The YouTube algorithm must be broken: it took fully 18 hours to inform me that Laurie Anderson had done a Tiny Desk concert. youtu.be/CEHm9LK9vtU?...

Yes, I agree. Only billionaires should be allowed on this mission. As many of them as possible. We wouldn't want any of them to feel left out! What an exciting opportunity for all of us.

Is that butter? No it's ghee. Oh thanks for clarifying

He waka eke noa, e hoa mā. And that means you don't have to paddle all the time. You can take a break while someone else does the mahi, then jump back in when you're feeling it again. This waka isn't leaving without you - pal, you're already in it.

Things are grim but doing something helps with feelings of helplessness. Donate to a charity. Write to your MP. Sign a petition. But also look for joy, whimsy, beauty. They are vitamins that you will need to strengthen yourself so you have the energy and stamina to keep on keeping on.

Interior views of the Purple Onion revue bar, Vivian Street, Wellington. Photos by Ans Westra, 1975. The Purple Onion was an LGBT hangout and cruising area in an era when homosexuality was illegal.

Good morning

Someone misread my trans rights shirt and thought it said "train rides" but now I quite want a "TRAIN RIDES ARE HUMAN RIGHTS" shirt as well

Hiding files in cakes is a time-honored practice in the world of subverting law enforcement

NZ artists that do enby clothing? I wish to patronage but not random international folk Help

As a committee, we've written to every MP in Welly about the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, and we encourage you to do the same. Plenty of organisations like InsideOUT or Qtopia have more info you can use, and letters to Parliament are free qtopia.org.nz/news/qtopia-...

Today is a great day to make a donation to QTopia or similar NZ organisations today! qtopia.org.nz/donate

I knew I had gotten on of these back in the day, so now that I’ve found it, time to break it out

This article has some good points, but I don’t believe this bit for a second. This govt either doesn’t care about the quality of services, or wants to privatise them, or sees them as coddling people they want to punish for being poor. newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/20/w...

"Socially liberal but fiscally conservative" is a fiction. By their votes last night, every National MP showed us what their values are. #nzpol

Today @dairinstitute.bsky.social is releasing the Luddite Lab Resource Hub. The hub hosts case studies, resources, and political education for unions, labor organizations, and workers who want to fight “AI” and automation at work. labor.dair-institute.org

They're right you know

Pro-tip for any budding politicians: Saying "It's a distraction" when your opponents begin a policy directly targeting a minority, one which will reverse your own governments gains for that minority, tells everyone in or supportive of that minority that you didn't give a fuck then and you don't now.

I want give this so many likes!!

Tldr: I went to the famous Oxford Union Debate to hold Empire accountable. Against 3 older power laden men pimping for colonisation. No biggie. I shat myself. It was terrifying. I won by just agreeing to do it, and telling my story anyway. But the win of 163-86 was a bonus. youtu.be/SlZE8BT_fio?...

Congrats, Google. We now have unreliable AI narrators of impoverished information sources, representing their hallucinations as truth. I'm glad I learned to use a card catalog when I was a kid, because fuck this. I'm going to the library. (3/3)

When nobody visits the web anymore, what incentive is there for people to populate it with information? That means AI search will be retrieving information from deteriorating, out-of-date sources and feeding it endlessly back to us. And that means even fewer people will populate the web. (2/3)

***Call to action*** NZ First’s transphobic bill is lawfare against trans, non-binary, and intersex people. What can we do about it? Well, we can make sure the select committee receives as many submissions as possible against the bill. To that end I will offer my time to anyone who wants help 1/4

im going to start loudly booing the people who bring up their ai trash and grifts in real life too. why let the college grads have all the fun? be the change you want to see.

Spotted on Cuba Street today, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

When I worked in information management and website design, we used to say a client was looking for an 'automagical' solution when they said shit like 'the computer will do it'.

AI is the lynchpin of the whole political project. It’s the container for the parallel governance they have promised each other. I truly think that they are surprised that people don’t like it…and that they can’t yet wholesale punish everyone for not liking them.

This is just the "Can't somebody else do it?" line from that episode of the Simpsons, only instead of Homer's sanitation workers it's the racist chatbot that lies to you.

Ever fucking green

Wow some terrible reporting about Google's latest horrible ideas about how to distort information access in the name of "convenience" (or something): techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/g... A short thread 🧵>>

To be fair to Nicola Willis, when the Government doesn't care for evidence or advice on policy, or for living up to its obligations to tangata whenua, the environment and future generations, then public service agencies really can be cut back to a couple of people with rubber stamps #NZpol

Oh look, an opposition party doing what opposition parties should do.

Very excited to announce I'm in this event tomorrow! Free in person and online. We'll be discussing the book Mr Ward’s Map with its author Elizabeth Cox. (This very cool map is at the heart of my historical fiction series, The Ghost Hunter's Guide to the Alphabet.) www.wgtn.ac.nz/stout-centre...

I’m sure we could at least get a head start on black metal and alcoholism.

Does NZ have a CE problem? Rich, entitled, abusive & throw their weight around when women are brave enough to speak out. #nzpol “A former contractor to property coaching company Wealth Mentor has released video appearing to show chief executive Kyron Gosse slapping her during a filming session.”

Oh hey this decision is public now so here’s some more Good Trans Legal News: Genspect’s application to intervene in PATHA’s puberty blocker ban challenge was declined www.justice.govt.nz/jdo_document...

Pass it on

University President: Good afternoon Class of 2026! Please put your hands together for this year’s graduation speaker, MOLOCH!!

In the screenshot replies we have, in order, an econ prof and two machine learning researchers. "I shouldn't have to understand the things I cite" - their base position - says something pretty appalling about the norms of their institutions and/or disciplines.

I'm sorry, what? In writing my first monograph, I spent six weeks trying to track down a citation in TWO languages I didn't know. And good thing too, because the citation was wrong. That's scholarship. That's research. You know, the thing we're trained to do?!?

Totally. He should have cast Jason. It’s not just that he looks the part, but he’s got the energy of a complete chaos monkey getting lost on a trip that would have taken a month had he walked.

“check out today’s fair & balanced piece specifically about who does & does not possess beauty. in the thumbnail, we have a woman who is professionally hot & next to her is what happens if the beeswax candle you kept next to your phrenology skull goes rancid & melts.“

in a way, isn’t causing men to crash out before she’s even done anything just proof that Lupita is perfect for Helen of Troy

Look at this AI stealing the decent, honest job of a dominatrix

I think of BlueSky as a relatively enlightened place, but the comments on this post are as full of rants against “artsy” “pretentious” films and “it’s an escape, a product, and has a duty to the audience to make sense” posts as any reactionary YouTube comments section. But they miss two things:

A friend just sent me this perfect piece by Karel Čapek, trans. Dora Round, ‘From the Point of View of a Cat’.

‘Reading has become so bound up with attainment and literacy, that we’ve failed to get across the emotional benefits, the fact that it is fun and should be done for pleasure.’