Auckland’s once paper of record, the Herald, senior local affairs reporter wrote 0 articles on the race, even taking an overseas holiday as the campaign reached its peak. ‘No-one cares about city politics’ no doubt is the excuse, well no one can if all they are feed is imported gossip, for clicks.

That (NPR!) journalists think AI is a creative engine that can finesse iconic productions is not just context for the crap quality of writing in media but alarmingly the inability among a class of supposedly professional scrutinizers to distinguish between art and slop, good and bad, truth and lie

And he really is New Zealand’s best book reviewer

A Shortlist of Federal Data the Trump Administration Has Tampered With or Destroyed talkingpointsmemo.com/news/a-short...

The UK is within spitting distance of having more murders portrayed annually on TV shows and movies set in the country than occur in real life

Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy: www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Also: back in May, MSD said: “How many people will be affected? It is estimated that approximately 17,800 people aged 18 and 19 will not be eligible for Jobseeker Support in the first two years of implementation.” So where does the “only 4300” number come from? www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-an...

Prior to AI, a lack of artistic talent and creativity was holding back MAGA fascists. As a movement primarily concerned with the *aesthetics* of politics but not the substance, they weren’t fluent in their own preferred language. Now, they have been gifted the means to steal that language.

America

In the New Zealand Listener this week: Ernest Rutherford and the Birth of Modern Physics - by Matthew Wright Review by Jenny Nicholls @jenster.bsky.social #oratiabooks #NewZealandListener #ErnestRutherford #physics

Ah, the joy of freelance life. A couple of 2026 funding pools have just dried up, so if anyoneʻs interested in a project with a Wikipedian, now’s the time to get in touch. www.rove.wiki

The "AI" responses that Google gives about me and my work are consistently error-prone, which I know because I am me. If I know Google's "AI" responses give incorrect answers about things I know about, I can't trust it to give correct answers about things I don't know. So, no, I don't use it.

“There’s artificial intelligence, and there’s actual intelligence.”

ER doc here! This is a lie. Wait times are up because the American healthcare system is an unsustainable business model and a for-profit national healthcare system just doesn’t work. These problems will continue to get worse until we change that system. It literally has nothing to do with immigrants

as reported in webworm today, the nz media council has ruled against RNZ, saying it lacked balance and fairness in its reporting over the death of trans teen alex. hopefully this encourages RNZ to look at all their reporting on trans issues - they need to (www.webworm.co/trainhopping/)

“It wasn't clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into [NZ]. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.”

“The weirdest reason why AI won’t keep getting better is that some operators are choosing to make their AIs worse.”

😂😂😂❄️❄️❄️🤡🤡🤡

Maybe it’s capitalism that causes autism

Jim Mora interviewee BBC News presenter Rich Preston just called the roommate of the Kirk murder suspect a ‘trans man’ of course big M didn’t call him out on it

i don’t think people on bluesky understand the severity of this situation. i woke up to literally hundreds of texts from friends and family thinking about either moving back home to india or applying to other countries for jobs. this includes me.

How not to run a university. Auckland, in this case. A brilliant essay by Dr Quentin Atkinson. "Universities are a good thing. They improve our lives. If you were going to design a society from scratch, you would make sure it had universities and you would make sure that they were in good shape."

Perfect

American Religion. My Stuff #cartoon today #Guns #USA #Religion

It is truly incredible how blusteringly incompetent these guys are.

I just realised a glorious thing: National supporters hate the idea of Chris Bishop more than the public at large This entire question and all its answers is one of the funniest things I've seen all week

What a striking picture. Can you imagine the current US prez carrying an environmental campaigner’s luggage for him…

on the one hand, this sounds like it won't raise enough money for them to fund meaningful tax relief for the people struggling the most with the cost of living, but on the other it will be ruthlessly attacked and exploited by their political opponents

People missing an important point about folks getting fired for whatever they said about Charlie Kirk: Americans are being conditioned to be snitches on their fellow citizens who don’t toe a party line on what is “allowed” to be expressed. And employers are going along. It’s the new secret police

Extremist murders by ideology, 2013 to 2022. www.pbump.net/o/reassessin...

@kirstyjohnston.bsky.social giving it to 'em good.

The markings that supposedly expressed “transgender ideology” were………..a series of arrows.

Man, NZJE needs a marketing/comms team. Each one of the papers in the current issue could support press releases, interviews, news, features, and a magazine article. Such cool science.

Margaret Mills’ book launch. This sweatshirt is one of her most treasured possessions

The first kuaka (bar-tailed godwit) are back from having sex in Western Alaska. Summers coming! Te Huruhi Bay, Waiheke Island, New Zealand

More cuts to the Marsden Fund of @royalsocietynz.bsky.social. This takes it down to $10/capita in real terms when it was over $16 for most of this century. Australia's equivalent, the ARC, is NZ$42/capita, as is the US NSF (despite ongoing attempts to gut the latter). www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

It’s almost as if Trump and Hegseth haven’t the faintest fucking clue how to defend a nation. www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Authors win big against AI theft-machine www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/t...

Something for political candidates/comms people to think about

“Confusingly, this effort is being taken up at the same time that people are Very Concerned about dropping birth rates, but it makes sense when you understand that they don’t like the children we currently have. They want us to make other ones, instead.”

A vivid example of how X has shifted under Musk The “top” 15 posts in this trending topic today — and 27 of the top 30 — are all pro-RFK Jr It makes it appear like he won Senate showdown But the majority of the panel today — all the Dems and at least three GOP senators — had tough Qs for him

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

I'm curious about this post from @methanesat.bsky.social -- the claim is that they have a "year's worth" of data in the can. However, the spacecraft was launched in March 2024, had a nominal three month commissioning period, but was largely unworkable until it failed completely on 20 June, 2025.

We often see stories here about cool Scandinavian cycle lanes and public transport. This is… the opposite of that

Fascinating. NZ well past peak car. So why are we spending so much more on new roads?

Quite the week on Waiheke. Everyone survived

it's easier to buy a gun in the united states than high-rise trousers

Yep, unfortunately all the election billboards are copyrighted, especially ones with a photo on them. No freedom-of-panorama exception as they’re 2D and temporary. Candidates could of course just print a small Creative Commons license on them but nobody thinks to.

This is so grim