The NZ car industry has made no progress towards meeting the 2025 emissions standards. Are they even trying?

For the #30DayMapChallenge day 7 Accessibility, in 2021 to help someone looking at health equity and the vaccine rollout, I worked out the road travel distance from every SA2 centre point to every hospital using purely open sources so that it could be freely used. #rstats code in alt text.

I can achieve an equivalent result without spending billions user_input <- "initial" while(user_input != "\n"){ print("I refute everything you say, and do not concede") user_input <- paste0(readline(prompt = "So what do you say: "),"\n") } print("I guess I win. Debate me coward")

Most of these changes will be legislated in 2026, so it's not a done deal yet!

16 When the question "What do you think of New Zealand?" costs $857,143 dollars a word to ask.

This is an essential read for anyone who does pretty much anything creative, especially writing in some form:

Eggcellent news from Aotearoa New Zealand - a North Island Kiwi chick has hatched on Waiheke island following the introduction of 10 kiwi to the most isolated side of the island in May. Trail cam footage shows that the chick has been exploring close to the nest site. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Not without a TREMENDOUS amount of work. I did this because of Prometheus' carbon dating. www.funraniumlabs.com/2015/06/carb...

My male, Pākehā, face correlates to historical corpuses of images of people successful in being hired as managers (noting not the same thing as being a successful manager). For the underlying stupid causative implication, the phrenology (actually demographics) of the hiring panel likely matters more

These days I think current "Imperial English" is the subset of English acceptable (not provoking complaints, and thus work) if it was heard by members of Silicon's Valley's home jurisdiction. So if you want to at least know people have been called gcs for sharing their baking, switch Rude off hide.

10% of Meta's 2024 ad revenue came from outright frauds and scams; the platform shows consumers 15 billion ads for fraud and scams every single day. This doesn't even include agitprop and AI slop. the existential collapse of this monumental pile of shit company simply can't come quickly enough

Bluesky ##eqnzs per minute, from 0 for the first minute after the earthquake on

BusinessDesk has a fantastic (and rare) for a data journalist in New Zealand. The Herald and BusinessDesk are separate publications, but whoever is in this role will work with me on projects like Budget day visualisations 1/2 careers.nzme.co.nz/jobs/6697721...

NZ and AU accounts, accustomed to a more vigorous use of language as punctuation than the comparatively prim US, might at the very least set it to warn so you know people are saying things even if you are nervous about be unshielded from "no constructive purpose". Wordcloud of NZ Twitter 2021

When you book a flight through major travel sites, a data broker owned by U.S. airlines will sell details about your flight—your name, credit card used, and where you’re flying to the government. We found out how to opt-out of ARC selling your travel data. A guide: www.404media.co/how-to-opt-o...

There is a bunch of rain over Ōtepoti right now, and more importantly it is not dark yet, but for the southern South Island there is enough interesting Aurora indications it is probably worth keeping an eye on conditions. See www.dunedinaurora.nz auroraalert.otago.ac.nz/aurora/index... and ...

Like many Kiwis, I received an email from Microsoft about switching to MS 365 personal classic (reduction in cost plus avoids AI shit). but the link took me to the Australian site. I was 1100 in the queue so quit that. Realised I could change AU to NZ in the web address. This worked. Done.

Measles outbreak update No new measles cases today. Total confirmed cases remains at 17. All no longer infectious. The outbreak is still ongoing, and we are focused on stamping out further spread. An outbreak can only be declared over after 42 days with no new cases - so we’re not there yet.

The detectCores() apocalypse is creeping up on us 👻🐛 As more people are getting access to 128+ CPU cores, code spinning up parallel cluster with detectCores() workers fails - not enough #RStats connections available Friends, do *not* default to detectCores(), bc www.jottr.org/2022/12/05/a...

Boston Dynamics and Open AI could collaborate for a thousand years on producing the ultimate robot butler and still not produce something as obsequious as Gianni Infantino.

David became a freelance bioinformatician due to the situation he describes 👇. Freelance workers are typically looking for the next contract. That's how it is. Maybe we could boost this signal so that people who appreciate David's experience and principles can find him?

For #30DayMapChallenge day 5: Earth, I wasn't particularly motivated until I remembered that one guy in Auckland (AoNZ will understand what I mean) so learned to process geojson- Earthquakes (+) over 3.5 Magnitude, south of -38.8 and where and how strongly they were felt. #rstats code in alt text

More red flags #NZpol "Christina Hood, an independent climate policy expert who has advised governments of all stripes on climate and formerly headed the International Energy Agency’s climate unit, said the changes to consultation requirements were unacceptable." newsroom.co.nz/2025/11/06/g...

We’re proud to announce that we have launched the design phase of the respiratory syncytial virus vaccination programme in collaboration with our global health partners. This is a critical step for turning the tide on the second leading cause of infant mortality after malaria: bit.ly/3XiV6B7

A literary award held tonight honours the remarkable Ronald Hugh Morrieson

RBNZ to the Waitangi Tribunal...

How am I expected to choose?? So tough - but I think I will go with Ocean, a little girl who has had a rocky road in life and deserves to have something good happen. 😁 www.nationalaquarium.co.nz/visit/pengui...

The Illinois legislature had passed the “Illinois Bivens Act,” allowing people to sue ICE agents in state court. Just waiting for Pritzker’s signature. dailynorthwestern.com/2025/11/03/c...

Biosecurity lays over 100 yellow-legged hornets traps, genetically tests captured insects

One of my Coastguard Hibiscus crew mates took this picture earlier tonight and captioned it “early Christmas”. It’s the view from his place in Army Bay, Whangaparaoa

Heads up, I’m putting together a great lineup for a special concert on Sun Mar 8, 2026 at the Akld Town Hall to mark International Women’s Day. My band Moana & the Tribe 1/

Oh my! I didn't realize the Australian CDC already has a website: cdc.gov.au 🎉 It's technically the interim CDC, as it's only due in January 2026 (if all goes to plan). www.cdc.gov.au/about/about-...

Feeling sad today, so thought I'd share something from one of my art projects, which is to bring life to Aotearoa's #extinct species. Here's a little treasure called tutukiwi, a shorebird which lived in the forest, extinct in 1964.

I literally want to cry. TOUCHING GRASS WINS ELECTIONS.

For #30DayMapChallenge day 4, My Data. I haven't been everywhere, but I have been to 73 of the 116 locations in the song "I've been everywhere" (allowing for some questionable location names in the song).

New Paper🚀! Our work analysing the Swiss national SARS-CoV-2 wastewater 🚱 monitoring data is now published in PLOS Water 💧 @plos.org journals.plos.org/water/articl... (Julien Riou, @tanjastadler.bsky.social @trj2.bsky.social Christoph Ort et al)

Wow, the NZ carbon market hates the Government's proposed changes to the ETS and Zero Carbon Act. Carbon price which had already dropped to $51.50 yesterday now down to $41 in intra-day trading. Just keep repeating "The ETS is our key tool to control emissions".

"A good way to learn German is to read children's books to familiarise yourself with basic grammar and vocabulary" German children's book:

st_wrap_dateline() has relevance for NZ and the Chatham Islands

Hey anyone at #mpi or #biosecuritynz. We do wasp genomics. I reckon I could tell you in about 24 hours if these invasive yellow legged #hornets you have found in Auckland are sisters, or a larger invasion. For free. Hit me up now!

3 November 2025 saw two new NZ electricity records set: highest daily utility solar power generation (1.6 GWh, enough to make 50 million cups of tea), and the last day of an unprecedented 25-day run of zero coal power. There will be a lot more records like this to come.

Using AI for research is a trip. Ex: Gemini gives me 5 sources, the first 3 don't exist. I Google the titles (to double check they don't exist) & the Google AI summary gives me a complete explanation of the articles that don't exist including "their" key arguments & findings. Crazy-making.

If you see a lot of political memes that have an out-of-place sepia filter, it's because the Studio Ghibli filter OpenAI added to ChatGPT was too popular and polluted their database, and will force a "nostalgic Ghibli sepia filter" onto images without asking. The recent White House Halo pic is one.

"more than 90 per cent of the time we are indoors, be at home, office, school … so it is indoor air which is the most important for our health. "This is the problem right now — we must establish indoor air quality standards, and mandate those standards." www.abc.net.au/news/science...

This: filed under "Life Is Too Short". 😓

i owe so many video game designers an apology

1/ Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Great Britain & Europe - DEFRA outbreak assessment for 28 Oct 2025. #IDsky #IDEpi #OneHealth #H5N1 🧪 🗓️ Report period: 08-28 Oct 2025 🔗 to report: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6908c1...

There is a high win warning for Wellington.