It’s an amazing, lively, sunny day in Cuba St. Christmas in the Quarters in Glover Park, Palestine market on Left Bank, and the street closed off between Ghuznee and Vivian with a delightful craft market on Swan Lane. So good

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...

Finding simple recipes online is so dire now. Search results are full of websites that are unusable because they’re so full of ads, and the content often looks AI generated. I can see why it’s appealing to use an AI agent directly for things like this even knowing that it’s what poisoned the well

I saw a Blunt umbrella in a bin on Molesworth St, as a measure of wind strength in Wellington today

I feel like the impact of AI on the information ecosystem is kind of like when you drink too much of a particular liquor, have a horrible time throwing up all night, and then for the rest of your life you can no longer drink it without being viscerally reminded of vomit

The NZCCL is looking for people to join our exec committee at our AGM in November. While we're particularly looking for people with policy or legal experience, we're interested in anyone who is keen and willing to learn. Contact [email protected] to get started.

There are too many road-centred children’s toys and decorations and not enough playmats with decent pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure

Nothing reminds me of time’s ceaseless march onwards like looking at the best-before dates in my spice drawer

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Even if you've never filed a freedom of information request, this is why you should care about the government's planned changes to FOI laws.

If you joined InternetNZ to help stop the takeover by rhe FSU and Hobson's Pledge, you've done some great work tonight Consider bringing that energy to other civil society organisations, groups like Voices for Freedom are also trying to take advantage of low participation to push their agenda

Only just realised the whole of Bluesky was the Internet NZ AGM back channel

Six or seven tsunamis on their way I see

toxic beef wellington more like nzpol bluesky amirite

I spent a lot more of my summer than I would have liked as a patient in this ward, first in the antenatal pod then an extended stay in the postnatal pod www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa... I can back up what staff are saying as a patient - you really can’t just squish these together

Here in an unrelated thread, I'll quietly mention you can make a tax-deductible donation to FYI.org.nz at opencollective.com/fyi thanks to Gift Collective. But only if it's no burden! Production server costs are already covered, but I cover a few other costs personally including development.

The baby can now make music requests but it’s always for ABBA? She’s a big fan I guess

I had seen A Guide To Rocks in the window and was looking forward to checking out a children’s geology reference book. Disappointed to find out it’s about feelings, not rocks. I’m sure it’s great, I just like rocks thespinoff.co.nz/books/02-07-...

The baby is now approximately the height of a small Blåhåj

Now consider that most New Zealand government and business email is also hosted by Microsoft.

Analysis: Z Energy has sold its electricity retail arm and its customers to Meridian, in a $70m deal that will further consolidate the market dominance of the big gentailers. Flick Electric is expected to be shut down.

This is awfully unfair, and should be easily fixed in a member's bill. Plenty of MPs have no bill in the ballot (this is wild to me - those MPs have nothing they'd like to improve in the law?)

This, the TPB, the current government really is running the risk here of removing the expectation the public absolutely should have - and could fairly have had up until 2025 - that if they make a submission *it will be read*. Corrosive to democracy to undermine that expectation.

We’re now in the spreadsheets and collating how-to-vote cards stage of election watching

whan antony green says you've lost before 8:30 without working computers

Haven’t heard enough people use the word “drubbing” this evening. Love the word “drubbing” and there aren’t many opportunities better than this Australian election for it

Watching the Australian election with a plate of feijoas (courtesy @br3nda.bsky.social)

Picked up a copy of this this morning, reading it while the baby sleeps. Wild to be taken back to the uncertainty and rapid changes of early 2020. Maybe the baby will pick this up off the bookshelf in ten or fifteen years to find out more about this historical event

Does anyone know the weekend sports editor at RNZ who sends push notifications to the “breaking news” topic whenever they start a live blog about a scheduled sports event? I wish to have words with them

How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia? Before you open this thread, take a guess. Settle on a number and then compare it to what you'll learn in this thread. 🧵

In just over two weeks I’ll be launching my book on the Covid response. This was my most challenging book project by far, and even then I’ve just scratched the surface. If you are in Wellington on April 29 come along to hear me talk about it with Susie Ferguson.

Connected communities are resilient communities, and resilient communities are the best shot we have against the bad times (climate disasters, autocracy, etc). Therefore responding to texts, hanging out with people, having a chat with your neighbour, hosting a party… it is praxis

One of my favourite things is that when the baby reaches up, her arms only just reach above ber head. Hehehe. What an unbalanced little creature

Friends: a short thread on data centres + general rising power demand, based off the amazing new @ember-energy.org Global Electricity Review 2025, out today (as always: THANKYOU Ember for making all the data freely available, it is very invaluable to ppl like me) ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

@eey0re.bsky.social, ordering dinner: what dip would you like with the fries? Me: nah don’t need any Oliver: so to be clear, you would not like me to buy the dip Me: ………….

Just went to watch someone fold a fitted sheet on Cuba St but there was a massive crowd and I couldn’t see the sheet. I could join the “fold the sheet” chant though

How the video was obtained is heartbreaking: they found a cellphone on a person in a mass grave of aid workers. Why are we making students disappear for protesting these atrocities?

We've solved the mystery on why all those remote and uninhabited islands were targeted for tariffs by Trump - they show up in US trade data due to mislabelled shipments. eg mixing up Norfolk, Virginia or Norfolk UK with Norfolk Island! www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Featuring comment from me. Said comment being, basically, it's bad for Parliament to throw out submissions you've solicited from the public unread, whether it's the TPB w/ 300k subs, or a boring technical tax tweak with 15. Corrosive to democracy and the Committee should reconsider.

There will never be any reduction in the need to materially stop releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The laws of physics do not change depending on geopolitics or vibes or elections: it will always make sense to stop thickening the heat-trapping blanket above our heads

I can't think of a better way to undermine confidence in NZ's liberal democracy than to call forth the greatest wave of public submissions in history - and then completely ignore thousands of those submissions and left them unread.

A Lithuanian equivalent to “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” is nemokamas sūris tik pelėkautuose. It means “the only free cheese is in a mousetrap” * read on for more international cheese phrases (this thread may not turn out grate, but hopefully it will be gouda ‘nuff)…

Absolutely this, and like I’ve mentioned previously, it’s very typical for Māori and Pasifika to be mistaken for Latin Americans (or Middle Eastern) in the US, I mean Cliff Curtis’ whole Hollywood career is built off this

You'd think that "Oscar-winning director is lynched because of his film" would be bigger news.

Successfully got the baby to sleep by reading aloud the Atlantic group chat story

In light of recent developments I would like to encourage feds to assume there is a journalist in the chat.

Delighted to announce that @matteason.me has made a fully navigible online form for those who would like to make use of my Department of Teeth Reimbursement Form TF-230, but digitally. Come for the uncannily accurate .gov assets. Stay for the clickable teeth map. Enjoy. tf230.matteason.co.uk

I am back working on my "we don't like the lesson's learned" covid enquiry submission, to have it all written to share well before deadline. Has anyone seen citable survey data (ideally NZ, but anglosphere O.K.) about the % of population that do not accept viruses are real and can cause disease?

Take every care to conserve the natural beauty of the New Zealand bush, but also sow random fruit seeds. This 1889 Fiordland tourism advice does not hold up