Genuinely, the EU is probably our best chance against the US tech giants. And that's pretty terrifying, as much as it is a glimmer of hope.

Europe is moving to block Microsoft, Amazon, and Google from handling government health, financial, and legal data

US universities genuinely are like “welcome to Tennessee Agricultural College in Bumfuck Nowheresville. We invented the modern potato and our facilities include a particle accelerator, nuclear reactor, and TOP500 supercomputer. Tuition is $12,000 for instate students and we have 40,000 of them”

We're hockey fans now! @styla73.bsky.social

Two minutes. A full two minutes is how long I waited, having arrived at work, pressing the space bar on my keyboard, waiting for the screen to turn on, before I realised it would work much better if I took my laptop out of my bag and plugged it into them.

The best description I could come up with was that he looking like a cross between a North American opossum, and a Womble. Like these images, but more puppy-ish, and he literally flipped from standing onto his back for belly scritches.

This isn't wrong, although there is absolutely power in collective action, which does have an effect. However, if you are boycotting AI for its power/water use, remember also to boycott cloud storage, streaming video, tiktok, gaming, and search engines...

This is from a local paper in the US… I think the context was a string of tornados.

15 years ago today, Kate and William killed Osama Bin Laden at their wedding.

I'm not aware of anywhere else in the world where full-time academics are on 9-month contracts. It's a real thing! The schools just say that for 3 months of the year, there aren't classes, and stop paying them... The US is... I don't have words.

I admit I'm not as checked in to the discourse, so I may have missed it, but I'm frustrated that I haven't seen people coming up with ideas for what ethical, healthy AI systems, with clear guardrails and protections, could look like.

Oooooooof. That's saying the quiet part out loud...

Nothing summarizes the modern right better than this

A friend of K's kid just got into a PhD, and they described it on FB as "enjoy your 4 year PhD, because it will be the 5 best 7 years of your life", and I both laughed and cried...

One of the most successful things the tech industry has done since the 1990s is lead the citizenry to believe that because a technology can do something means that something can’t be legislated away. And since the 2010s they used their lobbying powers to defang the legislators who know otherwise.

The more I see of these conversations, the more I realise they are designed to seem real to men who believe that a perfect conversation is one where they drive it, and their companion finds additional reasons to believe they are right.

I had so much fun writing this piece for Te Pūnaha Matatini. As someone who is food oriented; naturally, I thought about how transdisciplinary research was like a potluck where everyone could bring a plate to the table www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/posts/transd...

❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️

One of my favorite Oscar Wilde anecdotes is that he once did a reading and Q&A in a mine. With miners. Like down a mineshaft. He had this crazy idea that everybody of every occupation deserved and could benefit from art and information

Reminder that a big reason your doctor is like that, is that modern medical school schedules are based on the frenzied pace of a cocaine addict.

This is quite the graph (from newsroom.co.nz/2026/04/30/t...)

Just a delightful read. I really hope it does find its way to a full book.

This is Fitz and June. Fitz just got here and thinks this place is pretty great. June was here first and thinks it's time to return Fitz. 13/10 for both (TT: muester)

This pup found a stick shaped like an old timey pipe earlier today and has already solved three mysteries. 13/10

Reader, they put this on a shirt for me for my birthday...

I have a medal to award to the Wikipedia editor responsible for this.

Almost missed the 3rd anniversary of The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist being published but thankfully social media reminded us of the cake @hmberents.bsky.social made to celebrate its launch.

Easily one of the greatest single pages in comic book history.

I'm not surprised. But also WTF #nzpol

Nothing is going to make me happier than this today

My history of supporting perennial also-ran sporting teams continues...

Not here caping for AI, but I'd also be fascinated to know how much formalised widespread education has also led to a homogenisation of language and thought...

i love the "public toilets in bratislava" article because it was written by one anonymous guy who took it upon himself to photograph every public toilet in bratislava

On this day in 1992, George H.W. Bush sent a memo to all White House staff about how fat his dog was

You wouldn't know we had just gone through 36hrs of deluge, except for the band of silt in the channel being taken out of the estuary...

I love live music, so much. Why do other people have to be there?

While walking down the street with my wife, a random old guy on a bench yelled out "YOU GALS TOOK YOUR PRETTY PILLS TODAY, DIDN'T YA? YEEAH YOU TOOK ALL OF 'EM!" And that's why we call my HRT "pretty pills" to this day.

This has felt like a long, hard year. I have some hope for 2026. That feels like a very dangerous approach.

Worth noting that passing on your extended family's private details without their consent is also not ok. So people will need to ask their relatives permission to share their phone numbers and emails with the US government... who is going to do that?

📢We are calling for a cross-party inquiry into the student loan repayment scheme for overseas-based New Zealanders. Please sign our petition to the Education and Workforce Committee. There HAS to be a better way. It is in the government’s interest to find one. action.greens.org.nz/student_loan...

💚Aotearoa Greens Global surveyed over 400 New Zealanders in 23 countries - 78% did not think they were making meaningful progress on repaying their student loan and 82% percent were worried or extremely worried about their student loan. Read their stories here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ULdq...

📈In April 2025, the government raised the interest rate on student loan balances for overseas-based New Zealanders to 4.9%. Originally this was scheduled to rise to 3.9% in line with inflation, but the government arbitrarily added an additional 1% on top.

🧵 In 2011, student loan debt overdue from overseas-based borrowers was $289 million. In 2025 it is $2.193 *billion*. In 2011, the number of overseas-based student loan borrowers with overdue payments was 52 percent. In 2025 it is 71 percent. The system is not working for anyone and needs reform.

Me: I'm going to put something dumb and mindless on the TV. *puts on Only Connect*

Spotify has laid off thousands in recent years, while reportedly paying artists $0.003 per stream. Spotify profits rose 28% in Q3. Its CEO is worth $9.8 billion. It's making money off ICE recruitment ads. Don't you think it's time put a wrap on corporate greed and exploitation?

Not mad about this. A little surprised about the Billy Bragg/Wilco of it all, but I did do a Mermaid Avenue deep dive at one point. V happy that my @selfesteem.music-social.com rep is on point. (1.9k unique artists is a point of pride too)

I loved theatre before I knew Stoppard's work, and the only piece I ever acted in or produced was the 15 min Hamlet from Dogg's Hamlet, but he still affected me profoundly, deeply, and gave me a true love for and understanding of what theatre can be.