Shit you not, in my previous job I heard this was happening (via a colleague who uses TikTok) and in the next recruitment run I checked some of the documents loaded up in applications, to see if anyone had snuck white font text in. Of 30 applications, 3 had. Using words that could be found in our job descriptions. Just tucked away in between paragraphs and in page breaks. We don't use AI in our recruitment so it may as well not have been there but, interesting to spot once you start to look for it. We knew people were using AI to write cover letters, and it was fairly obvious when the letter was a little too immaculate and had absolutely zero personality. White font though, that was a new one.
Gardening! Tomatoes! (growing very nicely) Cucumbers (they snuck up, I didn't see these until yesterday, very well hidden) Chillies! (this is very new, still got the flower at the end but I was excited) So I will have a bountiful harvest, and likely more than I will be able to eat, so friends and family will have impromptu salads and veggies forced upon them.
Reading Iron Gold I found myself struggling to get through it. There was a timeskip and a sudden shift to multiple POVs. Both aspects surprised me and I found myself trudging through it a little bit. It was hard to suddenly care about these strangers after having one POV the entire time. However about 1/3 of the way through it clicked and I was on board again, as things began to coalesce. The next two books I didn't have any issues with and devoured them greedily. Especially as later on you get the POV of a character whose head I always wanted to get inside of. I also felt Morningstar finished in such a way that had nothing else been written after, I'd have been happy. That said I'm very glad I got past my initial reluctance in fourth book, it was well worth it and I'm hanging out for the final book now!
That would make sense. I don't recall a resounding "Ugh" when finishing that particular book, but I must not have been as invested as I was at the start.
The joys of enjoying my job and leaving a shitty environment are still being realised. This weekend just past I did so much yardwork. Hedges trimmed, weeds whacked, lawns mowed, veggies maintained. Then my partner and I went out on a wee date to an art exhibition at Tūhura, our local museum. My partner is a big fan of this artist's work. I didn't know much about them but said artist's Instagram handle is 'Flesh_Dozer' so.. I was curious at the very least. Anyway it was good fun, and even on Sunday night after the yardwork and the date and the socialising, I found myself still with energy to burn. I don't recall ever feeling this full of life. I hope it continues for a while yet.
A Hubski flask!
Rugby World Cup final this weekend. NZ vs South Africa - the old foe. The winner will lift the Cup for a record 4th time, though NZ have undergone quite the redemption arc. 12 months ago NZ had lost a home series to Ireland (first time that's happened) a first home loss to Argentina, as well as record points loss against South Africa. Looking back even further, the last four years have felt like the swansong of the dominant era of NZ rugby. First loss to Ireland, first loss to Argentina. England in the 2019 World Cup dismantled NZ so thoroughly I think the psychic damage is still being felt. I'd never seen a team unstitch us so effectively. The coach and the captain were on the chopping block, but in the space of a year they've turned it around. They nearly put 100 points past Italy, toppled No. 1 Ireland, breezed past a fiesty Argentina and will now face the big dogs in the final. Uhh yeah. Rugby rah rah. Two months into Spring aaand it's snowing outside my office window. Fingers crossed it starts to settle and my boss tells me to go home, I'll start the weekend early.
Tomatos? In. Chilies? In. Pumpkin? In. Will Pumpkin or chilies grow in southern NZ? Dunno, let's find out. Cucumbers? Going in next. I was sent to a course this week, covering ITIL. That was some dry fuckin' content. Passed the exam comfortably, but wow... I spent three days trying to keep my eyes open. NZ held off the strongest Irish rugby team in history to go through to the Semi-Finals of the World Cup. I had money on Ireland winning, they were looking imperious and had been the last 2 years. But somehow we fended them off. I really feel for Ireland. They've made it to the quarter-finals in all but one World Cup, and every time they get beaten. This was the best equipped they'd ever been but the curse remains. I'm going in to town to watch the Semi tomorrow morning 8am kick off for us. Bars are open, though I'm unsure if I want to start my day with a beer. The garden calls to me, afterall.
A while back, NMS had a bit of a resurgence in our gaming crew. We all hopped on and fucked about the stars, building bases and using terrain manipulators to make dirt-dick-monuments. I can't recall who it was that discovered it in our group, but we were soon following these simple instructions: 1. Go to a space station. 2. Swap your ship with an NPC in the landing pad area. 3. Immediately scrap your new ship for parts, and sell those parts for mad profit. 4. Sprint back to the NPC. 5. CLAIM YOUR SHIP BACK FOR FREE. 6. Rinse and repeat. The devs might have since patched it out, but at the end of it all I tapped out at a little over $4 billion which appears to be bang on for the in-game limit. I wonder if the money is still there or if they recognised people were abusing the absolute shit out of this and reset. Might login and find out. Anyway I feel the same, I've restarted a few times now and the allure has long gone. I'm pleased they turned the game around from such an awful launch, but it ain't for me these days.
At my new job I've been learning how to create remote servers and use things like Powershell. It's so exciting. I genuinely get amped when I need to create something. I whisper.. "...Powershell..." under my breath every time I get to open it. Partly to annoy the older colleagues (who are lovely). I have three monitors and I used to think two was overkill, now I find three just the perfect amount. There's probably a threshold for how much information I can actually take in from the screens but so far, so good. AND! And. We're shifting offices early next year, off campus. The plan is to adopt a proper hybrid style of working, and so I've been asked "How many days do you think you'd need to be in the office?". It looks like I'll be working remotely for 3 days, and in the office for 2. We do 7.5 hour days here, so only 15 hours in the office every week sounds delightful. Commuting eased, parking costs eased. To the surprise of absolutely no-one, this show of trust in me has me working harder to repay said trust. I'm no longer dragging myself out of bed and wincing when I remember it's not Friday. Instead, I'm up. I'm dressed. I'm in the office muttering "Powershell" and picking weird selections for the Rugby World Cup matches, talking video games with all the other nerds in the building, picking up tickets and fixing problems before they have a chance to materalise. They wanted a highly social, flowery communicator who happened to love IT? They got one. I am home. Games? Games. The mother of all backlogs is in full swing. I have: - Baldurs Gate 3 - Starfield (admittedly I may not return to this, felt devoid of any 'soul') - Destiny 2 (still on my plate, will be for another year at least) - Armoured Core 6 - Sea of Stars - Cyberpunk 2077 DLC - Lies of P - Horizon Forbidden West - Returnal - It Takes Two And more that my brother has purchased for us to play over the last 12 months. Gardening! Tunnelhouse setup should be arriving next week, just as the wild weather eases up. Tomatos going in as soon as I can wind-proof the tunnelhouse. I'm excited to win some battles against the neighborhood cats shitting in my every plant bed. Making moves.
My employer is on a short, sharp rollercoaster with this. Covid hit -> remote work encouraged -> general applause at the minimal disruption to BAU -> Covid "ended" -> 'get back in our expensive offices you ungrateful jackasses' -> financial crisis -> 'can people work remotely so we can sell buildings or escape leases? Please? Pleeeease?'unpopular return-to-office mandates may be to blame. Human resources professionals should reconsider and advocate for flexible or fully remote work environments.
"‘Uh, I keep getting voicemails from Rudy Giuliani about how we can Stop the Steal? Any way you can stop that?’" Brilliant read.
Yep same in NZ, two-thirds here too. No matter what we do, someone is getting burnt. House prices fall? Interest rates climb. Chuck inflation in there and ohh boy. We're going from a 2.90% rate into something north of 7% in October this year. It's gonna fuckin' suuuuuck. We've planned for this by upping our current repayments (to the threshold, just before we would be penalised) to prepare for the increase. That said, we're in a far better position than most, and we're grateful to only feel a pinch, not be forced out of our home. Now I think about it, we had an absolute dream run to purchasing the house. - Both myself and my partner got a gift from our respective families, bumping our deposit from 10-15% to like 32%. - I had money put into my retirement fund that I was allowed to dip into for buying a first house - The banks hadn't yet started their incredibly invasive perusal of our spending, so we were practically waved through the approval process. - We loaned less than we were approved for. - We only visited 10 open homes, and settled on the first one we saw. - It was under offer, but that offer came with finance conditions and we had everything ready to go. - The building inspection came back glowing, not even signs of borer (almost impossible to not have them down south). - We made the offer, got it, and everything was signed off. July 2021 we started looking after receiving the money, October 2021 we had moved into our home. December 2021 the market began to tumble, but I guess we're in now. We don't intend to sell, just going to chip away at it as effectively as we can. Still, fuck house prices.
Consider me curious.
Geopolitics becomes fascinating when KB is dropping links. I appreciate all the information. I'm adding it to my arsenal for when the very occasional acquaintance of mine starts up about this whole war. I would never have guessed I'd have Putin-sympathizers in my social circles, but I guess that's how they get ya.
Almost a year now! My partner and I went over for a wedding, and we tacked on some holiday time either side of the wedding weekend. All up about 12 days there, and we barely scratched the surface of what we wanted to do. Definitely letting you know when I get over there next! We heard that from the locals, that things were slowly rebuilding but there was a lot to do. What we want to do next visit, is spend a lot more time in the suburbs. Try out commuting in for things, getting around during the peak hours. Not the whole time, but we want to understand life there outside of holiday mode. The rental side of things is a doozy though. We have a painfully won house here, and we'd either have to rent it or sell it off beforehand, and jump straight into renting over there. Lots to consider, but again, loved the place. We're likely heading back over there this year!
I can't wait to return to Melbourne. I can 100% see myself living there in the future. I've always lived surrounded by green and Melbourne had just enough of it, despite having my country's population crammed into it.
Piling in to agree with that. While not the exact same scenario, we just finished another round of interviews, and one candidate was awesome but didn't like the sound of any of the roles we initially wanted to interview her for. Many people might accept a job as it's a job, but she was brave and said "This has been great, but they're all very clinical focused roles and I don't know if I want to leap into that." and I said "Cool, appreciate the honesty." and she asked if there was anything more focused in supporting academia. I said I'd check and get back to her. Called a colleague across campus, sure enough they're jonesing for someone bright and capable. Passed on her number and they had a less formal interview the next day. Pretty sure she's hired now. Anyway point being, no harm in asking.
Continuously jelly about the meetups that happen, but super pleased to see them happening :)
That does make me feel better about my ~1000 hours into Battlefield V. There was a moment where my teammates and myself were recognized in a lobby and I went from "Heh nice" to "Ah fuck" in about three seconds, as I realized it meant we were the basement dwelling sweatlords. I probably took all my shame out on this poor dude just trying to take the point - https://streamable.com/ijmh91 switch to sidearm for max flex, slide-by, one shot, sorry m8 I'm feeling antsy and you happened to be nearby. Destiny though - you've reminded me of something. Last year, at work, I was a part of making a video documenting the work that goes on in our area. It was a fun side project my boss cooked up. Anyway, the guy brought in to do the video work had a nice jacket on. A jacket with a symbol that looked familiar. The Destiny raid symbol. Turns out he was in a clan that completed a global first raid and got the jacket as a prize (I suspect still cost a pretty penny), and I was keen to talk briefly about Destiny cause I casually enjoyed it. I said "I've finished one raid, with the baths? and the race? That was cool" and you could see the sneer barely hidden from his face. Oh. Oh that's the real Destiny player. Not me popping in once or twice a year to shoot stuff. The guys that breathe it. The guys that have the right weapon for every stage of a raid. Not me, who uses Riskrunner cause I like it and the idea of taking damage to deal more damage tickles me pink.
Lawd - It's telling that I talked about ping, and didn't even think of the horrid time difference. 2pm Thursday right now, must be evening Wednesday for you? Somehow we made it work, I'm the only Kiwi so I work around their reasonable Aussie schedule, but most of them have kids, partners and.. Lives. So last night was a veritable miracle and I doubt we'll see it again, despite our plans. I hop in and out of the game, I can not play it for a year or two then the group has the urge like we do now. As you say, it's very try-hard and we're old, slow dudes now.
The Lightfall expansion has many issues (narrative being a major one) but it is still a wonderful feeling shooter to enjoy with friends. If it weren't for the, presumably, terrible ping issues we'd encounter I'd invite you along for a blast. That and the expansions are hilariously expensive. It's dumb, but you can switch off the brain for a bit and watch numbers go up.
Speaking as someone working in a university, watching it crumble despite our best efforts to keep it aloft - hear, hear.they're entirely banking on the whims of a bunch of disinterested boomers and letting a generation bypass them entirely.
I took up meditation every morning specifically to combat my anxiety (at the time, crippling). Sure enough it was 2016/2017, and there were so many apps floating around. I used Headspace for a year, the guy's voice was easy to listen to. But after a certain period I just didn't need the instruction anymore. Positioning myself outside to look in, I think I need to pick it back up again.
Is there specific terminology for the style he talks/writes with? It's fucking astounding he can get a point across. That was legit one run-on sentence until "Protest", but he rubbed against so many topics getting to it.
I enjoy this unit of measurement, because it implies the other Corgi variant (cardigan) might have its own unique qualities to note.A meteor around the size of a Pembroke Welsh Corgi
God, I'm glad you enjoy it. I wondered about picking up climbing, there's a cool venue in my city dedicated to it and those I know who do it, absolutely love it. Scaling shit? Exercise? Mad forearm pumps? Hell yeah. Would my weight be a struggle, do you think? I'm certainly fit in a general sense, but I know climbing is something else entirely. I'm like, 95kg usually and I can do pullups with ease, but not sure that would transfer well to actually climbing a wall. I assumed I'd have to lose weight and drop my overall strength to actually do it.
I am more invested in your emotional health/dating success than I expected to be. I really hope things work out for you. But I do think you've handled the 'Girl from Dec' saga as best as you could. You went in excited, hopeful and willing to be malleable, can't ask for much else. Sounds terrifying. Are you scaling a wall like normal climbing, but it's also ice?for a week of ice climbing.
I wrote all of that out at work during a down period, and realised you were in fact talking about education/teachers. My bad. From a recent chat with a friend of mine who is currently a teacher, he was explaining that the salaries go up slightly every year or so, not usually in line with inflation but a boost nonetheless. Looks like the base rate for a fresh primary school teacher in NZ is: 2019 = 48k 2020 = 49k 2021 = 51k Secondary starts slightly higher, but taps out similarly at 90k even with an MA/PhD - so you're left having to tack things on like being a Director or Principal to have extra allowance. As to the government involvement in pushing for higher pay in any kind of educational institute? I think we're often left bouncing between Labour and National - one will stay in power for one, two or three terms (National managed 2008 - 2017 before Jacinda kicked the fuckin' door in). But eventually a switch happens and the first year or two is spent either undoing or repealing whatever they can of the previous administration. As a result, I can't recall much effort being expended to really make education a lucrative and enticing career. People seem to do it because they really want to be teachers, or lecturers. Shit I was going to go back to uni to be a teacher, I'm young and male, they'd snap me up. But if you were to ask people off the street who the most underpaid people are in the country, it's a tie between nurses and teachers. Both are undervalued, both have been at breaking point through the pandemic, and very few people want to fill the gaps. At the uni I work at, I don't know if this is common elsewhere, the academics are expected to operate on a 40/40/20 split. 40% teaching, 40% research, 20% service. That 40% research is where everyone higher up wants you to focus, as it brings in the moolah. So teaching becomes a necessary evil to get access to research time, so you can pump out publications which you can attach to your performance review, for the upcoming year. Apologies if I'm waxing lyrical about shit you already know, just trying to paint the picture of the NZ education world, you could be quite familiar with how it all looks. In the end though, people are underpaid, overworked, and NZ ain't cheap to live in so many educators feel they are working almost out of the good of their hearts. Eventually many fuck off to Australia for more money and opportunities. Brain drain is real!
I am often guilty of trying to compare the NZ political spectrum to the US. If I compare the two, we're heavily left leaning overall. I suspect the only party in our current parliament makeup that would be considered clearly right in the US frame, would be the ACT party. Everyone listed here. Even then, they're an interesting group. They would like to see less restrictive firearm regulation, but voted in favour of allowing same-sex marriage. They want to be tougher on crime, but don't want our ACC setup abolished (honestly any party that seriously campaigns on getting rid of ACC, wouldn't last long. It's 'death by a thousand cuts' like the NHS, or it's here to stay). Not that these are related items, but they have some left-leaning tendencies, and some right-leaning, but for our spectrum, they're pretty right-wing. Education wise? I'm not particularly clued up on the system, but I am a little anti the current setup for secondary education. We use NCEA and from my own experience + conversations with current teachers I know, all it does is churn out students who can answer questions when the information has been drilled into them. I remember Year 13 Geography (12th grade for USA students?) we were all told "this will be one of the exam questions, if you memorise an essay to answer this, you will pass" and so we practiced writing a single essay and sure enough it was on the exam. I know the schools used the design of NCEA as a way to pump out high numbers of students passing, but it left us with a pretty shoddy education IMO. I work in the tertiary sector and see plenty of things that I like, but also things that confuse me. Sorry I realised while writing this out you likely just meant in general. It feels like we're swinging slowly from left to right, currently. But I hope it's more down to how vocal those on the right are these days. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a chamber. I know the Labour party wanted to implement a lot, but personally I feel they tried to implement too many things at once, and have had to pull back and focus on the big tasks. Overall - we enjoy universal healthcare, ACC takes care of a lot of litigation when an accident occurs, our student loans don't incur interest ($2k to go on mine, huzzah). For the most part, nobody really wants to interfere with that, outside of a vocal minority wanting tax cuts alongside decreased government spending and oversight , but of course, a mysterious increase in quality. Somehow they can reconcile those in their minds. There's a pretty clear split in how the country tends to vote - sorry, I've tried to imbed it as an image to save you having to bounce between it, but it's not quite working. Red = Left, Blue = Right-ish. - You can see the red patches in the south island are the city centres, or low socio-economic spots who tend to vote Labour/left-leaning. Right down the bottom of the island, in the sea of blue, is the red patch of Dunedin - a University city, nestled amongst the rural sector. - The blue in the south are the rural sectors where farmers are plentiful and they tend to vote National/right-leaning. They make good money until they don't, at which point they need help and National typically ask less of them regulations-wise. - This is similar to the north island, there is the east coast which trends towards low socio-economic, and the centre of the north island is where the excellent farming land is, and thus the farmers. Wellington and Palmy North are heavily Labour, whereas Tauranga has been a stronghold for National for some time. A lot of wealthy retirees or up and coming business folks. - Auckland is it's own special case - you can see in the top left image. South and west Auckland? Labour/left-leaning, and they're the poorer areas. North Auckland? National/right-leaning, where the richer and whiter folk live. - There's a further special case in Auckland, where Chloe Swarbrick successfully campaigned for Greens (hard left) and won the electoral seat for Auckland Central, that tiny, bright green spot. She's great. I have a lot of time for her. So that is how it's been for a while, with the occasional area flipping. But for the most part, we lean pretty left as a people as far as healthcare and welfare goes; in that most tend to agree we need it, and we'd like it to be funded better. City centres tend to vote left, rural tend to vote right. People are exhausted, increasingly stretched for money, housing is fucked and also crashing; so I expect National to waltz into power this upcoming election because people want some kind of change, but I don't think it will signify too great a political shift for NZ, and Labour will be back in contention next time.