@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
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strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz

Free human being of this Earth. Be excellent to each other! All my posts here are CC BY-SA 4.0 (or later).
#Vegan #Permaculture #Transition #PeerProduction #FreeCode #CreativeCommons #SciFi #Comedy #Juggling

Timezone: UTC+12

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strypey, to Podcasts
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

(1/2)

".. if you have made money under dubious circumstances in the former USSR, and you're looking for someone in the West - in the 'rule of law' states - where you can park that money in a real estate project - which is the great engine of money-laundering - Trump is absolutely perfect."

, 2024

https://nzpod.co.nz/podcast/disorder/ep44-part-1-are-corruption-and-kleptocracy-at-the-

strypey,
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

(2/2)

"He will rent out his name to you, for a cut; this thing that gets built somewhere will be call the 'Trump Tower' wherever-it-is. You will chuck in a load of money. Maybe it does go bust, but money might have come out the other side to contractors linked to you. If you get any return, if you keep any of that money, that's a boon for you, because you stole it all in the first place!"

#TomBurgis, 2024

https://nzpod.co.nz/podcast/disorder/ep44-part-1-are-corruption-and-kleptocracy-at-the-

strypey,
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

Hearing the Disorder folks talking about how kleptocracy works, right after listening to Guyon Espiner's 30 interview with Taxpayers Union and Free Speech Union founder Jordan Williams;

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/30-with-guyon-espiner/story/2018938627/jordan-williams-on-what-the-taxpayers-union-really-is-and-who-funds-it

...is fascinating and a little frightening.

(1/2)

#GuyonEspiner #JordanWilliams #TaxpayersUnion

strypey, to random
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

Screeming (n.): Showing of a horror movie.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

New blog entry: Is Microsoft trying to commit suicide? https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/06/is-microsoft-trying-to-commit-.html

strypey, (edited )
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

"Some commentators are snarking that Microsoft really really wants to make 2025 the year of Linux on the Desktop, and it's kind of hard to refute them right now."

@cstross

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/06/is-microsoft-trying-to-commit-.html

It would be fantastic if Recall is the intrusive, anti-privacy fumble that finally sinks BorgSoft's desktop OS dominance. But they're been rolling out horrific anti-features like this since at least XP. There seems to be a kind of Stockholm Syndrome that keeps people using Windows regardless.

strypey, to music
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

to Aotearoa by Minuit. I consistently tear up when I hear this song, and especially when I watch the video;

"And if the past's a distant land
Maybe there is no rhyme or reason
And if we salvage what we can
You and me
And yes, it's true we're very young
And we have sticks and stones and bruises
Can we do undo what has been done?
Is this the way destiny chooses?
You and me
You and me
You and me
We are a New Zealand"

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/aotearoa-2009

strypey, (edited ) to til
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

#TIL about this site, which summarises findings from dozens of trusted online sources, and gives visitors information to help us decide whether the site at a given web address is dodgy;

https://www.islegitsite.com/

strypey, to facepalm
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

"We’re moving to a more modern, reliable way of storing your data, by using a cloud-based service that operates from Australia.

This change is happening across New Zealand - we're part of a national consortium of public libraries (with 41 other councils) called Kōtui, which is managed by the National Library of New Zealand, within the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). All libraries that are part of Kōtui are making this change."

From an email sent by Hamilton City Libraries.

#FacePalm

strypey,
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

> a more modern, reliable way of storing your data

... would be to host it on dedicated server computers located at each library, operating together as a distributed server. With encrypted backups at an onshore datacentre. Hosting on a (presumably) US-owned datacentre in Australia is anything but.

strypey, to random
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

Why are NatACTs obsessed with reducing government spending as a proportion of GDP? It's like indexing tax rates to Goat aBdominal Product (or the entrails of a goat).

What increased public spending does is make more public goods (eg infrastructure) and public services (eg healthcare) available, adding to the real economy. Often by funding people who can do that using underutilised skills and resources. But NatACTs seem to think it takes a bigger bite out of an economic pie that stays the same.

strypey, (edited )
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We want a govt to tax more than it spends (to 'run a surplus') when the real economy is shrinking. So that the money supply shrinks along with the supply of goods and services, and each dollar can still buy roughly the same stuff (it 'holds it value').

But if the economy is growing, we want govts to spend more than they tax (to 'run a deficit'). So the money supply increases, and there's enough extra dollars in circulation to be spent on all those extra goods the economy is producing.

(2/2)

strypey,
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

#HatTip to @bigblen who noticed that I got surplus and deficit backwards. Corrected now.

strypey, to Podcasts
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

"... it felt a little bit to me like a cross between a political program and a bit of a game show. The "raise your hands" and all that stuff. I just wanted something a bit more serious I think."

#AlastairCampbell, June 2024, on the Sunak vs Starmer debate

https://alastaircampbell.org/2024/06/261-sunak-vs-starmer-who-won/

#podcasts #TheRestIsPolitics #UKPolitics #elections #ElectionCoverage #ElectionDebates

strypey,
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

You know what would be more useful during an election than a Presidential-style debate, where the leaders of the two dominant parties spew talking points at each other?

Well anything really. We need those like a fish needs a bicycle.

But I'm thinking a whole debate on each policy area; housing, social wellbeing, corrections, etc. Between the current minister and opposition spokespeople for that portfolio.

#elections #ElectionDebates

strypey,
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

If we are to have a leaders debate, the people running it ought to be obligated by election law to include more than the 2 largest parties. Otherwise the news media end up effectively campaigning for those 2 parties, by giving them disproportionate coverage.

What about any party that got over 3% in the previous election gets a leader into anything billed as a leaders debate? For the same reason that all parties get a broadcast allowance based on their vote at the last election.

#elections

strypey, (edited ) to random
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

"If you’re over 18 and below the superannuation age (currently 65), the Government will (if you’re eligible) contribute 50 cents for every dollar you contribute, up to a maximum Government contribution of $521.43 each year (1 July to 30 June). This is paid directly
to your KiwiSaver account around late July each year."

https://simplicity.kiwi/assets/Uploads/Product-Disclosure-Statement-Simplicity-KiwiSaver-1-February-2024.pdf

So... if we're not putting a minimum of $20 a week (on average) into KiwiSaver, we're turning down free money?

(edit: corrected dodgy maths)

#KiwiSaver

strypey, to random
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

@AccordionBruce
> North America is so damn big

Bigger than China, where you can get almost anywhere by train, many of them by electric fast train or sleeper train?

@Br3nda @tbaldauf

strypey, to Podcasts
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

1/2

"One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: 'just add the word modified'."

...a gun person’s imagination gnaws at that word 'modified', spinning up the cleverest possible explanation for how the gun in question could behave as depicted.

, 2024
https://craphound.com/news/2024/06/02/against-lore/

strypey, to ai
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

I had been online for a few years when the web went mainstream. Most likely, my grandchildren will grow up talking to computers, and having them talk back, like something out or Knight Rider. It's impossible to predict the effects of this on our societies, just as we couldn't have predicted the effects of social media and recommendation algorithms.

I'm not doomsaying here. Just pointing out that we've rubbed the lamp as a society, and there's no getting the genie back into it.

#AI #MOLE

strypey, to music
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

I've just been #listening to The Giant's Lawn, a 2023 album by Ōtautahi band Wurld Series;

https://wurldseries.bandcamp.com/album/the-giants-lawn

It's reminiscent of late 1990s Pavement, in the same way Pavement were reminiscent of the late 80s/ early 90s Flying Nun bands they heard on US college radio. Influenced, but not derivative.

#music #indie #psychedelic #WurldSeries

strypey, to Podcasts
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

Chris Fowlie reports that South Africa has decriminalised cannabis for "private use", including home growing, social dealing etc.
https://feeds.95bfm.com/link/22115/16706326/marijuana-media-thanks-to-the-hempstore-june-6-2024

strypey, to random
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

#FreudianTypoOfTheWeek

Giverment (n.): A welfare state.

strypey, to music
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

#Listening to Violent Femmes playing their full self-titled album on its 40th anniversary last year:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Dxe5LbJWJpI

#music #ViolentFemmes

strypey, to random
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

"The ECA massively deregulated the labour market, and can be seen as part of a continuum of [Rogernomics] reforms started by the previous Labour government...

The ECA swept away the system of “national awards” that had previously governed employment. Under the awards, whole industries would have the same baseline pay and conditions, which were hammered out every year by union and employer representatives."

, 2021

https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/15-05-2021/how-new-zealands-employment-laws-changed-forever-30-years-ago-today

strypey, to fediverse
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

Has there been any update on fediverse account migration since July last year?

https://www.stevebate.net/fediverse-account-migration/

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