I do t think I’ve seen this data so starkly laid out Professor Tak Mak’s presentation includes this plot on global life expectancy and you can see that Oceania suffered a much smaller drop than any other region in 2021
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I do t think I’ve seen this data so starkly laid out Professor Tak Mak’s presentation includes this plot on global life expectancy and you can see that Oceania suffered a much smaller drop than any other region in 2021
Man, this has been confusing. So: * the data centres do exist, they're just on rented premises that are being kept secret * obviously they haven't invested in $7.5b of servers/infrastructure that's a "we plan to in the next 1000 years maybe" number? * The $10b to gdp number is bs but that's BAU
If it’s under Title 32 authority, the Texas guard remains under state control. That would mean that one state is deploying armed forces into the territory of a non-consenting state. And that’d clearly be a violation of the principle that states are co-equal, territorially limited sovereigns.
Hey, there is a reason my kids aren't growing up in Idaho.
Don't you know the internet is a series of tubes?
Michelle Obama: kids should have healthier school lunches RFK Jr: maybe if we let the plague run wild we can build a master race Media: wow these are the same thing
New: The latest data from the long-running New Zealand Election Study shows the vast majority of those who voted for the National Party in 2023 didn’t want to see New Zealand First play a role in the Government after the election. newsroom.co.nz/2025/09/01/j...
Bunch of folks pointed to Paul Krugman’s depressingly plausible answer, which is that in the case of extraordinary disruptions, markets are biased toward pretending things are normal until it’s undeniable, then tanking. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-arent-...
I’m not kidding when I say I love a formal synthesis. This one is spot-on. Some of what’s happening is people are trying to have a historical gaze for events that are still happening. Is it definitionally authoritarian? Cannot know until bodies stop dropping. But you can know it feels authoritarian
Looks great!
Oh no! Another great Wellington business closes. 45% revenue drop since National got into power. www.rnz.co.nz/life/food/fo...
The entire country can now experience a level of cringe previously only felt by Gen Zs when their parents try to use TikTok slang. No cap.
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
The baying of Costco hoards is the song of my people 😛
FFS - gas lighting from Power companies ‘They suggested we wear more clothes’
Fuck it really is going full 1984 😳😳😳
🤔
smuggling is about to get real popular
The nitrate water is slowly migrating under the gravel of the plains and will eventually reach the large urban aquifers that supply Christchurch whereupon infrastructure hell will break loose. Because we don’t do anything in this country in advance, just reactive response once it’s too late to stop.
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
obviously there are a lot of things wrong with Damien Grant's column because he is either not very smart on Covid or willingly misleading on it. but 1 in particular is the idea that we've since turned against the response. no we haven't. 64% of voters at the 2023 election approved of the response.
MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.
Said business is a beret specialist that imports berets from Europe and Argentina, and ships them mostly to US customers. I admire the guy's pluck but also the image of all those berets unnecessarily being shipped to and from Wellington does my head in a little bit. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Damn, the banks are getting absolutely buried by the recession.... Just kidding, another all time high 🫡
This is getting very bad: *FBI raids top Trump critic's home *Trump loyalist gins up "mortgage fraud" pretexts for DOJ probes of Schiff, Letitia James, Lisa Cook *Bannon says ICE will monitor 2026 voting *DHS memo vows LA operations "for years to come" New from me: newrepublic.com/article/1994...
There's a pattern in CEOs, where the board will hire a woman to be the ceo during times of crisis. And once she's lead them away from disaster they will replace her with a man and rewrite that she caused the crisis times. Rinse repeat. Similar pattern in politics, I reckon.
Last wave of tickets have been set free. Smash those keys and click that mouse to grab your tickets if you haven't! After this wave, we are sold out! Free unwaged and student tickets still up for grabs too! Go go go!
“Sweet Jesus, I absolutely refuse to be told off for feeling poor by the Chief Scrooge of the, ‘I’m Wealthy And Sorted’ Government who’ve single-handedly overseen the longest recession in NZ’s living memory.” www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3607...
It's worth pointing out James Dobson made a lot of people's lives worse and even many pointing it out are only touching on all of them. Was he awful to LGBT folks? Absolutely. The domestically abused? Yep. Abused children? Oh yes. Satanic Panic survivors? Hell yes. He was broad spectrum awful.
If the AI bubble really is bursting, please take this lesson from it: Nothing marketed to you this relentlessly is ever worth it. If it was, they wouldn’t need to beg you.
Can't help but notice that very few of the people who think teachers have an easy job with generous pay and luxurious holidays have decided to do the rational thing and retrain as teachers
News hot off the press: kawaiicon.org/news/ Free unwaged/student tickets still up for grabs & final ticket wave up on Friday afternoon. Set your clocks, people! Now a word from our kawaii sponsors: ( ꜆-ࡇ-)꜆ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁
Extremely concerning comment from the FSU who apparently get to determine what ideological capture is now. You'll be shocked when I tell you it's "learning about Māori culture" or "not being a shithead to trans people" and other things many associations and bodies have as standard code of conduct.
Feel like this should be getting more attention -- win or lose, Mowbray comes off as a monster. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/zur...
I don't know who needs to hear this, but Amtrak is having a flash sale for fall travel right now
Here's the thing, we already were amongst the lowest levels of funding for research in the developed world. And these cuts & reprioritisations make this even worse. You can't determine immediate economic implications from a lot, if not most, research. So, these decisions misunderstand science.
Folks there's an election in six weeks, I heartily recommend voting in anyone who's willing to holler "fucken make me" to central government and then "fucken fight me" when they try to make them.
After 5 years exclusively covering climate, my soul needs a break from writing about but not solving the crisis, so I'm hoping to do some solving for a while.... I'll be working with Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority from September, helping in energy, electricity and saving us all money.
Here’s that one moment in the Oval Office meeting just now that I hope doesn’t come back to haunt Americans.
Grok is exposing the underlying prompts for its AI personas, including such commands as “BE FUCKING UNHINGED AND CRAZY. COME UP WITH INSANE IDEAS. GUYS JERKING OFF, OCCASIONALLY EVEN PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR ASS, WHATEVER IT TAKES TO SURPRISE THE HUMAN.” www.404media.co/grok-exposes...
lol @stuff.co.nz using ChatGPT for writing their articles but forgetting to remove the "?utm_source=chatgpt.com" from the generated links 🙄
And some wonder why there's a trust deficit...
Or even more terrifying, that your Kiwisaver might tip some of your savings in without you even knowing!
KiwiSavers may be missing out on roulette returns if they don't put it all on black, casino owner says.
So we have 0 rail enabled ferries currently in service anymore? And we could've had new ones delivered this year, but instead our Finance idiot blew $671m? #nzpol
As of today there is no rail link between the North and South Island of New Zealand for the first time in 26 years. The replacement is an as yet uncontracted, unbuilt ferry that's supposed to arrive in 2029. The rail ferry that was being built, cancelled in December 2023, was due in February 2026.
Apart from firearms, the part of training we spent the most time on (if I am recalling correctly) was legal instruction. Now the FBI is hiring people with no college degree and slashing training time in half (reducing academics, guessing ethics also). Absolute disaster www.nysun.com/article/fbi-...
which words in the letter were the strongest
For all the AoNZ crowd wondering why the people who hit cycleway separators mysteriously avoid kerbs…the UK is ahead of us
Minister for Rail Winston Peters on the $671m scrapped ferry fiasco #nzpol #ferries www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
Y’all tonight I met @scalzi.com on the streets of Seattle around 9pm walking over to do USENIX security shit & I ABSOLUTELY FANGIRLED bc I’m in the middle of Kaiju Preservation Society and it bangs Anyway that is why someone randomly screamed HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO COOL on 8th & Stewart tonight.
Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, UK.... Endlessly vacationing Vance is getting booted out of British pubs. Even the pints are telling him to fuck off.
just a quick note that after 5 years + 4 months of writing webworm, i am moving my newsletter off of substack and taking it out on my own. for any readers - nothing really changes: the next edition will arrive in your inbox as per usual. my thoughts: www.webworm.co/p/webwormisl...
After a multi-year legal battle, I've been granted a restraining order against the notorious white supremacist Phil Arps Arps fought this every step of the way (with legal aid) and I've been left with a hefty legal bill, I'm fundraising to cover the last part of the cost ko-fi.com/byroncclark/...
I really don’t understand this resistance to cleaning the air I know money I get it then don’t want to spend money and they don’t want liability. But cleaning the air would solve so many problems that would generate so much money.
Don't give them ideas
AI this AI that why don’t you AI your butt and leave us alone
A comic about making comics (the alt text took longer to write than the comic did to draw * I drew this a few years ago)
Wave 1 gone! If you missed out, worry not. Another wave will open next week! Date and time to be announced here, so just keep your eyes peeled!
And "the first country in the world to abandon a commitment to phase out oil, gas and coal." A travesty and a disgrace. Unforgiveable, and that extends to those who empowered this lot and still do. Because we warned. And explained. And pleaded. We still do :( drilled.media/news/new-zea...
What a fucking disgrace.
MUCH EXCITE!!!!
Feels worth sharing this post from my colleague Justin Hodgkiss on here (since he isn’t). Continual, repeated cuts to our investment in basic research are taking us in precisely the wrong direction — and Justin captures the essential problem more clearly than anyone 🙏🔥
No, JD, belonging in America does not depend on how many generations of your family have lived here. The values of this country matter - deeply - to who we are and what it means to be American.
Overheard a rich guy at the gym say he relies on chat gpt to think. Not a joke, he went on to say he relies on it to tell him what to take when he leaves the house. Everything is so stupid.
The highly anticipated ticket update: kawaiicon.org/news/ tl;dr Ticket wave 1 is opening tomorrow @ 10AM NZ, and lots of other very good, very kawaii details in the latest news post! Go digest, and see you tomorrow!
Obergefell v. Hodges made me believe in the whole "arc of history bends towards justice." In the 90s, I didn't think gay marriage would be legalized in my lifetime because homophobia was so deeply ingrained. We would have never gotten here without the decision and now it may be overturned.
Saw this, so true. Don’t be in the chapter about those who did nothing, or, even worse, those who actively supported a genocidal state. Be on the right side of history, fight to end the genocide in Gaza. #endthegenocide
Every study about vaccines that comes out is like "this vaccine is 97% effective at preventing this disease & also 3 other diseases & it somehow helps you play the violin beautifully" and antivaxxers are doing their own research that's telling them they can cure measles by eating polar bear liver.
"We should be worried about the Greens" say people who forget two terms of Labour/Green cooperation during the Ardern years & ignore the way Winston/Seymour run rings around Luxon. #nzpol
Fuck that and fuck him, that weasely little quisling
Simultaneously unthinkable and seemingly inevitable. Tragic and criminal.
Somebody on LinkedIn said what we're all thinking.
Things the government could do to actually help: - broker a buyout of Methanex contract for other users + use ETS free-allocation savings to support New Plymouth community - urgently support build-up of renewables, energy efficiency, demand response to enable electrification - biomass strategy
New road user charge calculator: How much could you pay? That going to need to be amended - encourages gas guzzlers over efficient cars. More than 10L/100km and you save money. Under and it’ll cost you more. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-road-...
I want to keep my dumb car and my dumb house full of dumb furniture and dumb appliances and I want all the AI-infested, data-stealing, hackable "smart" devices to leave me the fuck alone.
It is 2025, America only just leads China in technology. AI Code Assistants promise to let users become programmers without writing code. Welcome to the future, kids!
"I don't care what you say about whether it [bootcamps] does or doesn't work. We can have that intellectual conversation all day long, but we are, dammit, going to try something different because we cannot carry on getting the results that we've been getting.” - Luxon in 2024
reverse heist movie where a single snake has to chase all the priests back into ireland
Is this published or from an OIA?
#nzpol These are some of the grimmest tax debt figures I've seen in a long time. Of the $3.7 billion owed IR considers over $1.1 billion is non-collectable.
It’s incredibly depressing reading incident reports from accidents that involve highly experienced people who decide they can cut corners. It’s even worse when their decisions put other people at risk. Wear your vest when asked. It’s the law. www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...
“Why talk to other people? You don’t need them! Not for expertise, not for companionship, not for entertainment. It’s just you and GPT, at the end of the world! Because we destroyed the world but never mind that ha ha it’s fine let’s party.”
The fact that he doubled down is absolutely wild
The best time to get political was a decade ago. The second best time is now
Sam Altman has got to the point where he doesn't even bother to describe stuff anymore. "Uhh yeah sometime you'll have a thingy that will do stuff. And wow will it be good!"
I went to an excellent workshop by @me.vivianchandra.com about deepfakes in schools today. Deeply worrying. We’re raising a generation of kids who can no longer trust anything they see, read, or hear; or assume there’s no difference between lies and truth and act accordingly.
It’s not just that unemployment is up 28% since the govt took office it’s that they engineered it! If you have the faintest clue about how the economy works you know that cutting public spending impacts the private sector immediately. The govt is the private sector’s BIGGEST customer.
I am once again begging you not to allow the interfaces and purpose of your LLM software “agents” to be defined by deeply unwell people who find their own humanity a desperate inconvenience
It’s not the cycle lane’s fault you’re a shit driver www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3607...
So with a goal of cutting 2 trillion dollars, he cut about 50 billion, and still fucked it up. Genius.
pay very close attention to Wikipedia to find a way out of the AI slop internet www.404media.co/wikipedia-ed...
In my post today I gave my pal Molly, and incredible and passionate teacher, the space to share what teachers and children actually need from education reforms. It’s a sobering and blunt read, but well worth it: yeehawtheboys.substack.com/p/a-teachers...
I imagine that Crimson is pretty heavily exposed to the war on US higher education and need a new gig
This database of NZ local body candidates is AWESOME! If you want to know who to vote for (& who to avoid) in October, this is your one-stop-shop. #LocalDemocracyNZ #nzpol
New Zealand is not OK
On point!