Mark
@maetl.bsky.social
760 followers 260 following 3.1K posts
Lecturer in Product Design at UCNZ. Tech industry dropout. Narrative systems and geoscience meddler. Old school web sectary. Frankenbike curator. Waste stream wrangler.
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maetl.bsky.social
I don’t want raytracing or photorealism, I want the lo-fi dwarfs in their fortress to be standing in grid cells backed by a fully simulated carbon cycle, atmospheric fluid flow, insolation, atmospheric chemistry, evapotranspiration, geological strata, ecological systems...
maetl.bsky.social
Can I get over my fear and loathing of setting up front derailleurs and go for an old school triple?
maetl.bsky.social
Another great salvage object, off a crusty old Marin that was abandoned at UC. Alivio was Shimano’s downmarket line but these 1999 cranks hold up very favourably now. They’re crying out to go on a late 90s monster cross conversion.
Shimano Alivio cranks from 1999
maetl.bsky.social
We need to grow up as a country and society.
publicaddress.bsky.social
The NZ Drug Foundation has a major new report pressing the case for a replacement of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which turns 50 this month. Thing is, its recommendations – for a complete realignment to health, not criminalisation and punishment, are ... drugfoundation.org.nz/topics/polic...
Safer drug laws
We need safer drug laws for Aotearoa New Zealand - our new report sets out a pragmatic, evidence-based way forward.
drugfoundation.org.nz
maetl.bsky.social
*rush of breath* I also have a lot to say about the complexities of that particular hour of television.

But yes what a lovely day. If I didn’t have a huge pile of marking to do I’d be heading for the hills, climb up as high and as far away from it all as possible in a few hours. Mauri Ora.
maetl.bsky.social
I don’t have time or energy for reckons on this today, but will say there is a huge cultural and understanding gap in NZ around how to design and build such databases and visualise the connections to a high standard.
maetl.bsky.social
Shaw was attacked a day before the atrocity in ChCh, so it just wasn’t ever possible to make news cycle sausage with it, even if they’d tried.
maetl.bsky.social
Will never fall off.
Reposted by Mark
thebasement.nz
What sort of person looks at the state of this world and goes “more weapons are needed. We could be good at making new weapons”?
maetl.bsky.social
This is incredible, well done
maetl.bsky.social
The first waves of neoliberalism made it clear to the upcoming generation of artists and musicians that the post war social contract and access to stable employment was over, even before the advanced rentier economy and housing crisis. In this essay I will…
maetl.bsky.social
Maybe listening in the present reinterprets the past, but then again, fucken Ruth Richardson is getting wheeled out in the media in 2024–25, so I feel like that connection has been forced anyway.
maetl.bsky.social
Tangent but vaguely relevant. The last 94 song I listened to (this week!) was ‘Sitting inside My Head’ and it had never occurred to me that the intro was environmental storytelling of Auckland in an economic recession.

“I walk around this town where buildings are closed and windows are boarded…”
maetl.bsky.social
The next one is considered a masterpiece but I think Leftism will always sit with me as the big one.
maetl.bsky.social
I forgot that Leftfield album was 94.
Reposted by Mark
maetl.bsky.social
Come work with us to define the future of digital design education in Aotearoa! We’re looking for candidates with strong background in teaching, research, design practice, and experience with web platform, game engines, or mobile apps.
#AcademicJobs #AcademicSky
jobs.canterbury.ac.nz/jobdetails/a...
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Digital Product Design - University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha
jobs.canterbury.ac.nz
maetl.bsky.social
In my experience the “You first” dynamic is at the core of so many workplace conflicts.
maetl.bsky.social
Source: www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

Not all of this sits well with me and the piece does struggle to get beyond the specific literary/essay metathing it is critiquing but good to see some thinking that isn’t handwringing or abdicating from responsibility and public power.
Large Language Muddle | The Editors
The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...
www.nplusonemag.com
maetl.bsky.social
...so we’re not exactly well prepared to deal with something equally malleable but abstract and intangible, with a much more skewed cost/benefit relationship.
maetl.bsky.social
We’ve never had a particularly coherent social reckoning or even much understanding and shared agreement on how plastic has terraformed the human condition and how much it is relied on for *everything*...
maetl.bsky.social
The analogy I’ve been using is disposable vapes, but this is an interesting way of putting it.
A blockquote from the N+1 essay ‘Large Language Muddle’ that says: “AI-made material is a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.”
Reposted by Mark
unormal.bsky.social
running through a low tier zone in world of warcraft on your mount
wutangforchildren.bsky.social
ICE Nazis in Chicago tried to kidnap a food delivery worker but my man was too fast for those slow bastards
maetl.bsky.social
He plundered IBM’s underutilised database R&D in the 1980s, in the same way that Jobs and Gates plundered Xerox. First major Oracle client was the CIA. Heart of the empire stuff.
maetl.bsky.social
We’d also love to hear from researchers with deep expertise in type design and font engineering; information architecture and data visualisation; or similar niches adjacent to product design who might thrive in our unique interdisciplinary context.
#AcademicJobs #AcademicSky
maetl.bsky.social
Come work with us to define the future of digital design education in Aotearoa! We’re looking for candidates with strong background in teaching, research, design practice, and experience with web platform, game engines, or mobile apps.
#AcademicJobs #AcademicSky
jobs.canterbury.ac.nz/jobdetails/a...
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Digital Product Design - University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha
jobs.canterbury.ac.nz