Is it just me, or do those "photos" on Stuff of the horner jet being refuelled look suspiciously AI-generated?

Dangerously stupid headline. (It implies catching Covid is a neutral alternative option to getting a booster. It is not).

The funniest housing story I've seen in a while...

Schools are shared indoor spaces, making clean air essential to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. 🏫 In this new video, IHEP Member Sarah Haines (@civmin.bsky.social) shares practical guidance on steps schools can take to improve the air quality. Watch the video ▶️ #PublicHealth #Health

Reading real estate listings was always painful, but it's so so much worse since they discovered gen-AI. It's now just completely meaningless, and having to read any of the saccharine nonsense to try to extract some actual information... 🤮

Interested to hear from people who've used gen-AI in languages other than English: is it just as sycophantic? Is its writing style just as painful?

Righto. I've read the papers released by MBIE on the LNG analysis. This will be a longish thread on my thoughts, which I'll add to progressively. Docs are here. 🧵 1/-

Of all the stupid ideas for preventing dry-year energy price spikes, the LNG import facility is the stupidest I've seen. (So far. Feel free to suggest more stupid ideas, e.g. "of course, we will need more piglets...")

One person received a minor injury. The rest is just stuff. We don't need or want your gun, Mr USAmerican. www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

So, we have a word for when we don't want someone to have what we have (jealousy); and for when we want something that someone else has that we don't (envy); but is there a word for wanting someone not to have what we don't have?

My wife and I were on a beach in the Wellington area and found this at a car park, in the grass. It is approximately the size of a person's hand,made of bone, and intricately carved. I've masked the lower half,as only the legitimate owner will be able to fully describe it. Please share this...(1)

As my brother put it: "You now require a British passport to come in, because you automatically have the right to enter, so if you don’t have one, you can’t enter. Because you're a citizen." www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Tonight, if I had remembered even one of various random facts, we would have come third in the local pub Quiz Night and I would have been spared competing in a tiebreaker dance-off. But now I can tick "win dance off" off my bucket list*, so there's that. *I do not have a bucket list.

10 days (rest of January) + 28 days (Feb) + 31 (Mar) + 30 (Apr) + 31 (May) + 30 (Jun) + 31 (Jul) + 31 (Aug) + 30 (Sep) + 31 (Oct) + 7 (Nov) = 290 days, not 291.

At New World, Newtown. 12th day of Christmas was, what, 3 days ago? Chocolate santas are on clearance. Apparently that means... it's time to start selling Easter eggs.

Why does this Government insist on continuing to break things that work well?! (I don't know if the specific instance I'm thinking of has been made public yet, but I need to vent, and FFS. It's of huge value, and it's cheap - and some absolute numpty has decided to defund it.)

In NZ we have a govt trying to roll back gun laws.

Watching an awesomely terrible Hallmark Xmas movie and cackling because the lead supposedly English character makes "Yorkshire Pudding". It comes out if the oven looking right... and then she dusts it with icing sugar and puts strawberries on it 🤣🤣🤣

I guess the Government is determined to replicate the Yorkshiremen sketch: "When I were young, we lived in a car -" "A car?! You were lucky! When I were young... " www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

I definitely want new contactless payment options, but also can we get a refund on the outrageous ~$15 we had to pay for our Snapper cards (that's BEFORE adding any credit for actual travel 😒 )? www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

This news report highlights how badly Aotearoa needs a regulated Healthy Homes Standards (HHS) assessment system, because the current system isn't working. "Conflicting healthy homes reports raise doubts over rental standards" - Waikato Times. lnkd.in/gZMvRGVZ

I'm sure it's totally coincidental that the AoNZ government's changes to the Marsden Fund have been followed by successful applications led by female investigators dropping from 55% to 33%, and successful applications led by Māori investigators dropping from 13% to 5%. 🫠 🧪

Guess the govt has no confidence its policies will improve homelessness any time soon - so better just make it invisible instead 😡

I don’t care how much you liked these stories, do not watch the new series or buy merch or read the books to your kids. Don’t support a genocide.

Tuesday - storm causing significant damage and one death Thursday - bigger storm resulting in state of emergency Monday - storm forecast to hit same region, which is still without power in some areas NACTFirst govt - argues for MORE fossil fuel

Possums make rubbish long-term pets because they are nocturnal. They do not want to hang out with you during the day, they want to be asleep - and at night they will be very bored when you're asleep unless you let them free range, which would be terrible for wildlife. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Pōneke doing another of its post-rage "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, you know I love you really, you just make me crazy sometimes" mornings. When will we learn it'll never change, and just leave?

I know there is a lot of the day to go, but so far in Pōneke Tuesday was worse.

Do you know a school teacher or parent of Year 11 students? My scholarship committee has THREE full scholarships to award this year to international boarding schools - one for any NZ student with high financial need, two for Māori/indigenous Pacific. (Plus 6 partial scholarships of varying levels)

I don't even know where to start with the layers of privileged bubble horseshit in this piece, but maybe with: People generally aren't moving to Australia because they can't "build wealth" here. They're moving because they can't get a job, afford rent, or eat here. www.stuff.co.nz/money/360845...

You can't fit thousands of job seekers into tens of jobs. And while Luxon might call himself sorted, the country isn't, even if he doesn't want to do anything about it.

Analysis: If Willis' big fix for the energy market is to help gentailers finance new thermal baseload or firming plants, she's answering a question that nobody's asking, writes Jonathan Milne.

We don't need to panic. We just need to stop installing - and replace existing - gas hobs. www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Protect trans kids. Fuck RNZ, and specifically, fuck Ruth Hill and Mark Stevens, who apparently missed out that the Onion is satirical.

The Government announcement on energy is so many levels of BS. TL;DR: The actual pre-profit cost of electricity production is unaffordable for at least a third of the population, and cannot be solved without energy subsidies to lower income households.

Our gutless, spineless, heartless, brainless, thin-skinned turd golem of a Government may not recognise Palestine as a state, but the rest of us can.

What I'd say to you is a high quality of service that is not the most effective way of doing it. #Luxomatic

Thought I'd take a look at the actual regulations the gas industry says all gas hobs are required to meet. IANAL but my reading of the regulations is that, given the new evidence of harm ("damage") directly attributable to gas stove emissions, it should now be illegal to install a gas hob.

I think - or maybe it just feels like it because not my usual areas - I have done more media engagements in the last 3 days than in any other 3-day period in my career and it is a LOT for my internal stress monkey.

Clearly* firearm mortality and autism prevalence have the same drivers, so we could act against guns as well as Tylenol. Or alternatively, reduce autism prevalence with thoughts and prayers? Or maybe Tylenol causes gun violence? *Or not Sources in alt text.

Aotearoa needs stronger gun controls and targeted prevention to keep suicide rates falling and reverse the rise in firearm assault.

I've been working on this paper unfunded for about 6 years, so it's great to see it finally published. Firearm-Related Hospitalization and Death in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2000 to 2023: A Cohort Study: Annals of Internal Medicine: Vol 0, No 0 www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

First interview on a topic I haven't talked to media about before. Lessons: Even though I'm reasonably media-confident these days, a new topic dilutes the benefit of experience, so - I should have practiced beforehand, and - I should have had a drink of water handy

Someone has engrossified the 'soft pendulous breasts' graffiti on the Ray Chung billboard by sticking little pictures of actual nipples over the black marker dots that were there previously. I liked it better with just the black marker. Now it's a bit icky.

Hey Hutt folks, you may miss it when voting, but please don’t vote for Suzanne Levy! She sounds fine, but OOPS she runs the TERF organisation Speak Up For Women.

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

Is this journalist seriously describing Phillips' 12-year old daughter - abducted when she was 8, and not in any position to do anything except what her father tells her - as an "accomplice"? That's pretty rude.

It is absolutely idiotic that far right free speechers in NZ (No consequences! Only incitement!) are having any success framing this as a 'free speech' issue when the actual cause is 'no gun control'+'rapid disassembly of US democracy into era of chaotic & violently repressive authoritarian fascism'