www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines... The very dubious TikTok economic report written by Infometrics is part of wider, ongoing public relations and marketing campaign. Here's the 2024 Aussie equivalent: newsroom.tiktok.com/oxford-econo...
The backlash over some fantastical TikTok economic figures
An Infometrics report on TikTok attributes a staggering value to the app's contribution to our economy. Experts have doubts.
rnz.co.nz
In 1963 HERBIE HANCOCK used his first royalty cheque to buy his first car, a brand new Shelby Cobra CSX 2006, which he still owns over 60yrs on.
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.
Dunedin will never recover from the Skatepark Snowmageddon. Photo by Hamish McNeill for Stuff.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/environ... Story by Peter de Graaf on a conservation success, catching the feral Nine Lives cat which had been furiously killing endangered pāteke on the Purerua Peninsula.
Wildlife-devouring feral cat 'Nine Lives' caught after three-year effort
A wildlife-devouring feral cat so elusive it was nicknamed 'Nine Lives' has been caught after a massive three-year effort.
rnz.co.nz
Really good piece. It's struck me that the one group I've not seen up in arms about this is librarians, accustomed as they are to weeding collections. Pat's navigated a route between the fact that pulping is a normal part of the publishing cycle and that there are issues with this specific pulping
Patrick Stokes@patrickstokes.com · 3d agoMe in ArtsHub on destructive scanning for AI training. We probably need to avoid fetishising books, and warehouses full of Max Walker memoirs and WordPerfect For Dummies aren't the Library of Alexandria. But even for non-rare books, destroying them *purely to maintain legal cover* is just perverse.
Sugar gliders not a major risk to swift parrots in Tasmania, new research finds www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...
Gliders were thought to eat swift parrots. Cameras showed something different
For over a decade, sugar gliders have been considered a major threat to the critically endangered swift parrot. But new research has called that into question.
abc.net.au
Median UK voter in 2026, as predicted by Hugh Laurie some decades ago:
ICYMI, my Substack yesterday on gas. The fossil giants have always minimised the harm to respiratory health done by “natural” gas. Now they pitch it as the perfect “transition fuel”, when their real purpose is to tie us to fossil fuels. Free to read simonwilsonhopetown.substack.com/p/gaslightin...
Gaslighting with gas
What made the NZ government fall for the great gas scam?
simonwilsonhopetown.substack.com
Talk about a vote of no confidence. Feels like a brutally specific indictment - not just of where things are at right now for young people, but also how they see the future. Can’t say as I blame them; but how do we win back hope?
RNZ News Feeds@rnzrss.bsky.social · 3d ago'Things are screwed anyway, why try?' Youth voter enrolment rate plummets
The entire world experienced Covid, in real time, as a direct personal event, a reality, and a horror, barely more than five years ago. And well-connected people have never stopped trying to lie to us about what happened, and why. And to call other people liars for trying to remember.
Russia commits war crimes every single day
Anton Gerashchenko@antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 5d agoIt was a massive attack involving dozens of ballistic missiles. Russia killed nine people and injured 28 more, including four children, in Kyiv overnight. Civilian infrastructure was heavily damaged across multiple districts of the city.
Ukraine intercepted only one ballistic missile last night because the country has run out of missiles for its Patriot systems. In Kyiv, nine people were killed and 30 injured. Every delayed decision eventually arrives in Ukraine in the form of death and destruction.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 35 missiles, including 27 ballistic missiles, and 185 drones overnight. In Kyiv, nine people were killed and 28 more were injured. Seven districts of the capital were affected.
Lana and Lilly Wachowski make a great documentary about how much people enjoy working in data centres
Purple is relatively rare in nature - but there are some powerfully purple species across the globe! 💜 Let’s meet some of the purplest players seen in the natural world ⬇️
Matt Damon’s Biceps in That ‘Odyssey’ Fight Scene? They’re Hers. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/s...
Matt Damon’s Biceps in That ‘Odyssey’ Fight Scene? They’re Hers.
Devyn Dalton, a 4-foot-6 woman, is the leading man’s stunt double in Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster.
nytimes.com
New from 404 Media: Google Earth has introduced an AI feature that lets anyone fabricate completely bullshit satellite images. In our own tests, we added a “bomb blast and crater” to an area of Los Angeles. This is a misinformation time bomb, will 100% be abused www.404media.co/google-earth...
Okay maybe London has fallen, after all
Paul Clarke@paulclarke.com · 5d agoA salad, an open sandwich (piece of bread with some chicken on), 1 cup of tea, 1 apple juice, 1 pastel. £54. IN A STATION CAFE. London, I am finally done with eating out ever again. My Iranian beans and the 3.95 saino's sarnie lunch deal are all I need. Go out of business, all of you. It's over.
Updated with comment from LinkedIn executive. The button will help train LinkedIn's models for identifying AI slop www.404media.co/linkedin-int...
Nauru is laughter in suomen kieli which I always thought was charming but Naoero is good.
ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 6d agoNauru officially changes name to Naoero
This InfoWars caper is going a little too well. We need to staff up a bit. We're hiring a Social Media Lead, who will help make InfoWars the network of the future. We need someone who is extraordinarily online, has big ideas for how things break through in 2026, and can pull those ideas off quick.
Social Media Lead, InfoWars at Global Tetrahedron
jobs.gusto.com
stories.theconversation.com/where-do-pep... Great piece on peptides trafficking by The Conversation.
Where do peptides come from? We found out.
A targeted ad for illegal peptides pops up in our social feed, so we start a chat with the supplier. The videos and pictures they send us are revealing and concerning.
stories.theconversation.com
There's a lot going on in New Zealand, as this headline shows. www.rnz.co.nz/news/communi...
Rush to desex pigs rehomed after alleged murder as boars break in
An animal rescue charity is rushing to desex 42 female pigs due to frisky wild boars breaking through electric fencing and into their enclosure.
rnz.co.nz