Bruce Buckman
@brucebuckman.bsky.social
Probationary curmudgeon. 🇳🇿 I’m probably not talking about what you think I’m talking about if you’re not in New Zealand.
SOUND THE NEW ZEALAND MENTIONED KLAXON! Also this is a crackup thread.
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 5h agoI only now realized that when I searched for the cover image of White Flight earlier, it pulled up this image drawn from one of the blurbs for the book. The words are from the amazing southern historian Dan Carter. But the image is of the amazing New Zealand rugby star Dan Carter.
NZ does have a peaking problem & need more batteries & demand management... but solar! Highest solar power generation on record yesterday and it's only early August.
Willis talks like training & education are a magic path out of unemployment, ignoring that many of our trained & educated workforce have relocated to Oz because they could not get jobs here. As usual, just lazy bullshit excuses from the government. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
National backs its policies as unemployment rises to 11-year high
National is backing its economic policies while Labour accuses them of "actual disregard" for struggling families as unemployment reaches the highest in over a decade.
rnz.co.nz
Add this to the long list of reasons to abandon Word
Heather Burns@heatherburnstech.bsky.social · 2d agoThe most terrifying enshittification I've discovered has been learning that Microsoft Word documents no longer auto-save if you are not saving them to one of their own proprietary cloud services. I'm slapping control-S like it's 1999.
If your desire and ability to exercise state power is predicated on the state exercising racism, then yes - you are the baddies.
Mitchell And Webb: Are We The Baddies Sketch
ALT: Mitchell And Webb: Are We The Baddies Sketch
static.klipy.com
henry cooke@henrycooke.bsky.social · 2d agoNicola Willis and Mark Mitchell suggested this morning that firing Winston Peters would bring down the Government. www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361...
The frustration of being near the sea in Dunedin watching everyone ten metres above you getting snow.
Eddie Clark@dreddieclark.bsky.social · 2d agoKaori snow, right down in the valley. There's our once a decade dump.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...
More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds
The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.
theconversation.com
Reporting success as failure because despite delivering research outputs beyond expectations it cost money
RNZ News Feeds@rnzrss.bsky.social · 2d agoCost blowout puts fees for foreign PhD students under review
The Electoral Commission has told staff to turn away voters who aren't on the printed roll and who say they're unenrolled, but has no plans to count how many people will be affected. newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/03/t...
Tens of thousands could be turned away from voting – but no one is counting them
The Opposition says people who think they're not enrolled should lodge special votes rather than being turned away from voting entirely.
newsroom.co.nz
MSc and PhD students are the workforce in the engine room of our public research system. They are very, very cheap labor by policy design. This talk about a 'cost blowout' is utter rubbish. We frown on company owners that charge people to get a job. We should be doing the same here. #NZPOL
Cost blowout puts fees for foreign PhD students under review
A blow-out in the cost of treating foreign PhD students like locals has prompted a rethink of the long-standing policy and a cap on spending next year.
rnz.co.nz
It remains bizarre to me that these people think social media should be a civic town square when what it us to most people is a community - lots of diverse communities - and people don’t like turning up to their local book club only for an uninvited stranger to whip out Mein Kampf.
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
Bluesky is a "liberal bubble" because fascist chuds can't get traction without algorithmic assistance and because people here trained themselves to block "debate me" trybois the instant they roll up
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
This ad has been the subject of an ASA complaint. But they apply a frankly, imho, ridiculous standard to political ads and says it was fine. asa.co.nz/decision/26-...
henry cooke@henrycooke.bsky.social · 3d agoNational says it’s “triple your taxes” ads refer to three parties wanting to raise taxes. www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361...
Lo I am Luxon the great champion of efficiency I am a CEO so I know all about being more efficient Lo I am Luxon the great champion of efficiency I have come back a second time to explain what I meant before Me again back a third time to apologise and explain Yo, it's ur champ of efficiency again
The tech babble cycle is this: in the beginning a term is coined with a specific meaning. It gains traction. It becomes generic, over-used and essentially meaningless. Years later politicians discover it. We must all then suffer. www.rnz.co.nz/news/educati...
In-school teacher training programmes are a ' system disruptor' - Stanford
In-school teacher training programmes are a "disruptor" that will help improve initial teacher education, says the education minister.
rnz.co.nz
A big old scoop: an Ombudsman investigation into a refused OIA request has helped shed light on just how much AI the Ministry of Education is using to create the new school curriculum www.emilywrites.co.nz/the-ministry...
The Ministry of Education is using so much AI it can't tell us how much AI it's using
The Ministry doesn't seem to want the public to know exactly how much AI it's using - or what it's using AI for.
emilywrites.co.nz
Underneath solar panels, plants grew much more and used less water, "Chiltepin pepper plants produced three times as much fruit as those grown in full sun. Jalapenos matched their usual harvest while using 65 percent less water. Tomatoes grown under the array came in at twice the normal yield."
hoergen@hoergen.bsky.social · 4d ago*American farmers slid solar panels over 62,000 acres of farmland, and the biggest payoff had almost nothing to do with electricity* #Erneuerbare #Renewable #Solar #Photovoltaik energiesmedia.com/solar-panels…
Here’s one to bookmark for next time some Americans get upset about how we do conservation. www.rnz.co.nz/news/environ...
"The Muscle" at Public Bar, July 22nd. More concert photography, more soft focus, more ilford films, more xtol. Getting into a good groove while still trying new things! Ilford Delta 3200 developed in xtol 1+1. Pentax MX and various lenses.
Look I’m not saying Peters is right but from the 1840s my forbears arrived & promptly started have tons of kids. Didn’t integrate well with the local culture either. Some of them were even involved in wars to take land away from the locals if you can believe it. Makes you think.
It’s amazing my kids turned out so well considering I’m clearly the kind of guy who rewards bad behaviour - such as chasing another cat up a tree - by bringing the perpetrator inside to warm himself by a radiator.
