Aotearoa / New Zealand

If we don't already, we need to start associating AI advertising with poor quality products from companies that don't really care.

Also that advert is just the most generic thing I've seen in a long time. Very forgettable.

Aotearoa has reclaimed the Guinness World Record for the largest haka from France after thousands performed Ka Mate at Auckland's Eden Park on Sunday.

The previous official record was 4028, held by France since 2014.

People travelled from far and wide to support the kaupapa, with American TV host Conan O'Brien, director Taika Waititi and boxer David Tua spotted in the crowd.

Gates opened at 4.30pm before the haka attempt itself just after 8pm. Local entertainment included Six60, Alien Weaponry, Che Fu, Rob Ruha and the Topp Twins.

The haka had to be performed for one minute, so those present performed Ka Mate four times in a row.

I didn't "watch live" but I guess that's a warning the article may change. Here are some snippets as it currently stands:

Schools won't be able to hold teacher-only days during term time and parents of students absent for 15 days could be prosecuted, Associate Education Minister David Seymour has announced in a new truancy crackdown.

Schools must have a stepped attendance response (STAR) plan in place by the beginning of the 2026 school year.

Seymour set out an example:

• Five days absent: School contacts parents/guardians to determine a reason and set expectations
• 10 days absent: School leaders meet with parents/guardians and student to develop a plan to address barriers to attendance and "the obligation goes onto services such as attendance, Oranga Tamariki and the local police"
• 15 days absent: Ministry takes over the response, including possible prosecution of parents

Each school would also be asked to share attendance information with Oranga Tamariki, police, and MSD, he said.

Hopefully, the solution is new boats that are a more sensible size, and don't need the extensive infrastructure upgrades the new fleet would have required. One of the cancelled designs would have been a similar displacement to our current fleet of three.

I really hope the solution isn't another clapped out beater from Europe.

You may have missed Friday's newsletter where I ran a ruler over telecoms market competition in the two years following the 2degrees merger.

Interested for any feedback on this: Do you have any insight into market competition?

https://billbennett.co.nz/2degrees-vocus-merger-competition/

Would you want to know about this if you were planning to have this person live on your property? What an absolute nightmare.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Like anyone can fucking afford to buy coffee or lunch right now.

While I'm never excited about these general uses, it seems like they did a reasonably good job with this experiment. Hopefully other Dept's don't just loosely 'throw it in'...

Some tidbits:

The AI operated on a fixed dataset. It did not collect information, nor did it tap into the main client record systems, so privacy risks were low.

It did not learn from the queries staff made or the information they used with it, and did not add that information to its learning banks, the reports said.

The two tests - first with 25 staff, then with 300 - found that along with boosts to service came gains in employee wellbeing, such as helping people with ADHD or poor hearing focus more in meetings, or those with dyslexia to revise content.

I wonder what option the greens will have from here.

I disagree with introducing tipping here. It feels like the public is being asked to prop up the hospitality industry and cover for low wages. If workers aren't being paid enough, that's an issue employers and the government need to fix, not something customers should take on.

What do you think? Should tipping become the norm in New Zealand?

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

I think I posted the story about the original break in, but what an operation. It sounds like they were importing the tobacco in bulk, then manufacturing the cigarettes, as well as forging the packaging.

For those reading this that aren't in NZ, cigarettes are very expensive here, over $2 a cigarette for some brands, and it's mostly tax.

What arsehole teachers.

I empathize with the mum, worrying about the government cutting the program.... They will be looking for any excuse

Archived link

Next week a New Zealand woman will sit before a committee at The Hague and try to convince them to help her brother, locked up in a Chinese prison for the past seven years. Rizwangul NurMuhammad talks to Paula Penfold about her fight, her guilt — and her hope.

Rizawangul (Riz) NurMuhammad returns to the theme of guilt at least half a dozen times during our hour-long conversation.

She’s a New Zealand citizen granted asylum in 2011. She’s Uyghur, a member of the Muslim minority in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province.

And she feels guilty because she’s watched cases internationally where imprisoned Uyghurs have been freed, and she feels she’s failed her brother Mewlan.

[...]

Mewlan was a fibre network engineer for China Telecom in Bole City. One lunch break in January 2017, he was taken by plain clothes police. “They didn’t provide an explanation for why they were arresting him. He was taken for questioning and then we expected he would be freed soon because he has done nothing wrong.”

[...]

China’s Embassy in Wellington told Stuff he was sentenced in August 2017 to nine years in prison for “separatist activities”. It did not specify what those activities were.

I was curious to hear what people think of the telecom breakup into chorus (and wasn't there a third party as well?) after all these years?

I was working there at the time, so some of the staff training was entertaining. I felt like they seemed to be on board with the general thrust of the changes, which I was a little surprised about (I expected a little more lip-service, I guess?)

Has it been a good change? I feel like the national fibre has been great but that's not actually related (but may have relied on the breakup as a precursor?)

"Is this one motorway really worth one-tenth of our entire country's spending on schools, hospitals, houses and public transport infrastructure?"

What the actual fuck!

I've bought a bunch of stuff from Cactus Outdoors over the years, but I'm finding that their cuts don't really fit me very well and are also a bit on the higher end price-wise. Love their bags though. Do you have any NZ-made brands that you can recommend?

The Commerce Commission has given carriers a year to lift their mobile coverage map game and wants simpler plan exits within six months. Customers are more satisfied with mobile than broadband. Amazon's New Zealand LEO plan emerges from stealth mode.

This is a blatant self promotion of the latest newsletter from my site. If that's not allowed, I'll stop, but I wanted to see if there is any interest in discussing the main topic in today's newsletter.

We're paying higher prices, specials are confusing and loyalty schemes aren't delivering overly significant rewards.

Those aren't just the musings of a frustrated supermarket shopper - but are some of the findings in the Commerce Commission's first annual grocery report, issued on Wednesday.

Rewards schemes were only giving a return of between 0.71 percent for Flybuys and 0.75 percent for Everyday Rewards.

Between 2007 and 2019, the average weekly spend on grocery food increased 7.3 percent every three years but the latest data showed a leap of 28.9 percent.

The commission's report said supermarkets would point to their own rising costs as the reason for price rises.

But it said margins had continued to grow - all of the major supermarkets had experienced an increase in price-cost margins, which meant that retail prices were increasing faster than the cost of the goods.

The report said supermarkets "continue to achieve higher levels of profitability than we would expect in a workably competitive market".

It was not likely that Costco would be able to expand to the point where it could become a serious third supermarket contender, it said.

The report said the Warehouse could be an option - its network of shops meant it was in a good position to encourage shoppers to split their shopping in many cases - but it had said it had no intention of raising the capital needed to compete.

The "five things" don't work that well as a list, but they are:

• High prices aren't in your head
• Competition is not bringing down margins, or prices
• Other competitors aren't finding it easy
• Innovation, but is it what we want?
• Would fines make a difference?

Police don't even know whose money it is, or where it came from. I think they should be able to keep it.

I've got a laptop and a PC. I've connected my monitors, keyboard, camera, etc to this docking station

This works like a charm from both my laptop as well as my PC. However, switching between the two is annoying as it involves unplugging & plugging in.

Is there a USB switch I can connect the docking station to, and then a cable each to my PC and Desktop? The docking station has host charging, so it charges my laptop, so I guess the USB switch needs to be powered, or not?

I saw this one which has good reviews.

Just after 4pm this afternoon NZ5366 travelling from Christchurch to Wellington landed safely after smoke was seen coming from the engine," Air New Zealand Head of Flight Operations, Hugh Pearce said in a statement.

"The aircraft was met by emergency services and all passengers have disembarked safely.

Pearce later added that the cause remains under investigation.

I'm quite surprised a vessel like this isn't NZ flagged, given it's operating exclusively in NZ waters.