iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

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Clara Murray @claradoodle.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Actually... from my reading of the artists' basic income report, the government did not earn money back from the scheme (although its costs were offset 37%) Most gains were societal and came from putting the artists' improvements in wellbeing in € terms assets.gov.ie/static/docum...

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

"Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement."

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@ratlimit @ratlimit.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

This is the single most overrated image on the internet. Pisses me off how every time I see it, it has thousands of Likes.

Airplane diagram with red dots marking where planes are shot

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 03/10/2025

I went to the new Book Hero store today. It's not huge or fancy but it makes me so happy that an actual physical real-life book store has opened near where I live bookhero.co.nz

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Ah, the joy of freelance life. A couple of 2026 funding pools have just dried up, so if anyoneʻs interested in a project with a Wikipedian, now’s the time to get in touch. www.rove.wiki

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Julian King @juliankingnz.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Thanks to you Aaron, I now have the Bee Gees stuck in my head: It’s just your vibe workin’, you’re telling me lies, yeah; vibe workin’, you wear a disguise…

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 01/10/2025

Am I missing something, or is Woolworths New Zealand really selling wrapped onions for about 2.5x the price of loose onions?

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Paul Brislen @brislen.nz · 30/09/2025

Payment surcharge ban will raise prices www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/payment-s... Payment surcharge ban will raise prices, reduce competition between big and small businesses, officials warned We warned you. Hiding the problem doesn’t fix the problem.

nzherald.co.nz

'Something to hide': Retail NZ hits out as advice shows surcharge ban will raise prices

Ministry advice showed the ban will weaken competition and increase prices for consumers.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 30/09/2025

These words that Nigel Latta wrote in 2015 have always stayed with me

What's the hardest thing about being a parent?

It isn't the sleepless nights, or the endless fights. It isn't the constant worrying about every last little thing, or the constant pestering about every last little thing. It isn't the impact on your work life, your love life, or your social life. It isn't the lack of money, the lack of time, or even the lack of anything approaching a life of your own.

It feels like it's all of those things, but it it's none of them.

In the end, the hardest thing about being a parent is truly understanding that everything comes with a number. You get a certain number of bedtime stories, and a certain number of bedtime kisses. Your get a certain number of roads they'll cross holding your hand, and a certain number of sports matches on a Saturday morning. You get a certain number of bike rides, and a certain number of bad jokes with no real punchline. Most of all... you get a certain number of hours.

One day you'll go to the bucket, and it will be empty.

So--and I'm saying this as much to myself as to anyone else--get as much as you can, of all that you can, for as long as you possibly can. It's the only score you'll get that will ever truly mean anything, and it's also the hardest one to keep track of.

Good luck.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 30/09/2025

Enes Yilmazer usually does tours of luxury properties and superyachts but this tour of a container ship is pretty interesting youtu.be/10bTq3KhjaY

youtu.be

Crossing the ATLANTIC OCEAN on a Containership!

YouTube video by Enes Yilmazer

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 30/09/2025

Craig Mod walks are some of my favourite things

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Ben Harrap @bharrap.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Great pointer from @nrennie.bsky.social on making data visualisations We as makers spend hours with the data and creating the visualisation, but we need to consider those who are looking for 5 seconds #WOMBAT2025 #dataviz

A slide about accurate visualisations asking

Is the chart appropriate
Are the axis ranges reasonable
Is it intuitive
Is the 5 second conclusion the same as the 5 minute conclusion

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Warwick History Post-Doc Club @post-doc-club.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Great news! JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month www.jstor.org/action/showL...

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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 29/09/2025

Looks like my favorite paper on the age trajectory of happiness is finally out!!! So happy for the authors. Go check it out, it’s great.

media.tenor.com

a close up of a man 's face with the words `` it 's done '' written on the bottom .

ALT: a close up of a man 's face with the words `` it 's done '' written on the bottom .

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Chelsea Parlett @chelseaparlett.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Data Science programs often put too little emphasis on causal inference, and it’s hurting their graduates on the job market! The econometrics people are coming for your jobs lol

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Dylan Reeve @dylanreeve.com · 24/09/2025

I just learned about mapspast.org.nz So cool. Go wherever and then use the layers control to explore what old maps are available there.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 23/09/2025

Also … the better your data, the less fancy your analysis needs to be. You can do good work by spending a lot of effort to collect really good data.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 23/09/2025

Always. Count. The. Rows. It has saved me from so many stupid mistakes.

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Peter Ellis @freerangestats.info · 22/09/2025

Genuine life-changing opportunity to become the Programme Manager for the Pacific Data Hub. Based in lovely Nouméa, New Caledonia; responsible for driving regional data stewardship, innovation and sustainable impact. And free of income tax. careers.spc.int/xMiWgK/progr...

careers.spc.int

Programme Manager (Pacific Data Hub)

Noumea-based position Attractive expatriate package Join the principal development organisation in the region Description The Pacific Community (SPC) is the ...

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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Consumer prices rose 3.3% year on year, with prices for imported goods rising by *tackled by an FCC employee*

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 18/09/2025

Jumping on AI just as the bubble is about to burst ...

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 18/09/2025

Ouch, NZ real GDP per capita was -2.1% for the year ended June 2025 vs the year ended June 2024. Since percentages are a bit abstract, that's about -$1,700 per person in today's money.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 17/09/2025

MBIE has released the external economic advice it received about banning credit card surcharges. I haven't read the full report but here are the key findings. Basically, it's a bad idea because it will reduce competition and benefit the credit card operators. www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/...

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 16/09/2025

Good news; bad news www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-...

Chart showing housing rent inflation in New Zealand, it's low and falling

Chart showing the average price of beef mince in New Zealand, it's rising fast

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 14/09/2025

The world is shit. I planted seeds.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 12/09/2025

A visualisation of typical R code for data cleaning with |>

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 11/09/2025

Local candidates: it's not much help telling us you're married with 3 kids and have run your own business. I need to know where you stand on issues: fluoridation, cycleways, water, homelessness, climate change mitigation, housing density, libraries, and which issues you care about most.

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Tom Butlin @tombutlin.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

You seldom see an army of jellyfish attacking a solar farm, do you?

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 10/09/2025

Got routine blood test results back on the same day. Some parts of the NZ public health system seem to be still functioning well.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 09/09/2025

Today in data janitor land: This number in Excel appears to have leading spaces. But TRIM() won't remove them. Why? Because they're non-breaking spaces. But SUBSTITUTE() with CHAR(160) (non-breaking space) won't remove them either. Why?! Because they're actually CHAR(202). Why??! F*cked if I know.

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Tan @tanho.ca · 04/09/2025

was reminded today of the greatness that is ohshitgit.com and how it consistently saves my ass whenever I get into git trouble - the memorable domain name certainly helps! (thank you @ksylor.bsky.social)

ohshitgit.com

Oh Shit, Git!?!

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Andrew Mercer @awmercer.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Expertise is having fucked up in enough different ways that you become able to anticipate it.

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Maarten Lambrechts @maartenzam.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Coder tests his productivity with and without AI, collects data and makes charts to argue AI assisted coding is a hype. Great data journalism

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 03/09/2025

3 more months! And this is pretty funny from Auckland Council. I presume they mean the first opening day rather than being open in general. But still, not something that a properly functioning city should say. www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

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🦝 Pepper Raccoon: Trash Priestess 🦝 @pepperraccoon.com · 02/09/2025

Hey, so, it now costs $63.60 to ship a tshirt to US, where it cost $32 before. It’s also going to cost me an upgraded Shopify plan (way more expensive) and hours to rework my shipping system to integrate the new changes I just can’t do that right now and I also doubt anyone wants to pay that much.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 02/09/2025

Speculators gonna speculate

Polymarket chart for "Will Trump resign in 2025". Probability has spiked in recent days but still just under 6%.

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David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

"This is one of the clumsiest and most embarrassing attempts to evade answering a question I’ve seen from any business leader, for a long time." is what you get with expert reporting commentary that is not just repeating press releases.

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Russel Norman @russelnorman.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

I don't think its even unfreezing. the project has been going ahead for some time, i think it's just a re-announcement of a thing that's already happening. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/tec...

nzherald.co.nz

Tech Insider: Size of four rugby fields – Amazon buys more Auckland land

Amazon expands its data centre presence in West Auckland.

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 01/09/2025

The newly announced $7.5 billion Amazon data centre investment in NZ is just the unfreezing of its investment announced in 2021 that was paused in 2024, right? newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/01/a...

newsroom.co.nz

Tech giant Amazon's $7.5b NZ data centre plan quietly put on hold

Customers were told data centres would open this year, but Amazon hasn't resolved stormwater discharge and construction hasn't started. Jonathan Milne investigates.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

en.wikipedia.org

Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 01/09/2025

Today's working at home highlight was watching the road marking truck repaint the lines on our street. It looks like they use a UV light or something to instantly cure the paint 😎

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Keith Ng @keithng.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

We always thought the problem with AI was that it was going to be smarter than us and replace us. But now, we're staring down the barrel of AI that stunt our learning, starve our artists, and replace our knowledge with slop. It'll become smarter than us just by making us dumber.

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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 28/08/2025

I was the executive director of U.S. Open Data, a non-profit that I created at the behest of the Obama White House. I worked as one of the nation's leading experts in open data. Putting open data on the blockchain is a profoundly stupid idea that fails nearly every test of good open data.

gizmodo.com

The White House Is Going to Put Government Statistics on the Blockchain (Yeah, We Don't Know Why Either)

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Aaron Schiff @schiff.nz · 27/08/2025

Also where are the product safety and consumer protection regulators in this? Compare AI with children’s pyjamas for example.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

This is what $8 worth of potatoes looks like in a NZ supermarket. 🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔

$7.99 box of supposedly amazing actually deeply disappointing potatoes.

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JD Long @jdlong.cerebralmastication.com · 25/08/2025

This is the best macroeconomic meme I’ve seen. Hands down.

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