After five years of, brilliantly, NOT losing the better quality sunglasses I invested in, a feat that, amazingly, lasted all through the Covid lockdown period, I finally put them down somewhere away from home and inadvertently donated them to new owners.
The Guardian: “Analysis by the Sutton Trust suggests that Keir Starmer’s cabinet will have the highest number of ministers educated at comprehensive schools, and the lowest proportion in modern history who went to private schools.”
About time too.
This looks like an interesting idea, short form audio blogging… no more than two minutes each time. I may give this a try with my website.
I was on RNZ this morning talking technology… you can listen online www.rnz.co.nz/national/…
… and criticise or otherwise comment here. I’m open to anything other than gratuitous abuse.
Whoever said “a servant cannot serve two masters” clearly never lived in a house with a pair of cats.
On AI art and Stable Diffusion in particular
There’s something wrong with a world where one needs to use the words “no nudity” when setting up a Stable Diffusion AI art prompt.
Surely “no nudity” should be the default? I have many doubts about this technology, the power use is ridiculous and a huge amount of intellectual property theft is nodded through.
Yet nothing is more off-putting and more indicative of moral bankruptcy than the realisation that the assumption that one uses these tools primarily for smut consumption. It’s not just objectification of women, some of the models treat men as sex objects too.
On top of that, what is it with Stable Diffusion models and breasts? Nine out of ten generated images of women have unnaturally large breasts. This adds to the underlying not-quite-safe-for-work vibe.
It is possible to navigate these issues and create safe for work images, but that’s not the prevailing culture of the Stable Diffusion scene. It needs to clean up its act.
From ten years ago on my site, when the Productivity Commission came out in favour of government departments using overseas cloud providers. Not its best moment.
Sitting at the computer while waiting for Stable Diffusion to do its thing is the new “a watched kettle never boils”.
Currently reading a jaunty customer newsletter from a digital service I subscribe to and realised I have absolutely no idea about the jokey cultural references in the text. None whatsoever.
While I realise this is an attempt to connectt with the audience, it actually has the opposite effect on me and now I’m left wondering if I’m compatible with this outfit.
I found my self singing The Ramones “I want to be sedated” on the way to having my wisdom teeth extraction earlier this week.
Forgot all about this… it hit the spot.
My last vestiges of Englishness are my accent, watching the football team being not quite good enough and wanting the cricket team to win, but only against Australia.
And crumpets. I almost forgot that I love eating crumpets.
One of my enduring memories of a wonderful break in Dunedin was eating the most beautiful fish outdoors at Fleurs in the early spring sunshine when a Sea Lion came and sat about 3m away. It’s a must visit whenever in Otago
Back home from having my wisdom teeth. Removed and catching up on missed Euro 24 games while waiting for the anesthetic to wear off.
This morning’s Turkey - Georgia game was an absolute cracker.
In hindsight I was never angry enough to be a Twitter notable. Totally relaxed with that.
Watching the Euro 2024 game between Portugal and the Czech Republic on The TVNZ iPad app. The app went dark with a fatal error. When I got it running again, the Czech Republic had scored in the ~ 90 seconds of down time.
This is why New Zealand always needed more than The Southern Cross cable network. And could still do with one more international link.
Realised today that the small stash of banknotes and coins I keep for buying strawberries, cherries and other fruit from roadside vendors in summer simply doesn’t get touched for eight months of the year.
Any fool can write a good press release that hits its target audience and creates an impact. Writing one that fails means work. Here’s a guide.
In the past 5 years two local businesses I loved closed their doors after the landlord increased rent by much more than the rate of inflation. One shop stayed empty, and clearly not earning rent, for four years. The other shop has been empty two years. The first is now leased, but the tenant told me they pay less rent than the tenant who moved out four years ago earlier.
As a nod towards the early, glory, days of the internet, I’ve decided to reinstate the Blog Roll. It’s still a work in progress. Check back in a week.
Do you think anyone in New Zealand would buy a Cybertruck if they could?
(I asked the same question years ago about the Hummer a couple of days before spotting on on the Harbour Bridge).
New Zealand’s overlooked billion-dollar industry
From my story in the NZ Herald:
“New Zealand’s financial technology sector is booming. Over the past decade, it has expanded at an annual compound growth rate of 32 per cent. That’s four times as fast as the overall tech sector.
That growth has taken the fintech sector to the point where it is roughly the same size as New Zealand’s wine industry.”
Read more at: www.nzherald.co.nz/business/…
I was hoping the news industry would see me out until retirement. That ambition is not looking too good today.
New Zealand’s overlooked billion-dollar industry
From my story in the NZ Herald:
“New Zealand’s financial technology sector is booming. Over the past decade, it has expanded at an annual compound growth rate of 32 per cent. That’s four times as fast as the overall tech sector.
That growth has taken the fintech sector to the point where it is roughly the same size as New Zealand’s wine industry.”
Read more at: www.nzherald.co.nz/business/…