michael lascarides

A lot of 1990s photos of Oasis look like this to me.

SBS Seminar Series 2026. Professor Carl Bergstrom. Seminar 1: Information foraging in a social media world. 11am-12pm Seminar 2: Modern day oracles or bullshit machines: How to thrive in a ChatGPT world. 1 pm -2 pm Venue: 114-G14 Time: 11 am - 2 PM Thursday 19 February Light refreshments 12pm-1pm

Hi Auckland friends, I'll be in town and giving a couple of seminars this coming Thursday. Details below.

(Might have found it through one of you originally… apologies if so!)

Reel librarians in ‘Rollerball’ | Analyzing the 1975 original film and 2002 remake “Zero. He’s the world’s file cabinet.”

Not gonna miss an opportunity to re-up this delightful deep dive on the library scenes in Rollerball.

reel-librarians.com/2017/02/01/r...

#nzpol Pay attention, Aotearoa New Zealand. ⬇️

"For example, I like to keep a spare house in every region, just in case of emergencies."

Jesus

thread: i must get back to my tamagotchi farm. yes it's very productive. no i absolutely won't tell any of the many people what i'm producing, just insist it's very productive bsky.app/profile/timk...

To be fair, the amount of News that happened, like, last week definitely feels denser than the entirety of news I was exposed during the while of the Reagan administration.

Feel like early 2025 is already due for the History Channel treatment.

Can confirm.

Wellington Water report reveals alleged theft, structural and contractor issues Wellington Water has released a scathing report, after a probe uncovered alleged theft, poor value for money from contractors and structural issues.

Rember when that Mayor you all ran out of Wellington wanted Nick Leggett to resign www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

A single image that captures NZ's dominant belief system and economic model #nzpol

www.reddit.com/r/newzealand...

Yeah, Three Waters was a pretty good plan.

This photograph, the flooded Ōtorohanga Museum, with solar panels on its roof, where irreplaceable taonga have been destroyed by floodwaters from storms exacerbated by the climate changes this government are actively ignoring.

Remember: "it's better than nothing" is ALWAYS a sleight of hand to get you to look away from the decision-maker responsible for the nothing.

Much of South Brooklyn was covered in office paper from the initial explosions on 9/11, so there are, y'know, tens of thousands of us who witnessed this phenomenon firsthand.

At the risk of engaging with conspiracy theories, I was about a mile downwind of 9/11 and my *entire neighborhood* was covered in intact office paper blown out of the 82nd floor, much of it stained with jet fuel & melted plastic. Explosions are weird.

the "it's impossible to have a conversation about AI right now" folks need to grok that a huge volume of that furor is entirely justified rage at the fact tech oligarchs purchased an automated murder autocracy; rage that's good and useful and deserves a generous berth in the months and years to come

Ugh, yeah, have come to the same conclusion. Been coding algorithmic art (from first principles, not a prompt in sight) for over two decades now, but feel like a lot of the potential magic has been drained out of it. Only upside is that it's clarified what's important to me about my work.

What we know now is a fraction of all human knowledge ever.

What is known to literate societies is a fraction of what we know now.

What is written is a fraction of what literate societies know.

What is digitized is a fraction of what is written.

What is online is a fraction of what is digitized.

Change to Consumer price indexes since Q1 2015 by country.

It certainly doesn't sound like the "suddenly new covid enquiry" setup to provide a report to the government a few weeks out from the election has a lot of space for nuanced analysis of the "while lessons can be learned we need to keep what was happening elsewhere in mind" variety.

A vivid example of "mission creep" and "libraries aren't essential services except when they're told to be" that are creating a mental health hellscape for library workers.

bookriot.com/the-state-of...

if I could go a one. single. week. without having to see, hear, talk about, think about ai in libraries right now it might just heal something in me

My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse

And boy howdy is it a lot of expensive work for the pubic sector to keep the stuff we have already digitised accessible!

I fear that men are about to do what men do. They are about to characterize any sober thinking about power as non-technical and therefore unserious.

We have seen this pattern over and over again in tech criticism. Women and people of color repeatedly lead on understanding tech changes.

How good? Lots of people taking the opportunity to use the free busses to George Street Market. 7,500 trips (instead of 4,000 on a normal Saturday).

People who might drive all the time have possibly taken the bus for the first time.

Transport choices matter.

Is Luxon trying for a Pick Me favour from Trump with move to buy USA's LNG?

Sounds like Amazon paying Melania for movie!

Dubious product to buy favour!
#NZpol

GM: Charisma check.

Mamdani: [rolls natural 20]

GM: that’s a d6 how did you

Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

Yeah, but this market took over five or six on-street parking spaces so my family and I had to park a WHOLE BLOCK away. One out of four stars.