I built the NZ landslide fatality dataset, - most fatalities from landslides happen in ones and twos, every other month or year. When I began, there were ~400 fatalities in the dataset. I built it up to ~1800 events of which ~1600 were landslide fatalities. theconversation.com/landslides-a...

It makes me geologically and mineralogically sad that Aotearoa/NZ doesn't have any large deposits of quick clay for me to poke and play with, but it also makes me Geotechnically Relieved that we don't have quick clays to make our already myriad landslide hazards worse: eos.org/articles/ins...

Dr Glaucomflecken, an actual ophthalmologist, with helpful instructions for dealing with pepper spray to the face. youtube.com/shorts/z4dy0...

The call is coming from inside the house. Authoritarian systems attract authoritarian people, which includes those who are authoritarian abusers. There's no philosophy/religion/political system that prevents you from being a dickhead, but many systems are built to encourage and accept it.

Heh:

The only current cost effective and functionally appropriate use of Generative AI in the language, image and video field is to solve wages and democracy, by the elimination of both in favour of authoritarianism: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

It's difficult to stress just how badly it goes for repressive regimes when they publicly hurt or kill people that aren't, in some sense, acceptable targets. It happened in Poland when Anna Walentynowicz was fired for illegal union activity: when some weirdo intellectual is persecuted, it's kinda

This I think gets at this deep feeling of dread I’m experiencing in the pit of my stomach. I’ve long held that the parallel system change to our time isn’t WWI or WWII, it’s the European Wars of Religion.

There's no reason to be on twitter any more, and every reason to block it at the nation state level, and sue the operator

Re-sharing for the new year, which is also an election year! If you agree, help us out by emailing your local MP asking why Labour and National have not yet signed this letter or committed to regulating AI deployment in NZ. #nzpol

What the eugenicist cyberphrenosexologist dating coaches are are up to these days:

I'm waiting for someone to trot out 'There is no peace beyond the Line' from the 17th century again (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_o...)

'80s soviet imperialist diplomacy on point about modern American imperialist diplomacy:

I'm sure I've actually run into cookers in the wild who think like this. Poes Law strikes.

Ea Nasir's collection of clay tablet complaint letters on copper quality.

Wat?

See also the fact that so much AI is still relying on a large Mechanical Turk workforce from the global south, with these educational language styles, for much of it's moderation and training data corpus so of course it sounds like these workforces: time.com/6247678/open...

Just seen the 'but one big volc. eruption could outpace human CO2' bollocks in the wild, I tap the Sign: We (thru all our CO2 activities, slash n burn agriculture to fossil fueled megacity) realease ~ 1 Mt St Helens '81 eruption of CO2 every 2.5 hours, & ~1 Mt Pinatubo '91 eruption of CO2 daily.

Seen via Tumblr:

this book was immensely useful, both for myself and for people I know who needed to come to terms with historical abuse.

<chucks in an OIA to see just what the cost saving was>

I mean, we could just air drop them over the ocean. That would work well.

[taps the sign again] Don't fuck with general license radioactive material, people. Stop it. www.funraniumlabs.com/2014/08/plea...

Exciting new career prospects for bear and trashpanda equivalent species coming up in several locations:

How much is a life worth? What about that of a baby? A friend? For too long, the current Government - led by Luxon, Seymour and Peters - have prioritised money and corporate donors/lobbyists over the lives of everyday Kiwis. Please share and help spread awareness. Thanks, Tui. #nzpol #kiwi

The earth over a long ignored grave shudders and cracks, and the rotting fingers of National Bolshevism begin to claw forth, somewhere in the seething groyper fever of Fuentes brain.

Ouch. Excuse me, I have to go and play some music and weep a bit.

Reading OATHBREAKERS by @profgabriele.com & @lollardfish.bsky.social, about the Frankish Civil Wars of the 800s and, whelp…

The previously unknown gold, well mapped by prospectors who knew about it in the late 19th century:

This is amusing. We've known basically where the gold is coming from in these rocks for a century or so, there's not much of it, prior attempts went bust. I've found it before, and its most likely its either under Zealandia, or a major road on it so they can't mine that now. archive.ph/OiZwa

I don’t know how to say this politely but the government can fuck right off. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellingto...

I see this New Zealand citizen is making the news again. www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/new-jd-van...

Pyroclastic density current emplacment, Mt Semeru. I remember mapping some deposits that originated by this mechanism at the beginning of my Bsc honours project in 1994, and wondering what they looked like at the flow front. Now I can just watch it via webcam.

I have _so_ many triggers to destroy my immersion and throw me out of a movie: mara.substack.com/p/the-toto-p...

Here it is! I wrote this a few years ago, apologies for where it’s hosted. mara.substack.com/p/the-toto-p...

As a severe asthmatic, aside from the lifesaving steroid inhalers, saline nasal rinses from Neilmed (R) are also excellent, they exist as pre-mix sachets to just add to standard sized container of sterile water for internal use or clean water for external rinse for whichever field medical purpose

Today's fixit: Carefully taking apart two ~120 year old WW1 soldiers cots, because although the canvas on them is damaged, it's beautiful Scots Linen that I can use for other things, before I replace the cot covers.

The blowback effect of modern fascism around the world: There's so much funding and rhetoric for reactionaries and accelerationists awash from the US that it's spilling over to the rest of us: bsky.app/profile/sanj...

Even though I can cast 'power word: 30 years experience', this resonates:

lol

They got Teen Vogue; bought out and laid off to cease the good journalism: bsky.app/profile/lexi...

What do you mean non fungible? Have you seen what fungi can eat? Everything is fungible to them. There's even that motherfucker of a slime mould living on the _inside_ of the Chernobyl Sarcophagus that can photosynthesise hard gamma, apparently.

When an antique spirit stove that was neither a Primus or an Optimus, and thus a brand with a reputation for blowing up in your face, blows up in your face, the only sensible response is to turn it's corpse into a silly robot:

Bask in the unfeasible glory that is Aotearoa New Zealand's only locally designed and built Tank.

Uhoh. Well, I knew Collins was a fascist, but now she makes it obvious: www.facebook.com/judithcollin...

Correct headline should be "Revenant Zombie Economic Terror Weapon from the '80s Concerned that Current Finance Minister isn't Doing Enough Damage To Matter" www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

This will be why I'm suddenly selling a bunch of sheepskins and leather to some of the usual suspects :-)

First day of pre-production!