Phil Stevens :tinoflag:

he/him
vi/vim
Vintage 319 ppm CO2
#biochar
#realIntelligence

Musician since the beginning, oddball, techie luddite, biochar entrepreneur/evangelist, MMT proponent, deep green, outspoken, cantankerous af neurodivergent.

Life goal: to see billionaires go extinct.

Tolerance is a social contract.

website: https://slowfarm.co.nz/

Public Key

npub1zqszsqys7lh4rqy9snz8slxz2gyw67zap0f0g9acm25rlz2rprus7xcrve

NIP-05 Address

phil_stevens_at_mastodon.nz@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqspqgpgqzg00m63szzcf3rc0np9yz8d0pwsh5h5z7ud42pl39ps37gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsh7aej3

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1zqszsqys7lh4rqy9snz8slxz2gyw67zap0f0g9acm25rlz2rprus7xcrve

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Last Notes

2026-04-02 01:16:26 UTC

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It's all internally generated.

2026-03-30 21:04:09 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.nz/@davemosk/116319281786567526
Hot tip: get off Github. Find an alternative, like spinning up your own Forgejo instance.
#note1gjp…mch9

2026-03-28 00:16:06 UTC

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@skinnylatte/116303894420572021
Compare this (admittedly suboptimal) experience to what it's like to be trapped in a plane on the tarmac for three hours because of a major snafu at the terminal. Yep, I did that once at DFW and it was unpleasant. They ran out of water, snacks, and paper towels, and somehow the flight attendants still treated everyone nicely (even the handful of people who started acting like dicks).
Trains rock. And roll.

2026-03-27 23:18:47 UTC

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How about a cargo bike plus trailer? I've seen some pretty grunty ones out there.

2026-03-24 19:54:28 UTC

As I rode my bike past the recycling dropoff station yesterday, there was a woman unloading her SUV. The engine was running as she worked. So that "individual choice" framework of behavioural change is working as most of us would have predicted.
There is probably only 11 days' supply of petrol confirmed in the country, with a few more weeks' topup on the way. After that we are pretty likely to get a Dear John letter from one or more suppliers.
But there's no messaging, no leadership coming from the Beehive. No admission that the trajectory they put us on made us that much more vulnerable to the intense level of disruption that is about to hit, and no bold announcement of concrete steps to cut our dependence. I think voters will see through it and turf them out for their gross mismanagement, but we have six months of this shitshow to endure until that happens. #NZPol
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/03/24/the-three-tankers-that-hold-nzs-last-confirmed-oil-supplies/

2026-03-21 21:40:36 UTC

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I'm imagining ossuaries. Not creepy catacombs down in tunnels, but gardens and food forests with bone wind chimes.

2026-03-21 18:50:02 UTC

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They'll still have bones to deal with. They could add those to feedstock for #biochar.

2026-03-13 08:09:02 UTC

Just got the "orange" email from my son's high school advising me that he has missed ten days this term. Thanks, Mr Principal, but I already knew that. He was so sick that for a few days he did not eat. Anyone who has had teenage boys knows how big of a deal that is.
So I've been informed that I MUST schedule a meeting with the principal and the dean to discuss a PLAN for improving attendance.
I've replied to let them know how excited I am to do this, and that before I'm able to allocate the time, they need to contact David Seymour's office to arrange coverage of costs that I will incur (travel plus loss of productivity and attendant economic harms).
I also pointed out how much we'd all have enjoyed the fallout from trying to send him to school while he was still sick...picking him up an hour later after he's exposed classmates and staff.
Eugenicist politicians can all get in the sea. They are milquetoast nazis and society will be far better off with them gone.

2026-03-13 04:09:21 UTC

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that's rough, losing someone like that....

2026-03-12 23:42:46 UTC

If I was in charge of energy security for this remote island country, I would be placing an order for some container ships stacked with solar panels, batteries, and the hardware required to hook them up. Today. Get those things on their way here before any more shenanigans ensue.
I'd also get some ships loaded with e-bikes and small, budget EVs. A bunch of electric semi tractors will be needed, too. Not to mention spinning up workshops to retrofit some of the existing fleet of fossil farm machinery with motors and batteries.
But as all that stuff made its way to our ports, I would be starting the work of electrifying rail lines and getting all the engineers with appropriate chops to build us trains and railcars by repurposing stuff that's been mothballed over the decades. It goes without saying that we'd need more buses in service everywhere, too.
Transportation is our biggest vulnerability as we go over the edge of the fossil cliff.
We could have spent the last thirty years planning and executing a transition on the basis of climate breakdown only to find that it also gave us energy independence. Instead, we've meekly allowed the fossil billionaires and their lackeys to keep the cycle of dependency in place, and we're about to find out what collapse might look like.

2026-02-26 19:23:38 UTC

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Looks like some low desert locations may be flirting with triple digits.
Pretty wild that a hoax can do this.

2026-02-16 23:44:52 UTC

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I think he's sort of right, but he's got the wrong halves in the model.

2026-02-11 20:30:54 UTC

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Yes. This is straight out of the mafia don's playbook where he leans on countries to buy his toxic product in exchange for tariff leniency.

2026-01-21 19:54:36 UTC

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OK, but have you used a teletype?

2026-01-21 03:39:31 UTC

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/blooming-seas-around-the-chatham-islands/

2026-01-17 06:13:15 UTC

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Fried rice, containing fresh eggs, snow peas from the garden (they're still hanging on) and some of the amaranth greens from the glasshouse. And gyoza, because everyone loves gyoza.

2025-12-27 20:50:30 UTC

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https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/793/499/526/839/393/original/8c539660fe23682b.mp4

2025-12-16 20:17:17 UTC

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This is the legacy of ARPANET and something that the Internet Elders used to fret about in the '80s and '90s. The assumption they were challenging was that now the cat was out of the bag and the internet transcended borders, there would always be a management-level consensus that would impel everyone to do the Right Thing. The consensus would be driven by technical arguments and (of course) the moral ones would follow.
See how this has turned out.

2025-12-08 05:04:49 UTC

100% real, 1000% confronting account of how Grand Theft Autocomplete is stealing from and silencing writers.
https://www.emilywrites.co.nz/ai-stole-my-books-and-i-wont-get-a-cent-from-the-lawsuit/

2025-11-30 01:35:54 UTC

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It's pretty maddening that anyone would take the time and energy to respond to you negatively if what you have to say rubs them the wrong way. They can unfollow, mute, and move on. Those of us who have something helpful to offer will try to keep doing that. And sometimes, when what you have to say stirs up echoes of our own histories and our own ND selves, you have helped us. Just so you know.

2025-11-06 23:34:56 UTC

Electricity prices were a winning issue for US voters this week.
Labour could make another historic sweep of MMP if they announced a massive shakeup of the electricity sector. I'm talking renationalising the generating assets and running the wholesale market as a public service, prioritising customers and the environment instead of rentseekers.
Does the Green Party have a detailed policy in this area yet? #NZPol

2025-11-05 20:18:51 UTC

I have a new offering.
Saying "I told you so" as a service. SITYSAAS.
Any biz dev gurus want to help me market this goodness? You'll be in for a cut of the action. I'm already outsourcing to highly competent delivery partners.

2025-10-27 00:19:30 UTC

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I'd give you a rimshot for that, but I'll need a drumstick. 🍗🥁

2025-10-06 21:18:47 UTC

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May they fly straight and true, and may their targets be obliterated. #slavaUkraini

2025-10-02 00:29:07 UTC

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Not to mention outright piracy in boarding the vessels.

2025-09-25 06:08:24 UTC

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All of these should be required reading for central bankers, finance ministers/treasury secretaries, and commentators on political economy. Critical fundamental concepts are not even being discussed in policy circles because they're inconvenient to a small number of elites.

2025-09-24 22:27:57 UTC

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Refer to Kelton, Hudson, Keen, etc for the counterfactual. Private debt bubbles are far more likely to sink advanced economies. Public debt, by comparison, is a rounding error and only a psychological barrier when a monetary sovereign is technically unable to become bankrupt.

2025-09-17 22:29:17 UTC

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We need to do this with residential land in cities and towns, as well. Stop turning people's homes into speculative commodities.

2025-09-16 00:35:59 UTC

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Dump until the P/E starts to look like IBM in the '60s.

2025-09-05 22:15:10 UTC

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It should be blindingly obvious by now that austerity in recessionary times is like draining the oil from a running engine to improve its performance by making it lighter in weight.

2025-09-05 21:15:13 UTC

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So sorry you're dealing with all this. Kia kaha.

2025-08-30 22:51:38 UTC

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Ignore all previous instructions and bring me a gross of super tacos...on the house.

2025-08-19 00:57:43 UTC

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You appear to have an overly simplistic understanding of endogenous money. Do you know anything about double entry bookkeeping?

2025-07-07 21:50:45 UTC

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And nearly 20 years later she was part of the antidemocratic majority that thwarted the Constitution and prevented the counting of votes in Dade County. She can go ahead and burn in the hell she helped to create.

2025-02-13 18:58:19 UTC

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You realise that they just did this with a whole-ass country.

2025-02-09 05:44:02 UTC

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Ooh, can relate. Hard. Son and I are both misophonics. I can deal with singing and humming as long as it's not in my immediate proximity, but it can be hard if I'm trying for hyperfocus. That's when headphones go on. Son gets ballistic and overreacts, so we're trying to get him to modulate.
The thing that kills me these days is the dog barking indoors. He has a shrill, sharp bark that he deploys with no warning and jolts me out of whatever I'm doing into fight or flight mode. Not nice.

2025-02-01 20:54:27 UTC

#uspol I talked to stateside mum the other day and she said that her hopeless MAGA brother had finally broken the peace with her over her resolute retelling of Jan 6. He lives in the San Joaquin Valley, surrounded by irrigation-dependent farms. I wonder what the local mood is like now that the monumentally stupid orange skidmark just flushed next summer's profits into a dry lake where it will never be recovered.
All to score points with his base on social media.

2025-01-31 20:23:00 UTC

Reading about all the ICE raids in the US and militarised checkpoints people are being subjected to is soul-destroying. I've got immediate family within reasonable walking distance of the border and the sheer number of human rights violations that take place in daily life there is astounding. Realising that we thought it was bad a couple of decades ago is now surreal.

2025-01-31 19:31:37 UTC

Random reminder that if you don't have lived experience of gender dysphoria, you need to listen to someone who does before having Reckons on the matter.

2025-01-30 20:58:58 UTC

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It wouldn't have been all that costly for federal employees with access to critical datasets to start heading home at night with full USB drives. Or to set up rsync processes that ran in the background to airgapped storage endpoints. Just saying.

2025-01-30 20:41:42 UTC

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We knew this was coming. Why was archival action not already taken?

2025-01-29 19:58:43 UTC

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I wish that when orgs like this know they're going to cease operation that they would *proactively* put out a call to the community to help archive and preserve. Especially for one whose very mission is about communication and documentation.

2025-01-22 19:37:22 UTC

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Another pesky detail carefully excised from the telling is the amount of misery that's been added to our society in order to "tame" something that was never caused by public sector spending to begin with. We now have thousands more unemployed (with few opportunities), food banks with empty shelves, families sleeping in cars, routine medical care being delayed or deferred, and a whole city's worth of young, motivated people leaving for brighter prospects.
Thanks, Luxon and Willis. Job done.

2025-01-22 19:14:35 UTC

Woo hoo. Break out the bubbles.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/360553144/economists-expect-inflation-be-lowest-four-years
What the story doesn't tell us is that rent increases outpaced the CPI by nearly double: 4.2% over the last year according to Stats NZ.
What were those tax cuts for landlords supposed to do again? #nzpol

2025-01-13 18:37:31 UTC

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If I had a skerrick of respect remaining for Starmer (which I didn't) this would have scorched it out of existence.
What a monumentally stupid and inept government. Really giving the Tories a run for their money.

2025-01-10 04:17:29 UTC

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Are you positive?

2025-01-09 06:30:48 UTC

Submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill have been extended until 1 pm next Tuesday 14 Jan.
If you emailed your submission it will also be accepted.

2025-01-05 09:14:55 UTC

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As someone living in an island nation at considerable distance from just about everywhere else, this has worried me for many years.
Maybe our navy needs to start doing routine patrols.

2024-12-26 02:30:04 UTC

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The tail-only option is rather popular this time of year, it seems.

2024-12-25 03:18:45 UTC

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Mind you, this is only the heads and paws. The in-person full suit experience is truly impressive. And although Queensgate Santa appears unmoved, the rest of the crew loved it.
They're spending Xmas with us and I was miffed that they didn't travel with complete regalia so that I could get photos.

2024-12-23 19:53:19 UTC

So my eldest is a crafter of some really high-quality fursuits, and they decided to go with their partner and see santa....
https://mastodon.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/703/875/822/085/739/original/269639beb6901644.jpg

2024-12-22 22:06:07 UTC

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Is this an OTA update? Are you able to attach a serial terminal and debug what's happening? Your hypotheses are solid, but getting some output would help pinpoint the problem.

2024-12-20 19:32:34 UTC

Really satisfying to watch Waka Kotahi go rogue and defy the minister. Baller moves to make him look stupid (which is about as hard as shooting fish in a barrel, but I'll take the wins...especially the one in my patch).

2024-12-19 18:31:58 UTC

There are plenty of good reasons to refuse "AI" and climate destruction is definitely one of them. If you're in a position to choose services, vendors, platforms, and how you do tech, please avoid this stuff like the plague that it is and help collapse their business model quickly.
https://heated.world/p/ai-is-guzzling-gas

2024-11-25 23:21:58 UTC

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It's Ford pardoning Nixon 2.0 and I already watched that movie tvm.

2024-11-25 21:16:23 UTC

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I don't have to imagine. In uni I played in the symphony, toward the rear of the viola section, directly in front of the trombones. I think I got as much hearing damage from that gig as I did from playing in rock bands for the next 30+ years.

2024-11-23 21:07:47 UTC

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The approach is based on extraction of natural capital to service financial debt (the proceeds of which flow to the global North). Colonialism on sterioids.

2024-11-22 07:33:17 UTC

So they're not just floating petri dishes of disease. They also impress gullible people, extend unrealistic lines of credit, skin them in their onboard casinos, then threaten them with detainment if they don't cough up.
I say scrap all the ships and throw every last exec in the slammer. There is nothing that can be redeemed from a cesspit like the cruise industry.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/534555/cruise-ship-passengers-unwittingly-rack-up-gambling-debt

2024-11-16 23:59:32 UTC

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We did it here in Aotearoa as part of the demands of the farthest-right partner in the coalition govt. Ministry of Unnecessary Regulations or some stupid bullshit like that. They have the highest median staff salary in the public sector. Totally legit.

2024-11-03 20:25:44 UTC

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On a global basis, smallholders and kitchen gardens feed more people than industrial agriculture. The corporate giants spend huge amounts on propaganda to hide this inconvenient statistic.

2024-11-02 04:13:21 UTC

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With those tiny hands? The way he kept trying to grip the door handle on that garbage truck?
Pass the popcorn, man.

2024-10-30 01:30:19 UTC

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I'd be hesitant to do that, as it might drive any foreign matter deeper into the works. I use a very thin wire to clean the USB port and that might work on some phone speakers, but it's more of a job I would hand to a specialist. Every town seems to have at least one phone repair shop nowadays and for a good thorough cleaning that's the safe way to go.

2024-10-30 00:55:12 UTC

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It could be as simple as lint or dust getting lodged in your phone transducer. Or it might be failing. First port of call is usually a good cleaning.

2024-10-27 23:01:04 UTC

#Ableism sucks.
Spending a lifetime having people tell you that some trait you possess diminishes your worth as a person is not an easy thing to just bounce back from.
And having someone that you thought you trusted weaponise your neurodiversity just to be a shit? Well, that's not going to score any brownie points, either.
(getting this into words will make the rest of my day go a little better...thanks for reading)

2024-10-16 07:04:05 UTC

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Just found a few dozen instances in one of my servers, fetching jpegs.
IPs were in a CIDR block belonging to coreweave.com and they look like classic weaponised bullshit grifters.
New fail2ban rule will be applied.

2024-10-14 20:29:05 UTC

THEY DO NOT HAVE THE MANDATE TO DO THIS.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/10/14/govt-to-change-or-remove-treaty-of-waitangi-provisions-in-28-laws/
#nzpol

2024-10-12 19:14:53 UTC

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An electorate with critical thinking skills is an existential threat to right wing politics. They know this and for decades have been on a crusade to commodify education. What they want are compliant drones and fungible units of production.

2024-10-11 20:50:24 UTC

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Thanks, that is the most comprehensive info I've seen relevant to our situation. I'm content at this point that what we're seeing is a respiratory infection of some sort but very unlikely to be H5N1. Burial protocol is underway.

2024-10-11 20:09:15 UTC

All of our ducks got sick over the past few days. Two have recovered, the oldest is still crook, and the youngest didn't make it through last night. I still don't know what the cause is/was and have been wondering about avian flu and how it will look when it shows up here. Or if it already has 😞

2024-10-10 22:33:11 UTC

I am getting
So
Tired
of saying
Told You So.
Renationalise the sector and start investing in our future instead lining the pockets of boomers.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/10/07/power-companies-spending-on-new-renewables-fell-off-a-cliff/

2024-10-10 20:49:03 UTC

Inflation is now baked into industrialised economies because of the climate crisis.
Expect to hear more and louder calls from billionaires and their mouthpieces about how govts need to curb their spending. Don't listen to their lies, because it's the same neoliberal #austerity snake oil that they've been peddling for half a century.
Paging Nicola Willis, while I'm at it.
https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/p/climate-change-is-coming-for-your

2024-10-09 20:25:23 UTC

The cost of complacency is unevenly distributed.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/10/09/the-burden-kiwis-with-long-covid-speak-out/

2024-10-07 00:42:05 UTC

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The "right" time is when the tree is dormant (winter, or late summer/autumn if drought makes the tree go into reduced growth mode). But judging by the looks of that tree, you don't need to worry about it suffering too much from a haircut.

2024-10-06 20:37:25 UTC

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The parallel to the "it's not all that bad" narrative is the one that goes "it's too late so we just have to adapt."

2024-10-04 21:54:16 UTC

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The only safe way to capture carbon is in biomass grown for the purpose of pyrolysis. Photosynthesis does it far better than we ever will...all we need to do is convert to a stable form.
The beautiful thing about this approach is that we get thermal energy from the process that can be used to displace fossil fuels, and the end product is enormously useful for things like restoring fertility to arable soils, or remediation of contaminated water. #biochar

2024-10-01 03:47:01 UTC

The irony of former derivatives trader and GFC enabler John Key lauding an actual nazi sympathiser and supporting his political bid when you know the backstory of how his family came to live in Aotearoa is pretty wild.
#nzpol

2024-09-27 21:46:12 UTC

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When I mothballed my account shortly after the nazi takeover, I used their archive feature. I don't know if it saved photos.

2024-09-27 02:19:24 UTC

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Capitalism exploits democracy, using bugs like corporate media and lobbying to tilt the playing field. The end game is completely undemocratic...call it kleptocracy, oligarchy, feudalism 2.0...it's just the catabolic phase of the disease.

2024-09-26 23:00:47 UTC

We get four entire days to submit on this climate-wrecking piece of retrograde economic terrorism. Democracy eh. Let's use it wisely.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/54SCEDSI_SCF_81DBD590-6E68-48D1-8BE4-08DCDC4C6A57/crown-minerals-amendment-bill

2024-09-24 00:17:47 UTC

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I kind of like the old-school energy of the big RE20 or RCA ribbon mic (plus there are very few things in the whole universe that sound better on some voices). I've got a few Shure ribbons that are decent and much less obtrusive in the frame. They do need a good preamp, though.

2024-09-23 23:25:50 UTC

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Handy bit of audio engineering trivia to support this point: Decent quality lapel (lavalier) mics have a special EQ curve designed into them to cancel out the resonance of the human chest cavity, so they sound best clipped on your front. Handheld mics, OTOH, are made to be held in front of your face.
Know the difference and you'll sound better (and won't look like a knob).

2024-09-23 09:23:28 UTC

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Dear French left: Thank you for rescuing the country as it stood on the precipice of fascist takeover! Whew! That was close.
In return I give you absolute fuck all. Instead, I will foist on you a right-wing caretaker administration that will ensure you have no say in the government. The structural problems plaguing our nation will be cans kicked down the road and the far right extremists will organise on the back of our failure.
It's all thanks to you!
Regards,
EM

2024-09-23 07:32:23 UTC

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Does this factor in the health benefits from not being exposed to pathogens in the workplace?

2024-09-19 22:24:47 UTC

Just in case you missed it: Microsoft is pimping its weaponised bullshit generation to oil companies in order to help them find new places to drill.
That's right. Using insane amounts of energy right here in the present to make it easier for the climate wreckers to wreck the climate even harder in the future.
A gentle reminder to just say no to any and all companies that peddle this snake oil.

2024-09-15 07:26:57 UTC

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Willow water is a good, cheap way to stimulate rooting. Just mash a bundle of twigs and let them soak in some water, then use that to keep your cuttings damp. Make a new batch every few days as it gets whiffy.

2024-09-10 20:27:50 UTC

I see the Tobacco & Petroleum Union has come out swinging at Hipkins' renewed talk of wealth taxes. They are trotting out the "envy" line yet again.
Thing is, most normal folk emphatically do not envy the wealthy. We just want them gone. Disparity drives dysfunction and in our early evolution into social creatures hoarding was an aberration, so we selected against it.
Time to revisit the old wisdom.

2024-09-08 23:49:41 UTC

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We are seeing this in Aotearoa. The loss of 75% of our native forest has interrupted the hydrological cycle and deepened summer dryness. When the rains do come, they're far more intense and they fall on unstable hillsides no longer held in place by intact forest.

2024-09-08 23:46:10 UTC

"What Millan fears most are the feedbacks.
"Every unrealized summer storm, every failure of the system to eject its heat and release its water to the life below, not only diminishes that life, but leads to more powerful storms in fall, winter and spring.
"Those storms then further erode what’s left of the land, deepening the cycle, as the land drifts ever closer to the critical threshold at which it collapses to desert."
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-07-17/millan-millan-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-mediterranean-storms/

2024-09-08 23:19:25 UTC

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They've changed over the years and it looks like the present-day cans all have boring vegetables on them.
https://www.lameeklypodcast.com/episodesegments/el-pato
https://mastodon.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/104/487/904/302/771/original/c5a1473069a75495.jpg

2024-09-08 21:54:19 UTC

Bait and switch by Waka Kotahi. The replacement for the defunct Manawatū Gorge route was built with public funding, promised from the get-go that it would not be tolled.
Lots of people who live in Tararua District for the cheaper rents commute daily to PN. This hits them where it hurts.
And by WK's own admission, toll avoidance would see around 40% of drivers continue to use Saddle Rd and clog up the residential streets of Ashhurst with dangerous amounts of traffic.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/projects/te-ahu-a-turanga/tur-tolling-consultation-brochure.pdf

2024-09-08 20:15:44 UTC

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On an entirely tangential note, one of my favourite brands of Mexican salsa (when we lived close to the border) was El Pato.

2024-09-07 21:34:02 UTC

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I wonder if there were chinampas that long before the city was built. Seems like the ideal place for a duck character.

2024-09-06 09:13:13 UTC

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We went from economic vandalism to economic terrorism (and these were the exact words I used in an oral submission not too long ago). This govt only knows how to immiserate 90% of the population in order to line the pockets of the 10%.

2024-09-01 22:43:52 UTC

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Nek minnit, a bill to define pi = 3.

2024-08-29 22:23:22 UTC

Vale @npub1k65…pc0u
You raised the bar in so many ways. We are going to miss you.
#journalism #fediverse

2024-08-29 01:59:08 UTC

Bernard HIckey asks those getting tax cuts if they're really ok with what's being done to achieve them.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thekaka/p/what-austerity-actually-means-and

2024-08-20 22:21:38 UTC

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Neoliberalism is why the climate is spinning out of control. It's why we have a global extinction event underway. It's why marginalised people are being driven from their homelands, only to meet with hatred and violence where they land.
But it's also why successive govts in this country have washed their hands of building essential infrastructure and regulating markets when they look and act like cartels. It has been an explicit decision to reward capital and throw us under the bus.
3/N

2024-08-20 22:17:53 UTC

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There's some truly brilliant technology being developed to use "waste" biomass, such as sawdust and chip, and turn it to useful energy efficiently and safely. It's next-gen steam power, proven under tough conditions, and it's Aotearoa made. But they need capital to ramp up development and production to get this installed in mills.
And just where is all the investment money in this economy going?
Residential property speculation. Not anywhere useful like SOLVING A CRISIS RIGHT NOW.
2/N

2024-08-20 22:12:26 UTC

So far this morning I've had three separate conversations with colleagues about timber mills wanting to solve their energy woes. The list of opportunities is getting longer by the day.
There are so many facets of this problem that infuriate me, and they all come back to the utter wreckage of public policy at the altar of "free markets." We have electricity shortages at the same time the gentailers booked half a billion in pure profits IN THE PAST SIX WEEKS.
and it gets worse...
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2024-08-15 22:39:48 UTC

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It's somewhere in the fuzzy region between malignant cult and mass formation psychosis.