From the Otago Geology department (the keepers of the Magnolia time series), this year was August 8th.
Statistician in Papaioea, Aotearoa. #rstats, #datascience.
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From the Otago Geology department (the keepers of the Magnolia time series), this year was August 8th.
Omg nerd day made
OMG! Want.
Tis the season of floral skypaper here. Prunus Pink Clouds.
Good numbers of strong, experienced, progressive councillors will be key to both the direction and effectiveness of the next council, Pōneke.
If you look at the language around the announcement, it's very careful and indirect. Lloyd Burr's piece is quite good on the confusion it resulted in: www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...
The Covid inquiry reboot is inspiring all sorts of revisionism on LinkedIn, including this little gem from Covid Plan B stalwart Ananish Chaudhuri “By October 2020, we knew that the vaccines did not prevent transmission”. This is not true, but how did he even come up with this? Thread. 1/N
Seems I've only indirectly been over the backstory of the gumboot song on here so now seems a good moment. I'm assured that, if you possess a copy of the Fred Dagg album, you can check the credit and find it goes to...
Nice! Had a chonky Kererū in the backyard today. Second time in 15 years.
If it weren't for your gumboots, where would ya be? You'd be in the hospital or in the infirmary.
I am assuming that candidates who want to go back in time and relitigate decisions made by previous councils they weren’t elected to, only want to change decisions they disagree with and not ones they agree with? This is ridiculous and shows a basic misunderstanding of local govt
This is so damn frustrating. No it absolutely shouldn’t be up to a new council. This decision, amongst others like the Golden Mile and Begonia House, were made months ago. Respect the democratic process. They must proceed otherwise we end up with unfinished projects and escalated costs. #nzpol
Yeah, seems to vary by insurance company. One we’re with it does change (about 6% cheaper). The other it doesn’t. But switching from higher frequency to annual requires a bunch of upfront cost that is really hard for those that don’t already have the cash. Boots theory of socioeconomics again.
Just to clarify, there is not another decision required on the City to Sea Bridge, and the decision to do this work was made well in advance of local body elections (last year). Subject to any appeal (which should be signalled this week), there is no other barrier to proceeding.
The story behind this would be interesting I reckon - why the decision to not implement the modulo behaviour in the UI widget? I guess time/date widgets are likely shared by the OS/UI library, but there are likely other cases for circular lists. (Also: you can tap on the number and use the numpad)
#InternetNZ has just opened a round of consultation on some proposed .nz rule changes, if that sort of thing is of interest. You can find out more here: internetnz.nz/nz-domains/n...
*pinches bridge of nose* sitting councillors and mayoral candidates saying "the final decision should be for the next council" is extremely stupid, the decision was Made By Council, It Has Been Made. This court stuff is appealing the DECISION, which has been made.
Discworld QOTD, from The Wee Free Men “‘Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it.’ ‘No, actually it isn't,’ said Tiffany. ‘Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.’”
New game just dropped Birdle 🇳🇿 01/09/2025 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 birdle.nz
They also cover Napier
If you’re in Hastings or know of anyone voting in the Hastings District local body elections this year, Bay Buzz has comprehensive information about local candidates. Please share
This is a very enlightening interview with @richardhills.bsky.social and Christine Fletcher about plan changes. On one hand you have fearmongering and misinformation from Fletcher. On the other you have actual substance and work to get better outcomes with Hills. www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...
Nobody ever cycles in New Zealand / in winter, and also the compulsory visual shorthand for “bad weather” is a pic of some legend in a raincoat just pedalling through it regardless.
A photo I took of my cats making their way back home after killing a man.
FYI a Friday PM special: Nicola Willis just announced Reserve Bank Chair Neil Quigley has resigned with immediate effect after nine years as chair and 15 years as a director. This follows the ...er... messy departure of Adrian Orr as Governor. www.beehive.govt.nz/release/depa...
Want to come to New Zealand this summer? The call for abstracts for the Capital City Complex Systems Symposium 2026 is now open: forms.gle/g22s2dR85oFq... 🧪
PhD scholarship: using remote sensing with tree breeding trials We have a 3-year scholarship (tuition + stipend) for working in "Enriching within-trial analysis using remote sensing data". The scholarship is funded by the Radiata Pine Breeding Company (www.rpbc.co.nz). 🧵1
📢 R Dev Day @ Australia 🏢 Monash University, Melbourne 🌐 Remote, Australia 📅 Fri 21 Nov It's happening! Apply to attend this free event, to collaborate on contributions to #RStats! You don't need to be an R guru! Deadline Sunday 16 Nov: pretix.eu/r-contributo... #RDevDay #RSEng
Yep, a little sweeter than they were earlier in the season but still have enough tang. The grapefruit from Gisborne is great ATM as well.
Look what the fabulous people of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori created.😀 #princessbride #tereomaori #aotearoa www.reomaori.co.nz Kia Kaha te Reo Māori.💜
My friend @electrifythis.bsky.social talking to the CEO of FONZ Scooters about their new Z Series electric scooter (equivalent to a 300cc bike) youtu.be/xNyFGB0Y0-8?...
Meet Gary Chiles, parliament’s weed man
This design is also available in my dashery store, which is currently on sale! exocomics.dashery.com
fall friends 🍂
The Register wrote a story about a single maintainer open source project, I think it's shameful and upsetting So I wrote a blog post about it An absolutely ridiculous amount of open source is one person projects. I have the data to prove it opensourcesecurity.io/2025/08-oss-...
New Zealand government spends $10m to fix national war memorial bells, fires only person who can play them. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa... #NZPol
Spent too much time today on @theprogressreport.co.nz submitting stuff about PN candidates. One good trick: search covid submissions for your candidates! Its a great way of spotting cookers. bills.parliament.nz/v/6/f4b81cee...
At her campaign launch for the Māori ward seat, Tory Whanau launched a broadside at Ray Chung, Nicola Young, Auckland councillor Maurice Williamson and anyone associated with campaign group Better Wellington - "Vote them out. They don't deserve to represent you."
And now our podcast unpacking round 1 is live. Fill ya boots! open.spotify.com/episode/77TN...
Magnolia time! Sweetheart in full flight is glorious but lasts all of a week maximum which isn't very long, especially if you don't have a lot of space. (Not one of our selections).
FFS so many of the councillors re-running in Palmerston North are still crying over the Featherston Street changes. I guess it is an easy filter for who not to rank. (Also, shout out to the Mayor and councillors who backed it and are *still* getting shouted at as well as the wider council team).
'councils are not just service delivery agencies – they are critical partners in helping communities realise their own aspirations' - Penny Hulse, the best mayor Auckland didn't have. @thespinoff.bsky.social
Skea – PDF This is a digital print of "Skea", from an original painting in acrylic on canvas, and is part of the Birds in Hats series by Joshua Drummond, who is me. Also, hi! Thanks for supporting my art by buying my work. This cheeky alpine fella zips down mountainsides and the fronts of parked…
It is deeply frustrating to see the Ministries for Women and Pacific Peoples positioned as expendable. Equity ministries exist because the system does not treat us equally. Calling their erasure “efficiency” is structural misogyny and racism #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
My favourite lines… On exploring and better connecting with the city: “It’s like London was invisible to me until just this past year.” On getting healthier, especially mentally healthier: “I’m not adding anything into my schedule. This is just a way of getting around!”
I talked to @eloisegibson.bsky.social about universal Road User Charges. Govt says (a) carbon charge, ETS will sort it; (b) cutting petrol carbon charge from $450/t to $50/t -> negligible effect. They can't both be true, I don't think either of them are true. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
I'll be advertising a couple of PhD scholarships (breeding/wood quality, breeding/remote sensing) in the next couple of weeks, working with me and even cooler people at the School of Forestry, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. They cover uni fees + stipend for 3 years.
From the 2023 NZ election survey. Confident, happy and proud are the emotions most commonly associated with the Covid response, when the substantive response had already been in the rearview mirror for more than a year (eg, no active restrictions).
If you love democracy, crafts, or just want to support a young, progressive city councillor - please come along to my exhibition on the 5th. 6pm, the Nancy Caiger Gallery inside the Meteor Theatre, Hamilton NZ.
We are advertising a Level D/E position in Pure Maths at University of Adelaide (for non-Oz-initiated: E=full Prof, D=one step down). https://careers.adelaide.edu.au/cw/en/job/517088/associate-professor-professor-de-pure-mathematics
Zealandia this morning.
Mt Taranaki from Waikanae Beach this evening.
Great shots!
I wrote this for you so you can get up to speed real, real quick. thespinoff.co.nz/society/22-0...
Here's a link to our new report on the determinants of health and wellbeing, published today. It follows up on a landmark report from 1998 and finds that these determinants are largely the same, and we've done a patchy job (at best) of improvement.
Things you can monger: 1) War 2) Fear 3) Hate 4) Rumour 5) Cheese
The climate advice they didn't want you to see. [finally, six days before I finish up, I get to use that headline formula 😅] www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Eels spend several years as big clear, leaf shaped goobers in the ocean, just floating around being weird little guys. Eel Facts! Text STOP to cancel Eel Facts
I’m going to Palmerston North tomorrow to talk about “You Are Here” with Peata Larkin and Leonel Alvarado at an evening event at the public library for National Poetry Day. There’s an open mic beforehand (bring a poem, I know you want to) Doors open at 6.30.
I think it says a lot about NZ's Green Party being environment/ecosystem/science based rather than some of the cultural trends in other countries, that the Green Party had the fewest voters who had never had a covid vaccination 0.34%. 32.5% of NZ First voters say they never had a covid vaccination.
Looks great!
The New Zealand Election Study data for the 2023 general election is now out, and available publicly at dataverse. I have remade my Treaty graph, replacing 2020 with 2023. The long term trend towards Toitū Te Tiriti is unchanged.
my lil reproducibility talk from today / I really wanted to instill the PhD students some simple first practices and ways to step up your game from there github.com/tjmahr/2025-...
Scoot breaks down the latest Auckland zoning reforms including re-zoning along some of the frequent bus network. www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2025/08/21/i...
People Watching: Ice skating at Ice Sports Southland, Gore, on a wintry Saturday afternoon
I feel like it’s a good day to make a list of contemporary AoNZ artists that are good with birds. A few off the top of my head: Me (can I start with myself??) @tworuru.com @pepperraccoon.com Melissa Boardroom Melina Martin Please reply with others that you know of. I know there are lots more.
Great work here from Tina Ngata - a website where you can look up Tiriti positive local body candidates 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 #Aotearoa www.votefortetiriti.com
Rob Hyndman's forecast stuff? otexts.com/fpp3/
Data on the cuts to the Marsden Fund reported by RNZ this morning
Yup - no need to be worried - you're correct that you won't "waste" your vote at all if you vote Alex first then Andrew. If Alex is eliminated your vote will transfer to Andrew :)
Counterpoint: This is mad confusing because it is garbage made with AI and few of the birds look much like the birds they look like. Here’s a thought: instead of sharing this, maybe share art made by a human? One who needs it for their livelihood? www.tworuru.com/product/aote...
{searches to see if joke already made} Luxon is demonstrably and inarguably our most not woke Prime Minister.
My kids were talking about playing tag at school at dinner tonight and I told them how we used to call it tiggy in primary school (Auckland). They all laughed at me. To prove I wasn't insane I looked it up and it's genuinely interesting. teara.govt.nz/en/document/...
NEW SHIRT ALERT AND IT'S EELS THIS TIME BC Y'ALL SAID YOU WANTED EELS AND I LOVE THEM EEL CYCLES depicts the beautiful and strange transformative life stages of a longfin eel, from ocean egg through to freshwater adult...and $3 from each shirt will be donated to Forest & Bird <3 pepperraccoon.com
The answer is right there guys. RIGHT THERE. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...
My sustainable transport policy: "Four lanes from here to the trains", is about ensuring Wellington has the mix on transport infrastructure that it needs. Check out the full policy on my Website - alexbakerwellington.nz/priorities/2
Tēnā koutou, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alice Soper and for the next six week's I will be your rugby reporter for the women's Rugby World Cup. #womensrugby #RWC2025 #blackferns
Timeline cleanse, as they say. 33rd Annual Coney Island Sandsculpting Competition!
Ah good idea! Will set the yaml up for that next time. :)
I did the same change this year with a data science cohort and seemed to be no major hurdles. One thing different was on some systems Rstudio loaded the qmd in Visual editor by default, so I had to add an explainer for visual vs source editor.
Would you like to order a little picture of a robot? I'm offering commissions of existing robots in a new style that can use as icons for stuff or whatever you like! Prices start at £20 per picture. Contact me on here if you're interested.
Someone typed in 500g I guess?
I’ve decided I actually do want to do my ASMARX project because it’s too funny not to but I also want to hit my arbitrary threshold, so… signal boost pls
A threat: If this gets 10k views or 100 comments on any platform I will read the entire Communist Manifesto as an audiobook bedtime/sleep podcast If you don’t want this, don’t share it #politics #nzpol #soci
Key point being (as I'm sure everyone on this thread knows) you can't argue the alternative choice was 15k more deaths & "life as normal". The alternative was 15k more deaths plus overwhelmed hospitals, a traumatized healthcare workforce, a borked economy AND months of restrictions + closures
Hello #dataBS (& especially #TidyTuesday) fam! I'm trying to organize a thing to help me keep TidyTuesday running smoothly, but first I need to get a bit of a runway. Every week I curate a TT dataset, and it's wearing me down. Please see github.com/rfordatascie... for some ways you can help! #RStats
Discworld QOTD, from Soul Music “I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.”
Between research, interviews, more research, writing, graphic design and yet more research, I spent a week working on this project. If you found it helpful, please consider supporting Newsroom so we can do more of this by subscribing to Newsroom Pro or donating here: donations.newsroom.co.nz
This big stadium in NZ just filled its roof with solar panels and I got to see the project from start to finish in this little video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGkf...
Writing a virtual file system so you can watch direct from the multipart rar…
This is unforgiveable incompetence: NZ has spent $671m to get no ferries, rather than $551m to get new ferries that would be arriving within months to replace clapped-out ferries. This sort of mismanagement should bring down a government; amazingly, it's not even the worst example of their failings
I'm running a campaign launch in Mt Vic. next Friday (22nd Aug). Doors open at 6.30pm and we will be kicking off at 7pm. Be great to have anyone who is interested come along! Tickets are free and available at: www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/alex-baker...
Chinese author ‘shocked’ at children’s book awards win
Fucking love this photo. The length of the grass, no catcher, no ear protection, the sandals, shorts, sweat pouring down the t-shirt. Bit of a shit prime minister, but fucking legendary with a mower.
The lecture I delivered in Ponsonby last night wasn't universally well-received
Good timing - just past the less than ideal months of June and July.
Paywall now lifted: My special report this morning is about how we spent generations strangling our rivers to make room for our homes and farms, only to find we've ended up supercharging their flows. What do we do when we realise we've built a society in a riverbed? newsroom.co.nz/2025/08/13/l...
Except the family home pays rates. And rates include GST. So yeah, there already is a national tax on the family home, which the previous National party increased.
And proposing it while local elections are under way. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Act are running local candidates at the exact same time, presumably all running on lowering rates.
