Simon Lyall

Must have wasted a good 150 hours with a dumb online time waster over the past month.

I'm now even behind with my other Internet timewasters let alone actual stuff I should be doing

Opinion | Something Surprising Happens When Bus Rides Are Free

Sorry, but this @nytimes.com op-ed on free fares in New York City, by @galvinalmanza.bsky.social, is deeply ignorant of the issues.

It proposes that pretty social justice vibes and some careless citations will change facts of math. Thread: 1/

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/o...

I think the problem is it takes the top 20 hits for me and extrapolates from there.

Not too bad.

Although I barely used twitter or Instagram

Sysadmin miniconf (or linux.conf.au) last held in 2022 (2020 for in person)

Other stuff feels like it exaggerates my actual impact

Err he explains in the next few paragraphs...

www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/defaul...

Can the average American even write an essay?

Let alone one that has sound logical arguments and tells fact from fiction

You can see society struggling with the reality that "many paragraphs of well written text" is no longer a signal of quality.

Not just cover letters on resumes but articles and blog posts.

Short, information dense, and quickly to the point might be the aim now.

Sounds like a job position at an underwear company, not a bank..

There is a conference happening in Minneapolis is a couple of months and a few people really worried about attending.

AFAIK they are American citizens who live elsewhere in America

"unless something changes drastically for the better I simply cannot imagine feeling safe traveling there"

Weird all those people getting Chatgpt to do a caricature of themselves and it comes up with a reasonable likeness and interests

Google Gemini seems to be a bit more mindful of privacy at this point. Even when I give it my name it struggles to find my current job and draws a blank on my interests

Now I have that song in my head

A numberplate to excite the kids

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world YouTube

Weirdest thing today is hard-core[1] Auckland NIMBY Lisa Prager and her partner making a travel video where they are in France enjoying urbanism and density that she has been fighting against for 20 years in Auckland

[1] Sit-ins, screaming at public meetings, etc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXD...

We will be holding a 3 day KiwiMoot Tolkien conference in Wellington City in February 2027

The Main Conference will be over the Waitangi Day Weekend of Saturday 6th February to Monday 8th of February. It will be similar to the recent OzMoot/AusMoot conferences

More details to come

His girlfriend is pretty famous. She won a gold medal this week.

Plenty of her fans do not approve of him..

So AI says "want a date gone bad story?" and gives me this..

YouTube video by Hey Shmoley! Chromatics - Tick Of The Clock

Did aircraft landing and takeoff soundtrack songs on my recent trip. Would recommend although hard to time it right

Takeoff: Chromatics - Tick Of The Clock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWD7...

Landing: Hans Zimmer - No Time For Caution

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zv...

I'm using a technique pioneered by Game of Thrones. Instead of asking AI a simple question I'm instead saying

"Have two cute experts discuss.."

It makes a change anyway

You can't fool me.

The 10 page, illustrated article about the "This page intentionally left blank" bit of the RMA was a bit of a giveaway...

I have a dislike of optometrists after one flirted $20 for a 10 second "glasses fitting" out of 20yo me

"Please join the channel"

"Looks like a CMU, I'll create a capadd ticket"

This is about 30m from the electronic bus stop sign that got taken out by another car a few weeks ago.

This is the sort of crash I worry about, the car could have just as easily driven though the bedrooms of ourselves or our neighbour.

I'm seriously so used to crashes where I live that while I heard one this morning I didn't bother going outside and just did a quick look though window.

Didn't go outside for proper look till I woke up. Car had taken out the wall of house next door and firepeople in my backyard

Still sounds like they think it is worth it.

There are a lot of levels of budget for movies/TV. It doesn't have to beat a $100m movie to be viable

I only found out recently that that not exactly an autobiography.

Wikipedia calls it "an edited collection of reminiscences"

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world YouTube

Weirdest thing today is hard-core[1] Auckland NIMBY Lisa Prager and her partner making a travel video where they are in France enjoying urbanism and density that she has been fighting against for 20 years in Auckland

[1] Sit-ins, screaming at public meetings, etc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXD...

Still needs the property to put it on. Which either involves $$ to buy or some long term arrangement.

No proper water, electric or sewer hookup either.

Probably beats a caravan in the same spot, but not by much.

I wrote " it is if it is " in a message and it hurt my eyes

Thinking about Incidents at work