Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman

https://microbe.vital.org.nz/users/stephen

I am interested in things. Lots of things.

I am not quite a gentleman but you would hardly notice it but it cant be helped anyhow. I'm the operator of this tiny service, a researcher, musician, capoeirista, wanna-be flâneur. If you want to know things about me, you can always ask. Meanwhile, why not read https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Young_Visiters

#bikes #bicycles #cycling #urbanism #nzpol #cider

Main web site: https://vital.org.nz
Domestic cats: 1
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Last Notes

2024-09-23 22:48:13

Said it before and I'll say it again. The evidence on WFH productivity is equivocal and imo it is likely highly dependent on specifics of job, people, project and office. A big motivator (again imo, pure reckons) is the boss' desire for control, which is a reward for them independent of economic return.

2024-09-23 07:58:23

Possibly important intel for the NZ COVID conscious.
We have COVID in this house. Research shows that Metformin lowers the odds of long COVID in the obsese.
Partner is overweight by medical standards. Got a telehealth appt. Raised this with GP. GP was like "huh, hadn't heard that." GP checked the advice/research, then agreed this was appropriate and prescribed.
So double win: meds obtained but also GP educated. You might be able to do the same.

2024-09-22 06:47:49

I have a laptop running Linux and I would like to achieve this outcome: mounting a local NFS share on boot, but only if I am on my home network (because otherwise there is a pointless hang while it tries to mount a share that can't be found). What is the nicest way to achieve this?
Am prepared to countenance other solutions such as Samba if necessary, as long as the outcome when working at home is that a shared folder is mounted on boot but not if away from home.

2024-09-19 01:10:06

OMG. Remember that exploding whale? My sister and family went driving through Oregon, and found this.
https://microbe.vital.org.nz/media/891a17133b640524cc9094ce8f8423353d1c5cf045cac74de202ec776e98ae14.png

2024-09-12 06:31:41

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this was a slander that did the rounds when I was a teen in NZ (80s) as migration from China and SE Asia became more common. Haven't heard it in a while though.

2024-09-12 02:05:07

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I come out of the car, there's one guy here, one guy here, he'd been hit with an axe an split open like this *dramatic hand gesture*

2024-09-12 02:05:07

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I come out of the car, there's one guy here, one guy here, he'd been hit with an axe an split open like this *dramatic hand gesture*

2024-09-12 02:01:55

Eavesdropping on a uniformed cop and some mates talking about grisly crimes they have attended while I'm having lunch in a cafe in Redfern. Crikey. Glad I already finished eating.

2024-09-08 05:14:34

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Birdlings Flat

2024-09-08 05:01:17

Today I saw a baby seal vooming along the beach in the surf, jumping in the air every now and then.

2024-09-08 05:01:17

Today I saw a baby seal vooming along the beach in the surf, jumping in the air every now and then.

2024-09-07 08:55:27

As soon as I see "learn about..." I know I'm reading some AI generated slop. Fuck I miss the old days before everything got ruined. Doesn't matter what I'm looking for, the sea of rubbish copy-for-clicks has swamped the good stuff.

2024-09-05 20:59:47

Say what you like about Sir Peter Beck, but whenever I see a photo I think he looks like Syndrome.
https://microbe.vital.org.nz/media/7887d1b8ed23ff002de4fc0b699ed7d4e87fb53ee63700546f188108bf0ed875.jpg
https://microbe.vital.org.nz/media/fe7aee1dd9f68465bd2bbb47995354062cda1bfe5d8260b548b37c1502d71223.jpg

2024-09-01 00:53:19

Just thinking about how our childhood toaster was the kind that did just one side at a time, with sides that opened downward to load the bread slices into. And you had to watch it the whole time... the incredible excitement of the pop-up toaster didn't come until I was 12 or so.

2024-08-31 00:21:32

Re previous boost, this show tours NZ sometimes too. Don't go, don't support them, maybe tell people Falun Gong are not the good guys either.

2024-08-30 01:42:42

My considered opinion is that the research on WFH is pretty equivocal on productivity, so it's probably fair to call it a wash. But many workers love it.
Bosses, on the other hand, hate it. Why?
I think beyond any considerations of efficiency, the history of work from slavery and serfdom to modern Taylorism and "scientific management" shows that the feeling of control is a value in and of itself. Many bosses will pay for that feeling.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/29/australian-billionaire-boss-coffee-breaks-office-chris-ellison-perth-mineral-resources

2024-08-28 04:26:23

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I think it has to be another variety, doesn't it? I feel like you need a graft or a second tree.

2024-08-25 08:41:14

I'm just going to say this about traditional practices around death: if you are in a culture where your tikanga/minhag/customs are real and in use, at least everyone knows what to do and does them even if grumblingly and then everyone agrees they were done (even if unsatisfactorily). The broad outlines are there. Aware tradition doesn't meet everyone's needs but this one it does meet.

2024-08-23 09:43:38

After 2 ½ years of living with us, Clawdia has discovered folded washing in the laundry basket.
https://microbe.vital.org.nz/media/2e5e35e927659cfb8bf4362cdf0a5fee01ef49c66c55ffd94e22ffe72e652252.png

2024-08-20 08:49:32

For people who moved to Christchurch recently, the council has a survey to help figure out how to make the city more welcoming: https://letstalk.ccc.govt.nz/welcoming-communities

2024-08-20 07:20:37

Pretty good big moon out there, low on the horizon, if you wanna take a look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9MZNEXrElw

2024-08-20 01:00:48

Am friends with some Brazilian people on FB. Suddenly seeing a wave of posts being shared about the impact of manufacturing electric cars and wind turbines - same text, everything, but from different accounts. Looks like an organised campaign.

2024-08-19 09:18:52

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flu was rampant through the rest home, she's had a cough for a week, was already distinctly off on the weekend, if K hadn't persisted and ended up getting her to hospital today they were going to wait for the GP to come tomorrow. So in between the worry, anger.

2024-08-19 09:17:03

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Kathy's mum has influenza which has turned into pneumonia. It's not looking great.

2024-08-19 09:07:42

Currently fuming about rest homes and their shitty infection control

2024-08-19 06:03:53

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honestly am kind of horrified by any discussion of AI use that starts with "should" rather than "whether" or "how".

2024-08-17 10:22:29

Fun little quote from the Wikipedia page on Berlin dialect:
_Da kamma nich meckan. "You can't complain about that." This is supposedly the highest praise a Berliner can offer._
Time to have another crack at Berlin Alexanderplatz I think.

2024-08-17 05:43:05

My late mum always said "I wish you well to wear it" when someone got new clothes or shoes. I never knew anyone else who said it, but because she was raised by Yiddish speakers and the syntax is a bit odd I vaguely intuited it was part of our Jewish wotsit.
Just found out it is common, just not in 1970s Hamilton New Zealand. But younger Jewish people have moved on.
"English translation of Yiddish טראָג געזונטערהײט trog gezunterheyt 'wear healthily' "
https://jel.jewish-languages.org/words/1539

2024-08-14 06:24:27

How does our local conspiracy community recruit? More from FACT Aotearoa: https://factaotearoa.nz/our-conspiracy-community-pipeline/

2024-08-14 03:55:59

Some people think it's cruel or unfair to go after beneficiaries at a time when jobs are harder and harder to get and life is even more of a struggle. And it is. But some people also think it's illogical.
I don't believe though that there's any illogic to it. It makes sense to me that if you are presiding over these conditions you have a strong drive to frame the worst off as being responsible for their own suffering. Otherwise people might think it was you. There is an element of Just World fallacy but also DARVO. This is absolutely not stupid, it's strategic.
This is why we can't argue people out of holding the position that poor people should be punished for being poor. It makes sense to them and if poor people were not to blame, maybe the blame would land in the "wrong" place.

2024-08-11 08:35:43

So you're adopted, and this strange person who says they are the photographer's assistant is at your wedding but something feels off: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-11/audra-keeble-wedding-forced-adoption-redress/104104842
Incredible story.

2024-08-11 04:57:32

This is great news. https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/350372404/newly-completed-cycleway-links-northern-suburbs-city

2024-08-11 03:09:22

Another few cubic metres of intertwined grape vine, buddleia, jasmine, other creepers, all out of control and spilling on to the street and slowly destroying the fence. The previous owners didn't just love ivy, they loved anything that climbed. Judging by the plantings, they must have spent all their spare time in the garden to keep it from turning to jungle, never mind looking nice... the grape vine is amazing and I love it, everything else not so much.

2024-08-10 10:00:30

Yes, capoeira contributed to breaking. Queda de rins (baby freeze), corta capim, piao de mão, many other movements have found their way into break dancing.
I have met João Grande. Didn't understand a word.
https://www.geledes.org.br/os-herois-que-espalharam-a-capoeira-pelo-mundo-e-influenciaram-ate-o-breaking/

2024-08-09 07:47:41

It gives me no pleasure to hear that the damaged Anglican cathedral in Christchurch will be "mothballed".
Millions and millions of dollars from the church and ratepayers have been wasted to placate a dying set of boomers who valued a building above humanity. The Anglican bishop of the time knew that people meant more than a building, and got drummed out of town for saying so. And a crew whose driving force was nostalgia, not devotion, managed to tax every one of us in the city to fund their vision, whether we were Anglican or even Christian.
This should cause shame and reflection for the leaders who called for rebuilding - but it won't. Some are dead, and the others will claim we all need to pay more.
What an enormous waste.

2024-08-08 07:09:45

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I will add that if we value labour and pay people decently and want to minimise the externalities of waste clothing, necessarily clothes will be more expensive, more precious, and be worth repairing (itself work which must be paid). Very cheap disposable clothing is good in that anyone can clothe themselves and to some extent express themselves through clothes, but it is only possible through massive exploitation and has horrible environmental consequences. I see lots of discussion about food and commodities through the lenses of labour and environment but not nearly as much about clothing.

2024-08-08 07:06:31

This is incredibly fucking bougie, I admit that, but it is right in the sweet spot of my interests, ie menswear, craft, fabric, dying arts and culture, and repair. I think my aim for the next few years is going to be to minimise new clothes and focus on repairing and remaking the ones I have.
https://www.permanentstyle.com/2024/08/london-invisible-mending-preserving-a-dying-art.html

2024-08-06 06:10:09

So over at FACT Aotearoa we're coming out of a bit of a hiatus and this is the first of a planned series, a little exploration of a favourite conspiracy theory recruitment technique: https://factaotearoa.nz/just-asking-questions/

2024-07-31 20:06:17

Had some hairy landings in Wellington before. this is the first time the plane bounced on the runway.