Marcus

thelawassociation.supershop.nzThe Law Association Supershop

6 Feb

If I owned a house, I would start a garden exclusively planted with seeds obtained from The Law Association of New Zealand thelawassociation.supershop.nz/view/5006

I'm at the Auckland Fabians' Event where Nicky Hager is being interviewed by Simon Wilson and I may very well be the youngest person here 😄 A good 50 or so people have turned up Actually, someone I just spotted seems younger seems to be here so perhaps bottom 5th percentile of age

I was given a free VIP pass ($2499 usually) to one of those business conferences where people theorise about how work is done so I briefly attended today. The first talk I went to included a slide that had an AI generated image of a fence with a hole in it.

Like, I can generally rationalise why people generate images to put on slides even if I wouldn't personally but to generate a regular fence with a hole of all things is completely fucking stupid It's not even a custom fence hole! Just do a regular image search!

events.humanitix.comKawaiicon 4Kawaiicon is one of the myriad technical computer security conferences in the Australia-Pacific region, and certainly the most adorable.

Pylons are cool

Marcus reposted

Kawaiicon

@kawaiicon.bsky.social

Last chance to have your name on your badge! Double check you’ve grabbed your ticket and entered your handle (name) by the end of this weekend (Sunday 11th Oct). events.humanitix.com/kawaiicon-4/...

utf9k.netServing my blog via a govt.nz domainI think there are worse uses of taxpayer money than reading my website

My new large language model sucks. All it seems to do is drink iced coffee and browse government websites! utf9k.net/blog/governm...

@openpolicy.bsky.social There's a bit more detail about zero.govt.nz in here (as well as a fun exploit that I reported a few months back 🤓)

pushsquare.comSony Purportedly Plotting New Ape Escape, as Redemption Arc StartsMonkey business

I am willing to overlook all of Sony's blunders if this is real and actually ships

Push Square@pushsquare.com

Sony Purportedly Plotting New Ape Escape, as Redemption Arc Starts

Ape Escape 3 is a perfect videogame however so this will be a hard one to overcome

dpmc.govt.nzProactive Release: Documents held by the Prime Minister’s office relating to the Smith v Fonterra litigation and related mattersAccessible versionIf you require an accessible version please contact information@dpmc.govt.nz and cite "Proactive Release: Doc

At some point today, DIA released what I assume is the infamous private email chain between Fonterra and the PM's ex-Chief Policy Advisor They note that this was released due to public interest and would otherwise be kept private under normal circumstances www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.n...

Marcus@utf9k.net

I'm not particularly across it myself but for those interested, DPMC have put out a bunch of documents related to the Smith v Fonterra case: www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications...

view.publitas.comFonterra - Climate Change Response Act - Page 1Legislative amendment to clarify the role of the Climate Change Response Act Several large businesses are facing legal action in relation to GHG emissions. The

The attached document mentioned at the start of the chain can be found here: view.publitas.com/fonterra-com...

Oh yeah, there's a GETS RFP up at the moment looking for an AI provider that could handle services for up to 420,000 staff and students I get that inference compute is hard to come by but it still feels directionally wrong that there are no limits on data residency www.gets.govt.nz/TEC/External...

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That said, they are themselves providing all of the infrastructure around the models in use whereas here, institutions may want to directly interface with the OpenAI's and Anthropic's of the world instead of ie; needing some third party to serve up frontier models via Bedrock in Sydney/Melbourne 🤷

As far as I understand, there is a limit in the sense of "You have to stick to whatever residency setup you apply with unless you give notice" but I don't think there's a hard requirement to eventually end up with data resident in APAC in the vein of Heidi having to migrate to NZ when feasible

While it's not as "serious" as healthcare, Heidi Health is seemingly able to handle all of their inference and data storage requirements perfectly fine over in Australia on behalf of hospitals so I don't see why this couldn't be scoped to APAC at its widest

Nick Mowbray posted on LinkedIn a few days ago about "the criticism we receive for donating to National and ACT" I'd be curious to know what source of criticism he's referring to that apparently struck enough of a nerve that he compelled to write a whole post

NZ Election Donations@nzelectiondonation.bsky.social

ACT New Zealand received a $25,000 donation from Nicholas Mowbray on 28 September 2026. The filing was received by the Electoral Commission on 28 September 2026. [ source | filing ]

Labour sent out an email about 10 minutes with this handwritten letter from Chris Hipkins saying he has "just come off the stage" The image metadata (which wasn't removed) shows a Sony ILCE-7CM2 took that photo at 1:45pm so a bit before the 3pm campaign launch actually kicked off 😄

As someone who has worked for a Canadian company, I can confirm that Engineer is a protected term in Canada and so usually the title (for software roles) is replaced with an equivalent like "Expert" Most countries don't have a legal protection of the title and only a small handful do

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engineerscanada.ca/become-an-en...

engineerscanada.caUse of professional title and designations | Engineers CanadaIn Canada, not just anyone can use the title engineer. To practice engineering and use the title engineer, you must be licensed by the engineering regulator for the province/ territory where the title...

privacy.org.nzOffice of the Privacy Commissioner | Privacy Commissioner issues Compliance Notices to Manage My Health and Health NZ

Speaking of, MMH and Te Whatu Ora were both officially issued some compliance notices yesterday by the Privacy Commissioner. Both notices contain specific actions that they have to undertake and report back to the Privacy Commissioner when they've been done www.privacy.org.nz/tuhono-conne...

Marcus@utf9k.net

The NCSC's 2026 Cyber Report has a small factoid about the ManageMyHealth hack that I don't think was public before: > These [valid user] credentials had been stolen through a malware infection known as Lumma Stealer. www.ncsc.govt.nz/assets/insig...

ncsc.govt.nzncsc.govt.nz

ncsc.govt.nzncsc.govt.nz

Unity Books on High Street, Auckland has plenty of copies! In fact, the bookstore was quite empty so a very different scene compared to Wellington last night

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I'm about halfway through the book and this part in the middle made me laugh out loud > Jordan has built this platform for himself, and he's got the keys to this car with this massive engine and he's just driving around going, "Well, I don't know. I'm not a racist."

To be clear, to this part of a larger quote from a source, not a comment by Hager himself

Unity Books on High Street, Auckland has plenty of copies! In fact, the bookstore was quite empty so a very different scene compared to Wellington last night

Here's the Table of Contents for anyone interested. It's definitely not the longest book in the world but you won't hear me complaining 😄

yourbooks.co.nzBook Printing Experts in New Zealand | YourBooks NZBook printing experts. New Zealand’s no. 1 book printer for publishers & self-publishers. Print on demand using web-to-print service.

For some reason, I was under the impression that Potton & Burton themselves had some secret printing press of their own churning this stuff about but according to the back cover, printing was handled by www.yourbooks.co.nz here in Auckland. You too can publish your own expose with a couple clicks!

Marcus reposted

stopthreewaters.nzTaxpayers' Union? Dirty Work.Investigative journalist Nicky Hager's new book Dirty Work promises to pull back the curtain on a decade of Taxpayers' Union involvement in politics

I was browsing the Taxpayers' Union website and I couldn't help but notice that the Stop Three Waters website features in a number of images on their frontpage. Thankfully I came into possession of that domain earlier this year so I set it back up for them with a few tweaks :) stopthreewaters.nz

stopthreewaters.nzTaxpayers' Union? Dirty Work.Investigative journalist Nicky Hager's new book Dirty Work promises to pull back the curtain on a decade of Taxpayers' Union involvement in politics

web.archive.orgThree Waters, Zero GainThe Government have proposed to take billions of dollars' worth of drinking water, waste water, and storm water assets off the hands of local councils and put them under the control of four new unelec...

For reference, here was the original. There's quite a few dead links that should now be active once again which is fun web.archive.org/web/20241105...

I stopped by Unity Books Auckland to ask if they could add me to the wait list for Nicky Hager's book. Apparently they don't know anything so I might have to postpone my leave until they actually know when copies will be available 😄

19 Sept

I happened to be near Whenuapai today so I crossed glancing at the all-of-government data centre off my todo list. It's visible from a small cul-de-sac outside the airbase. I waved at someone to try signal that I wasn't a cooker and just found it interesting but I'm not sure they were convinced 😄

beehive.govt.nzRelease of Years 0-10 curriculum marks education milestoneEducation Minister Erica Stanford today released the final two learning areas – Health and Physical Education and the Arts – completing the release of the updated Years 0-10 New Zealand Curriculum. This follows the release of the Year 0-10 learning areas Technology and Learning Languages, last week.

15 Sept

> Education Minister Erica Stanford today released the final two learning areas – Health and Physical Education and the Arts This is really confusing to read since it looks like three areas at a glance

Beehive NZ@beehivenz.bsky.social

A new release is available from Hon Erica Stanford.

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

People with an interest in supporting those with disabilities may want to get on this, if they haven't already. www.nzrelay.co.nz/about-us "New Zealand Relay is a free, government-funded service that enables people with hearing and speech communication difficulties to use the phone."

> Participants said registration must be one-time, fully accessible in NZSL and plain language, and culturally appropriate for Māori Deaf users. Crucially, an anonymous route for some calls, such as those reporting crime and violence, must be preserved.

Anyway, that ended up being a longer thread than I expected since I ended up just reading large parts at work 😄 There's much more to read beyond what I pulled out

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

> Some community members, however, highlighted that TTY is faced with an impending deadline. New Zealand's landline network is itself scheduled for phaseout. While not in the short term, this broader phase-out does mean that TTY will one day be retired.

> Microsoft Teams creates barriers for users. One submitter said that for her, creating an account took approximately 90 minutes

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

> The potential role of artificial intelligence (AI) was specifically discussed in wānanga. Participants were clear that AI has no role in language, saying that a signing avatar cannot hold a karakia, and that AI is not culturally sound, nor is it a substitute for NZSL interpretation

> The Teletypewriter (TTY) is discussed later in this report. [...] it works over a landline without data > One participant described whānau in the far north who simply cannot connect, and who are therefore not future users of anything other than TTY

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

> These risks are compounded by platform limitations in Microsoft Teams where users have reported an inability to have confidence [...] that conversation histories are deleted after a call, leading to fears that subsequent Interpreters or others using the same device could access private transcripts

> Submissions describe the same pattern—a son who makes and takes calls for his father, colleagues who make calls for a deaf accountant, a husband who speaks for his wife and passes on messages > The designated person is not always accepted by the organisation on the other end of the line

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

> One participant [...] asked the provider why there was a switch away from real-time typing for web-based text relay, and the response she received was that it was a government decision. The participant said the usual response to service shortcomings was ‘it's not within the contract’.

> Personal privacy concerns represent the single largest barrier to registration, identified by 50% of respondents (42 of 84) > an NZSL submitter described the vulnerability of having to disclose sensitive information, such as driver’s licence and bank account numbers through a video call

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

2 of the 3 documents are Paul Buckrell's submission which includes this great quote: > The closing date [...] was extended from 6 July to 20 July after it was discovered [...] MBIE had not directly informed the relevant NGOs nor the Telecommunications Carriers Forum that the consultation was open.

A few random excerpts from the report: > An NZSL submitter reported banks treating Video Interpreting Service (VIS) calls as scam calls

MBIE released their consultation report and a couple other documents a few days ago: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-lib...

Dr. Curiosity@drcuriosity.bsky.social

The consultation report is available as a docx here (www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/...) and I've exported it as a PDF for convenience here (cdn.utf9k.net/documents/nz...)

11 Sept

I'm not particularly across it myself but for those interested, DPMC have put out a bunch of documents related to the Smith v Fonterra case: www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications...