Aaron Schiff
@schiff.nz
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data tinkerer with
#rstats
occasional economist Aotearoa NZ
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Aaron Schiff
Esther Schindler
about 2 months ago
I just saw someone use the abbreviation āAI;DRā and Iāll be laughing for a while.
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Clara Murray
about 2 months ago
Actually... from my reading of the artists' basic income report, the government did not earn money back from the scheme (although its costs were offset 37%) Most gains were societal and came from putting the artists' improvements in wellbeing in ⬠terms
assets.gov.ie/static/docum...
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Dominique Baker
about 2 months ago
"Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement."
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@ratlimit
about 2 months ago
This is the single most overrated image on the internet. Pisses me off how every time I see it, it has thousands of Likes.
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I went to the new Book Hero store today. It's not huge or fancy but it makes me so happy that an actual physical real-life book store has opened near where I live
bookhero.co.nz
about 2 months ago
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Mike Dickison
about 2 months ago
Ah, the joy of freelance life. A couple of 2026 funding pools have just dried up, so if anyoneŹ»s interested in a project with a Wikipedian, nowās the time to get in touch.
www.rove.wiki
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Julian King
about 2 months ago
Thanks to you Aaron, I now have the Bee Gees stuck in my head: Itās just your vibe workinā, youāre telling me lies, yeah; vibe workinā, you wear a disguiseā¦
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There is absolutely no way I am ever doing something called āvibe workingā. Apart from sounding stupid, it demeans the people who pay for my work.
www.microsoft.com/en-us/micros...
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Vibe working: Introducing Agent Mode and Office Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft 365 Blog
Microsoft Copilot introduces Agent Mode in Office apps, enabling smarter document creation, analysis, and collaboration across Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/09/29/vibe-working-introducing-agent-mode-and-office-agent-in-microsoft-365-copilot/
about 2 months ago
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Good news! Or at least, not bad news
www.ft.com/content/6e0e...
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Donald Trump pulls ally EJ Antoniās nomination to lead statistics agency
White House also drops bid to name Brian Quintenz as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
https://www.ft.com/content/6e0e5eb1-48c4-4f31-b150-ce126fe404e0
about 2 months ago
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Am I missing something, or is Woolworths New Zealand really selling wrapped onions for about 2.5x the price of loose onions?
about 2 months ago
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Paul Brislen
about 2 months ago
Payment surcharge ban will raise prices
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/payment-s...
Payment surcharge ban will raise prices, reduce competition between big and small businesses, officials warned We warned you. Hiding the problem doesnāt fix the problem.
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'Something to hide': Retail NZ hits out as advice shows surcharge ban will raise prices
Ministry advice showed the ban will weaken competition and increase prices for consumers.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/payment-surcharge-ban-will-raise-prices-reduce-competition-between-big-and-small-businesses-officials-warned/D6PXU3WWZVEM7JQJY2TALCTCH4/
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These words that Nigel Latta wrote in 2015 have always stayed with me
about 2 months ago
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Enes Yilmazer usually does tours of luxury properties and superyachts but this tour of a container ship is pretty interesting
youtu.be/10bTq3KhjaY
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Crossing the ATLANTIC OCEAN on a Containership!
YouTube video by Enes Yilmazer
https://youtu.be/10bTq3KhjaY
about 2 months ago
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Craig Mod walks are some of my favourite things
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about 2 months ago
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Ben Harrap
about 2 months ago
Great pointer from
@nrennie.bsky.social
on making data visualisations We as makers spend hours with the data and creating the visualisation, but we need to consider those who are looking for 5 seconds
#WOMBAT2025
#dataviz
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Warwick History Post-Doc Club
about 2 months ago
Great news! JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month
www.jstor.org/action/showL...
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Julia M. Rohrer
about 2 months ago
Looks like my favorite paper on the age trajectory of happiness is finally out!!! So happy for the authors. Go check it out, itās great.
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Chelsea Parlett
about 2 months ago
Data Science programs often put too little emphasis on causal inference, and itās hurting their graduates on the job market! The econometrics people are coming for your jobs lol
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Dylan Reeve
about 2 months ago
I just learned about
mapspast.org.nz
So cool. Go wherever and then use the layers control to explore what old maps are available there.
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Sacha Judd
about 2 months ago
scientists rule
www.bbc.com/news/article...
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Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time
One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevz13xkxpro
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Also ⦠the better your data, the less fancy your analysis needs to be. You can do good work by spending a lot of effort to collect really good data.
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about 2 months ago
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Always. Count. The. Rows. It has saved me from so many stupid mistakes.
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about 2 months ago
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Peter Ellis
2 months ago
Genuine life-changing opportunity to become the Programme Manager for the Pacific Data Hub. Based in lovely NoumƩa, New Caledonia; responsible for driving regional data stewardship, innovation and sustainable impact. And free of income tax.
careers.spc.int/xMiWgK/progr...
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Programme Manager (Pacific Data Hub)
Noumea-based position Attractive expatriate package Join the principal development organisation in the region Description The Pacific Community (SPC) is the ...
https://careers.spc.int/xMiWgK/programme-manager-pacific-data-hub-information-communication-technology-noumea-new-caledonia-cr000495
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Joey Politanoš³ļøāš
2 months ago
Consumer prices rose 3.3% year on year, with prices for imported goods rising by *tackled by an FCC employee*
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Jumping on AI just as the bubble is about to burst ...
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2 months ago
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Ouch, NZ real GDP per capita was -2.1% for the year ended June 2025 vs the year ended June 2024. Since percentages are a bit abstract, that's about -$1,700 per person in today's money.
2 months ago
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MBIE has released the external economic advice it received about banning credit card surcharges. I haven't read the full report but here are the key findings. Basically, it's a bad idea because it will reduce competition and benefit the credit card operators.
www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/...
2 months ago
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Good news; bad news
www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-...
2 months ago
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The world is shit. I planted seeds.
2 months ago
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A visualisation of typical R code for data cleaning with |>
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2 months ago
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Phil Garnock-Jones
2 months ago
Local candidates: it's not much help telling us you're married with 3 kids and have run your own business. I need to know where you stand on issues: fluoridation, cycleways, water, homelessness, climate change mitigation, housing density, libraries, and which issues you care about most.
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Tom Butlin
2 months ago
You seldom see an army of jellyfish attacking a solar farm, do you?
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Got routine blood test results back on the same day. Some parts of the NZ public health system seem to be still functioning well.
2 months ago
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Today in data janitor land: This number in Excel appears to have leading spaces. But TRIM() won't remove them. Why? Because they're non-breaking spaces. But SUBSTITUTE() with CHAR(160) (non-breaking space) won't remove them either. Why?! Because they're actually CHAR(202). Why??! F*cked if I know.
2 months ago
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Tan
3 months ago
was reminded today of the greatness that is
ohshitgit.com
and how it consistently saves my ass whenever I get into git trouble - the memorable domain name certainly helps! (thank you
@ksylor.bsky.social
)
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Oh Shit, Git!?!
https://ohshitgit.com
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Andrew Mercer
3 months ago
Expertise is having fucked up in enough different ways that you become able to anticipate it.
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Maarten Lambrechts
3 months ago
Coder tests his productivity with and without AI, collects data and makes charts to argue AI assisted coding is a hype. Great data journalism
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3 more months! And this is pretty funny from Auckland Council. I presume they mean the first opening day rather than being open in general. But still, not something that a properly functioning city should say.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...
3 months ago
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š¦ Pepper Raccoon: Trash Priestess š¦
3 months ago
Hey, so, it now costs $63.60 to ship a tshirt to US, where it cost $32 before. Itās also going to cost me an upgraded Shopify plan (way more expensive) and hours to rework my shipping system to integrate the new changes I just canāt do that right now and I also doubt anyone wants to pay that much.
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Speculators gonna speculate
3 months ago
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David Hood
3 months ago
"This is one of the clumsiest and most embarrassing attempts to evade answering a question Iāve seen from any business leader, for a long time." is what you get with expert reporting commentary that is not just repeating press releases.
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Russel Norman
3 months ago
I don't think its even unfreezing. the project has been going ahead for some time, i think it's just a re-announcement of a thing that's already happening.
www.nzherald.co.nz/business/tec...
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Tech Insider: Size of four rugby fields ā Amazon buys more Auckland land
Amazon expands its data centre presence in West Auckland.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/tech-insider-size-of-four-rugby-fields-amazon-buys-more-land-in-auckland-teslas-sales-knock-kiwi-joins-moonshot-team/5KWMF5AMWNFKDL6ONSC7UJQC2Y/
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The newly announced $7.5 billion Amazon data centre investment in NZ is just the unfreezing of its investment announced in 2021 that was paused in 2024, right?
newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/01/a...
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Tech giant Amazon's $7.5b NZ data centre plan quietly putĀ on hold
Customers were told data centres would open this year, but Amazon hasn'tĀ resolved stormwater discharge and construction hasn't started. Jonathan Milne investigates.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/01/amazons-7-5b-nz-data-centre-plan-quietly-put-on-hold/
3 months ago
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Mike Dickison
3 months ago
Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to
@ellenrykers.com
for pointing me to it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
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Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing
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Today's working at home highlight was watching the road marking truck repaint the lines on our street. It looks like they use a UV light or something to instantly cure the paint š
3 months ago
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Keith Ng
3 months ago
We always thought the problem with AI was that it was going to be smarter than us and replace us. But now, we're staring down the barrel of AI that stunt our learning, starve our artists, and replace our knowledge with slop. It'll become smarter than us just by making us dumber.
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Waldo Jaquith
3 months ago
I was the executive director of U.S. Open Data, a non-profit that I created at the behest of the Obama White House. I worked as one of the nation's leading experts in open data. Putting open data on the blockchain is a profoundly stupid idea that fails nearly every test of good open data.
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The White House Is Going to Put Government Statistics on the Blockchain (Yeah, We Don't Know Why Either)
https://gizmodo.com/the-white-house-is-going-to-put-government-statistics-on-the-blockchain-yeah-we-dont-know-why-either-2000648428
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Also where are the product safety and consumer protection regulators in this? Compare AI with childrenās pyjamas for example.
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3 months ago
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Mike Dickison
3 months ago
This is what $8 worth of potatoes looks like in a NZ supermarket. š„š„š„š„š„š„š„š„
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JD Long
3 months ago
This is the best macroeconomic meme Iāve seen. Hands down.
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