He owns G-Research, who use big data for investing. “Owns a spy network” seems the most likely here.

I bought Baldur’s Gate 3 early on because it was on GOG. If you’re gonna release a AAA game DRM free on GOG when new I’m gonna support that.

I can’t remember the last time I bought a non-indie game soon after release. Maybe AOE2? I normally do the 5 year delay thing.

In NZ English… “Cheese”. Though we do have a term “tasty” for a 12-18 month aged cheddar cheese that I don’t think is commonly used elsewhere. At the supermarket you’re likely to see “mild” or “tasty” not “cheddar”.

In Māori, “tīhi”. It’s a transliteration of “cheese” into a language that has neither a “ch” nor a “s” sound.

Haha what year is it? 🫤

I don’t even Google non-work stuff on my work computer. I can’t imagine why someone would think they would get away with any inappropriate use of a work computer within what is undoubtedly an enterprise level recording of computer use. Its not exactly a secret that work computers track how they are being used.

Personally we shopped around to find a school with a low focus on academics in the early years and a higher focus on unstructured play and peer interaction.

The research I read at the time explained that progress in the early years (5 and 6 year olds) was closely related to brain development (that no amount of extra support would change), and placing a focus on academic skills at this early age could be detrimental to later learning (due to kids labeling themselves as someone that couldn’t learn).

I also remember listening to an NZ education expert on an RNZ podcast explaining that we expect our education system in NZ would be based on research, but thats not true at all. Seems like we are continuing to head further from the research.

Ok but what do the numbers look like when you add donations to the Taxpayers Union into Act figures?

Do you think there are any editors are RNZ or other press outlets who make pro US, pro Israel, pro EU or pro UK edits

For sure.

Do you think the GCSB investigated anybody for being pro any of those countries?

I would not be surprised at all. The GCSB is presumably investigating various people all day every day as the core part of their job.

I disagree. Freedom of the press involves exactly that. In fact the most of the press in our country is owned by foreigners and you can bet your ass those countries are manipulating the press in order to change public opinion.

I’m really struggling with your argument. You are saying that the foreign owned press is manipulating the public through media and that in your opinion we should not do anything about that?

All the articles in New Zealand media are already too pro-Ukraine. Last month The Press had two pro-Ukraine articles, one by the Ukrainian ambassador, and another by Kate Turska (Mahi For Ukraine).

Those sound like opinion pieces. They are allowed to be biased. You don’t see opinion pieces supporting Russia for invading a neighbour because bothsidesism is not a good journalistic approach. Sometimes actions are not explained by anything other than megalomania.

According to RNZ, talking about colour-revolutions is pro-Russian.

Russia uses this term as a way of saying and protestors demanding democracy are part of a US operation to destabilise a country. I am not sure what RNZ actions you are referring to but I suspect they are right. I would like to know more, if you have a link?

The CIA and USAID are always up to no good in former soviet states.

At this point I feel like this is an undisputed fact of the world. Russia likes to play things as if being against the Russian invasion of Ukraine means you’re pro-US, but it’s possible to denounce all horrible actions by the superpowers.

Isn’t the chain of events:

• Editor makes pro-russia edits over a period of time
• RNZ catches editor doing this, starts reverting edits with notice to readers
• Editor in question resigns
• GCSB investigates whether this was a Russian spy
• outcome was that it wasn’t

I don’t see how anyone went outside their remit. RNZ wasn’t forced to do anything. The editor had already resigned, there’s no intimidation. GCSB seems to be doing what they are there for I’m regards to foreign interference.

I do not believe as you’re implying that freedom of the press involves not investigating foreign states manipulating that press to change the public opinion. Rather I think the press in question would welcome the outcome of this investigation (whatever the outcome). There is no implication here that anyone is forcing RNZ to do anything, only RNZ controlling one of their editors. Surely freedom of the press involves freedom of RNZ to control their editor?

Wait, is this the guy that got caught making minor wording edits to articles about Russia’s war on Ukraine to make them more Russia friendly?

And the article is presenting it like it’s a report that clears the guy of wrongdoing, when from my reading it seems the result of the investigation was that he was absolutely doing it but he wasn’t being paid by Russia so it wasn’t state sponsored foreign interference, the thing they were investigating. Right?

So basically the guy was editing stories to make them more Russia-positive but thinks he’s been cleared of wrongdoing due to not being paid for his acts?

Paywalled?

How do we know this isn’t market manipulation? When stock values are all over the place that’s a good opportunity for people with money to make more money.

Minister ignoring advice from experts, employers and high risk sectors

Sounds about right.

and create a hotline to enable reporting of overzealous road cone use.

Is this a joke?

I guess I just assumed there were strict political advertising rules. Every political ad says something like “authorised by Act party [etc]” so I assumed this meant political advertising had to be authorised by the party. But perhaps this is just so you know that ad was actually published by them (otherwise it would be false advertising I guess).

Man, this would open up so many opportunities if I had the money to spend 20 cents per view on facebook ads!

Woah woah woah… We can do this?

I can make a billboard that says “legalise shooting poor people, vote Act” and that’s legal so long as I put a disclaimer in tiny writing at the bottom?

What about Facebook advertising, we know micro-targeting happens where people get ads that only show them policies they are likely to support. Can I pay for ads that show real Act policies, like “remove all building regulations, vote Act”? And target them at people likely to be non-billionaire Act voters?

Uh sorry but corruption in China is so bad there’s even a Wikipedia page about how bad it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_China

Having laws about things doesn’t make it true, that’s the whole point.

Of course he is. It’s still serving its purpose.

As we’ve heard previously, it’s purpose is to stay in the limelight so other things are not noticed.

I’m not sure how to respond to that. You think the grass is greener but it’s not.

For NZ to be “one of the most corrupt”, that would need to happen in almost all countries. I suspect it’s a single digit number of countries and possibly an amount you can count on one hand.