Latest wee project is done

Went into a bar to buy a half-pint of beer, only to be told "no". Apparently, for this boutique brewery's bar, it's pints or nothing. I normally drink pints, so I'll have to start checking out whether this is a thing across the board. If so, it sucks.

Stupid shit menopause does to you that no-one mentions, #48: you* can't even fucking whistle any more (*you = I and me. Maybe *you* can still whistle, but I, an accomplished (if amateur) whistler previously, cannot, subsequent to frigging m3nopuKe)

With alt text so everyone can get it

Serious question: if a service provider sends you a PDF file *without* editable fields for you to provide them some info, how, exactly, do they expect people to do that? Go through the rigmarole I just did of converting to image so I could scribble on it? Or literally print it out and ...?

What also gets me about this kind of job/income erosion is that the said billionaires could earn MORE ridiculous profits from people with discretionary $$ to spend on their goods. Altho, with already-stratospheric incomes, maybe they're limiting supply for the merely-rich to harvest

Small comfort in these days of "AI"/ various forms of machine learning, and the many years of metadata scrapings, that the Goog apparently don't know how unappealing this is to me on at least three levels

Helpful hint for anyone who doesn't get hiccups for literal decades, and who then gets stuck with a 15 min bout that feels like it'll last foreverrr - this works! Basically, sit up straight, extend your neck upwards as far as you can and hold your breath as long as possible. Relief!

Time to hit mute on JK R*wling discourse. I never liked the books and I don't know why this woman's hateful views keep being platformed. We all know what she is now, I'm not interested in any further bile she has to spew.

Dear medical practice, thanks SO much - not - for the information that my awesome GP has returned to Canada permanently. You'd think that'd be something to mention to a GP's patients? Even more awesome there are no appts available with any of the other doctors there for about a month.

tbh reposting this on here (there aren't a lot of kids on here) feels a bit futile so I just want to champion Scarleteen as a really incredible accessible resource for kids seeking inclusive sex ed (+ other stuff re: teen safety) and if you can get it into the hands of kiddos now that'd be good

Apparently our CEO/PM hasn't heard of the project management triangle, expressed in brief as: "Good, fast, cheap. You get two." I know which one *shouldn't* be sacrificed in a """representative democracy""" (Since this stupidity is such a part of the RW playbook now, I'm sure they feel otherwise)

Lol yeah, I wonder if the OP has ever heard of Czechoslovakia, August 1968

In honour of a 20th anniversary showing of #SerenityMovie, here's a link to one of the best fanvids I've ever seen. Not such a fan of the song, but it works perfectly here. (Pword to the video is immediately beneath the embed) heresluck.livejournal.com/183746.html

To me, this epitomises how awful the left can be at explaining issues. When I first heard the phase, I was like, "lol, we're not in utopia yet mate". But "invest more in social services and less in policing" is an understandable aim! (Pls don't jump on me, I am not an academic and never have been)

Spoons in progress (earrings or salt spoons tbd)

Honestly, fuck Microsoft. Great big security hole in Server 2025 is partially fixed in Aug update. Ofc update KB articles no longer have useful summaries - good luck trawling dozens of CVEs for pertinent info. But all the AI updates are itemised ffs. Great use of screen real estate for critical info

for all people mock it wikipedia is genuinely one of the wonders of the modern world

There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see

Never to splain at @yourewrongabout.bsky.social, but re the latest ep, the "no nuclear weapons in NZ" sticker wasn't bc we were offered any (lolol), but bc NZ didn't want nukes *even if* they resided on visiting *warships*. US Navy: "neither confirm nor deny" = no more ship visits = no ANZUS treaty

It seems I'm into in mechanical/engineering/IT stuff bc my bio-dad (whom I have never met) was a ship's engineer. At least according to my mum, who was contemplating my unnatural proclivities after we spent extended time together last week. One up for "nature" vs "nurture" in maternal minds idk

Dear fucking dumb politicians who don't even know our laws: we have freedom of EXPRESSION rights in NZ (per the BORA), not "freedom of speech". Fuck off to the US, if you prefer their laws and how their current regime tramples on them. If they'll let you in, lol

Just in time for my mother's visit, I recently - last week - realised my ahole first stepfather had massive narcissistic traits and that explains a LOT about my childhood. TG my mother divorced him before my teens. Such things can be over-"diagnosed", but I'm glad I found a podcast that laid it out

Boomer-type opinion of the day: cute games where characters grunt at each other (hmm.. ahh.. ngh..?) during onscreen dialogue annoy the living crap out of me. It's FINE with just some background music! Devs: if you must (why?), pls pls add a separate volume slider for that effect 🙏

Our new project is live. A group of us former Polygon folks have come together to build something new: Rogue. We're a worker-owned, reader supported gaming site. You can read all about our goals and ideas on our (gorgeous) website. Please check us out and share us with your friends!

I’ll Laugh As You Bury Me: New Zealand, America and Cultural Hegemony by Alexandra Stronach Read the essay at the link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... #sciencefiction #scifi #nonfiction #essays

Or, given the automation behind data blobs, moves and where core services are homed/replicated, they have NFI. Or maybe they do know, or could figure it out. However, it is in their T&Cs that while they can lockdown where your data is stored, for *some* services and features, they cannot.

Sick (lol) of this "cold" where I need to take 2 ibuprofen to even think about getting up. Also of sore ribs (from the coughing) like they've been pummeled with baseball bats, and random muscle aches. It's not flu, covid or RSV, yay? (My sympathies as usual to those for which it's just the norm)

couple more i've read lately: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz: robots build a cozy noodle shop from the ashes of war! Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove: vampires in space!

Yes, every single news item blathering on about council rates hikes should be blaring this from the rooftops - or at least MENTION it - and almost none of them do! Half of you voted for this racist dog whistling govt - thanks so much for fucking up two major infrastructure deals for us all.

Thinking about pulling the trigger on this wee beauty. My requirements for a new laptop: 1. actually portable; 2. not a fugly alienwaresque beast; 3. decent GPU and grunty enough for games (slow twitch at best, lol); 4: OS = fuck Nadella and fuck Jobs (yes, still)* system76.com/laptops/serw...

Wired is one of the few US media organisations which fully appreciates what's happening.

Lol, they have been talking about this shit for literally the entirety of my IT career - nearly 30 years. Does the tech exist? Sure. Has it lived up to promise yet? Last I looked, 2k+ RSA encryption can't be cracked (via brute force), so, no. Magical unicorn tech (TBD), also no

Ok, reviews are "mixed", to say the least, but I dgaf bc Margaret Qualley + Aubrey Plaza doing the do = "yes please" for me. The cinematography looks cool/fun and I love those click-clackin heels too, Aubrey. Queers deserve lighthearted trashy movies too (no NZ showtimes yet, boo)

Only a small % of people engage in toxic activity online, but they’re responsible for a disproportionate share of hostile or misleading content on nearly every platform Because super-users are so active, they dominate our collective impression of the internet www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Hi five to my super bff deservedly smiling right there 🫶

I scored 18/21 on e-mail.wtf and all I got was this lousy text to share on social media. (I did support email systems for 15? years. Altho the Q re undotted domains valid in RFC 822 and obsoleted in 2822, where the latter was "wrong", is slightly missing the spirit of superseded RFCs* koffkoff)

I can't express how much I love everything about this. #magnetpunk! 🤘 www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaG5...

For anyone who thought the current govt was was right to petulantly can Three Waters while refusing to help local bodies with their water maintenance burdens, I really, truly hope you're not now bitching about your rates bill and the privatisation of public liabilities

Dear "Education" Minister, NZ English is its own variant and includes many, many words of Māori origin. You cannot talk about life in this country without them. Many languages feature in English - here is a handy list, incl Māori, for your perusal en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_o...

yes! adding to this: * Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) * Flickr, using the filter by license feature (www.flickr.com/search)

Genre fic with "ye olde tyme" dialogue full of grammatical errors and malapropisms drives me nuts. Esp when the word/term is still current and still used wrongly. Not asking for 100% fidelity - use a sprinkling of quaint terms and ensure they right. (Just realised why so much steampunk annoys me)

Do we have a nutbag religion centred on AI yet? Talk about over-ascribing meaning to random/natural/constructed phenomena whose workings you personally have no knowledge of.

Tag yourself. Me: "FLOUTATION HATERIAL"* (*aka what I transmogrify to whenever I see AI hype of the non-parody kind)

They should make an entire series about the Very Cool Lesbians who manage the telephone system in the John Wick universe

This is the single best piece I've read on "replacing coders with AI," it fully dispells the myth from the perspective of a software engineer and does so in a calm, reasonable way. colton.dev/blog/curing-...

Dunno who's in #Welly right now, but get out and look at the MOON (can't get a clear shot bc shit ph zoom, but it's amazing)

Nearly gave my mother a heart attack recently when I said that if we had NCEA assessment when I was at school, I would never have got to university (at least for the 5 min before I dropped out). I skated by by sitting exams; I got Bursary, I didn't get 7th Form HSC bc not enough attendance.

Just leaving this here www.bishuk.com/relationship...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA The collective scream of every sex educator of the last 30 years who worked their asses off for pennies, just to make accurate helpful sex information available to everyone online and off, and then people are like “what do you expect, there’s no progressive sex advice for men”