First: AI, digital and data sovereignty. Vendor enthusiasm is not a business case. When Microsoft and Google boosters are in the room, I'll be asking who benefits, who pays, and whether the evidence base is independent. Taxpayers' money, etc., etc., etc.
An election is coming. I'll be watching policy commitments carefully: not through a party lens, but through a public interest one. This is a thread on the things I'll be looking for over the coming months 🧵#nzpol #nzvotes #nzvotes2026
Copilot in Word, Outlook, and Teams can draft and summarise. But it also produces output that needs careful editing for tone, accuracy, misses context and is full of anglo-assumptions. That's not a productivity tool. That's a new task wearing a productivity tool's badge.
FACTS:
Net Zero barely nudges your bill.
Fossil‑fuel wars send it through the roof.
So when Farage and his ilk slags off renewables while fanning conflict, remember who actually hikes your costs.
The truth is not the average of a fact and a lie.
The politicians should have the costs taken from their personal wealth.
The Government is currently negotiating an Enhanced Border Security Partnership with the US Department of Homeland Security that would grant US agencies, including ICE, automated, direct access to New Zealanders' biometric data and identity records.
No, it's not fair, and there's an easy solution. We need to bring Aotearoa's electricity back into public ownership. We must treat the electricity market as a public utility, not a source of profit. #nzpol
It's not what he means but: great idea Seymour! Let's make them a public benefit organisation with no profit incentive - delivering public transport for the public.
Each new defection confirms it: the old two-party system is dead and buried.
Under FPTP, this means chaos.
We can't keep pretending nothing has changed, stick with the same voting system and expect voters to still have trust in our democracy.
We need PR before it's too late.
Trump:
"NATO has treated the United States very badly. We've never asked for anything. We've never got anything."
Tell that to the families of 850 soldiers from 19 non-US NATO countries who died fighting to defend the United States in Afghanistan - the only occasion Article 5 was ever triggered.
🚨The Petition calling for by-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party is now closing on 80,000 signatures!
Let’s get it to the 100,000 needed today!
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
The President of the United States is trying to economically damage and coerce NATO allies because they don't agree with his imperialist ambition to seize a NATO territory by force.
Donald Trump is the most egregious traitor and saboteur of the West in history.
BREAKING: Trump announces 10% tariffs from 1 February and 25% tariffs from 1 June on "all goods" from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland & the UK.
"This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland."
…but it won’t pass unless we push it
📣 Email your MP before Wed. Please.
It takes seconds to email them and could make the world of difference…
Just hit the link below:
www.compassioninpolitics.com/write_mp_acc...
Ask your MP to support a ban on lying in politics. Amendments 13–18 to the Hillsborough Law will make it a criminal offence to deliberately mislead the public. Tell your MP to back it today: www.compassioninpolitics.com/the_public_a... #TruthInPolitics #HillsboroughLaw
The Will coming out is so weird...
'Listen to me as I come to your neighbourhood and tell your trans siblings they are subhuman or I will use the wealth of billionaires to sue you into oblivion,' is a very late-capitalism form of free speech right.
If a town already exists but is depopulating due to a lack of work and therefore likely leaving housing stock to rot, and places a burden on councils who get less tax but no reduction in infrastructure footprint - then it seems a no brainer to try make the most of those towns by connecting to cities
Great stuff. Hobby hunters are trying to normalise the idea that these invasive pests should be farmed, for their convenience, in the native forests we all own. (Imagine if possum trappers tried this nonsense!) We non-hunters who love our forests outvote them. Let your MP know.
FWIW, the jury is still out on Gen AI being good at text summaries. Because it shortens & emphasizes text based on distribution, not meaning, it’s less of a summary (ie, salient points highlighted) than a compression (ie, the most frequently asserted terms in the distribution). Not the same thing!
This is accurate. I can use AI to massively speed up some parts of my work, but only because I'm able to intuit when it's gone wildly off-base, which it does with confidence indistinguishable from when it gets things right.
![Screenshot of an email:
Subject: [PIPEXP-1192] Login Access Request
To: me
Good morning Kimberly! =^uwu^=;;
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having trouble logging into Jellyfin! It looks like your SSO account was indeed deactivated on 2025 Dec 15.
According to our records,
1. On or about 2025 Nov 15, you were broken up with by ___, who noted this as a “final break” on vis event report sheet. I’m also seeing that Ve ticked the “Unilateral” box, meaning it isn’t contestable.
2. Our Salesforce shows you aren’t close to any other polycule members
Unfortunately, our solo-poly access policy doesn’t allow us to extend resources to unpartnered members after the 30 day grace period following your break. This includes entertainment resources (Jellyfin / *darr / nzbget / Pornhub for Enterprise™ seat), as well as O365™, Adobe CC™, and shell access on the Nix clusters. We’re so sorry for your loss, cutie!! 😭💜
If you have any questions, you can reply to this email to generate another ticket, or you can contact zzzoeee@ from our Partner Infra team (note: three Zs and three Es in their LDAP, we have a lot of Zoes here!)
—-
Regards,
___ (🏳️⚧️she/her, UTC -5)
Partner Infra Platform Experiences team
As a courtesy, a copy of this email has been sent to your manager listed in Workday™
New name or pronouns? Dating someone new? Just visit go/update-me to update your account!
Include this line in your email to comment on the ticket: 250e084a-b937-47a6-948d-b519112ad35a](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rhtazgvloflondzburvubdft/bafkreids254lgwtdyd62paodq5ynb5tatkemp5l77ynw6udhshedj6pab4)
Screenshot of an email: Subject: [PIPEXP-1192] Login Access Request To: me Good morning Kimberly! =^uwu^=;; I’m sorry to hear that you’re having trouble logging into Jellyfin! It looks like your SSO account was indeed deactivated on 2025 Dec 15. According to our records, 1. On or about 2025 Nov 15, you were broken up with by ___, who noted this as a “final break” on vis event report sheet. I’m also seeing that Ve ticked the “Unilateral” box, meaning it isn’t contestable. 2. Our Salesforce shows you aren’t close to any other polycule members Unfortunately, our solo-poly access policy doesn’t allow us to extend resources to unpartnered members after the 30 day grace period following your break. This includes entertainment resources (Jellyfin / *darr / nzbget / Pornhub for Enterprise™ seat), as well as O365™, Adobe CC™, and shell access on the Nix clusters. We’re so sorry for your loss, cutie!! 😭💜 If you have any questions, you can reply to this email to generate another ticket, or you can contact zzzoeee@ from our Partner Infra team (note: three Zs and three Es in their LDAP, we have a lot of Zoes here!) —- Regards, ___ (🏳️⚧️she/her, UTC -5) Partner Infra Platform Experiences team As a courtesy, a copy of this email has been sent to your manager listed in Workday™ New name or pronouns? Dating someone new? Just visit go/update-me to update your account! Include this line in your email to comment on the ticket: 250e084a-b937-47a6-948d-b519112ad35a
sheesh, the only thing worse than getting kicked out of the polycule is finding out via jira ticket 😣
Then people can stay in their existing community, but be brought out to their work. The communities then have outside money continuing to come in and don't further come at risk of losing the core services
I can't find it now, but supposedly the more your speed up transport, the further people are willing to travel for work.
Western governments are too incompetent to reverse rural employment problems locally, so why not bring the people to the work.
Provide fast, reliable public transport
They're totally upside down. If you want to save towns you don't stop spending money. Instead you spend money in the towns. Do some projects. Create jobs. Create some buzz. Up the vibe.
Austerity, theoretically, is being tight so good times return, but you actually need to build the good times.
What!
**screams at stupid at best, maliciously incompetent at worst**
UK MPs target VPNs in latest Online Safety Act debate www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-priv...
what the f...actually you know what this is just how it is these days
