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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 10h

Right... I've just set up a new (old school, but up-with-the-times) mailing list manager (Mailman 3 - https://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/) for Aotearoa NZ communities. Upon reflection, it seems to me that the last generation or 2 of digital community tools has missed the mark, not providing a […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 16h

If you want to hear the interview with Rene de Monchy for yourself: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019007678/tourism-nz-ceo-rene-de-monchy-speaks-to-ingrid-hipkiss Blech.

Tourism NZ CEO Rene de Monchy speaks to Ingrid Hipkiss

The government is on a mission to increase the number of tourists coming to New Zealand. Tourism New Zealand CEO Rene de Monchy spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

www.rnz.co.nz

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 16h

Wow, this tourism guy on RNZ right now, talking about attracting Chinese tourists to Aotearoa... sounds just like Luxon. "Well look" starts every response. I don't like the guy just based on the way he talks and the fact that he's blithely trying to get people to travel frivolously & […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 1d

Wow, hearing about Robert Murray-Smith's death is sobering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhramXiUrY4 Robert's videos were quirky and his laughter infectious, and he made me wish I had a 3D printer... Robert was an amazing scientist in the most fundamental sense: reading about what's known […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 1d

This is quite a thoughtful takedown of 'AI', especially in art. It helps characters/express something most of us feel but can't quite explain: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal

This is a comic about AI art.

theoatmeal.com

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 1d

[Aerospace Protest]

And so are our gushing pro-space industry politicians - calling for Aotearoa to become part of the arms industry. They're souless shitmerchants. This woman needs a new job. One that doesn't involved making decisions […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 1d

[Aerospace Protest]

As a plane & space buff with engineering qualifications and piloting experience, I'm a big fan, in theory, of aerospace stuff... but I fully support these protestors - https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/575302/arrests-as-protesters-target-christchurch-aerospace-summit - […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 2d

Arg! Turns out I was off in my dates - the libre catch up isn't until *next Tues*, 14 October - it's officially the *second Tuesday of the month*, and I got it wrong. Sigh. See you Tue, 14 Oct, 20:00 NZDT at https://meeting.iridescent.nz!

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 2d

[Aotearoa's economy 'not so bad']

Huh. Interesting assertion: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/575077/opinion-nicola-willis-is-right-the-economy-isn-t-as-bad-as-the-merchants-of-misery-claim

Then, at the end, I see who wrote it:
* Dennis Wesselbaum is an Adjunct Fellow of the New Zealand […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 2d

The sun's out again in Ōtautahi! The local skink community is taking full advantage!

A photo of my Lizardarium, two sets of staggered old clay roofing tiles - with a sunny outlook - set into a dirt pile that's now covered in lush grass and native plants for cover. There are at least 4 native grass skinks visible. Can you spot them?

Another angle of the Lizardarium, should be 4 skinks visible there, too.

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 2d

[Gov't *for* the people, by the people...]

You know all those bridges, highways, national parks, hydro dams, etc. that are now crumbling (and threatening to fall over) due to lack of maintenance all across the USA? Those were all built by FDR's initiatives following the Great Depression. That […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 2d

[Gov't *for* the people, by the people...]

Turns out there's a precedent of gov't working for the interests of the population even if that's against the interests of business and the ultra wealthy: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=r4dk12jenyY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4dk12jenyY We need to do […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 3d

Well darn it all. It appears that one of my 8TB spinning disks (in a home server, used for backups) has failed. 9 months after its warranty ended. Sigh. The other drive, of the same model (purchased 5 months ago) is still going...

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 3d

I've just been reminded we're due for our October #libre catch up - tomorrow, 20:00 NZDT - at https://meeting.iridescent.nz - all welcome! We'll be looking at a few fully Free & Open Source webservices for things like IT system monitoring, home automation & security, project management, and […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 3d

We need one here in Aotearoa for community groups.

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 3d

So, something that's become clear to me is that we still have a real need for self-managing community email lists like we used to have. Many people still use Google Groups, which are horrible. The old Ezmlm and Mailman lists I used to run are now creaky and hard to maintain... I've done a bit of […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 3d

Wow, sending post to the US right now is absurdly expensive and very unreliable... spending a lot of energy on NZPost - not sure it's all their fault - the US is utterly munted, but things seem helluva loose.

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 4d

[Israel Autocracy End to rule-of-law]

This seems very grim: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/04/greta-thunberg-israel-gaza-sweden The Israelis appear to be trying to make an example of Thunberg. So brave of them 🙄 . (<-total sarcasm)

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 6d

@98Percent wow, great to hear this!

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Reposted by Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

Pete the Otrovert @98percent.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 6d

Motueka has become quite a growth "market" for Linux conversions lately. We have just today launched a local bulletin board to support all those new users in the region. If you are interested in #linux feel free to join (if you live in Aotearoa / New Zealand - access is restricted)

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 7d

Anybody out there who uses DigitalOcean cloud services, beware a phishing email telling you you've got an invoice for 'Support Services' that is DigitalOcean branded - check the URL of the payment button (which reveals a sham domain name when you hover over it).

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 9d

[What we (or some of us) do for a living...]

This is magnificent and harrowing: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qGXcDz8PU4A or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGXcDz8PU4A I've long thought we need to break the taboo about questioning what our peers do for work, and what 'markets' corporations choose […]

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Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 10d

@dantheclamman @joncounts sadly, not much in the way of amphibian movement, eh, but I suppose the whistling frogs do move around a bit...

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 @lightweight.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 10d

Here's a picture...

Road in the foreground and rainy green vista of a valley and hills with a faint rainbow stretching into the distance. Dark, angry clouds.

Reposted by Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

Jon Sullivan @joncounts.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 10d

NEWS FLASH: We have CLAMS living on campus!

As part of last week's Sustainability Weed at #LincolnUniversityNZ, our freshwater ecology tutor Elysia Harcombe did some kick sampling along a farm ditch. Yes, she found clams!

It's the first record on #inaturalist of clams on campus, or anywhere in […]

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