Just to add to that, im not much of an economist or anything but my understanding is there’s 2 main levers that can be used - interest rates (monetary policy?) and tax rates (fiscal policy).

Its become orthodox to use the former & ignore the latter, partly because of voter backlash & it can be a bit complicated. But as far as I understand it given sovereign governments can print money & borrow when things are bad to generate economic activity the flipside would be to tax it back out and save it to reduce the supply of money chasing goods.

Some folks argue that would be a tidier way of doing things, who knows?!

https://www.slowboring.com/p/tax-increases-are-the-best-cure-for https://www.corporateknights.com/category-finance/seven-ways-to-tackle-inflation-without-raising-interest-rates/

If you go read up on the history of central banks using interest rate hikes to generate recessions to tame inflation its pretty damn consistent that they often end up overshooting and making things worse than they needed to be to achieve the same result.

There’s a follow up article on RNZ I think talking about this a bit more. One of the ideas someone had is that it could be great in health because they could use AI chatbots to talk to patients in their own language.

Which would be a great service for sure; but like, translation tools already exist and are likely to be better than anything branded as “AI” comes up with for a long time and there’s always like translation services with humans we could just pay to do it without burning the planet.

That’s what excel is; code for people who don’t know they’re writing code - and its clearly a bad way of doing most of the things people do with it.

But on the flipside you have to give it props for getting people a foot into programming, even if they don’t realise that’s what they’re doing (and folks who use actual languages and lines of text to achieve the same thing don’t accept it for what it kinda is).

I think you could make an argument that Excel is the world’s most used/successful IDE ;)

I’d have to see that in action before I pass judgement but given LLMs predilection for hallucination and the vagaries of how humans report tech faults I would be surprised if it was significantly more accurate or effective than a human. After all if its working out if there’s a known issue then essentially its not much beyond a script at that point and in that case do you want to trade the unpredictability of what an LLM might recommend vs something (human or otherwise) that will follow the script?

Even if an LLM were an effective level 0 helpdesk it would still need to overcome the user’s cultural expectation (in many places) that they can pick up the phone and speak to somebody about their problem. Having done that job a long long time ago, diagnosing tech problems for people who don’t understand tech can be a fairly complex process. You have to work through their lack of understanding, lack of technical language. You sometimes have to pick up on cues in their hesitations, frustrated tone of voice etc.

I’m sure an LLM could synthesis that experience 80% of the time, but depending on the tech you’re dealing with you could be missing some pretty major stuff in the 20%, especially if an LLM gives bad instructions, or closes without raising it etc. So you then need to pay someone to monitor the LLM and watch what its doing - at which point you’ve hired your level 1 tech again anyway.

The more I see & hear, the more I think its all grift.

Ie the crypto bros left their coins for nfts, and now they’ve tanked they’re finding something else to burn the planet down in order to scam suckers.

“AI” for health is already known to be very problematic, and nobody wants to see a 10 years down the track commission of inquiry about why some women were not diagnosed correctly from their mammograms.

The chatbots Judith is talking about for tutoring children regularly hallucinate and come up with such stupid things as cooking recipes for petrol spaghetti and other reckless trash. Sounds like a fast way to destroy the education of a bunch of children, but all the rich kids will still be in their private schools with low pupil numbers and enjoying private tutors so why would Judith care.

This sort of thing is pretty consistent with the anecdotal rumours about Luxon’s interactions with pilots and other staff while heading up Air NZ. Which sorta pushes those stories from the probably just made up, to actually maybe they are legit after all. Some of the scuttlebutt stories basically alleged he was a total a-hole; which, yeah I can see it.

I mean a souped up compensator Ford Ranger aint cheap is it!

Yeah I converted mine to the new version - they had a really good guarantee when I bought mine as well which was 10 years, if something breaks send a photo & we’ll send a replacement.

Ive had mine for 10 years and use it daily. Makes pretty good espresso, not as good as a good barista would, but good enough.

https://presso.co.nz/shop/hand-powered-coffee-makers/rok-gc-espresso-maker-silver/

They are pricey given they just do a black coffee and all though.

Just butting in to suggest the Presso.

If you get cycloned and lose power, but have a coffee addiction - then something that can make near Espresso without electricity is a boon!

This is the legal equivalent of “you cut, I choose”.

I love this summary of that latin :)

That I don’t know, though my perspective is that’s up to them to work out and as Pākehā i’ll have to learn how to negotiate that relationship if/when it ever happens.

That’s not a position i’ve always held, but over the years as i’ve read books like ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’ and other stories about the dispossession of indigenous people i’ve come to a much more complicated understanding of the price that was paid for the privilege I enjoy. It’s uncomfortable, but that’s a minor inconvenience compared to the cost others paid.

Just as a suggestion; because its interesting stuff. Maybe have a read of some of the work the Waitangi Tribunal has produced over the years.

What’s been happening in recent years is Act, Don Brash and others approaching the issue with race baiting sound bites. Its mostly vibes and bad faith.

Compare it to the huge amount of research and historical context the Tribunal has put into their work.

https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/report-on-stage-1-of-the-te-paparahi-o-te-raki-inquiry-released-2/ https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/WT-Part-1-Report-on-stage-1-of-the-Te-Paparahi-o-Te-Raki-inquiry.pdf

In any case, to understand where Maori are coming from, its important to remember this finding: "… rangatira who signed te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 did not cede sovereignty to the British Crown.

Ie, if sovereignty wasn’t ceded back in 1840 why should any Maori give two hoots what Seymour thinks?

It would just be a different representative body negotiating the relationship with the pakeha crown I guess. Its entirely their choice as to whether they want to represent as individual iwi or as a whole in that relationship.

I think about it like it seems pretty normal that at an official level the NZ Government talks to the Australian Federal Government, not to the Melbourne mayor :)

A lot of folks don’t understand that the recent more moderate approach by the Crown is still not following the Te Reo version of the treaty which means the approach still does not meet international legal standards for which version matters.

Its really not that impossible to tell. There’s loads of work done over years by historians and lawyers that have helped to bring understanding to the document.

Bear in mind a treaty is effectively a contract, and the Te Reo version was the one signed by the vast majority of Iwi. And even if they had signed both, my non-lawyer understanding is that international falls on the side of the one in the indigenous language in situations like this.

So, now its 2024, the agreement has to be interpreted to come across into English law language norms; and understanding of historical context and meanings of terms matters, that’s why its a bit fuzzy but that’s just the way it is. Act saying its not clear is more a sign that they reject the consensus that has emerged among experts than that there is no clarity.

The principles were clarified. Act just disagree with them so want to change the principles. Partly that’s libertarian principle, but its also just race baiting electioneering. Changing the principles to what Act wants might remove ambiguity and make it clear but its done unilaterally and effectively reneges on the Crown’s commitment to the treaty.

If you want to know why Maori might be angry about that, try telling your bank you have changed your understanding of your responsibilities on a loan document and won’t be meeting their expectations anymore.

Its not just more jobs for more money over in Aus; working conditions are much much better over there thanks to their union movements maintaining influence while ours were deliberately undermined by the 80s “Labour” government, then the 90s National governments.

The fair pay act which Nactional Fist are scrapping would have finally started to bring the balance back into employment negotiations - and while some of it would have been to cause pay to go up, a lot of the focus would have been on ensuring consistent work conditions across industries.

Alas that’s gone now and the gap between us & Aus will just continue to grow.