michael lascarides

ironically the education for its own sake, Enlightenment-coded, Great Books-ass liberal arts degree is one of the better employment bets you can make. learn how to read, write, think critically, develop curiosity so you can pick up new skills quickly, etc etc

The productivity use cases have all fallen off (probably because they got people fired), so it really is just the mom use cases from here on.

We live in a strange world where stories about vehicles banging into cycle lane kerbing is framed as a pain in the ass for motorists, rather than a full-on vindication of efforts to protect cyclists from bad drivers.

‘Worrying’ levels of screen time means young people losing confidence to socialise in person, minister warns – UK politics live Culture secretary Lisa Nandy says ‘majority of young people spend all, or almost all, of their free time alone in their bedrooms, online’

This is not caused primarily by "screen time".

It's been caused by the mass eradication of third places for young people in basically every city over the past three decades - and a society that's hostile to the concept of teens socialising in public spaces.

www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

The smartest person I know would not hesitate to tell me I am full of shit and need to go figure my life out before proceeding with a stupid idea. Wake me when my phone does the same.

As end-of-empire scenarios go it is so much more dignified to get your capital city sacked by the Visigoths than to have a bunch of illiterate rich people in their 70s doing it through a series of incomprehensible tantrums because their brains were defeated by their phones.

An excerpt from the article linked to in the original post, which reads: "Ewen Darling, 61, said a Tim Tam on Kōpiri Place damaged his Tesla a couple of months ago."

A fun exercise one can try here is to replace the words "Tim Tam" in this sentence with the likes of "concrete wall" / "tree" / "lampost" / "building" / "pedestrian" to see how it sounds.

Cheap Trick At Budokan or X Live at the Whisky A Go Go

I'm trying to ask the amalgamation machine to produce specific results and it's not working, please advise.

Trust your Nope. The Nope knows.

Newspaper ad: "You'll be SURPRISED. Snowflake has struck it too!! Yes-- "URANIUM" The New Rich Ice Cream Discovery. SNOWFLAKE "A West Coast Production" URANIUM ICE CREAM NOW ON SALE."

I'm between sensible projects right now, so you're going to have to put up with stuff like this advert for uranium ice cream from a New Zealand paper in 1955.

(Source and context, insofar as it helps: teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/...; HT a Mastodon account that seems to have blocked me for liking it.)

He was the Deputy Secretary of Policy and Te Tiriti. To lie in state, even if briefly, in front of the document itself would be about the most beautiful and meaningful thing I can think of.

A few months ago there was a TikTok trend of Gen z employees sincerely confused that older customers would ask them product questions. Someone explained that employees used to know things. Then we had to tell them about Radio Shack.

I realized they truly had no idea that things used to…work.

This isn't a list of jobs that A.I. can easily replace.

It's a list of jobs that techno fascists don't think are worthwhile or meaningful and that they want to eliminate.

They don't want humans to try to make sense of the world, they want us to believe whatever we're told.

I mean, our economy is, like, 137% dairy farming and a stick of butter costs more than a small yacht, so…

I’m reminded of this Baldwin quote.

Tautoko. Would not have known about this without y'all.

TIL 'multistakeholderism' is a word but it turns out the ability to withstand polite 4hr civil society meetings is the self-protective bureaucratic superpower that democracies didn't know they needed

"Abstain" and "Against" look awfully similar when you're doing the dishes. 😅

(Wasn't me, but I can understand…)

Recommend extending this attitude into multiple areas within your community. Run for your school and community boards, join your local PTA, fuck, run for council!

Show up to counter the fascist cunce.

Not hearing anything? Turn up volume.

Hard pass, Zoom.

Would even compromise by just adding another 8 bars or so. #geezthatsashortloop

I got yer 2/3 majority right here.

Relevant to anyone in the InternetNZ AGM who, like me, has had trouble understanding what the FSU is attempting to do with its amendments. Hopefully this can help guide your votes tonight

There is 100% going to be election interference in NZ from far right, probably US, groups in 2026 at a level we haven't seen before

Cartoon with corporate media asking U.S. Government how it would like "Control of Internet Speech" wrapped: Anti-terrorism or protect kids

t's amazing how this is from more than 20 years ago but very well could have been from today.

Accessible playgrounds aren’t a joke. Inclusion matters. MPs need to do better than mock seesaws and sneer at local councils

Sam Uffindel made fun of a Dunedin playground and sneered at the cost-a chunk of which was due to including accessible playground equipment.

I am so over National MPs deriding inclusion and mocking local councils for creating wonderful local communities.

Anyways:

open.substack.com/pub/drbex/p/...

The only bureaucratic barriers between voters and the booth should be those that prevent fraud. If you can't prove that the ease of voting is causing fraud you have no good reasons to be putting barriers up.

Cold one this morning! Dunners schools starting at 10am today. www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin...

The last living American slave died in 1974, within my lifetime.