strypey

strypey, 1 day ago to random

Any suggestions on the best place for someone in Aotearoa to get a durable, USB-charged electric arc lighter (plasma lighter)?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a31133313/how-plasma-lighters-work/

I've seen them for sale in a Z station, and hell, I buy vegan pies there. But if there's a more ethical supplier, I'd much rather give them my business and have someone other than Z to send people if they want one too (same with the pies if anyone knows of any good vegan baking retailers in Waikato).

#ArcLighter #PlasmaLighter

strypey, 23 hours ago to meta

It's a bit ranty towards the end, but there's some fascinating insights here into shifting sands of the ZuckerBorg's metrics, FarceBook enshittification, and so on:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/were-watching-facebook-die/

#Meta #FarceBook #enshittification

strypey, 1 day ago to random

Seems Biden is stuck between Iraq and a hard place. While some are calling him "genocide joe" for his handling of the campus occupations...

"I Morton Klein, as an American Jew, as a child of Holocaust survivors, have become frightened at the Biden-Lipstadt administration legitimizing antisemitism and Israel-bashing and making it extremely difficult for Jewish groups to fight [the BDS movement] on campus as antisemitic and antisemitic members of Congress as antisemites."

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/06/01/biden-touts-cair-splc-antisemitism-push-muddies-waters-israel-hours-major-jewish-holiday/

strypey, 1 day ago to TeslaMotors

"Backed by billions of dollars in venture capital and established aerospace giants that include Boeing and Airbus, startups across the world such as Joby, Archer, Wisk and Lilium are spearheading this technological revolution, developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that could transform the way we travel."

#JameyJacob, 2024

https://theconversation.com/electric-air-taxis-are-on-the-way-quiet-evtols-may-be-flying-passengers-as-early-as-2025-228664

#EVTOL #EV #ElectricAviation

strypey, 1 day ago (edited 7 hours ago) to random

The NZ Official Information Act needs to be reformed so that it applies to anything that is funded by public money.

#NZPolitics #OIA

strypey, 1 day ago to random

"[Nicola] Willis says she's not an austerity minister, but cutting taxes, holding down wages and slashing government spending are austerity measures. There is no evidence they will reduce the wage gap: Australia is doing the reverse, which is why people are going there.

Britain, meanwhile, has spent 14 years doing very much what Willis has introduced. The result: Gross National Income per capita is on track to be eclipsed by Poland within about 10 years."

#SimonWilson, #NZHerald, May 30, 2024

strypey, 1 day ago to Podcasts

"I think [the government are] putting the money into the wrong areas. When you've got money that's taken off people that could be in their first home, and giving it to people that own multiple homes, there's a bit of an issue."

Vanessa, single Mum on Supported Living due to a spinal injury, guest on the Tova podcast, 23 May, 2024
https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/tova-podcast/

#podcasts #Tova #NZPolitics

strypey, 1 day ago to journalism

What distinguished television from film as a medium, from its very early days, was live broadcasting. As time went on, and more and more TV shows were prerecorded, this was kind of forgotten. But until VHS came along and allowed audiences to timeshift both films and TV shows, television still retained that live event quality; be there or you missed it.

(1/3)

#media #television #TimeShifting

strypey, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago) to random

Winston First have been spreading a story that the poor state of our roads was caused by a change to importing road bitumen, instead of producing it locally at Marsden Point. All because of the last Labour government and those bloody greenies;

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/08/nz-firsts-doomed-deal-to-reopen-marsden-point-refinery/

A few points on that.

(1/?)

#roading #WakaKotahi #RONS #MarsdenPoint

strypey, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago) to UKpolitics

Ok, UK Labour have got my attention;

"Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to create a publicly owned renewable energy company if Labour wins the next general election."

"He... plans to make the UK the first major economy to generate all of its electricity without fossil fuels.

He says this can be achieved by 2030 - five years earlier than being planned by the government."

#BrianWheeler, 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63046067

#elections #UKPolitics #UKLabour #energy #RenewableEnergy

strypey, 3 days ago to random

"The Invidious docker image is only available on Quay because, unlike Docker Hub, Quay is Free and Open Source Software."

https://docs.invidious.io/installation/

#Docker #Quay

strypey, 4 days ago (edited 4 days ago) to Podcasts

Despite decades of rumours of a reboot of the cult classic BBC TV series Blake's 7, I don't think it will ever happen. Listening to a podcast called Star Fall;

https://kitchendavid.podbean.com/

... reminds me of why. All the things that made B7 great entertainment are the most difficult to replicate.

(1/?)

#podcasts #StarFall #Blakes7

strypey, 4 days ago to random

"The country's ambulance service is funded by Te Whatu Ora - Heath New Zealand and ACC, which fund about 82 percent of the service, at a cost of about $380 million a year.

The rest is made up through donations, and a part charge of $98 for patients transported by ambulance."

#TraceyNeal, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/517897/husband-watched-wife-die-in-west-auckland-home-after-ambulance-was-called-six-times

This is ludicrous. We don't end up with a bill when we call firefighters to a fire. Why aren't ambulance services full funded?

#PublicHealth #ambulance #TeWhatuOra #ACC

strypey, 5 days ago to ai

Had a chat with various MOLE* chat demos over the last few weeks. I'll be more impressed when they can run on our personal devices with no dependence on remote servers ("the cloud"). But as far as most people are concerned, we now live in the world with talking computers that can understand human speech and follow our instructions. Like in 90s Star Trek or before that, Star Wars and Blakes 7.

• Machine Operated Learning Emulation

#AI #MOLE

strypey, 7 days ago to internet

I've been noticing one of the biggest social problems with social media, as a medium (the fediverse included). It occurs when two people who've been in a social media space for a while, interact for the first time.

From each person's POV, they're at their local chatting with friends, and a stranger has come into their social space. Each expects the other to be more diplomatic, as they hopefully would if they joined a group chat at a bar. They'll likely be disappointed.

#SocialMedia #fediverse

strypey, 8 days ago to privacy

"Everybody looks at everybody all the time and you don't need to be a celebrity to feel the need for privacy. I myself was recently in big trouble with my Confessor for being slow to post a birthing video. I'm not talking about being either an extrovert or an introvert: I'm talking about people who don't believe privacy is a perversion, people who think it might even be a virtue."

Trafford, Blind Faith by Ben Elton, 2007

#privacy #books #novels #satire #SciFi #dystopia #BenElton #BlindFaith

strypey, 8 days ago to random

"Finance Minister Nicola... Willis isn't giving up on her tax relief centrepiece and told those gathered in Silverstream on Thursday morning that she knew how 'devastating it would be if we were to give up on overdue tax relief'."

#JoMoir, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/516388/explainer-nicola-willis-pre-budget-speech-what-we-learnt

Translation: we know you wouldn't feel your campaign donations were well spent if we weren't borrowing on behalf of the public to give you free money.

Honestly, this political gaslighting makes me want to throw cream pies.

strypey, 8 days ago to fediverse

I just stumbled upon this IndymediaPresents channel, which serves as an archive of independently-produced activist news video;

https://yewtube.com/channel/UCsxg1_0iWd_txFKNnvyLYVA

I'd really like to see it archived in a widely searchable way on PeerTube too.

#Indymedia #PeerTube

strypey, 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago) to Podcasts

"Mayors sign letter opposing changes to Māori wards"

Go NZ mayors!

"A Hawke's Bay mayor says the government's proposed changes to Māori wards are racist, because councils can create other wards without requiring a referendum."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018939576/mayors-sign-letter-opposing-changes-to-maori-wards

This is a good example of how networked activity by local government politicians can serve as a decentralised upper house.

#podcasts #RNZ #MorningReport

strypey, 9 days ago to movies

"[In Falling Down] Bill... represents every person who ever fell down and couldn't get back up again. Every person who followed the rules and did what everyone expected, and got punished for it. Who did everything right and still got screwed over by a system that was stacked against them.

Who spent their entire life striving for something better, only to discover that they were 'not economically viable'."

#TheCriticalDrinker, 2024

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=YgNWg-a2EgE

#movies #MovieReviews #FallingDown

strypey, 12 days ago to books

Tagesanzeiger review of Minor Detail;

"... the book's first-person narrative and empathetic tone mask a basic problem in the text: all Israeli soldiers are portrayed as anonymous rapists and killers, while Palestinians are victims of trigger-happy occupiers. Violence against Israeli civilians is not mentioned, perhaps because it is considered a legitimate means in the struggle for liberation against the occupiers."

#StefanDege, 2024

https://www.dw.com/en/frankfurt-book-fair-postpones-award-for-palestinian-author-adania-shibli/a-67093842

#books #reviews #AdaniaShibli

strypey, 12 days ago to random

This is seriously the last time I'm taking an #InterCity bus. As usual, I'm desperate for a piss, because for an 8 hour bus ride they only schedule 2 stops where passengers can go to the toilet.

We stop at Turangi, right outside the i-Site, and I ask the driver if I can quickly use the toilet. He grumps at me in his "papers please, comrade" accent, "No! Go back to the bus". No basic courtesy. No information about when we'll next be able to use the toilet.

Fuck this shit.

strypey, 12 days ago to random

Here's an example of a principled conservatives who defends the democratic rights of those they disagree with;

"[David] French is a conservative warrior, who has fought numerous legal battles to protect the right of Christians to participate in the public square. He’s not a squish by any definition. 'I’m going to fight for the rights of others that I would like to exercise for myself because I also know that my rights are fragile', he said."

#StevenGreenhut, 2019

https://www.ocregister.com/2019/09/13/drag-queen-debate-spotlights-creepy-trend-on-right/

strypey, 12 days ago to Podcasts

"A plan to update the system for regulating our media content has been running under the radar for years. Some of the agencies that do it now backed the move to one single body, but this week the government dumped it over fears it could cramp free expression online."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018938976/media-oversight-one-stop-shop-stopped

Thoughts on this? My knee-jerk anarchist response is that democratic governance has no place in decisions about citizens' expression, online or otherwise. But...

#podcasts #RNZ #MediaWatch #MediaRegulation

strypey, 12 days ago to random

"More than 180 New Zealand public agencies have transferred masses of data to Microsoft cloud computing servers in Australia for storage and processing since 2019. Sensitive courts data could be headed that way."

#PhilPennington, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/495883/growing-government-reliance-on-offshore-cloud-services-has-security-experts-worried

#PublicService #PublicData #DataSovereignty