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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • My 2019 mbp is my work daily driver doing fairly heavy design , video, and blender work no problem. Runs well. Probably gets 6-10 hours a day of use. Video rendering a little slow but not egregiously so. It was upgraded to the max though. Its late 2019 intel. Not sure if its on latest OS but shouldn’t be too far behind.


  • Meanwhile the NZ gov use this as a distraction while they display a disgusting lack of humility, regret, or compassion to the people who will be most affected by this. What an embarrassment. They behave as if this is a minor loss by the All Blacks, while traipsing around the world on trade junkets with smarmy CEO-like abandon. Talk about up ending NZ’s already tenuous reputation in the South Pacific, and with our long disrespected neighbour Samoa. Not enough that this gov are trashing our local environment and services within the country. They really had to cherry pick these trolls out of a sea of moderate response , most likely at the instruction of their PR social media and info strategy overlords. I’m sure the skipper of this vessel is suffering enough without her government (and employer) cynically using her as a political opportunity for distraction.











  • A small addition to the discussion - I pay in advance with cash for 10 coffees at a cafe I go to several times a week. Its an informal arrangement, and a very small independent cafe (these are common in my country). If you have a regular spend somewhere ask if they could do this. Obviously it doesn’t work for all things. I wouldn’t do it as a pay later type of tab though otherwise you’re back in credit land. It works for me as its the best coffee in my area, an indie outlet, and they threw in 1 free per 10 paid for. They get my loyalty I guess and money in their bank (or cash in the till)- also bypassing the 3 or so middle men orgs between my bank and their bank by way of visa etc. which is another big motivator for me - we are being reamed in our country with up to 3% charge for using a credit card. Maybe thats common globally?





  • Go check it out yourself dude. My experience is quite different to what is so often reported - such as your point about the high speed rail. The complaints the people using it make are valid (its very experience for example) but it is far from unused. Getting on the things are almost always a gladatorial survival experience, and there are people standing (or sitting on their bags) in the aisles. All anecdotal of course. I guess your point is to do with the absolute control the state (likes to think it) has, including with large vanity engineering projects, the zero rule of law, loose and unfair regulation if any, zero workers rights and so in. All things which give most shareholders of multinationals a huge case of genital envy. The place is beyond hyper consumeristic. None of our concepts or categories apply neatly, because the place , much like the world, is massive, complex, and diverse, with many challenges. If anything I think of it as authoritarian capitalism. True socialist concepts are long gone in actual practice there.


  • The damage done to his life so far is the point. The implication being: it is intended to have a chilling effect on any potential whistleblowers. The absolute ideal for this hegemonic superpower, and any other for that matter, is to have complete freedom to break international law, with impunity, behind completely closed and sealed doors. To ‘protect its interests’ and any human cost without any repercussion. Being exposed doing what they were doing in this case, not that it was the first, has resulted in a ridiculously disproportionate response for this reason. A platform for whistleblowers to easily and anonymously get info to journalists for them to then properly verify, and when and if appropriate report on? Thats a bridge too far. Many commenting here, and the same occurred throughout this whole fiasco, like to get distracted quibbling over the details, but the implications are far wider for us as individuals and as a wider democratic society: if we properly believe in that concept. Governments and militaries have an uncomfortable relationship with the fourth estate. But actual journalism, if we assume this is what we are referring to, is one of the few hopes we have that citizens can be informed politically, rather than devolving into nationalistic drones.