Ryan Nicholls

if it takes an extra few minutes for every passenger to get down to a platform then that negates a few minutes journey time saved by being underground.

hijacking my own thread with a diversion: this is what gets me about proposals for lines that are faster/deeper/fewer stations/etc. You always need to have an eye on what the journeys people are making look like. Station-station time isn't as important as how long it takes to reach your destination

And the other comment would be that stepping off a train at Waitematā to getting on the bus at Lower Albert St is a good 5 minutes before you consider whether the bus is leaving at the right moment. If it were simply walking across a platform that would be even quicker.

I didn't take the fastest route down from K Red, I've been using Pitt/Vincent/Albert St for fun. It's probably a bit slower than the other options.

Having to travel across the city centre to get on the bus adds maybe 5 minutes to the journey. Post-CRL I'll be able to get on the train at Kingsland, zoom under the city and then get on the bus at Waitematā/Lower Albert St instead of waiting at a many traffic lights on the way down the hill.

Thinking about how much of a superpower rapid transit under city centres can be. I'm cycling from Sandringham to the North Shore today and the 6km to K Rd took 15 mins, then the next 2km down to the NX1 took another 10 mins.

This summer I've decided to complete my goal of cycling up all of the maunga in Auckland. Maybe not each a day trip on their own and I wouldn't recommend cycling it unless you're really keen, but going up one you've never been to can be quite good.

They're very much on the fringes but when the trains were down a couple of years ago I took buses out to Wellsford, Helensville and Tuakau (on three different days!) to have a look at the unused train stations. Helensville was probably the most interesting, but the time was mostly spent on buses.

having never been to melbourne, I feel as though this should probably be lower

and even then you sometimes have to go through several people before you can actually talk to the person who knows the answer.

Showing up at someone's office tends to work, but only if you know how to find it and if you've already know that you probably don't need to ask them anything

The worst thing is always getting answers to questions. Something a human could tell me in 2 minutes often involves considerably longer reading through FAQs or dealing with the little chat things they make you use before finally giving you an email address or phone number

I'm applying for study next year which involves interviews and tests which is fine but the interview isn't even a call, it's some automated thing with prerecorded questions and someone presumably watches my responses at a later date. Kinda feels like it defeats most of the point of an interview.

I appreciate the value of being able to do stuff online and frequently benefit from it but sometimes I would prefer to just talk to a human or come in and do a test on a piece of paper instead of having to deal with the whole circus that doing all this online involves

after a walk on the beach I think my everyday shoes may have finally graduated to "very good second best shoes" which means it's time to see how long I can put off buying a new pair

I'll throw in mine which is the teddy bears and other stuffed animals that appeared in front windows and especially along the path in the reserve near my house.

A bicycle with pannier bags and a drink bottle in the foreground on the edge of a path. Behind it successive layers of grass, pōhutukawa trees, blue sea, Waiheke island in the distance and endless blue sky above

bicycles are another top 5 technology

of all of earth's technologies, I think sunblock might be a top 5

And I've also been through the rigmarole of proving to studylink every year how much my parents had earned in order to get the thing I was always eligible for. I have a friend who had to prove each year that their parents were still dead, entitling them to the full student allowance.

They work long hours to earn money and then they work long hours studying. All because the government is unwilling to support them and their parents either can't or won't fill the gap. And uni students will be mostly ok but the same now applies to jobseekers.

And university students aren't really affected by this but I know many students who were ineligible for student allowance on account of their parents' income but had a much harder time than students who could get it because their parents were unable or unwilling to support them financially.

I know people who have left toxic relationships who would not have been able to support themselves independently and have time to build a new support network if they weren't receiving a benefit.

I know many queer people for whom turning 18 marked the point where they could finally become themselves. It's not nice to imagine what suffering another two years being dependent on unsupportive parents would have meant for them.

...dependence. Not getting the benefit doesn't make it any easier to find a job (and it makes it a lot harder) and it doesn't make anyone any less dependent. It will make people dependent on other people in their lives who they would otherwise have the chance to escape.

...inflicted upon the edge cases and most unfortunate. Families who are above the threshold but who can barely afford to support an adult. Young people whose families refuse to support them. People who have choice but to turn to abusers.

Taking the benefit away from people does nothing to reduce...

And the target is stupid in its own right but it emphasises how much it's about cutting loose the easiest people to save a few bucks.

Perhaps most of the 4,300 will get support from their families (who will be much poorer for it) or find work or study but the worst cruelty of this policy will be...

Ministers were warned against teen welfare crackdown, documents reveal Officials said the changes could actually increase long-term benefit dependency.

I don't think any of this is really a surprise but it really does reveal how much the government doesn't give a shit about the consequences of what they do

They didn't do it to pad out their benefit numbers target, just to save a tiny bit of money in the short term and who cares about the effects.

what are those?

'discussing serious topics while dressing inappropriately' is basically your whole thing

hard, but I thought the ratio of effort to marks available wasn't too far off and it made me put more thought into what I was writing and probably made me write a better essay. Maybe not AI proof but I think it probably encourages students to actually do the work rather than cheat

Something that's become a bit more common in the courses I've taken, in part as a response to AI I think, is 'scaffolding' of big assignments. In one course this year I had to submit a 3 minute video explaining an argument I was going to include in my essay. Wasn't worth a whole lot and wasn't....