Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@lightweight

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
#searchable

Blog: https://davelane.nz
Tech blog: https://tech.oeru.org
Origin story: https://davelane.nz/my-open-history
Code: https://git.oeru.org/explore/projects

Public Key

npub1wvvza3p3tatr2p0cnnz7qfs2qfmu9ddvrtscfcv7jlh9d6808rss5jyqvy

NIP-05 Address

lightweight_at_mastodon.nzoss.nz@momostr.pink

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Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub1wvvza3p3tatr2p0cnnz7qfs2qfmu9ddvrtscfcv7jlh9d6808rss5jyqvy

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Last Notes

2026-04-21 01:02:42 UTC

Damn, chilly in Ōtautahi right now...

2026-04-03 04:50:37 UTC

Can't help but wonder if politicians in Aotearoa are pondering the wisdom of selling off all our food processing (and timber, dairy, aluminium, etc.) to foreign corporations... Given that they can 'increase shareholder value' by moving production to places where they don't have to care for pollution or workers rights, it means we lose fundamental production capabilities to the detriment of the entire population.

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.

2026-02-24 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.

2026-02-02 23:59:45 UTC

It's not #VibeCoding, it's #SlopWare.

2026-01-29 18:44:55 UTC

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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.

2026-01-29 05:37:58 UTC

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And I'll be honest - I know some very fine folks who (for reasons I cannot fathom) identify as followers of Christ, but I'd say most of the atheists I know are far better at being Christians (minus the blind faith) than most of the self-identifying 'devout' Christians out there.

2026-01-29 05:07:51 UTC

Welp, I hope this devoutly wrong-thinking dropkick loses his council seat. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/585377/hastings-councillor-skips-planning-session-at-marae-over-te-reo-and-faith-concerns

2026-01-27 19:44:11 UTC

EU's digital sovereignty situation: very grim... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJyILvhEFTk Thankfully, the EU is *very tardily - like by 20 years* slowly recognising its complete dependence on US #BigTech. Wonder when Aotearoa NZ and AU will have the same epiphany?
The EU's costs to mitigate that dependence? Key tech areas? Tens of € billions. To fix it completely, € trillions. In short, they're utterly screwed.
How did it come to this? People like me have been publicly warning of this for decades.

2025-12-02 19:28:15 UTC

Can't help but wonder why democratic governments, worldwide, are doing whatever US #BigTech tells them to do with regard to 'AI' policy & adoption. How do these governments not realise that BigTech is inherently authoritarian, psychotic, & working against democracy? They are antithetical to our societal values & yet they're welcomed with open arms? Do our governments secretly realise that they're 100% dependent on these corporations & are therefore vassals, not sovereign? Or is it corruption?

2025-11-19 23:34:14 UTC

This is why 'blue-green' capitalists are a non-starter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xx6lNFx8tI George Monbiot is one of the few credible principled & uncaptured commentators out there. Zack Polanski is superb as the new UK Greens leader. There're lots of great explanations/clarifications in this interview about why you can't separate social justice from fighting for the environment (& things like stopping pollution, climate catastrophe, biodiversity collapse)...

2025-11-17 21:49:25 UTC

Who's the real enemy now? Extremely wealthy people (oligarchs) and large corporations (especially in health, fossil fuels, media, & tech). Everything else is probably manageable. We need to hobble the extremely wealthy and the mega corporations. We need to end the 'corporations-as-person' model. as well. It is untenable. That also means rejecting, explicitly & systemically, groups like the Atlas Network/Project 2025.
For the record, these have long been the enemy, but we didn't realise.

2025-11-14 22:19:10 UTC

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good on them for publishing their rationalisation. I'm not even slightly compelled by it, though, I'm afraid.

2025-11-14 20:46:27 UTC

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being proprietary is Vivaldi's showstopper bug.

2025-11-05 02:57:08 UTC

So, apparently, Mamdani is the new mayor of NYC. This could be a huge deal for modern democraciea and the societies that want to retain them. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/577912/us-politics-zohran-mamdani-wins-election-for-new-york-mayoralty

2025-10-31 20:36:47 UTC

Bingo: "awareness is growing that digital autonomy is no longer a luxury but a prerequisite for a well-functioning democracy." https://ginaplat.com/posts/20251031-digital-sovereignty-and-gov/ Thanks for this, @npub1z3w…c039 - this is what *all* our governments need to hear and absorb. From our public health systems to all levels of education to the inner sanctums of our gov't decision makers - the world desperately needs to move away from BigTech and adopt a much different digital direction.

2025-10-23 21:36:11 UTC

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yes, very interesting to hear of your adventures. I've been running/involved in 100% libre businesses since 2000... so can compare some notes. Totally agree that the main impediments to fully FOSS organisations are bad-faith actions from Microsoft and the trickiness of self-hosted email these days (much of it due to bad behaviour from the 'bigtech' providers trying to make it harder for small players). Good on you for sharing your insights & experience.

2025-10-13 07:10:59 UTC

Does anyone in the EU (or elsewhere?!) have links to any case studies about migrating from Microsoft to #opensource / #libre / #FOSS that include actual financial figures?

2025-10-06 02:24:30 UTC

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oh my word, you're so deluded.

2025-10-06 02:19:39 UTC

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yeah, the country of NZ stopped sending mail to the US indefinitely when the tariffs came in - they weren't sure what was going to be eligible... seems they've started sending again, though. (it was indeterminate when I sent my time sensitive documents, so had to cross fingers, but they still haven't arrived) The US is in a dire state. And postal systems around the globe, too.

2025-10-05 23:28:11 UTC

Wow, sending post to the US right now is absurdly expensive and very unreliable... spending a lot of energy on NZPost - not sure it's all their fault - the US is utterly munted, but things seem helluva loose.

2025-09-18 00:42:27 UTC

Whelp, Kimmel's not even slightly wrong: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/573420/abc-yanks-jimmy-kimmel-s-show-indefinitely-after-remarks-about-charlie-kirk

2025-09-17 22:22:50 UTC

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VaultWarden (self-hosted, entirely libre) is even better - it uses all the BitWarden clients. If you're up to self-hosting, it's a no-brainer. I do it like this: https://tech.oeru.org/setting-your-own-bitwarden-password-manager-and-vaultwarden-sync-server

2025-08-27 23:43:48 UTC

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Here's how it's different: https://phillipjreese.com/the-social-network-that-cant-sell-out-understanding-mastodon-vs-bluesky/

2025-08-27 23:43:20 UTC

Yeah, folks getting locked out of bigtech socials is too bad... https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/571326/musician-pacific-leader-northland-grandmother-dozens-of-kiwis-social-accounts-banned but it's entirely predictable. If your livelihood depends on a 3rd party you don't control, you're a subsidiary to their business, not stand-alone... I explain it here: https://davelane.nz/mshostage - the moral of the story: distribute your risk. Having an credible foothold in the Fediverse is probably a very good idea, even if 'your numbers' are initially underwhelming, because it's *fundamentally* different.

2025-08-27 21:14:05 UTC

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yeah, they almost always buy 'package deals' and usually have almost no $ left over to spend in ports. They're huge parasites on the places they visit. The cruise lines deserve to be shunned.

2025-08-27 21:03:23 UTC

Seems to me that https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/thedetail/571268/mayday-call-for-new-zealand-s-sinking-cruise-industry is good news for pretty much everyone. Precious few people in Aotearoa benefit from cruise ships visiting. Many, however, find them a real imposition, creating a huge peak load in the smaller ports of call they visit. If they stop coming, I'd say, good riddance.

2025-08-12 05:11:05 UTC

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I'm afraid I had to look up the acronym CSAM. Yeah, very unfortunate to hear it. I would be surprised if the Matrix dev community is not working on mechanisms to address the propagation of such material. That said, simply by being libre, Matrix is preferable to Discord for any open/libre community. Fwiw, I use federated Matrix daily, personally hosting a couple community instances, and have never experienced any of what you describe.

2025-08-12 00:47:21 UTC

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but Matrix is libre, and Discord isn't. As such, Matrix is infinitely preferable & more appropriate for open communities.

2025-08-10 22:39:22 UTC

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Could be confirmation bias, but I keep hearing people saying 'AI' amongst the din all around me. It feels like people's minds have been colonised by bigtech's propaganda. It's quite alarming, actually.

2025-08-10 22:00:10 UTC

Sitting in a noisy cafe trying to be productive. Regretting that I didn't bring my noise-cancelling earbuds. Sigh. Next time will remember. Luckily this doesn't happen often.

2025-07-16 02:46:13 UTC

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I've got a stack of about 50 issues from the mid 90s to the 2010s... was recently wondering what to do with them - if your 8yo would find value in them, I would love to pass them along! We're in south Ōtautahi, but could probably drop them around in the weekend (my 16yo is keen as to do practice driving)...

2025-06-06 02:56:35 UTC

Folks in NZ are starting to realise the implications of the impending EOL of Microsoft Windows 10 for our education system. In its finite wisdom, our MinOfEd has effectively locked all schools into either the use of MS Windows or Google ChromeOS. Both have fundamental issues like endless license hassles, EOLing OSs, ending support for Window or ChromeOS on specific computer models, etc. And that doesn't even start to talk about digital colonisation & sovereignty (see https://davelane.nz/explainer-digitech-risks-school-boards) 1/n

2025-04-06 01:04:36 UTC

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To clarify: 'the market' & commercial businesses will *never* do what needs to be done to reverse & resolve the dire state of digital existence most of us currently find ourselves in, fully dependent on colossal commercial entities who have zero interest in our well being or that of our societies (or planet). They are engaging in a new kind of colonisation - the digital sort. Which is why I've previously asserted that we're in the midst of a digital Dark Age: https://davelane.nz/darkage
@npub157r…8pny

2025-04-06 00:58:56 UTC

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this stuff has been my message for 20+ years (first salvo: https://openz.org), more recently: https://davelane.nz/mshostage and https://davelane.nz, https://davelane.nz/fixing-government-it-procurement and, most recently https://davelane.nz/post-corporate-future-pipedream (I've written lots more about it on my blog). We need to actively abandon US BigTech. They demonstrate how proprietary software implicitly leads to massive power imbalance: https://davelane.nz/proprietary

2025-04-06 00:45:32 UTC

Listening, belatedly, to @npub157r…8pny on RNZ. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018981977/paris-marx-decoupling-from-us-tech-giants They are in NZ right now talking about the need to 'decouple' from dependence on US BigTech, which is in tight alignment with the emerging US power base. People like me are already showing - here in little old Aotaroa - that we *don't need US BighTech* to have a viable and even thriving digital world. That is, in fact, my main motivation for doing what I do. But yes, we need gov't resources to provide a real alternative for all.

2025-03-12 01:19:20 UTC

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In the US, I hope it leave such deep psychological scars that people say 'shit, I need to get an education', and 'shit, maybe I should learn about this social democracy thing', rather than holding on to their existing idiotic ideologies and religions that have most of them revelling in their ignorance. 2/2

2025-03-12 01:17:51 UTC

Just watching this Trump tariff debacle unfolding is like watching a kid playing what he thinks is a game of monopoly, not realising that there're real people in those streets & utilities, houses & hotels. In this case, we're dealing with a mentally deficient man who probably doesn't care. I feel desperately sad for all the millions of people - most poor sods in the US - who'll have their lives upended by this madness. I just hope it doesn't affect people outside the US as much. 1/2

2025-02-18 23:18:37 UTC

Just got an email from my boys' highschool's deputy principal asking me to purchase an Adobe creative suite license (with student discount) for them so they can take part in art classes.
I've responded asking how we can ensure that kids who can't or won't run Adobe products on their computers (e.g. Linux users) will be accommodated by the school's arts programme. I asked them to promote the open source options, Gimp, Krita, & Inkscape which are, in the HS context, totally serviceable.

2025-02-14 04:35:31 UTC

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yup - have you seen this? https://davelane.nz/self-serving-generosity MS do it at an industrial scale.

2025-02-14 03:21:12 UTC

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eventually, I'd love to see this sort of situation in NZ: https://davelane.nz/openschools - which would make what you suggest both possible and probably desirable... but one step at a time.

2025-02-14 03:18:28 UTC

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because individual schools can't afford people who could keep such services running, and there're economies of scale to be had. NZ is *so* small, that a local NZ company would be run by people known, personally, to those at the various schools. Doing nasty things would rapidly result in reputational damage here (much moreso than in the US due to the difference in scale).

2025-02-14 03:11:05 UTC

Ugh, on the rare occasion when my boys' school contacts me to do something, like consent to them taking part in a field trip, I'm usually presented with some hokey proprietary webservice from a 'plucky' NZ company. It's invariably hosted in the US, behind CloudFlare, with endless Google, Facebook, and other iffy offshore dependencies (looking at my uMatrix extension). Why can't they just be local, libre solutions funded by the Ministry of Ed, hosted by some NZ company here?

2025-02-13 02:01:43 UTC

Can I just say that the entire NZ 'police vetting' process for people wanting to help at schools, or other roles involving care of children, is such a disaster. The level of ineptitude required to have created such a completely unfit-for-purpose, uniquely cumbersome system is quite awe inspiring. I'm all for policy vetting, but this specific system is an unnecessary impediment to people just wanting do something helpful for their community as volunteers.

2025-02-02 15:10:20 UTC

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I've often thought about that. There're people at Microsoft whose job it is to work out how to piss you off enough to kowtow to their demands to formalise your exploitation rather than get brassed off enough to reject that exploitation, and sometimes actively seek to be exploited by another corporation instead, who probably has similarly specialised developers. I wonder if that sort of expertise has an industry name/euphemism.
I prefer an OS with no incentive for that speciality.
3/n

2025-02-02 15:10:07 UTC

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They were talking up its ability to 'hobble performance gradually and inoffensively' to ensure that people who hadn't activated their copies of Windows to make them 'legal' by Microsoft's arbitrary standard, would become annoyed enough to active their copy without being so annoyed that they switched to Apple, or, heaven forbid, Linux.
2/n

2025-02-02 15:04:09 UTC

Flashback: I remember standing in the pick-up department of a hardware vendor I used to frequent back when my business did a lot of system integration (helping Windows-dependent businesses take advantage of the capabilities Linux servers offered them). As I waited for someone to get my order together, I could hear a Microsoft rep in a nearby conference room pontificating to vendor's OEM team about their latest version of Windows. 1/n

2025-01-28 08:42:30 UTC

For someone who always regrets when he 'cuts corners' on something, this 'thing well-built' is a huge inspiration. Everything done right, no corner cut. I commend to you the 7 year odyssey/labour of love (entirely supported by project patrons), the rebuild of the Tally Ho super cut: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=dLjNRI2KtbY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLjNRI2KtbY I've followed the project since near its inception. The videography is superb as are the amazing cast of characters. So many dimensions of excellence.

2025-01-16 20:46:45 UTC

Most of the time, doing the 'right' thing is harder than doing the 'easy' thing. I find it fascinating that people simply don't 'get' that when it comes to tech. They fail to realise that the 'easy' thing has been made easy by people who're spending a LOT of money to get far more in return, and that fleecing (in some way) those choosing the easy path is the source of that return. It's not rocket science, but people fall for it again and again. "But the farmer feeds us so well!", said the pig.

2025-01-02 03:27:03 UTC

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I can provide a reference to the barrel seller if you're interested.

2025-01-02 02:18:16 UTC

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I'd say so. I gather these barrels are the standard unit of industrial pickle development.
The supplier has many more where that came from (I paid $20 each), based on a glance at her front yard, which, unexpectedly, was about a km away from us.

2025-01-02 02:14:16 UTC

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A downside of the pickle barrels is that I just got covered with pickle entrails (garlic & dill, mostly) left in the barrel, and expelled quickly by the garden hose's power sprayer... I guess it's better than the alternative, though (sheep dip or industrial chemicals)... Might put some mint leaves in to soak for a while - I've got a couple weeks to wait for the rest of the gear...

2025-01-02 01:42:30 UTC

Just acquired a couple used pickle barrels and have ordered some 'downspout divertor' hardware from Aliexpress, along with some 'bulkhead taps' to get water out of them... now I await shipment and need to build some barrel stands. Will be nice to have the ability to easily & safely collect rainwater for the dry times (e.g. after #AF8)...

2024-12-19 01:24:30 UTC

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we just cleaned cat poop (we don't have one) out of our veggie bed (tucked in between the cabbages) in the lizardarium area of our yard. I'm against roaming felines in Aotearoa. Seems to me that the same onus on dog owners to monitor & control their pets should apply to cat owners. It's only fair.

2024-12-17 22:05:27 UTC

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great! Does Ghost's service give you web server log data somehow?

2024-12-17 22:00:44 UTC

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I gather you're using Ghost's service? In which case you might be able to use Matamo (as a more venerable #FOSS analytics option than Plausible). If you were hosting it yourself, the easy thing would be to use GoAccess (https://goaccess.io/) to create reports from your webserver logs. Doubt you can do that on the Ghost service, though.

2024-12-16 23:27:44 UTC

It would be so cool if Rio Tinto went out of business, costing the shareholders dearly. Such a failure would be so well deserved. And there're many other massive corporations around the world who've similarly earned such an ignominious fate. And, unfortunately, their shareholders share culpability.

2024-12-15 19:45:42 UTC

Ugh, 'hydrogen energy' is a wrong label and an unfortunate topic, RNZ. It's energy *storage*, at best (and very inefficient at that). We need to stop pretending it's a credible alternative to battery storage. Transporting it is a show stopper. And embrittlement of everything it touches should be the death of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement Aside from a very few sensible applications, hydrogen as an energy storage medium is just a bad idea.

2024-12-05 22:19:17 UTC

From my perspective as a former research scientist, it occurs to me that the gov't has its priorities on Science & Society almost entirely wrong. Truly novel ideas come from educated & motivated individuals & teams. They're seldom motivated by profit themselves. They benefit from a stable environment in which they can focus on their scientific interests & explore permutations of ideas.
Businesses seldom innovate. They mostly exploit real innovation. 1/n

2024-12-04 20:20:07 UTC

Sad to see https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/535717/unitedhealthcare-executive-fatally-shot-in-manhattan-before-investor-meeting It always sucks when someone is killed... but it's also the case that there are a lot of 'good' people doing evil things in the corporate world, largely led by the broken US system. Who you work for, especially at a leadership level, is an ethical & political decision. Many global corporations need to end. The world can't afford them. Good folk shouldn't work for them. This sort of strike is foretold in KS Robinson's Ministry for the Future. Gonna get worse.

2024-12-01 23:15:05 UTC

I'm seeing a lot of reckons about #Mastodon vs. #BlueSky, bagging #libre developers for 'not getting what's important to users' of social media with Mastodon. In doing so, the reckoners are demonstrated the fact that they neither understand libre software communities or the motivations of devs, nor do they realise they're demanding something from people who owe them nothing. They're treating libre software as if it's focus is more users & profit. Seems a weirdly entitled position to me.

2024-11-29 01:49:48 UTC

Afternoon all, I'd like to introduce you to the matriarch of our yard, to whom we refer as " Three-leg" for obvious reasons. She's been holding forth under this roofing iron for the past several years (since the house was build) and seems to have provided a similar number of skink broods in that time. She's very cool, every day I see her is better for it. #native #skink
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/563/714/921/918/430/original/e0fde4e24eff876d.jpg

2024-11-26 04:04:11 UTC

A very good set of insights into the Atlas Network, and its role in Aotearoa politics, especially with the ACT party, Seymour, and the Taxpayers Union & NZ Initiative 'think tanks'... https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Wtro43Y961Y or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtro43Y961Y

2024-11-23 05:41:10 UTC

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as (I suspect) Isaac appropriately alludes, I think it behoves all of us peace-loving progressives to read The Ministry for the Future if we haven't already... and encourage others to do so, too. Some good ideas in there.

2024-11-19 20:57:48 UTC

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just curious what services do you include in the set of the 'open social web'? I assume the Fediverse is included. But is Bluesky? Threads?

2024-11-19 08:50:52 UTC

Looking at this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/534223/hikoi-not-representative-of-new-zealand-david-seymour-says it appears to me that Seymour realises he's screwed. He's getting desperate. Maybe he's not going to deliver Aotearoa to his Atlas Network investors like he promised, as they trained him to. I think (hope!) that maybe this has made enough of a cultural impression that echos will see Seymour's neo-colonial assholic party whither and die as it so richly deserves to do. I wouldn't be disappointed if he takes Nat'l & NZ1 along with him.

2024-11-16 01:57:32 UTC

I suspect my most egregiously 'yank' characteristic is that I eat way more (goober) peanut butter than is strictly necessary or recommended.

2024-11-14 19:12:01 UTC

@npub1tfz…c6sg wondering if there've been any recent sightings of kea visiting the Port Hills? While I was hanging out laundry on (I think) Monday, I thought I saw & heard a pair, both high, but one was just a noise speck (it was so high), frolicking over our place near Cracroft House... They seemed to be teasing a harrier, who was flying lower...

2024-11-13 08:28:10 UTC

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given that batteries (e.g LithiumIron or LiPoly) made in China are expected to cost 25% next year what they cost last year, I think it's worth sitting tight for a bit... Also, the reliability of batteries appears to be improving... the new sodium batteries coming this year are also very interesting for domestic purposes. Much as I like the idea of repurposing Leaf batteries, I think it'll be uneconomical soon given the price/quality of new. Suspect we're in an exponential phase.

2024-11-12 23:34:49 UTC

A friend of mine with a vision impairment can't drive and relies on cycling & bussing (with her bike) to get kids to school & to get to work. This blanket nationwide ban on 'bikes-on-busses' seems like a major overreaction.https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/533273/blame-bandied-about-in-bike-rack-bus-ban-blow-up Anyone know what we can do to overturn it urgently?! It has essentially ruined my friend's family life and employment opportunities. To me, it reeks of the Cant'y regional council's anti-cycling stance.
#CycleAdvocacy

2024-11-06 19:49:11 UTC

Seems to me that the US is experiencing the equivalent of an auto-immune disorder like multiple sclerosis* on a national level. It's been destroyed from within. Devastating, and pitiable.
Here in Aotearoa, we need to disconnect ourselves from the US now. We need to back out of military alliances, especially #5Eyes, and trade agreements, especially the #CPTPPA Any idea that the US is a honourable (or even rational) actor need to be entirely revised.
* I've got it

2024-11-05 08:45:07 UTC

Personal fireworks are a lot like Jetskis. Yeah, they're moderately fun for those using them - with fun seeming to be inversely proportional to intellect... but annoying to pretty much everyone else and without any practical utility. They're just a pointless and fairly dangerous (for the user and innocent bystanders as well) waste of our precious remaining carbon budget.
There. I've said it.

2024-10-28 23:10:47 UTC

Just popped outside into the garden for my daily skink safari... spotted these three in our Lizardarium Spa, taking in the sun. (these are native Aotearoa grass skinks).
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/387/554/926/407/694/original/50119c5b47c031bc.jpg

2024-10-25 02:57:21 UTC

Reminder: no employer that forces you to compromise your ethics and aesthetics by requiring you to run MS Windows is worthy of your talents.
If you need that job, then stick with it, but know that you have every right to feel aggrieved and unvalued (and to question both the competence and motives of those making decisions in the business), and that you should feel justified in jumping ship for a better opportunity that respects your intelligence & agency at the first opportunity.

2024-10-24 23:00:59 UTC

Had to add a rubber 'O' ring to reseal my 5ish year old plastic Pump water bottle. We're lucky here in Ōtautahi (for now at least) that our city water supply is so good, people buy bottled water for the bottle, not the water, and they fill up at the tap. Sadly, of course, we have to enjoy it while we can: our water supply (which takes 400ish years to go from surface to aquifer) will be irretrievably damaged in ~200yrs due to massive agricultural pollution, mostly from dirty dairying.

2024-10-24 05:37:47 UTC

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have you tried AroundAgain cycles in Woolston (Ferry Rd)?

2024-10-09 21:36:31 UTC

With regard to the derisive posts about WordPress and the exertion of power by the project founder, Matt Mullenweg. Yeah, it's uncomfortable for sure. But let's not forget: this discomfort is because #libre software is usually better than this - so much better than *anything* proprietary. Every proprietary software service or codebase can perpetrate this sort of power play at any time, exploiting its users, screwing partners. Nearly all eventually do. Let's make sure we don't lose sight of that.

2024-10-09 01:35:25 UTC

The pattern of 'free' (gratis) proprietary services (even if their 'apps' are open source) which use 'free' to get people to sign up and commit data to those services... will always *always* end up screwing the user with creeping reductions in the 'free' aspects of the service + added hassles aiming to convert them into paying customers or driving them away, painfully. Why do smart people *repeatedly* fall for it? More context: https://davelane.nz/why-free-proprietary-software-will-always-end-tears

2024-10-08 09:25:14 UTC

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dang, missed it.

2024-09-26 22:59:37 UTC

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We need a new Gov't that isn't manufacturing a crisis in order to further enrich the already wealthy at the expense of everyone else (i.e. tax breaks for landlords).
**Wonders what we can do to hasten their demise...

2024-09-26 21:08:07 UTC

Ok, I've got a hunch... the fact that EVs are stolen far less often than ICEs (even relative to their proportion of the US fleet) in the US has the same underlying reason that Linux computers are less targeted by malware ne'erdowells, And it's not (just) about marketshare. https://www.axios.com/2024/09/26/electric-vehicles-evs-theft-gas-cars

2024-09-23 01:27:42 UTC

Whelp, the bottom's falling out of the local BEV market... I'm seeing new $60k+ Nissan Leafs being discounted to ~$30k. Wow. Good buying for the current backlog of EVs in dealer yards. Won't be many imported after that, as dealers will be gunshy after NACT1st's pro-oil-lobby policies e.g. removing the EV clean car discount, which more than paid for itself & sudden application of RUC. As a BEV owner, happy to pay a RUC, but it seems that far more enviro-harming ICE vehicles pay half as much...

2024-09-19 21:50:58 UTC

Ugh. The Christchurch City Council just sent out a backslapping email congratulating themselves for progress on the abhorrent 'covered stadium' in the middle of the CBD. What a colossal disaster. Here's why: https://davelane.nz/stadium

2024-09-12 20:46:55 UTC

On the 'travesty' of 'tall-poppy-syndrome' here in Aotearoa... The only people who celebrate others who make money without working (and who think they're worthy of admiration for being rich) are those who're foolish enough to think that 'TrickleDown Economics' is a thing. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018955378/rod-duke-nz-s-view-of-the-rich-is-different-from-us The most admirable people I know come from across the wealth spectrum, but the huge majority are *not* wealthy... because their commitment to their values precludes self-interest & expanding inequity.

2024-09-10 19:58:32 UTC

Remember: the 'cost of living' crunch, and the horrible job market are largely due to this gov't's dogmatic gift to the already wealthy - a tax break for landlords. It's a manufactured crisis, leading to huge misery.

2024-09-06 20:36:16 UTC

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hydrogen's appeal is highly limited by basic physics (i.e. hydrogen is the most basic kind of matter). Batteries, on the other hand, are moving rapidly towards being vastly better (and more affordable and environmentally sustainable - prices for batteries produced in China will be 25% last year's price later this year). And they use existing electricity infrastructure.

2024-09-02 08:02:27 UTC

Fascinating - I knew some of these trivia about flying including the fact food tastes less flavoursome (but not why - dry air), but not about the tomato juice craving - fascinating! I only ever feel like tomato juice on planes (I've asked for it many times over the years) - any of you experience the same? https://yewtu.be/watch?v=vjDYfvPW4mA or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjDYfvPW4mA

2024-09-01 21:14:58 UTC

Oh dear. People (without IT expertise) on RNZ currently wringing hands about the ineptitude of those managing content filters at NZ schools. Bemoaning the lack of skilled IT support at schools. Imagine that. How can we control what people see if most of the resources are profit-motivated and are keen to get everyone to view whatever keeps their eyes glued to their sites (i.e. actively working against the interests of schools)? And who decides what's safe/secure via gov't funded (inept) filters?

2024-08-29 00:41:31 UTC

Welp, it's a stunning day in Ōtautahi for drying laundry, especially if your line is well anchored and you've got robust pegs. It's a somewhat less ideal day for the first day of Ultimate (Frisbee) training at South Intermediate. Doh.
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/042/541/099/174/917/original/647992aa82d9cc37.jpg

2024-08-28 21:13:34 UTC

This is very cool to see this from #GNURadio... a case study of a sensible (principled - for all the right reasons) community move from Slack to Matrix: https://www.gnuradio.org/news/2020-04-27-moving-to-the-matrix/ And it happened 4 years ago...

2024-08-28 07:12:01 UTC

Another splendid day for Ōtautahi, and great to see signs our herptofauna is showing itself! Saw several others looking around the lizardarium!
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/038/390/729/674/103/original/9b41abdd24be4e93.jpg

2024-08-22 01:43:47 UTC

Ugh. Listening to RNZ & this educator talking about this 'info gathering' tool that she's using in school. I wonder how much she knows how that software is funded? Suspect it's by 'advertising' - monetising children's data. I wish Jesse Mulligan would ask that sort of thing. And yeah, the use of of these tools and social media by school kids are both fraught. She's calling the tool - which is spying on the kids, somehow, to gather data - 'easier'/less intimidating than actually talking to them.

2024-08-22 00:32:46 UTC

It's a banner day in Ōtautahi: just had my first skink sighting of the season in the Lizardarium!
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/002/845/593/163/623/original/9638f2b96ac336b9.jpg
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/002/846/236/112/159/original/d9f7e04ba671c96f.jpg

2024-08-19 07:04:02 UTC

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recall this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/492898/documents-expose-microsoft-s-relationship-with-nz-education-and-hopes-for-ai-in-schools and stuff like https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/504617/us-edtech-deeply-embedded-in-nz-school-system-with-discounted-prices-additional-benefits This is what digital colonisation looks like.

2024-08-14 20:23:00 UTC

Wow, lurking on a techies-in-school email list here in Aotearoa, and there's been a steady stream of people complaining about how Google Classrooms and MS Office 365... basically don't work. And they're very unimpressed with the support they're getting. Why are we doing this, NZ? It's absurd. Plus, there's this: https://davelane.nz/explainer-digitech-risks-school-boards

2024-08-10 00:58:13 UTC

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yep. Almost as big a waste as the stadium.

2024-08-07 22:28:53 UTC

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me too - I never use them as a matter of principle.

2024-07-31 22:16:27 UTC

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it's a blogging platform like Wordpress yes, but more modern in many ways. I run a lot of Wordpress, too, and it has its advantages in some contexts (but probably not as a blog).

2024-07-31 22:12:42 UTC

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instance of Ghost.