Chris Jay

Sunday pm project - why interest rate hikes tank the NZ economy. I'm going to compare NZ to the big daddy of monetary policy, the US. Why? Mainly cos the US has a huge influence on global interest rates and they hit differently there. Let's start with NZ vs US CPI. Similar, huh? Right... [🧵1/n]

📈 GREAT CLIMATE NEWS 📈 Renewables keep powering ahead. They now power *a third* of the world's electricity supply. And that number is only going up and up and up.

US-Canada Trade Talks Collapse, Triggering Trump’s 50% Tariffs (Bloomberg) -- An agreement between the US and Canada to avert a fresh round of tariffs fell apart at the last minute Tariffs kick in 12:01 a.m. EST

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

OK, no break - here we go again with a brand new thread on Day 1618 of Russia's insane and inhumane war on its peaceful neighbour. I appear to be only midway through reporting a big multi-missile attack on Ukraine by Putin's criminal horde. So let's continue..

the American Cinematheque just announced they're doing a big Sam Neill retrospective, which includes (among others) Dead Calm, in the Mouth of Madness, Until the End of the World (!), The Hunt for Red October, Event Horizon, and The Piano (!!)

unless you can clean your entire set of used dishware in 109 seconds (that’s one minute 49) you should always use the dishwasher and not your hands scrape the solids in the trash, DO NOT RINSE, place em directly in the magic box. soap in the door soap on the floor. walk away.

companies are sourcing millions of printed books for AI labs that scan them for training data, then destroy them. printed books are more valuable because they're free of AI slop, and AI labs know destroying them is an "optics problem." www.404media.co/ai-companies...

Yicai: "China has set a target to increase the installed capacity share of wind and solar power to more than 50 percent from 47 percent within the next five years, with relevant annual electricity generation to account for 30 percent of the total." www.yicaiglobal.com/news/china-t...

My random Sam Neil story. An actor friend of mine was cast in a small role on Peaky Blinders. Never receives his script pages. Discovers his role has been pushed to non speaking background, which is less fun/less money. Sam Neil spots him looking dejected on set and finds out.

Last year my spouse and I watched every Michael Mann in order and Thief was a surprise highlight, it’s so effin good

Good read here outlining the positive impact of small scale solar power generation on demand and the grid in Holland (via Business Post)

The arm on NBA star Kelsey Plum, who throws a rolled-up jersey to her dad sitting in the upper bleachers. www.reddit.com/r/AbsoluteUn...

I think Americans don’t realize how old the London Underground is. It was over 40 years old when Mark Twain went on it. Waterloo veterans rode it

This week on Optimizer, a reminder that accuracy in health tracking isn't as important as consistency. None of these smart scales ever gives me the same reading and it's impossible to gain/lose 5% muscle in a day. Fixating on individual numbers is a losing game. tinyurl.com/3vjwhhdz

People keep saying “we can just fix hallucinated references”. They don’t understand that genAI hallucinates EVERYTHING: data, quotes, figures, you name it. References are just the easiest to catch. Friends don’t let friends write with genAI.

June in Tucson is a trial at times, but it must be said that it is the undefeated champion of laundry drying.

"We're shipping so much more code with AI!" "Good, stable code?" "Oh heavens no. No no no. not at all. We couldn't possibly"

let's be clear, let's be very clear, let's be incredibly clear about something: Marcia Lucas is why you love Star Wars. She's why Star Wars worked. She's why it has heart. She's responsible for the in-media-res beginning, she's responsible for basically everything charming and unique about >

Some people think ChatGPT has a place writing things like news briefs, stuff written to a specific style and tone and, y'know, kinda boring. So Science did a study. ChatGPT failed. Why? It got stuff wrong. "Also, extensive editing for hyperbole was needed." www.science.org/content/blog...

🚨NEW: Kerry Kennedy has announced Late Show Host Stephen Colbert is the recipient of the 2025 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for his advocacy for free speech and speaking truth to power. REPOST to congratulate Colbert on this honor!

Knowing (or even suspecting) that you are being observed and classified by a system that can grant or deny access to resources (loans, insurance, etc etc) all force you to modify your behavior to achieve a favorable classification and thus a positive outcome. You discipline yourself.

My favorite is from the final days of the Soviet Union, while Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika programs were under way: An old man is finishing his work at a Moscow office when his wife calls and asks him to get some meat for dinner on his way home. 1/5

Endorsement: I love my 65% Leopold mechanical keyboard with Topre switches and it will probably outlive me. It’s small enough to travel with (I have a case), and it fits my equally small hands.

I think people have yet to wake up to just how amazing e-bikes are. I commute about 20 miles a day, using about 10 cents of electricity. (Mostly on safe trails.) Every time I ride my brain is ecstatic. I get a workout, but don’t need to shower when I get to work.

Yuuuuup. Being an asshole limits your options. Or to put it another way, in any major project there's room for maybe one asshole. That's probably not going to be you, and you shouldn't fight anyone for that role.

🧵Censor, purge, defund - how Trump is following the authoritarian playbook on science & universities. This isn't chaos - it's deliberate & well-established methods. I've mapped 40 actions into 3 categories covering attacks on science, attacks on universities and international collaboration. 1/16

📢 Please Share! 📢

randomly getting mad over an indignity i suffered almost 20 years ago and realizing the current collapse of everything is rubbing everyone's soul raw. be gentle with yourselves and your comrades these days, friends.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This is Marco Rubio explaining how the USA promised to defend Ukraine forever if they got rid of their nuclear arsenal left after the Soviet Union fell. This is why lil marco was sinking into the couch. He was hoping we wouldn’t find it…so don’t RT right now this very second.

Winston Churchill visiting the WH in 1942. Not wearing a suit

It seems almost unavoidable at this point that we are headed for a deep, deep recession. Just based on 200K+ federal firings & pullback of contracts, the March employment report (to be released April 4) seems certain to show bigger job losses than any month ever outside of a few in 2008-9 and 2020.

Nightmare </3 At least 18 people - including 5 children - died in a stampede at the main railway station in India’s capital New Delhi on Saturday night. www.irishtimes.com/world/asia-p...

www.reddit.com/r/firedfeds/...

Roses are red Violets are blue Ideas are green And colourless too

☢️"Massive lawyoffs now paused at US nuclear weapons agency" ..."Managers with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are frantically calling employees back and telling them that -- as of right now -- they're not fired, despite some receiving termination emails and phone calls"

1/Is there more than a five alarm fire? US government pulls money back that had already been deposited in NYC citibank account. Imagine they start pulling money out of your bank account next. No due process, no rule of law, no financial system. www.politico.com/news/2025/02...