The trouble with AI
Is AI the great savoiur for our civilisation? Or a fast track to environmental, social and economic devasation?
Economy
tech industry
Should Kiwis dream of Electric Sheep?
Electricity and Data Centres are a major problem and opportunity for New Zealand.
New Zealand And Palantir
Palantir, founded by Alex Karp and New Zealand citizen Peter Thiel, is at the centre of an array of A.I. driven kill programmes for the US, Israeli and other militaries, including the NZDF.
The Curious Case of Central Otago
How can a region be so pretty, so rich, but so poor?
Trump and Musk: One Big Beautiful Break-up
The world’s richest man has fallen out with the President he helped elect. Elliot Crossan asks: does this mark the beginning of the […]
The Trump Shock: Why the US President Crashed the Global Economy
There is a method to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff madness. The chaos and confusion is deliberate; the aim is nothing less than the […]
USUKAs
US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Originally published on Nick Kelly’s blog Many question the value of the performing arts and drama. At the start of 2024, the ITV […]
My Way or the Huawei
I like my Huawei phone. I’m looking forward to the new Mate 60Pro. It’s launch means the US-led sanctions aiming to crush Huawei, with New Zealand as a fast follower, have completely failed to set back Chinese technology.
Taihoa on AUKUS Pillar 2
Andrew Little says our government is willing to “explore” participating in AUKUS Pillar 2, but “foreign or local voices would not be a factor.” Our leaders will decide he says. I say “taihoa.”
We should have a chat about Artificial Intelligence
As we adjust to the advent of civilisation threatening climate change there is a new threat that is emerging, the unregulated development of artificial intelligence.
What Chat GPT thinks of the Standard
I thought that I would get Chat GPT to write 500 words on the Standard and this is what it came up with.
Can New Zealand’s Tech Sector Ride Adjustment Out?
Remember when New Zealand farming was a sunset industry and tech would rise in its place?
It’s Time.
In seven or eight days from now, the dutiful lackeys of the NZ government and the public health dept they direct, are set to come after every child in NZ between the ages of 5 and 12 with injections of m-RNA to hand.
Friday will change Us As Citizens
While we may have been lifted out of martial lockdowns and some rights have been reinstated in limited form, we have surrendered to another more pervasive power. The power of big data.
New Zealand Superconductors
Just to note a little sadness at the sale of New Zealand’s High Temperature Superconductor business out of Scott Technology (a robotics specialist company based in Dunedin sold to a Brazilian meat company a few years back).
Let the Mills die
From Kawerau to Nelson to Tiwai Point, our accelerated decline of heavy mass manufacturing factories continues.
Rangitata and the Future of the National Party
As National reels from the disastrous 2020 election result could a policy based on high tech agriculture represent a way back?
How to kill the car
What would you do so that instead of wandering endlessly through tilt-slab monstrosities soaked in 80s music and fluorescent lighting, surrounded by oppressed minimum-wage slaves who hate being there and you hating being there worried about your wheeled asset damaged in their carpark instead you get freedom?
Covid-19: Back home again
As a programmer, I’ve had a lot of experience with working from home for work, last time was about 13 years ago. Yesterday we got shifted to working from home. The toolkit has changed a lot even in the last few years. What is going to be interesting for me is to see how companies disperse their employees out in the same way over this pandemic – that will be a real test of productivity.
The death of Holden
Thousands of households across New Zealand heard the announcement of the complete death of the Holden marque this week, as the death of one of the greatest binaries and one of the most closely teased and contested brands of all: Holden versus Ford.
Battery power gets way more interesting
Anyone who has been around tech for the last couple of decades will be aware of the liberating and industry disruptive effect of batteries. This caught my attention – “Tesla May Have Invented a Million-Mile Electric Car Battery”. It was well worth the read.
5G flip flop
Six weeks after banning China’s leading tech firm Huawei from contracts with U.S. businesses, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have reversed it after meeting China’s Premier Xi Jinping.
Digital Corporations: Pay Us What You Owe Us
The Government has indicated that it will seek to tax digital companies from overseas.
Spark vs Spooks
Spark wants Huawei’s 5G technology because its the best and the cheapest. The GCSB spooks don’t want us to have it because 5Eyes and because the US has yanked their chain. The Prime Minister says no decision has been made – the media and the world think it is a goneburger. We should support New Zealand’s Spark, not US corporate interests.
The wonder of e-bikes and e-scooters
The rise of cycleways, e-bikes, and e-scooters is steadily revolutionising commutes around Auckland, especially Central Auckland. Like public transport the economic reasons for commuters are easy to understand. You don’t get ridiculous parking costs or the lousy variable commute times of fat footprint cars jammed up on crowded roads.
How To Get There 30/12/18
Welcome to TS’s Sunday think piece. It’s a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, waiting for your thoughts on the future and How To Get There.
Safe from prying 5Eyes
I like my Huawei phone. Apparently the US National Security Agency can’t break its encryption. That’s presumably the “security” issue why Spark is being blocked from using Huawei, and why Meng Wanzhou is held hostage in Canada at the behest of US neocons.
Spooked!
The GCSB ban on Spark’s use of Huawei technology means this government has gone from “honest broker” to poodle in a very short time. Pressure has been applied by the US and others, apparently fearing we are the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes spy network. Maybe its time we got out of that too – it was designed for war.
Censorship
It seems that if you’re the right person, harbour the correct thoughts, have the right connections, and you don’t like whatever the political opinion, news or information that’s floating about is, then you can get it banned.
More speakers arriving
If you felt like being challenged but can’t quite imagine opening your leftie Facebook after going to Laura Southern, you could always open your minds for another for-profit event with a better class of speakers.
A Question from a Room.
Take a look around the room you’re in. Or if you’re out and about and reading this on some mobile device, then take a look around the next room you enter. Closely.
Would you step into a driverless car?
And would you send your child off to a party in a driverless car?
Facebook Bullshit
A very cursory glance at Facebook, Palantir Technologies, Cambridge Analytica, AggregateIQ, click bait, targeted ads…and what the hell is the FBI playing at?
Global Sharemarkets
Recent volatility in the U.S. stockmarkets has attracted calls that capitalism is facing a crisis. But the reality appears to be different.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership
The positive aspects of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership.