leighelse{}

I've spent half my working life as a broadcaster and half as a software developer. Along the way I've been a professional musician, and an assistant to apiarists and undertakers (although not at the same time).

I live in Whanganui, where I write and record music, write web and desktop software utilities for my own amusement, and enjoy biking, reading and travelling.

Public Key

npub1vmtjn35d7r3rlfr4elzagvd5vlxneztrqnq4qgdjsecsz6sd3f2q7sl5gq

NIP-05 Address

leighelse@mastodon-nz.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxd4efc6xlpc3l536ul3w5xx6x0nfu393sfs2syxegvugpdgxc54qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsw77yjd

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1vmtjn35d7r3rlfr4elzagvd5vlxneztrqnq4qgdjsecsz6sd3f2q7sl5gq

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Last Notes

2026-06-06 23:03:10 UTC

How your smart television and the apps that run on it form a node for AI scraping.
https://blog.includesecurity.com/2026/06/the-smart-tv-in-your-livingroom-is-a-node-in-the-aiscraping-economy/
'Petflix, a Roku app documented by The Verge, is a representative case. Its opt-in screen reads: “To enjoy Petflix for free with fewer ads, you are allowing Bright Data to occasionally use your device’s free resources and IP address to download public web data from the internet. Bright Data will only use your IP address for approved business-related use cases. None of your personal information is accessed or collected except your IP address. Period.” The Petflix dialog says “occasionally.” The SDK’s publicly queryable config sets max_bw_monthly_wifi: 200,000,000,000 bytes — a 200 GB default monthly WiFi budget.'

2026-05-27 19:45:25 UTC

Already rolling in money, Wikipedia decides to target union membership.
https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/wikipedia-is-doing-the-capitalist-thing-56a393232943
'In ten days last month, the Wikimedia Foundation fired the longtime lead developer of MediaWiki and disbanded the team whose entire job was to listen to volunteers. Most of the people they fired were union organizers. Wikipedia’s editors are now threatening to strike in solidarity. The Foundation is sitting on $296 million in reserves and a freshly profitable AI revenue stream. This is a confrontation with global implications.'

2026-05-26 19:16:10 UTC

The Netherlands blocks the takeover of key IT infrastructure by a US company.
https://www.politico.eu/article/netherlands-blocks-us-takeover-vital-digital-supplier/
'In a letter to the national parliament published on Tuesday, State Secretary for Digital Economy Willemijn Aerdts said the national authority charged with screening investments had advised the government to block the acquisition. The purchase was seen as posing "a possible risk to the public interest."
The government on Monday decided to adopt the advice and block the acquisition, Aerdts said.'

2026-05-18 00:14:45 UTC

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@nprofile…65q4 A great use of your time.

2026-05-07 19:39:18 UTC

Brazil's government-run Pix payment system is trouncing Visa and Mastercard by offering instant payments that are mostly free. But Visa and Mastercard have the ear of Donald Trump ...
https://www.elciudadano.com/en/brazils-pix-payment-system-faces-pressure-from-visa-and-mastercard/04/04/
In essence, the case being made by Visa and Mastercard is that socialism should be illegal.
'In September 2025, the Trump administration openly supported Visa and Mastercard, with the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) launching a formal investigation into Pix, claiming it creates an “unfair competitive disadvantage” for U.S. firms in the sector. A White House report from April 2026 once again highlighted Pix as a “detrimental system for global credit card companies”.'

2026-05-07 02:08:56 UTC

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@nprofile…r5lt @nprofile…v9wr @nprofile…unhv I should clarify; we only make low four figures each year from all sources. It's not a living, although it's enough to pay the costs of creating and distributing our music.
I've not made music for a living since the seventies, and would not like to be trying to do so today.

2026-05-05 19:34:56 UTC

Cory Doctorow on the loose but growing international coalitions opposing Trump and, of necessity, US Big Tech monopolies.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/05/three-is-a-magic-number/#coalitions
'I have been an activist all my life, and a digital rights activist for the majority of my adult life. I'm sure there are members of this post-American coalition who want things that are absolutely antithetical to my agenda. That's what makes us a coalition – we disagree about so much, but we all agree on this: it's past time for a post-American world, and Comrade Trump is delivering it.'

2026-04-29 06:13:31 UTC

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@nprofile…twmu I =love= goat curry!

2026-04-28 19:51:33 UTC

Greece wants to remove anonymity from social media. Is this a better strategy than kicking teens off internet platforms?
https://www.euractiv.com/news/greece-to-ban-anonymity-on-social-media/
'“In ancient Greece, everyone could express their opinion openly and by name – they would raise their hand and share their view. This should inspire us as we shape a new digital democracy,” the minister told Euractiv on the sidelines of the Delphi Economic Forum.'

2026-04-24 23:53:10 UTC

Our Eaton UPS batteries appear to be failing after just two years and ten months in service. Eaton says they should last between two and five years, and I was hoping for more.

2026-04-22 19:35:12 UTC

10% to 80% in 3'44? Able to cope with sub-arctic temperatures? The newest battery from CHina's CATL is another leap forward.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/04/catls-new-lfp-battery-can-charge-from-10-to-98-in-less-than-7-minutes/
'LFP batteries have more linear charging curves than NCM batteries, and unlike the latter, they don’t mind being fully recharged by a DC fast charger. Charging from 10 to 98 percent took just six minutes and 27 seconds. The more standard 10–80 percent time takes just three minutes, 44 seconds. Only have a minute to plug in? Still sufficient to get from 10 to 35 percent state of charge.'

2026-04-21 23:53:32 UTC

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@nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…g4xt @nprofile…txmc Usually if it succeeds I get a "thank you for your submission" email.

2026-04-21 19:54:32 UTC

The Framework 13 Pro is a Linux-first laptop with twenty hours battery life.
https://frame.work/nz/en/laptop13pro
'hen you're ready for more performance, you can upgrade individual components instead of replacing your entire laptop. Install a new Mainboard for generational processor upgrades, add memory to handle heavier workloads, or expand your storage to increase capacity or enable dual booting. The Framework Marketplace makes it easy to find the compatible parts you need.'

2026-04-18 04:49:07 UTC

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We did eventually get to see the game after multiple delays; it started three hours late. Worth the wait, though.
And we timed it perfectly to sit and eat toasted sandwiches for lunch as the match began.

2026-04-17 22:50:54 UTC

Evidently the Black Ferns vs Canada game has been delayed by a weather event. They're playing somewhere in the continental United States.
I had to contact Sky Sport to find that out, because there's nothing on-screen about the delay; the match is still listed in the schedule as underway, but plays the Hong Kong Sevens when I click through.

2026-04-16 23:08:59 UTC

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@nprofile…mzal Ooohhh ... interesting ...

2026-04-16 22:15:55 UTC

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@nprofile…5w5c Spam email, or Mastospam?

2026-04-15 20:20:14 UTC

The USA can never win the war in Iran because they've never defined what winning means.
https://warontherocks.com/tactical-success-strategic-failure-washington-walks-the-path-to-defeat-in-iran/
'The war has not failed because the bombs and missiles missed. The war failed because the men who ordered the bombing could not answer, before they ordered it or at any point thereafter, the one question that makes war something other than organized violence: What are we trying to get the enemy to do and how does this make them do it? In other words, what is our theory of victory — the connection between our aims and actions?'

2026-04-15 20:08:27 UTC

How consolidating ownership reduces quality; a case study.
https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-backpack-got-worse-on-purpose
'This is the pattern. Acquisition. Cost optimization. Quality decline. Warranty narrowing. Brand equity extraction. And eventually, divestiture.
It happened to your backpack. The same playbook is running right now on your power tools, your boots, your sunglasses, and about a dozen other product categories where a company you trusted quietly got absorbed by a corporation you've never heard of.'

2026-04-14 04:12:46 UTC

I am 100% in favour of this rule.
https://xkcd.com/3232/
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/401/100/431/950/937/original/86c23292a119c5c2.png

2026-04-14 03:46:32 UTC

I've just bought a new instrument from Europe, and was dismayed at how bad Paypal's exchange rate was. It can be useful having them as a buffer against seller fraud, but as this was a reputable vendor I decided to keep the NZD56.00 and use my bank card instead.

2026-04-12 20:42:05 UTC

If you missed it, my younger son Liam was on Morning Report on Friday talking about his Dunedin cycle courier business.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019030376/cycle-courier-business-owner-says-business-is-busier-than-ever

2026-04-11 20:40:38 UTC

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@nprofile…cun7 Pox is insufficient punishment.

2026-04-11 19:59:36 UTC

A lightweight in-browser game for some #CycloneVaianu relief.
https://playstarfling.com/

2026-04-10 20:08:53 UTC

Swapping coffee for paraxanthine.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vefsxkGWkEMmDcZ7v/the-effects-of-caffeine-consumption-do-not-decay-with-a-5

2026-04-09 19:19:01 UTC

A simple online quiz to start the day.
https://german.millermanschool.com/
'Both involve systematic thinking, a preference for precision, and difficulty pretending small talk is acceptable.
The question is which one explains it.'

2026-04-08 20:16:44 UTC

Cory Doctorow discusses one form of intellectual property that can't be regulated.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/process-knowledge-vs-bosses/#wash-dishes-cut-wood
'I've come to believe that process knowledge is the most undervalued part of our society. So undervalued that business geniuses like Elon Musk think you can fire skilled lifers from key government agencies and simply hire new ones if turns out you cut too deep. So undervalued that Trump thinks that you can simply stand up new factories in response to tariffs, and that "training" will somehow allow people to go to work making things that haven't been produced onshore in a generation.'

2026-04-07 07:01:22 UTC

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@nprofile…twmu It weren't no Nanny State and I didn't hate it then neither.

2026-04-07 00:56:11 UTC

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@nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…cqqu @nprofile…t3ug This has been my experience for a couple of days too, both on desktile and mobtop.

2026-04-05 19:26:44 UTC

Fascinating!
https://www.intelligentliving.co/scientists-finally-figured-out-how-eels-reproduce/
'... during the last phase of their complex life cycle, they do develop reproductive organs. This final stage is known as the silver stage, and during this stage, the eels’ stomach dissolves before their sexual organs develop. This means the eels die soon after reproducing, which has made the mystery of eel reproduction even more challenging to work out.'

2026-04-04 20:35:59 UTC

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@nprofile…dr33 Since we only eat them toasted, an extra day doesn't pose a problem. I slice them and freeze them as soon as I get them home.

2026-04-04 20:34:56 UTC

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@nprofile…dr33 Nearly NZD7.00 at the local Woolworths. But go at the right time and you can get yesterday's for NZD3.00.

2026-04-02 19:28:29 UTC

The story of Pontefract Cakes, and the oldest sweet shop in the United Kingdom.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190710-the-strange-story-of-britains-oldest-sweet
'Over the years, a sweet empire boomed in the surrounding towns, and by the 19th Century, around 20 sweet companies had appeared. At the height of production, there were 10 enormous factories in Yorkshire, and inside each, teams of around 45 female workers processed a daily ration of 25,000 ‘cakes’ (as they were called at the time), individually stamping the candy medallions with a design to look like Pontefract Castle.'

2026-04-02 19:15:34 UTC

LinkedIn is illegally scraping your computer and sharing the resulting data with third parties.
https://browsergate.eu/
'LinkedIn scans for over 200 products that directly compete with its own sales tools, including Apollo, Lusha, and ZoomInfo. Because LinkedIn knows each user’s employer, it can map which companies use which competitor products. It is extracting the customer lists of thousands of software companies from their users’ browsers without anyone’s knowledge.
Then it uses what it finds. LinkedIn has already sent enforcement threats to users of third-party tools, using data obtained through this covert scanning to identify its targets ...
This is illegal and potentially a criminal offense in every jurisdiction we have examined.'

2026-03-29 03:56:44 UTC

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@nprofile…g4xt @nprofile…xvcz Ooooh ...

2026-03-29 00:01:19 UTC

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@nprofile…5w5c I considered those.
Currently I have a pair of rebranded (Ultro) no-name Chinese earbuds, which are surprisingly good apart from a weak bottom end.
Now that there's an Android app available, though, I'm thinking that a next pair might be from Apple. But that could be a long time coming, and things will have changed by then.

2026-03-28 23:58:25 UTC

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@nprofile…je7u You could probably implement that for yourself, even using a ScriptMonkey/ViolentMonkey script and localstorage to cache account ratings. It would take a bit of time to determine where to set the bar, but it would be easy enough to write.

2026-03-28 19:48:28 UTC

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@nprofile…w9yw That sounds about right.

2026-03-28 19:04:11 UTC

Having a variable refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz can dramatically improve a laptop's battery life.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3096432/lgs-new-1hz-display-is-the-secret-behind-a-new-laptops-battery-life.html
'As a component maker, LG will ship the panel to various customers: laptop makers, manufacturers of external displays, and so on. It’s the refresh rate that’s of interest, though: from 1Hz all the way to 120Hz. That will help save enormous amounts of power: up to 48 percent on a single charge, LG claims.'

2026-03-28 18:44:46 UTC

Reverse engineering an official White House Android app provides an example of just how much this US administration has gone rogue.
https://blog.thereallo.dev/blog/decompiling-the-white-house-app
'An official United States government app is injecting CSS and JavaScript into third-party websites to strip away their cookie consent dialogs, GDPR banners, login gates, and paywalls ...
Your location, your notification interactions, your in-app message clicks, your phone number if you provide it, your tags, your state changes. All going to OneSignal's servers.'

2026-03-28 03:30:51 UTC

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@nprofile…yzxf I'm with you.

2026-03-28 03:12:58 UTC

“Matthews … we’re getting another one of those strange ‘aw blah es span yol’ sounds.”
https://www.thefarside.com/2026/03/27/3
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/304/603/119/983/228/original/5d879d36db58cddc.png

2026-03-27 18:53:37 UTC

European intelligence agencies have for decades provided Mossad with the information needed to assassinate key targets.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n06/andrew-cockburn/beware-the-mattress
'Israel’s assassination programme would increasingly be treated as a model to be followed. Asked in 2005 if he had a problem with a state becoming an executioner, Avi Dichter, the retiring head of Israel’s internal security service, replied: ‘No. I’m telling you, foreign delegations come here on a weekly basis to learn from us, not just the Americans ... the state of Israel has turned targeted prevention’ – a favoured Israeli euphemism for assassination – ‘into an art form.’'

2026-03-27 03:39:13 UTC

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@nprofile…w9yw Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

2026-03-26 23:52:37 UTC

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@nprofile…je7u We must be twins. I also have no time for the Olympics or indeed the Football World Cup.

2026-03-26 23:44:56 UTC

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@nprofile…yzzr Unseen University had a football team called "Unseen Academicals".

2026-03-26 23:41:40 UTC

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@nprofile…je7u Yes, it's a good thing ...
... and also a burden for those of us who think we must read every post regardless of what else we have going on in our lives. Not that I know anyone like that ...

2026-03-26 20:11:21 UTC

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@nprofile…gtt6 @nprofile…xzsh Whanganui had twenty minutes of thunder and lightning, ending with a brief torrential downpour which (to me, dozing in bed) lasted about ten minutes.
We were promised more!

2026-03-26 19:44:37 UTC

This small hill town in southern France has inspired multiple conspiracy theories.
https://www.filfre.net/2026/03/the-mystery-of-rennes-le-chateau-part-1-the-priests-treasure/
'It seems to have been the imagination of Salamon rather than the equally prodigious one of Corbu which added a new twist to the story, one that would become very important in the course of time. At the very end of his third and last article, Salamon mentioned the longstanding legends about “Cathar treasure, including the famous Holy Grail” being hidden somewhere in the Languedoc. Might it actually have been this treasure rather than that of the French crown that Saunière had stumbled upon? It did seem more plausible in some ways. Corbu too would gradually adopt this theory of the case.'

2026-03-26 19:00:45 UTC

Artificial Intelligence -induced psychosis is on the rise.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/26/ai-chatbot-users-lives-wrecked-by-delusion
'“I still use AI, but very carefully,” he says. “I’ve written in some core rules that cannot be overwritten. It now monitors drift and pays attention to overexcitement. There are no more philosophical discussions. It’s just: ‘I want to make a lasagne, give me a recipe.’ The AI has actually stopped me several times from spiralling. It will say: ‘This has activated my core rule set and this conversation must stop.’
“The main effect AI psychosis had for me is that I may have lost my first ever friend,” adds Alexander. “That is sad, but it’s livable. When I see what other people have lost, I think I got off lightly.”'

2026-03-26 18:48:11 UTC

Why red means danger.
https://bethmathews.substack.com/p/why-so-many-control-rooms-were-seafoam
'Birren and DuPont created a master color safety code for the industrial plant industry, with the aim of reducing accidents and increasing efficiency within plants. These color codes were approved by the National Safety Council in 1944 and are now internationally recognized, having been mandatory practice since 1948.'

2026-03-26 07:11:52 UTC

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@nprofile…v9er Nah nah. It's THC that makes you wander in an unscheduled way. CBD doesn't usually have that effect.

2026-03-26 04:11:24 UTC

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@nprofile…c2c8 Three months? I was reading a very detailed piece on this yesterday which quoted oil sector analysts saying the world will have high fuel prices until 2028.

2026-03-26 03:46:42 UTC

As if.
http://www.marriedtothesea.com/032526
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/293/412/941/510/936/original/0df68949bb741d54.png

2026-03-26 00:07:36 UTC

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@nprofile…je7u Especially given the persistent efforts being made by some to have a user age field forced into the core Linux code.
I have seen a statement by one distro maintainer. Gods help me, I can't remember which one, but it was a minor player. They said they would never include age verification and if your jurisdiction ever required that of an operating system, they would add it to a "Not for use in ..." warning on their download page.
And the California creator of another distro wrote that the OS was only available as code which the user could build for themselves and did not / never would contain any age verification function. But I think he'd just created this distro specifically to make this point, so it's hardly a real world case.
There's broader commentary here: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Some-Linux-Distros-Skirt-Age-Verification-Laws
A nice idea which in my experience would be impractical: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/a-practical-architectural-solution-to-os-level-age-verification-laws/183387
And there's a looong discussion on the Mint forum: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=464675&sid=c51af28bffdb2a74ae15bba414cf40cb&start=320

2026-03-25 20:20:53 UTC

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@nprofile…thu3 There as a deep dark red glow half an hour before sunrise in Whanganui. I've not seen a sky look like that before.

2026-03-25 20:15:39 UTC

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@nprofile…cun7 A very affirming read. Recommended!

2026-03-25 19:55:02 UTC

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@nprofile…t3ug To stop the Iranians? Hell, I'll pay triple to stop the Americans!

2026-03-25 18:55:08 UTC

A developer's observations on the increasing mess that is software generated by artificial intelligence.
https://mariozechner.at/posts/2026-03-25-thoughts-on-slowing-the-fuck-down/
'There's a much more important difference between clanker and human. A human is a bottleneck. A human cannot shit out 20,000 lines of code in a few hours. Even if the human creates such booboos at high frequency, there's only so many booboos the human can introduce in a codebase per day. The booboos will compound at a very slow rate. Usually, if the booboo pain gets too big, the human, who hates pain, will spend some time fixing up the booboos. Or the human gets fired and someone else fixes up the booboos. So the pain goes away.
With an orchestrated army of agents, there is no bottleneck, no human pain. These tiny little harmless booboos suddenly compound at a rate that's unsustainable. You have removed yourself from the loop, so you don't even know that all the innocent booboos have formed a monster of a codebase. You only feel the pain when it's too late.'

2026-03-25 18:45:31 UTC

Remains found beneath the altar of a Dutch church are expected to be those of Count D'Artagnan.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2rew2dgzzo
'"He was buried on sacred ground below where the altar was; we found the bullet that put an end to his life and we found a coin from 1660 in his grave, and it was from the bishop who attended Mass for the Roi Soleil."'

2026-03-25 08:48:14 UTC

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@nprofile…v9er Solid analysis. Thank you for sharing.

2026-03-25 08:14:30 UTC

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@nprofile…rzay I've done my share of that, bringing large PHP5.3 projects up to 7.1 and then 8.4. It's mostly banal, but sometimes gets tricky.

2026-03-24 23:55:55 UTC

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@nprofile…wj33 I have a slight uncertainty around =human= foghorn.

2026-03-24 20:01:12 UTC

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@nprofile…d2tw It's certainly scary the first time.

2026-03-24 19:19:00 UTC

This long article investigates claimed data centre builds, and finds they're a house of cards. A house of cards on top of which the "inevitability of pervasive artificial intelligence" is built.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-industry-is-lying-to-you/
'Not to sound unprofessional or nothing, but what the fuck is going on? We have 241GW of “planned” capacity in America, of which only 79.5GW of which is “under active development,” but when you dig deeper, only 5GW of capacity is actually under construction?'

2026-03-24 03:25:51 UTC

https://www.thefarside.com/2026/03/23/0
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/282/007/459/746/015/original/0922ea3358b6bd07.png

2026-03-24 00:52:02 UTC

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@nprofile…k9ql Uh? Only for bike-riding if you had no chain guard. At least that's my recollection.

2026-03-23 19:57:34 UTC

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@nprofile…k9ql @nprofile…dr33 I've only ever tried Helius 10:10, which is what I was initially prescribed. I kept a sleep log for the first month to determine the most effective combination of timing and dose, and settled on 0.2ml two hours before bed. It works consistently without too much grogginess the next morning.
The company making Helius has recently gone belly up. Because I use such a low dose I have enough to get me into 2027. After that? We'll see what the options are.
Mind you, if the current government gets back in, I expect they will begin winding down medical cannabis. The noises they've made already are clear indicators that they doubt its efficacy and think patients are abusing it.

2026-03-23 19:50:22 UTC

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@nprofile…ewwn When I was growing up in Christchurch, we had not only fog on winter mornings, but thick yellow smog. Walking the one block to school we couldn't see more than a metre in any direction.
Like most of the new build homes in our south Christchurch suburb we burned wood and coal on an open fire for heating each night ...

2026-03-23 19:46:45 UTC

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@nprofile…ajew I hate violence, it solvess nothing. But ... won't someone shoot that man?

2026-03-23 19:44:57 UTC

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@nprofile…dr33 I had that last night too. In the end I took ¼ Zopiclone around midnight. I feel unrested this morning.
My medical cannabis oil works wonders, but it has to be taken at least an hour before bed (two hours is about perfect in my case). Its effectiveness continues for a few days after I stop taking it, so my routine is 3 or 4 days on, 3 or 4 days off. This also works as a tolerance break. Last night was the fourth day off ... a day too far, apparently.

2026-03-23 19:20:12 UTC

One person's journey to move their data and services out of America's reach.
https://rz01.org/eu-migration/
'The reasons for this are the current global political situation and improved data protection. I don’t want to go into the first point any further for various reasons, but the second point should be immediately obvious, since the EU currently has the most user-friendly laws when it comes to data protection. Below, I will list both the old and new service providers; this is not an advertisement, but simply the result of my research, which was aimed at achieving the same or better quality at affordable prices.'

2026-03-23 19:16:13 UTC

The glass delusion reflected the fears of the early modern era. It seems to have afflicted only men, and only men of means.
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/fear-and-fragility-the-glass-delusion-and-its-history/
'The patients “came in a variety of forms”, writes the literary historian Gill Speak, whose 1990 study remains the most sustained account of the so-called glass delusion. “He might be a urinal, an oil lamp or other glass receptacle, or else he might himself be trapped within a glass bottle.”5 The men came from the Netherlands, from France, from Spain — documented in medical literature across four centuries, each arriving with a precise and terrible self-diagnosis. The Dutch physician Levinus Lemnius, writing in the mid-sixteenth century, treated a patient who was rational and highly functional in every respect save one: the absolute conviction that his buttocks were formed from the same stuff as windowpanes.'

2026-03-23 18:51:33 UTC

If he ever discovers honesty, Shane Jones should rename his political party.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/590394/shane-jones-labels-critics-of-fisheries-bill-as-noisy-voices
'"If you start killing fish before they've had a chance to breed, you're going to run out of fish and you don't need to be a genius to figure that out," Watson said.'

2026-03-23 09:00:24 UTC

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@nprofile…65q4 Good score.

2026-03-23 03:29:05 UTC

Scene from The Crying Game II: The Rural Version.
https://www.thefarside.com/2026/03/22/1
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/276/346/563/749/806/original/2145b5e8f292d8c6.png

2026-03-22 19:13:19 UTC

Palantir has its hooks deep into the United Kingdom. Aotearoa New Zealand must avoid that happening here.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/22/palantir-extends-reach-into-british-state-as-it-gets-access-to-sensitive-fca-data
'Prof Michael Levi, an internationally recognised expert in money laundering at Cardiff University, said there was “serious under-exploitation” of data held by financial regulators, so AI is a potentially valuable technology to tackle financial crimes. But he said it was “a relevant question as to whether Palantir’s owners might tipoff their friends about methodologies”.'

2026-03-22 18:52:03 UTC

A contemporary implementation of Minesweeper set in the Strait of Hormuz.
https://hormuz.pythonic.ninja/
When you lose, you're shown a clip of Trump, winning again.

2026-03-22 08:00:43 UTC

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@nprofile…0ymw Gee. Not sure whether I prefer the punchy hook in "Hold the Line" or the gentle rains in "Africa".

2026-03-22 03:26:38 UTC

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@nprofile…k9ql Hopefully someone who knows will be able to help resolve this.

2026-03-22 03:23:10 UTC

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@nprofile…vhwu @nprofile…7e94 @nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…vvev Yes, that's normal. The 7:30am bus to Dunedin continues to Queenstown with the same driver.

2026-03-22 03:22:06 UTC

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@nprofile…7e94 @nprofile…wj33 @nprofile…vvev Speaking of which ...
Three weeks ago I was bemoaning the rising price of Intercity trips. Whanganui to Wellington was NZD48 for a long time when I was commuting regularly, and had slowly inched up to NZD58.
Well, today it's NZD68. Just like that. Bump. Diesel price, innit?

2026-03-22 01:22:04 UTC

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@nprofile…je7u This is horrid.

2026-03-20 23:00:00 UTC

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@nprofile…e8mx Extra points for that and, presumably, for not being called Nick.

2026-03-20 22:37:16 UTC

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@nprofile…yzxf @nprofile…pp76 Amen.

2026-03-20 21:28:42 UTC

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@nprofile…aqfx I've had that happen with domains I've acquired, not used, and not renewed. I was bombarded for years by several tiers of domain brokers offering them back to me at slowly decreasing prices.
However, https://cooper.com is going to be more popular than my assorted odds and ends. Someone may be prepared to pay over the odds for it.

2026-03-20 19:43:56 UTC

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@nprofile…prsp This is not a workable solution for developers.

2026-03-20 19:43:00 UTC

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@nprofile…auh0 A reasonable condemnation, as long as they also condemn the perpetrators of the conflict.

2026-03-20 19:17:25 UTC

The battle to control how things are displayed on a screen.
https://omar.yt/posts/wayland-set-the-linux-desktop-back-by-10-years
'Maybe Wayland doesn’t work for your precious use-case. More likely, it does work, and you swallowed some propaganda based on an assumption which might have been correct 7 years ago. Regardless, I simply don’t give a shit about you anymore ...
We’ve sacrificed our spare time to build this for you for free. If you turn around and harass us based on some utterly nonsensical conspiracy theories, then you’re a fucking asshole.'

2026-03-20 18:41:48 UTC

Germany kicks sand in Microsoft's face by mandating the Open Document Format for all public documents.
https://linuxiac.com/germany-mandates-odf-for-public-administration/
'Germany’s move aligns with broader European efforts to promote digital sovereignty and interoperability, including the European Interoperability Framework and the Cyber Resilience Act. These policies emphasize the importance of open standards in ensuring secure, transparent, and future-proof digital services.'

2026-03-19 22:59:09 UTC

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@nprofile…rzay Yeah. Even when they go sour on you, all they can do is get the pip.

2026-03-19 20:03:29 UTC

Real solutions scale.
Government policies should still be effective under stress. Additional funding may be necessary, but backtracking on your own ideology indicates that the ideology is not a good fit for the real world.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/590138/government-looking-at-ways-to-assist-families-with-increasing-costs-due-to-middle-east-conflict
When the Ukraine conflict raised oil prices, when COVID hit, the Ardern government leaned further into the principles it had already established.
This government, however, will need to change course to effectively manage the impacts of Trump's Iran war. Unfortunately, their ideological baggage will almost certainly ensure their response is inequitable and ineffective.

2026-03-19 19:48:48 UTC

... but not, inititally, for Aotearoa New Zealand.
https://cyberinsider.com/mozilla-to-launch-free-built-in-vpn-in-upcoming-firefox-149/
'Mozilla said the free tier will initially provide 50GB of monthly data to users in the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The feature is scheduled to arrive in Firefox 149 on March 24. That limited regional rollout suggests Mozilla is taking a phased approach, likely to assess performance, demand, and support requirements before expanding availability.'

2026-03-19 19:32:03 UTC

Cory Doctorow reviews a Cornell University paper showing that those who glory in corporate bullshit are the least capable colleagues.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/19/jargon-watch/
'... workers who are taken in by bullshit are "open minded" in the sense that they are bad at analytical reasoning and thus easily convinced. These people test poorly on metrics like "logical reasoning" and "decision-making," and score high on "overconfidence in one's intellectual and analytic abilities." They are apt to make blunders that "expose organizations to financial, reputational, or legal risks."
But they're also exactly the workers who score high on "job satisfaction," "trust in one's supervisor," and "degree to which they are inspired by corporate mission statements." These people are so open minded that their brains start to leak out of their ears. Or, as Carly Page put it in The Register: "jargon sticks around not just because executives enjoy using it, but because many people respond to it as if it were genuine insight" ...'

2026-03-19 19:07:05 UTC

Retired US Airforce strategist General S. Clinton on the grim realities of securing the Straits of Hormuz.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/u-s-military-expert-on-oil-tanker-convoys-in-the-strait-of-hormuz-iran-must-only-succeed-once-to-trigger-a-catastrophe-a-1b4f4521-01dd-4711-8a5e-8da225d053b5
'If the war were to end today, the regime would draw exactly that lesson from it: We need nuclear weapons. These people have to be made to understand that they are better off without the bomb than with it. But that is not a task for our military. That is a political task. Before we get there, the government must first define clear political objectives.'

2026-03-19 06:43:50 UTC

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@nprofile…k9ql Au contraire, my confusion and anger is very tightly targeted.

2026-03-19 06:41:42 UTC

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@nprofile…cun7 Our local New World currently has the best Omega Plums I've tasted for several years. The nectarines were good too, but what's on the shelf now is coming from a cool store and past its best. Peacherines are patchy; there seems to be more than one variety, and it's hard to distinguish the good from the less good by sight alone.

2026-03-19 06:37:23 UTC

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@nprofile…vhwu @nprofile…wj33 Are you speaking of the Russell Street store in Dunedin? If so I knew it well in the late seventies. We referred to the proprietor as Mr St (first name Russell).

2026-03-19 03:28:56 UTC

Inconvenience stores.
https://www.thefarside.com/2026/03/18/0
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/253/703/519/151/954/original/381e686c200cdcda.png

2026-03-18 22:08:52 UTC

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@nprofile…d2tw Eek!