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

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-08-06 04:35:36 UTC

Know your barbarians.
https://www.thefarside.com/2026/08/05/4
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/117/046/697/843/233/611/original/12e6fb92015e31d2.png

2026-08-02 19:36:04 UTC

Australia's teen social media ban has been in place for three months. More than 80% of teens are still on social media.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/australia-defends-teen-social-media-ban-after-study-shows-most-still-online-2026-08-01/
'the eSafety study painted a sobering picture. It found that children aged 10 to 15 were using social media just as frequently in March as they had before the ban ⁠came into force on Dec. 10, while parental awareness of their online habits had actually declined.
The findings broadly matched snapshot data eSafety published in March, three ⁠month before the centre-left Labor government unveiled plans for tougher enforcement, including doubling the maximum penalty it can impose on tech firms that fail to uphold the ban.'

2026-07-26 23:50:24 UTC

I want to pounce on the TradeMe listing just before it closes, but there seems to be something wrong with their timekeeping.
Does it close in a few minutes?
Or should that "am" be "pm"?
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/988/955/794/555/611/original/b907c708039f0305.png

2026-07-24 21:10:16 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…wj33 The worst thing about the change for me is that they've dropped their RSS feed. And Feedly has now moved their "create an RSS feed from a summary page" functionality into their paid tiers.
Perhaps I will finally have to write my own parser.

2026-07-22 20:37:07 UTC

In three announcements last Thursday, the Trump admministration signalled the end of democracy in the USA.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/22/stephen-miller-marco-rubio-trump-speeches
'The presumption that US elections are legitimate died last week in Washington. It was 237 years old. It did not die of one wound. It died of three, inflicted in a single day, in daylight, on the record. And the country, running to the loudest of them, never examined the one most likely to kill.'

2026-07-20 20:08:10 UTC

Rather than converting trucks themselves from diesel to electric, what if we put solar panels, electric motors and regenerative brakes into the trailer units?
https://spectrum.ieee.org/self-powered-trailers-freight-decarbonization
'Trailer Dynamics, an Aachen-based company, has conducted field tests with BMW Logistics, DB Schenker, Duvenbeck, and Volkswagen Konzernlogistik, reporting average fuel savings of around 40 percent for diesel tractor combinations ...'

2026-07-12 21:27:26 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…xm73 I've had fewer and fewer issues over the years, and my fstab network drives have always been persistent ... after I've either forced a reload with
mount -a
or restarted the device.
mount -a should also display any fstab errors; do you see any when you run it?

2026-07-09 22:53:14 UTC

An insightful argument about Australia's Gen Z which will have at least some parallels in Aotearoa New Zealand.

2026-07-06 22:18:24 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…lqmm I've successfully removed this soft touch coating from several small devices using a toothbrush and Chemico.

2026-07-06 19:19:50 UTC

I don't know what the payoff is here; it might be a one-off payment, or it might be harvesting of personal information, but I received several of these messages this morning, all from unlikely domains, and all with unlikely click-through links (eg pchelovek-tver.ru).
And in my experience it's NZ Customs who contact me for import duty payments; but things may have changed recently.
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/874/637/198/894/531/original/2b5529b08cbb901a.png

2026-07-05 20:50:07 UTC

Something to look forward to when arriving tired and disoriented at Venezia Airport this August ...

2026-07-05 20:24:17 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4fzv Gosh. I've checked the URL again, and for me in Firefox on Linux it goes directly to the blog post.
I wonder how the link works for others?

2026-07-05 19:36:57 UTC

A jacket that mimics facial features, and a scarf patterned with QR codes.
https://jmagineuniverse.blogspot.com/p/fashion-against-machine-by-olivier-july_01930961321.html
'"The core problem is simple: we have no idea where our data ends up," warns Nicole Scheller, co-founder of the Leipzig-based studio. In an era where even smart glasses (like Meta’s Ray-Bans) are data harvesters, digital privacy has become a luxury commodity. Her designs aren't just aesthetics; they are a wall against the invisible eye of the surveillance economy.'

2026-07-01 19:44:51 UTC

Google's new reCAPTCHA wants you to turn on your camera and show it your hand, so it can identify you more definitively.
https://reclaimthenet.org/googles-new-recaptcha-wants-your-camera-access-and-21-points-of-your-hand
'This is a company whose business runs on gathering and monetizing personal data, now asking to switch on your camera and read your hand.'

2026-07-01 19:21:47 UTC

Cory Doctorow on how all Big Tech companies turn into Facebook, in the end.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/01/ontogeny/#recapitulates-phylogeny
'What's driving this technocarcinization? Well, the obvious answer is that the more Facebooklike a company becomes, the more ways there are for it to rip you off. Surveillance can be monetized by selling your data, by ad targeting, and by surveillance-based pricing and wage-suppression ...'

2026-06-27 20:56:37 UTC

For anything more recent than an i386 processor, there's a Linux solution that'll deliver a useable computer. A guide.
https://www.fosslinux.com/158206/linux-on-older-hardware-revival-guide.htm
'Reviving old hardware with Linux is not just possible. It is practical, sustainable, and often results in a machine that feels faster than it did when it was new. The key is matching the distro to your hardware tier, optimizing RAM usage with zram and service trimming, and being honest about when hardware has reached its limit.'

2026-06-25 22:08:24 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…e8mx @nprofile…tyhx These days they crave the acceptance and financial support of the monied classes. "Crave" really isn't strong enough; they're now dependent on those things.

2026-06-22 20:32:02 UTC

How should we resist age verification?
https://nevergivethemyourface.com/
'We spent a generation teaching people the first rule of the internet: never give out your real identity to strangers. We have a word, doxxing, for inflicting that exposure on someone against their will. And now the same governments and platforms are asking every citizen to do it to themselves, voluntarily, as a condition of logging in.'

2026-06-16 21:26:08 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…rzay Toyota NZ named theirs after company models not released in Aotearoa New Zealand (Avalon, Caldina etc).
I've named my own devices, including servers, after early Church Fathers, working in alphabetical order (Ambrose, Basil, Clement etc).

2026-06-16 00:03:55 UTC

Australian research finds a new drug that restores memory and clears toxic proteins from the brain.
https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/copper-drug-restores-memory-and-clears-toxic-alzheimers-proteins
'While the compound reduced amyloid buildup, researchers are still mapping the exact biological routes the proteins take to leave the brain. Beyond repairing the blood-brain barrier, the researchers suspect the copper treatment may empower the brain’s own immune cells, called microglia, to consume and degrade the toxic plaques.
Future studies will focus on tracking the precise clearance mechanisms to find how the proteins exit the brain into the bloodstream. The current findings establish a strong foundation for exploring biometal therapies like Cu(ATSM) to combat blood vessel dysfunction and memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease.'

2026-06-12 22:05:45 UTC

Google continues to invent ways to more comprehensively steal our data and identities, and to lock out competitors which prevent it from doing so.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/#quishing
'Google has rolled out an experimental "reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification" that uses an app, your camera, and your device's TPM or secure enclave to produce an attestation about your Android device.
This will make it much easier for the apps and other services you interact with to block your device if you run an Android alternative, or if you install a mod that overrides the actions of Google's stock Android.
This is a terrible idea – it's every bit as bad as WEI was. In an age in which Big Tech is ever-more tied to authoritarian governments, redesigning our devices to tell strangers things we don't want them to know isn't just shortsighted, it's inexcusable.'

2026-06-10 21:34:13 UTC

China has achieved what neither the USA nor Aotearoa New Zealand has thought important ... until now.
https://www.carlyle.com/carlyle-compass/the-abundance-illusion
'Every gigawatt of domestic generation is a gigawatt that does not transit the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, or the Malacca Strait.'

2026-06-08 22:37:32 UTC

Yes, the European Union has a detailed strategy for the support and adoption of open source software. Aotearoa New Zealand should follow suit.
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-source-strategy
'The EU Open Source Strategy adopts a full lifecycle approach, covering the entire chain from research and development to market uptake, deployment, and the long-term maintenance and governance of critical open source components, including within EU institutions.
The strategy sets out concrete actions to reinforce the broader open source ecosystem by supporting contributors, foundations, companies and users; enabling viable open source business models; promoting open source in procurement; and strengthening the role of open source in standardisation and international cooperation.'

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.'

2026-06-05 21:23:45 UTC

Cory Doctorow on why artificial intelligence is not sentient even though it's clever.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/05/defining-humanity/#narrowing-the-numinous
'Submarines and fish and humans and dolphins all propel themselves through water by different means. But when an animal swims, it does something that is different from what a submarine does. The submarine has no intention, while (complex multicellular) animals swim to pursue goals. Building machines that propel themselves through water is very useful, but it's not the same thing as creating life.'

2026-05-31 10:15:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…d43q Excellent analogy.

2026-05-28 19:50:45 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…2uej Do the GDP growth predictions factor in the slump in tax and productivity from the planned removal of thousands of public sector jobs? The impact has been obvious over the last two years, but I don't expect the lesson has been carried forward.
In other words, there are multiple reasons why the current government's claim of returning to a budgetary surplus is a chimera, a mirage, a delusion. It needs to be called out as such.

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.'

2026-05-22 20:11:46 UTC

Paul Graham with a simple formula that's useful to keep in mind when we discuss the adoption of a wealth tax for Aotearoa New Zealand.
https://paulgraham.com/winc.html
'To convert between wealth and income tax rates, you have to divide by the rate of return on capital. The conversion rate of 20 comes from assuming that the risk-free rate of return is 5%. '

2026-05-19 23:45:40 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…twmu I got the same response from the payments processing team within the Ministry of Health despite having done this for years. It's clearly something they look out for now.

2026-05-19 19:22:57 UTC

ONe of the few relics of communist North Vietnam, twenty cent beer in home-made, recycled glasses are still a daily ritual in Hanoi.
https://sundaylongread.com/2026/05/15/hanois-humble-beer-glass-and-the-memory-of-a-nation/
'Just a 30-minute walk from the HABECO office, where the beer is produced, the sports center long received the earliest kegs of Bia hơi, thanks to its subsidy-era exclusive status. The tradition, Long and his friends insist, holds true even now. So a beer here is not only the freshest in the city, it is among the cheapest, at 5,000 VND or about 20 cents. And that is why, though they live in Hanoi’s Old Quarter–Phố cổ Hà Nội–where most tourists head to for their evening tipple, Long and his friends make their way to Ba Đình instead. '

2026-05-18 00:14:45 UTC

- reply

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

2026-05-16 20:59:49 UTC

A round-up of phones not made by Apple or Google.
https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/05/01/where-to-buy-a-non-apple-non-google-smartphone/5219681
'... multiple companies will sell you a brand new smartphone with a Google-free OS on it – either a de-Googled version of Android, or a Linux OS that isn't based on Android in the first place ...
This is not an exhaustive list. They are just ones I know of or have tried. If we missed any significant players out, please do let us know.'

2026-05-16 20:08:01 UTC

The Japanese supplier of roboto wolves can't keep up with demand.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/japan-robot-wolf-army/
'Ohta told the AFP that amid the ongoing crisis, there has been “growing recognition” that Monster Wolf is “effective in dealing with bears.” The main customer base remains farmers, but orders are also coming from golf courses and rural workers. Upgraded versions will soon include wheels to actually chase animals and patrol preset routes. There are also plans to release a handheld version for outdoor enthusiasts and schoolchildren.'

2026-05-15 19:47:10 UTC

Baldur Bjarnason looks at the pivotal event that is the USA's defeat by Iran through the lens of the software industry.
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/the-old-world-of-tech-is-dying/
'What sets the recent crises – Hormuz, tariffs, and Greenland – apart is how the US has used them as an opportunity to deliberately signal the end of its own empire. They first turned on their trading partners, then their allies in Europe, and then they delivered one of this century’s biggest economic and energy crises to their allies in Asia.'

2026-05-11 19:43:01 UTC

BotCost is an interesting tool that eats your site's log files and tells you roughly what bots are costing you.
https://botcost.dev
I fed it today's log because it was the one immediately to hand. The result was reassuring. Perhaps if I feed it the complete log for April it'll look different.
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/557/645/013/422/738/original/6a51742cb93a5e67.png

2026-05-10 20:21:57 UTC

Reviewing the protections put in place as Nixon's term in office ended, and comparing that period to the current president's decline.
https://thegrimhistorian.substack.com/p/36-doctors-just-staged-the-quietest
'On April 30, 2026, thirty-six American physicians slipped a document into the Congressional Record that every future historian will be forced to reckon with.
As of this writing, not a single mainstream reporter has touched it. The Times has not. The Post has not. 60 Minutes has not called. The MSM has done the math. They looked at what happened to the law firms, the universities, and Jimmy Kimmel and politely said, “Not my rodeo.” '

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

- reply

@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.'

2026-05-03 19:36:44 UTC

I've commented in the past about the growing percentage of artificial intelligence articles in my morning tech news feed. I don't recall the percentages I quoted when I last mentioned this dynamic, but this morning the first ten articles in my feed were =all= about AI. Sigh.

2026-04-29 06:13:31 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

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

- reply

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

2026-04-16 22:15:55 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…5w5c Spam email, or Mastospam?

2026-04-16 20:49:22 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…2f5t Labour has no cohesive policy platform. National's policies are revealed as regressive and harmful. The leaders of both parties are drab and uninspiring.
Given these things, a vote for Winston First may well seem like a protest vote to some oldies who shy away from the destruction that is ACT and consider the Greens extreme.

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

- reply

@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

- reply

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

2026-04-07 00:56:11 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

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

2026-03-29 00:01:19 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

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

2026-03-26 23:52:37 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

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

2026-03-26 23:41:40 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@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

- reply

@nprofile…cun7 A very affirming read. Recommended!

2026-03-25 19:55:02 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

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

2026-03-25 08:14:30 UTC

- reply

@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

- reply

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

2026-03-24 20:01:12 UTC

- reply

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