beccadownes

what is the point of having Society if we aren't using it as a means to take care of each other

Petition request That the House of Representatives urge the Government to withdraw the Regulatory Standards Bill from the legislative programme. Petition reason I am petitioning the House because nearly every submission on the Regulatory Standards Bill opposed it, yet the Government plans to pass it anyway. I believe this shows disregard for public participation and democratic integrity. I think the Government is ignoring the 98.7 percent of submitters who oppose the bill and cannot be trusted to listen. I feel that Parliament must act to restore public trust by urging the Government to withdraw this Bill.

Sign this petition about the Regulatory Standards Bill, please

petitions.parliament.nz/212f27b2-98f...

I will die laughing if after investing $500B generative AI's only meaningful market traction turns out to be making porn.

"For many people, it feels like the world is burning. The government’s recent changes to benefits feel like this: the house is on fire, and this policy is them turning off the smoke alarm and saying it’s fixed"

Does your university have a contract with Grammarly? Write to the decision-maker asking if they think the university should be paying for a tool that is fast integrating features that can only be used for academic misconduct and cognitive offloading and request they drop the contract.

Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?

Selling off productive publicly owned companies/infrastructure to reduce govt debt is like selling off your car to reduce your mortgage, then taking an uber/taxi to work each day.

Sure you have lower debts, but it costs more in the long run.

#nzpol

Huh. Who could have predicted that once all the experienced staff were fired, work would slow down and, needing experience, those same staff would be hired back at consulting rates... [Shocked Pikachu face]

oops, alt text: Southerly front and rain arriving into Lyall Bay, Wellington like a big, grey wall.

Full credit to @metservice.com, that arrived exactly as predicted

Watch: Christopher Luxon defends cuts to benefits for youth The prime minister says businesses are 'crying out for young people' as advocates decry the changes as a punishment.

18 & 19 year olds with no income support should “just go where the jobs are” said the Prime Minister who famously had his limo deliver him across the road.

“Good luck with the train-hopping, you plucky young hobos,” he added, suggesting hedge-&-ditch as an affordable alternative to bed-&-breakfast.

🤦

Meta will soon use what people tell its artificial intelligence chatbot to get even better at selling them things.

The company said users’ chats and interactions with Meta AI will soon be used to target them with even more personalized ads. https://cnn.it/4nXks2K

in related news i'm excited to announce that i'm selling sam altman's house unless he asks me not to

Wealthy NZ family member guilty of child abuse images given sentence discount for donation He gave $50,400 to charities days before his sentencing was scheduled.

Anyone heard from the "one law for all, equal treatment" crowd on this or are they too busy complaining about something important like macrons on road signs

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

- Desmond Tutu

This one's maybe a little on the ling side, but trust me, it's worth it. I've cried reading it multiple times.

(1/3)

My theory is Pay My Park sent someone to be a wo(man) on the inside and sabotage meter usability so that everyone would just use Pay My Park instead.

I'm often told on here that clothes are meaningless, and to some degree, I agree. However, in this instance, the GOP's aesthetic transformation shows how they use populist style to position themselves as populist outsiders, even as they serve elite interests.

Iconic

M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial : AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex

Two trials will be repeated endlessly despite always producing the same results:

1) Does UBI work? (yes)
2) Does AI improve productivity? (no)

Christopher Luxon hypes re-announcement of $7.5 billion Amazon investment from 2021 The Prime Minister says Amazon is spending $7b on data centres - a move announced by the company four years ago.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

"Boost GDP by $11B," you say? I'd love to see the maths behind that.

There's a lot of one-offs in construction. I imagine they'd import as much of the specialist materials as they can.

Annual component is electricity and water (ffs), and a handful? of engineers?

Only 7 out of 300+ analysed restructures went back to monitor and document the after-effect and whether it's been successful.

#GOVIS2025

Applying the concept of technical debt in software development onto public sector restructuring - Organisational debt.

"Organisational debt" articulate the residual cost of decision-making under constraint, that only becomes problematic when ignored.

#GOVIS2025

Fascinating. NZ well past peak car. So why are we spending so much more on new roads?

On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution.
But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable

Photo taken from above of several soldiers on bicycles riding in a triangular formation while holding model planes.

Royal Air Force pilots train to fly in a squadron
ca. 1942

Mountain bike trails are not equivalent to cycleways, just because both involve bicycles. It's like saying "you don't need more roads in Wellington, there are lots of perfectly good roads in the Hutt". I don't hear anyone suggesting that.

Then implies that people who want cycleways should focus on mountain biking instead (Won't somebody think of the $$$? Buddy, I'm busy thinking about getting to work alive).

Disappointing. He says what he thinks you want to hear (yes, cycleways) and then what he thinks other voters want to hear (no cycleways, maybe later).