Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

FOSS/Libre Nerd on many levels, seizing digital autonomy by day, increasing digital, intellectual, & physical autonomy, equity, & agency always.

I build, read (mostly scifi), bake, percuss, sing, strum, ponder, advocate, & use OxfordCommas.

SelfHost w/ DockerCompose & Linux DoughnutEconomics Degrowth
AntiColonial Herpotology Biodiversity Cycling SwingDancing Ultimate DiscGolf.

In Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa NZ
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Last Notes

2026-05-14 19:33:06 UTC

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@nprofile…qpnp looks interesting, thanks. Not sure I could fit it into my extreme-tabbing workflow, but might be useful in other contexts (I use QOwnNotes for copious markdown notes about everything else).

2026-05-14 05:09:01 UTC

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@nprofile…c7yq @nprofile…xc78 heh heh. Yes, I fully agree. I need to find the courage to transcend my hoarder tendencies. After all, I often reopen tabs that I probably already have open at least once elsewhere but it's easier to reopen it rather than sift through the existing tabs. But I also use my vertical tabs interface to search through tabs in a window when I'm *pretty* sure I know which window the tab was in...

2026-05-14 05:01:14 UTC

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@nprofile…c7yq @nprofile…xc78 I know you're right. I just haven't achieve acceptance yet. Still... in... denial. Made possible by having way too much RAM. I need to create a self-healing system. Might need to pull a few RAM sticks.

2026-05-14 04:31:26 UTC

Ok. I have to accept that I have a problem. Despite a cull a few months ago, my current Firefox tab count, across 4 windows, is 2020. This madness has to stop. Problem is that for each one I want to close, I have to load it and look at it to make sure I can handle letting it go. I may be some time. Wonder where this activity would fall with regard to our national 'GDP'.

2026-05-06 20:21:51 UTC

Listening to Anthony Healy (?) head of APRA holding forth on RNZ. I'm reminded of how badly broken the concept of Copyright is. Their whole model is driven by corporate 'rights holders' who want to extract maximum $ from the market, and not the interests of individual creators who desperately need the income. The model rewards those who're already successful. New & small creators get nuthin', especially if they haven't sold out to the big evil streaming providers.

2026-05-03 00:06:50 UTC

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@nprofile…fetz I feel the same 🤔 , but in reverse, here in the Southern Hemisphere 😎

2026-05-02 09:42:23 UTC

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@nprofile…gydw @nprofile…unhv yup. It's madness. It staggers me perpetually that so many of us are so dim.

2026-05-01 08:57:33 UTC

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@nprofile…unhv yikes! I'm pretty sure that's not auspicious (climate-wise)... what do you reckon @nprofile…gydw

2026-04-29 09:16:03 UTC

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@nprofile…a7lu yup, that's quite a challenge. It's MS' most brilliant move to make most IT professionals totally dependent on their knowledge of its stack, unnecessarily complicated though it is. They insist on using it because they know nothing else.

2026-04-29 08:21:48 UTC

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@nprofile…udtr yes, it's definitely a marketing corporation, not a software one - the software is a total afterthought. But it's also a very bad marketing corporation. It's mostly good at parleying one monopoly/exploitation practice into another.

2026-04-29 04:34:05 UTC

And this is just your periodic reminder, in case you haven't had any visceral reminders today, that wow, the #Microsoft corporation is full of slop and produces entirely rubbish products, with rubbish marketing and business models, and is completely unworthy of its 'success' and market dominance. I think this would be a good year for the world to deprecate them entirely, out of existence. I'm dedicated to helping make that happen.

2026-04-24 01:18:56 UTC

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@nprofile…um0n I'm also downloading the latest Ubuntu Studio, which has the advantage of being a stable KDE-based distribution, and for all you creative types, it has *all* your libre media apps pre-configured to work together nicely.

2026-04-24 01:00:53 UTC

Exciting to try out the new Ubuntu Long-term support release! 26.04 - here's @nprofile…um0n providing an excellent summary of new stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYxtL0AW2g Libre software is an embarrassment of riches!

2026-04-17 00:47:26 UTC

So, decided to wash my favorite pillow. Sigh.
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/116/417/275/478/531/083/original/59b8b97d88ad79f3.jpg
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/116/417/275/954/278/838/original/e14b2ad518c2059d.jpg
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/116/417/276/193/614/239/original/d5bf48eb43ea16b6.jpg

2026-04-16 07:48:42 UTC

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@nprofile…u299 only problem is that kind of adaptation requires some experts still exist who are willing to pass it on. Think about now-extinct languages, and navigation methods. Its like those restored wetlands and mountain ecosystems: why don't the moas come back? Because they're bloody extinct. Similarly other species, and entire classes of knowledge.

2026-04-16 03:26:47 UTC

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I say all this as a scout master who has encountered legions of young folks (I'd guess the vast majority of that generation) who simply can't imagine a world without GPS & Google Maps. Why would it be useful to read a map? They can't even figure out how to unfold it, much less orient it usefully. If modern tech goes away suddenly, the only way we'd survive would be because a few of us old fuddy-duddies who still understand stuff are alive long enough to teach them...

2026-04-16 03:17:59 UTC

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And, of course, the advent of 'AI' generated code is that young developers, with no experience to build on, will increasingly fail to develop necessary skills to function *without* 'AI' assistance. There will be now 'up-and-coming' developers to join those who've developed their craft in the days when developers had to *understand stuff* at a basic level in order to make progress. Yeah, bashing heads against tables is crucial to learning what *not* to do.

2026-04-16 03:14:46 UTC

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The big (perhaps unheralded) selling point of 'AI' code generation, that it allows developers who *don't know what they're doing* to write working code. At least at one point in time. Yeah, it's mostly sold for 'experienced' developers to take away a lot of the 'grunt' work... But we all know that muscles we don't use for a long time atrophy and grow weak. I think Big 'A''s plan is to dumb down existing experts so they're dependent on their services & will pay massive amounts eventually.

2026-04-16 02:49:50 UTC

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... is the fact that a sugared up, insecure, intellectually compromised toddle currently holds the 'keys' to the US military, and no one's willing to be the grown up in the room.
I think they're very closely related problems of our times. That's why I believe in 'paying ones dues' when developing credibility in an art or craft.
2/2

2026-04-16 02:47:42 UTC

Quite a few folks - a couple credible developers - trying to convince me that 'AI' code generation is great. They fail to realise that my issue isn't whether it's good at writing working (or 'pretty') code. It could be both (it isn't) but that misses my concern: to me conferring power to those without the understanding to the implications of different uses of that power creates a system inevitably prone to disaster - whether smallish now or colossal later. Another contemporaneous example: 1/2

2026-04-15 20:39:25 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 a classic case of power conferred on someone without the wisdom and maturity - and basic humanity - to use it in a positive way. He's like a sugared up toddler with an Uzi.

2026-04-02 20:27:24 UTC

This is powerful stuff on the economics of cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umgi-CbaSRU #NotJustCars #UrbanForm

2026-04-01 19:50:38 UTC

For folks in Ōtautahi Christchurch, I'll be running a Linux InstallFest on 12 April at Halswell Library from 13:00. If you want to take back control of your technology, come along and have a play!
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/116/331/172/207/530/924/original/d25cae638070b61b.png

2026-03-30 23:48:00 UTC

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@nprofile…ffxt having spent a lot of time with OnlyOffice and it's main competitor, Collabora Office, OO is the better software by quite a wide margin. The downside is the policy of the OO company, but given that their code is AGPLv3, they've - to their credit - explicitly allowed for this situation. There's already another interesting for of it - cryptpad. That project is also concerned with the OO parent co: https://forum.cryptpad.org/d/232-onlyoffice-concerns-vendor-makes-shady-moves @nprofile…sywy

2026-03-29 07:53:23 UTC

These NZF wallies really don't comprehend much. They're like Trump trying to sell desperate coal miners the vision of coal coming back. Yeah right. Will our voters be similarly gormless and idiotic? I sure hope not. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/590955/expanding-mining-nz-first-want-to-declaw-doc-extend-permits-return-half-of-royalties-to-local-regions This Gov't needs to get out of the way. Progress is coming.

2026-03-29 06:30:11 UTC

This looks like quite a cool project! Can't help wondering if Aotearoa NZ needs something like this... https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/ - example https://neilzone.co.uk/2024/10/setting-up-my-federated-fleamarket-with-flohmarkt/

2026-03-29 00:27:39 UTC

Superb. https://theonion.com/all-i-ever-wanted-is-to-be-a-musician-and-for-music-to-be-easy/ I see quite a few folks these days who seem to have fully embraced this approach.

2026-03-25 20:04:48 UTC

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@nprofile…wvag I sense some deck chairs being shuffled.

2026-03-25 03:31:26 UTC

Wow, heard a 'twack' on the plate glass of one of our windows or sliders in the other part of the house. Went to investigate and saw a wee goldfinch (or zebra?) twitching on the deck by a slider... I figured it was a goner. Couldn't bare to watch, so decided to let it die with dignity. Went back ten min later and it was standing in the same spot, & as it saw me approach, flew off to a nearby tree! They're made of tough stuff those wee feathery immigrants!

2026-03-23 22:59:02 UTC

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@nprofile…dt95 she's awful. But yeah, guessing nothing can ever live up to her first hit of full-evil. Bummer, eh.

2026-03-20 08:28:39 UTC

This is an interesting development: https://linuxiac.com/germany-mandates-odf-for-public-administration/ - the UK did this, too, quite a long time ago - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/open-document-formats-selected-to-meet-user-needs - like 2014 - but then reversed its decision due to being corrup-... er, I mean due to lobbying.

2026-03-19 23:54:17 UTC

Well damnit, three beds worth of sheets + clothes on the line, and after getting almost dry, here's a patch of soaking drizzle. 😥

2026-03-19 22:05:21 UTC

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@nprofile…l7em if you haven't seen it, RustDesk (https://rustdesk.com) is a #libre alternative to Anydesk, works incredibly well including clients for *every* platform I use and then some, and you can host the central point trivially yourself if you don't want to trust a 3rd party...
And I've also had memory expansion issues with FF and a lot of tabs open (KDE Neon) but seldom a full lock. Annoying.

2026-03-18 23:19:47 UTC

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@nprofile…unhv yes, so I don't know why we're giving it any recognition here in Aotearoa. Its nothing for us to be proud of.

2026-03-18 22:42:03 UTC

Hey - whatdayaknow!? Peter Beck sells out entirely: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/590037/rocket-lab-wins-record-contract-with-us-department-of-war If I was the kaumatua of Mahia Peninsula, I'd be telling RocketLab to hit the road. Not sure what I mean? See this: https://northandsouth.co.nz/2021/03/14/rocket-lab-military/ I'm sensing an ethical vacuum.

2026-03-09 22:28:00 UTC

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@nprofile…wsge Thanks. I only wish people with influence in gov't had read & grokked it. All evidence suggests that they have not.

2026-03-09 22:25:19 UTC

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@nprofile…wsge yup. This only gets more true every day: https://davelane.nz/mshostage

2026-03-09 22:03:03 UTC

Very sensible cautions and a much needed reality-check on 'AI' adoption: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2019026272/oxford-professor-s-ai-disaster-warning

2026-03-09 07:55:04 UTC

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@nprofile…pg4v agreed.

2026-03-09 07:43:51 UTC

Just been reading the NZ Green's tax policy: https://assets.nationbuilder.com/beachheroes/pages/17574/attachments/original/1687385898/Tax_Full_Policy_Document_22June.pdf I'm liking the look of a lot of it... however, I think we shouldn't have top tax bracket at $180k That's a rather modest salary these days. The rate should be lower at that level, but continue to curve up with increasing income so that the rate at, say, $10 million annual salary is 50%,. Should result in a similar or greater tax take from those who're best able to afford it.

2026-03-09 03:33:07 UTC

Just had someone (on a less desirable social media) tell me that "there's no such thing as Aotearoa! It's New Zealand". I informed them that, if they want to give naming rights to someone who 'discovered' a land that was already quite well populated by folks who had presumably discovered it quite a bit prior, then the real name they should be using is Nieuw Zeeland, because that's what Abel Tasman called it. But, my friends & I live in Aotearoa NZ, so I can assure them it most definitely exists.

2026-03-08 18:55:35 UTC

Whoa, that was a short sharp shock! Biggest in quite a while (but still pretty small) #eqnz Guessing 3.1 but shallow and close.

2026-03-04 00:17:27 UTC

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@nprofile…gl25 Of course, we need tos see what the scale of this is... but my first inclination is: let them fund it themselves. They showed poor strategic judgement for decades. 'The market' exists, in part, to punish those who display that. I'm not sure much can be done for them in any event. Certainly not on the public purse.

2026-03-03 19:20:53 UTC

Wow, Nicola Willis is awful. The dogmatic idea that we *need* more fossil fuel facilities for power security is just wrong.

2026-03-03 05:04:12 UTC

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@nprofile…xpag cool! Keen to hear more about this!

2026-03-01 19:48:25 UTC

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@nprofile…623p Bon voyage - have a great trip! Where in the SI are you going?

2026-02-27 22:35:12 UTC

The big problem I have with government IT procurement decision makers - here in Aotearoa NZ and elsewhere - is that they *don't _revile_ US BigTech*. And they have *every reason to do so*. So they definitely should. If they did, the world would be a better place, by far.

2026-02-27 19:29:20 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 the thing that *really* pisses me off: the fact that people in gov't think of BigTech as credible partners. They mistake total dependence for 'allegiance' or even, ugh, friendship. They don't even recognise who the real enemy is. @nprofile…0z4m @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-27 19:06:56 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 this link just now posted by @nprofile…0z4m is relevant here: https://www.somo.nl/big-tech-lobby-playbook/ Thanks Dave! @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-27 19:02:39 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 Relative scale is the main card our gov't has to play. And it doesn't play it. It's so disorganised, it doesn't even know how to hold its cards. It hands them to foreign multinational lobbyists and says 'here you tell me what to play'. It's done that for a couple decades. From the perspective of the lobbyists, it's amazing for their KPIs. From the perspective of every other NZer it's a tragic dysfunction. @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-27 18:52:53 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 actually, the first time I wrote about it was in ~2001, in an open letter I sent to Parliament: https://openz.org @nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-27 18:36:35 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 I've explained the alternative approach for well over a decade. For example: https://davelane.nz/ird-how-avoid-catastrophic-failure & https://davelane.nz/fixing-government-it-procurement & https://davelane.nz/suggestions-aotearoa-new-zealands-digital-strategy & https://davelane.nz/new-zealand-dependence-microsoft-corporation & https://davelane.nz/nz-and-d5-charter & https://davelane.nz/open-standards & https://davelane.nz/folly-short-game-it - I even wrote a whole website about it: https://openstanards.nz
@nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-27 18:29:08 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 that's exactly how I thought gov't does things, and it's totally idiotic because it's completely lacking in leadership, vision, and taking responsibility. Plus, AWS/Google/Azure are the worst possible choices on every level.
Gov't is our biggest consumer of digital services & it could be dictating how domestic industry worked, *if it used domestic industry*. It could have economies of scale, *if it was organised*. That lack of organisation is the crime.
@nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-26 18:15:57 UTC

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@nprofile…xm73 interesting call out. Tell us more.
@nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-26 03:32:55 UTC

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@nprofile…xj5e yup, we can all be fooled, and when it's a corporation drinkin' the Koolaid, it's customers and shareholders who wear it. Those who make the bad decisions often face consequences.
When it's a gov't, though, it's people who often have no choice (e.g. they need to use the systems for compliance or perhaps they're even using them without realising it), and it's public trust that's lost, which takes a LONG time to rebuild. The people responsible for it are seldom held to account.

2026-02-26 01:55:34 UTC

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@nprofile…yzxf no need for an 'intranet' - just well-run internet-accessible devices onshore would be as good as the best countries have... We could easily lead the pack on that if there was a single person-of-influence with a clue who isn't also corrupt. @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-26 01:48:49 UTC

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@nprofile…vvev I've never yet heard any politician or bureaucrat explain how our gov't mitigates the US Patriot and Cloud Acts with regard to citizen data held in foreign US-owned data centres. US gov't agencies have full unfettered access to all US BigTech data centres whereever they are in the world. @nprofile…xj5e

2026-02-26 01:36:54 UTC

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@nprofile…vvev @nprofile…xj5e I strongly suspect that 'the allure of account managers with bottomless expense accounts' was too much. Lobbying, baby!

2026-02-25 22:26:44 UTC

Goodness me! I just had a vision of a smart, committed leader of Aotearoa who, instead of a self-interested wilfully ignorant sycophantic pud working for his campaign contributors, is in the role out of a sense of duty to the least fortunate NZers and posterity. Someone well read, well spoken, with a grasp of nuance & lashings of gravitas.
It was glorious!
And now it's gone. But that's what we're working towards.

2026-02-24 20:01:25 UTC

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@nprofile…aagg OnlyOffice is definitely worth a try. I've been using OnlyOffice integrated with NextCloud as a GoogleApp/MSO365-killer for quite a few years now. Its realtime collaborative editing capabilities are superb. @nprofile…xzsh

2026-02-24 07:38:12 UTC

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@nprofile…csyt nice! And snap - I just set up a ListMonk instance a couple months ago to check it out... Turned out it wasn't quite what I was after (now still trying to get my Mailman3 instance working fully). Interested to hear how it works for you (I've subscribed!)

2026-02-24 00:19:25 UTC

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Jesse's question: "Many kiwi use adult entertainment sites - should NZ gov't have account there, too, to communicate with voters?" She (Jillain Heather - seehttps://www.fsu.nz/about ) was flustered by that... She's generally negative on social media... but I think her position was very weak.

2026-02-24 00:09:54 UTC

Huh, Free Speech Union leader being interviewed on RNZ by Jesse Mulligan right now... Wonder if he'll ask about FSU's Atlas Network connections? The FSU leader is very dark on NZ gov't talking about leaving Twitter as a platform. She's saying the gov't needs to be where the people are... I think this is a deeply flawed position.

2026-02-23 04:27:33 UTC

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/587678/hipkins-speech-like-lump-of-jelly-filled-with-sentiment-says-willis Huh. Haven't read the article, but wonder how it compares 'lump-o-jelly' that happened on National's watch which, instead of sentiment, was filled with sediment and cause substantially more damage...

2026-02-21 22:55:01 UTC

Wow, Lenovo says they're losing money on every computer pre-installed with MS Windows due to it sucking. They are apparently moving to Ubuntu Linux installed by default. Windows will only be an extra-cost option... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8OMjEWOo_M No more default Windows Tax, no more bloatware & nagware. The world might just get slightly better as a result of Microsoft losing out.

2026-02-19 21:46:20 UTC

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@nprofile…0z4m cool to see another nice #libre entry. I've been using the superb #Aegis for quite a few years now. Works very nicely, and it's easy to back up even if Google is disabled on ones phone.

2026-02-18 00:24:20 UTC

Oh dear, I've just registered another domain. That makes 19... Gulp. **quick mental arithmetic** That's about $700/year in renewals. Damn.

2026-02-09 18:21:54 UTC

Wow, this Gov't - esp Simon Watts - are so ridiculous in their insistence on gas rather than focusing on renewable electricity generation. This $ billion terminal they propose is a dead duck before it's even built. It's throwing good money after bad, digging the fossil fuel hole deeper rather than filling it in. So dim.

2026-02-08 07:04:47 UTC

Huh, what do you know. Waymo (autonomous taxis in use in the US) seem less capable than we've been led to believe: https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/waymos-controlled-workers-philippines

2026-02-02 23:46:47 UTC

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@nprofile…c2c8 to be fair, my enthusiasm has been curbed by the dawning awareness that the project is the product of 'vibe coding'... Sigh.

2026-02-02 22:10:17 UTC

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@nprofile…d2tw ah, hmm. That's a bit concerning. Thanks for the head's up.

2026-02-02 22:07:45 UTC

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@nprofile…d2tw what am I missing?

2026-02-02 21:56:23 UTC

Huh, cool. A #Fediverse professional network: https://nolto.social/ 🤞🏻 that it makes progress. The current sway of a shit platform like LinkedIn sorta makes me puke in my mouth regularly.

2026-01-29 18:44:55 UTC

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@nprofile…0z4m huh, that's a big can of worms, Dave. Do we have time and energy to get into this? Are you really wanting to defend Christians who cite their religion as justification for acting in a way that is in fairly clear opposition to the teachings of their faith? I'm concerned it might strain our already tumultuous relationship.

2026-01-27 18:59:55 UTC

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@nprofile…c2c8 doh! Hope you manage to give it the slip before it sets in! My whole family came down with a flu (very snotty, coughing, fever) as we were finishing the Milford Track a few days ago... Assuming we came in contact with it before the tramp, but yeah, a bit of an annoying surprise.

2026-01-27 06:36:18 UTC

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@nprofile…nzkn thanks. It was a craftsmanship phenomenon, how Leo did stuff, right up our mutual (my pop's and mine) alley. Great to hear it blows your hair back as well 😉

2026-01-27 06:23:27 UTC

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@nprofile…nzkn nice. My dad and I watched them together (from afar) every 2 weeks for several years until he died in 2024.

2026-01-27 06:01:06 UTC

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@nprofile…nzkn it's a 110 year old Bristolian Gaff Cutter 😉 which won the 1927 Fastnet race, and is heading back to contest the 2027 Fastnet on the centenary of its previous victory!

2026-01-27 04:44:35 UTC

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@nprofile…nzkn hah, didn't know you're following Leo and friends, too! Been a die-hard supporter for years now. Very cool.

2026-01-26 21:03:14 UTC

Wow, what are people thinking? https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/585063/pessimistic-voters-look-to-winston-peters-to-be-the-change-candidate-inside-the-coalition

2026-01-12 03:26:40 UTC

Hello all - it's that time again - tomorrow evening, Tue 13 Jan, at 20:00 NZDT, we'll be having our Jan Libre/FOSS meeting at https://meeting.iridescent.nz - anyone welcome to join us. It'll be held on our BigBlueButton instance (thanks to Prodigi.nz for sponsored hosting infrastructure!). We'll talk about whatever folks want to discuss. Maybe this month we can take a look at Mailcow, to show what full-service, multi-tenanted self-hosted email infrastructure looks like... There'll be many more demos!

2026-01-10 23:12:06 UTC

Wow, right after I posted that Facebook comment in response to your post on 'enshittification' @nprofile…45lt, I got notified I was banned from FB. I appealed, and, a few minutes later (they told me it would take a day) I'm unbanned again. What a crazy, chaotic black box of badness FB is.

2026-01-03 06:12:27 UTC

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@nprofile…synv @nprofile…e2zv hah, nice! I once walked into the Fitzgerald St shop to look at a rain jacket, and at one point, the guy helping me stood back and looked me up and down and said - 'mate, are you taking the piss?!' I had a Cactus hat, T-shirt, shorts, and plaid overshirt one. Totally unaware of it. Now that was actually a bit embarrassing.

2026-01-03 05:35:23 UTC

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@nprofile…e2zv I believe there's been Cactus-related discussion here previously! I know I've got an almost embarrassing array of Cactus riches.

2026-01-03 05:06:37 UTC

Dang it all. The dryer at our holiday accommodation appears to have, bizarrely, melted the zip (just a small section, but enough) on my Cactus shorts... and now I'm perpetually flying low. These are my 90% of days-type clothing in summer. Sigh. Luckily, I'll be able to take them in for repairs shortly... assuming I can find something to wear while they're at the shop.

2025-12-23 21:00:39 UTC

Migrating a large accretion of complex blog post content between platforms is a draining demoralising experience. It turns out that we, as web developers, are capable of creating byzantine platforms which give diligent blog writers the ability to create hours and hours of unrewarding work that is so cryptically & diversely broken that no script can be written to make sense of the mess.
Enjoy your holidays if you're in a cultural context where that sort of thing happens right now.

2025-12-20 18:56:06 UTC

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@nprofile…glz5 yup, certainly know of them.

2025-12-20 09:31:03 UTC

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@nprofile…glz5 KEXP (in my old stomping ground, although they weren't yet a thing when I lived there) have some great performances, eh!? If you haven't heard theme check out their performances by The True Loves and by DLO3 (Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio). Seriously bangin' funk instrumental jams. Both band feature the king of the stank face, Jimmy James.

2025-12-20 00:33:30 UTC

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@nprofile…p7rx @nprofile…tnqg superb. You won't regret it. And you'll know so much more useful stuff, too!

2025-12-08 07:18:42 UTC

And Juice Media is bang-on as usual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxRB5qWphJE The 'under 16' social media ban is precisely the wrong approach. The right approach would involve regulating US BigTech by leading the formation of a global consortium of countries. Sadly, few politicians have sufficient spine to do that.

2025-12-08 02:58:00 UTC

Huh. Just got given a generous gift of a $50 petrol voucher by my boys' school for my help as an Ultimate (frisbee) coach this year. Our main vehicle is a full EV. I guess it's fortunate we still have one (33yo) ICE vehicle, albeit hardly used.

2025-12-07 06:31:00 UTC

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@nprofile…24jr @nprofile…p7rx in a world with the *right kind of power distribution* it would be. And the open standards would be freely available to all, permissionless innovation (sort of like joining the Internet)...

2025-12-07 05:54:17 UTC

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@nprofile…24jr @nprofile…p7rx I'm not sure how the 'scale' issue has a bearing on the 'interoperability' issue. I believe the CCP are not significant users of US BigTech. Quite the reverse... I'm a huge advocate for open standards (I own & wrote https://openstandards.nz, fwiw), but AWS is (and it's US BigTech 'ilk' are) anything but standard.

2025-12-07 03:01:18 UTC

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@nprofile…24jr @nprofile…p7rx yow. I've been advising NZ to minimise dependencies on the US for a decade now... they're not a trustworthy ally.

2025-12-03 20:36:12 UTC

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@nprofile…zcal hmm - we might be on an older plan, then. We've been using it for ~5 years, I think.

2025-12-03 20:14:03 UTC

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@nprofile…zcal Usually the issue is if, for example, more than 50 (or some arbitrary #) emails from the same host are received by a single email provider (e.g. Gmail). That can trip a 'spam' threshold, in which case the IP of your mailserver could be blacklisted. To address that, you use an SMTP service - we use MailJet ($15/month for up to 60k emails or something like that)

2025-11-29 19:24:31 UTC

Microsoft is increasingly shrill in its desperation to get people to love it's 'AI' service, 'Copilot'... https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/11/28/you-heard-wrong-users-brutually-reject-microsofts-copilot-for-work-in-edge-and-windows-11/ As Microsoft famously does, making up 'grassroots clamour' that suits its strategic agenda... How pathetic. Apparently *no one* wants this. (I've never seen it first hand, as I'd never let any Microsoft software on my hardware)

2025-11-24 20:26:45 UTC

Ugh. Listening to Kathryn Ryan interviewing someone from ACC on RNZ's NineToNoon. They talk about 'AI' like it's magic and there seems to be no actual understanding. No questioning whether it's a good idea or bad, what the implications might be, the dependencies it creates, etc. Seems like the inept leading the inepter.

2025-11-22 03:54:27 UTC

What the actual...?! This is so bizarre, and ... good?! Maybe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlgqYdPPhN0 So turns out Trump succumbs to Mamdani's charm.

2025-11-21 19:04:54 UTC

Yup, cats, and their wandering predatory ways, are a huge problem, and getting much bigger: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/579669/why-are-there-so-few-rules-for-the-millions-of-cats-that-damage-our-biodiversity they need to be desexed, restricted to the owners property, and kept inside at night.