Absolute longshot: I'm looking for Euan Smith who drew artwork for White Dwarf magazine in the mid 1980s and therefore is probably British and probably in his late 50s or 60s. Do you or did you know him?
The Hoiho Penguin needs urgent cross party support now. We only have 117 breeding pairs left. We have to act fast to develop a vaccine to treat the virus killing their chicks. #nzpol www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3610...
‘Violent virus’ wiping out rare baby penguins - expert predicts extinction within five years
The mystery illness is killing hoiho chicks within hours, adding another devastating threat to a species already down to 326 birds.
stuff.co.nz
Finally, there's an *economic* coin-trick: "AI will destroy jobs." Sure, yes, AI is destroying jobs. But there's a vast difference between "You got fired because an AI can do your job" and "You got fired because your boss was convinced that the AI can do your job, even though it *cannot*." 45/
Yet again, in the name of the reality check I feel everybody needs regarding the Red Planet, read this:
Phil Hare's Ghost@mrlepus.bsky.social · 2w ago*sɪɢʜs* spacedaily.com/t-mars-is-us...
Soft Rains Day. "Today is August 4, 2026, in the city of Allendale, California. Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills." RIP Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012
Brownlee repeatedly favouring Winston and the regime in his decisions; when called on it by Chloe Swarbrick, he kicks her out. What a hypocritical arsehole #nzqt
My sister has moved house so I told her she needs to update her details on the electoral roll because same day registration is no longer possible. She had no idea about the changes. Will there be an advertising campaign? Otherwise people won't know and will be turned away on election day. #nzpol
Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.
Truly there is no greater curse than to love books and live in a small apartment.
this is a tall ask i know but is anyone up for splitting their mcm london table with me bless u and thank 💖
This is ridiculously scary. Yes, we are currently talking about ballrooms and reflecting pools and inflation and Iran and Venezuela and Epstein and crypto grift and the moral rot of the GOP. But all that is going to be forgotten soon. Shit is about to get real, as they say.
Zeke Hausfather@zekehausfather.com · 2w agoI'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.
We need to stop talking about the financial debt of NZ - govt has net positive assets - & talking about debt just helps Neo-liberalism We need to talk about our: Loss of community Loss of fairness Growing Poverty Loss of Government services Lack of Infrastructure Growth in inequality #nzpol
Today's spotlight for the Scottish Comics itch Bundle is BENEATH THE LAW by @juliecampbelldraws.bsky.social! This comic is about the unlikely friendship between a ghost whale and a piebald jackdaw. 🩵 Get 30 Scottish indie comics for $20 at itch.io/b/3727/scott...
Luxon's "I was out there building a kick-arse business" just galls me so much. Bro you were employed by a couple of gigantic inefficient enterprises. You did not build a pie shop or a landscaping business. You did not build a tech startup.
I’d love to know what people outside the industry think “data centre” actually means, because no one I know expects them to contain any jobs at all. As someone who has built several: any employee is a design flaw.
christ if that’s not a metaphor for our times
For the next few months, every single decision about Government spending priorities, in the form of "Rather than spending x on y, the government would rather spend x on z metres of road" where one million dollars is 7.22 metres of road.
Michael Plank@michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 3w agoThe bargain price of $138 million per km. Or one postdoc per metre.
The “losing control” narrative creates the loss of control. Nobody is losing control of an emerging intelligence. They’re redirecting their own agency to it, as a way of diffusing responsibility, but the self-perpetuated intelligence myth has them convinced they have no choice.
Anna Mills@annamillsoer.bsky.social · 3w ago"They don't realize the debate inside the companies is if AI will be advancing itself past our control in two years or four." www.pacingthefrontier.com
It's not the technology that's beyond our control, it's the people who keeps mashing the "feed it another billion dollars" button that's beyond our control.
"Someone, somewhere, has taken the decision to defund astrophysics research in the UK, but no-one seems quite sure who that was, or why." The latest on the impact of the catastrophic funding cuts to UK astrophysics, by me, in @natastron.nature.com 👩🔬🧪🔭 ✒️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fucking hell as if receiving automated rejection letters for jobs wasn't bad enough.
Oh yay, an extra $154 a month to pay for water because the previous generations kept voting for no rates rises while infrastructure rotted. Fuck every single person who voted for no rates rises, and every single WCC councillor who ran in that platform this is your fucking fault.
This is probably silly, but every now and then I stop and look at things like viaducts, shopping carts, chickens eating corn, or cats rolling there and back in sunlight and think how incredibly unlikely all of this is in the grand scheme of things. We could've been a barren ball of rock.