exposed bigots & bullies “My title may change but my purpose & fight do not” 🔥
i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real.
The most National party thing ever is happening, and captured perfectly in this headline.
I'm in!
Here he goes.
I need my cis friends to read, understand, and share this thread. This is what we woke up to today. The talking heads are now calling for the immediate detainment of trans people. We need you. I need you. Now. To stand up. Or we start dying. 🧵
Orsman and the Herald shit stinking 3 storey low rises again No need to They are not scary and nor is the missing middle that would make up most of the intensification in Auckland outside of the Metropolitan Centres and some stations!
Applies to international contexts as well before trying your hand at high rises! voakl.net/2025/07/22/m...
Why is Erica Stanford Importing One Size Fits All Curriculum Ideas from Overseas? #nzpol thedailyblog.co.nz/2025/08/29/w...
Popular Myths Amongst Government Ministers. Teachers and nurses pay vs Crown board members pay. My Stuff #cartoon today #NZpol #NZHealth #NZEducation
What's the point of pouring money into fixing the carillion if you then sack the only person who can play it? Govt spends $10m to fix national war memorial bells, fires only person who can play www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Not only are landlords driving our housing policy, they get to use public funds as rental income. The MP housing situation is such a rort. The renting, the claiming, all of it.
Weekly jobs update. Bleurgh. Bobbing along the bottom. There is a tiny scrap of hope though... (1/2)
Wonderful corporate citizen found wanting
Yes, & the soundtrack is pretty awful too.
Right now I'm just about a 4.
David Seymour has been an MP for 11 years. Saying he doesn’t know what government departments do is, taken at face value, a statement of complete incompetence. If I didn’t know how my workplace did things after a decade I sure as hell wouldn’t act like it’s anyone else’s fault.
NZ universities would do well to adapt this course to our local context. College students are bombarded by misinformation, so this professor taught them fact-checking 101 − here’s what happened theconversation.com/college-stud...
Step 1 would probably be voting the current lot of environmental vandals out of the Treasury benches next year. How should NZ prepare for expected challenges of climate change? newsroom.co.nz/2025/08/28/h...
No boats Ni-co-liar has now caused the South Island to have no rail ferry links to the North Island and what does the Minister of the South island James Meagher have to say for the businesses of the South Island ... sweet FA.. Both are as useless as a left handed hammer.
The absolute audacity of this woman blaming “local leadership” and cycleways for the flailing economy after firing our public servants. You’re the Minister of Finance AND Economic Growth. Take a hard look at yourself, your lack of plan and your missing boats before coming at us. #nzpol
First, they came for John Bolton And I did speak out Because even though I'm not a nutty right-wing warmonger with a ridiculous mustache, I am an American who is horrified by a simple-minded tyrant using our Justice Department to avenge his petty, personal grudges.
I doubt it. That would be anathema to them.
Can't wait for an additional supermarket chain with stores in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington by 2029 to bring down the cost of my groceries next month in my rural town.
They're removing a requirement (honored more in the breach; I didn't know about it) for people to pay tax on income derived from selling excess solar generation. You won't be able to claim tax deductions against your solar, but I don't know how many do that anyway.
Another great reminder on why we need to keep our four wellbeing's, and how much local government really does for our communities! thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-...
Once again, anytime a member of this govt uses the term public safety, you know they're full of shit because they don't care in the slightest about road safety, safe drinking water, our healthcare system, and so much more #nzpol
This has GOT to be a priority for any new government It's a scandal that people are in this position in a country so abundant with renewable energy #nzpol
Dropkick Seymour alert. From an Arena Williams Labour MP fb page regarding canvassing a new development, "out of 80 new homes only 20 people are enrolled". We proved Seymour wrong with our Hikoi and with our submissions on TPB. Prove him wrong by enrolling.
Happy chappy
Our lawyers just confirmed that the court made an order by consent for costs of $15,023.60 to WCC from Live Wellington. To date, we have received an initial payment of $674.04 towards these costs. These people need to stop holding our city back and costing Wellingtonians.
Maybe we shouldn’t let someone who doesn’t believe in germs and who thinks it’s okay to eat roadkill and swim in contaminated ponds be in charge of our national food safety.