I’m up early after being divebombed by my fattest cat since 5am. Had a social event last night, fortunately one of the better ones of the season with a good group of friends.

Tonight we are having a dinner to welcome the new neighbours in our building. They are Brazilian and we saw they bought a nice bbq with them so we all offered to pay for the meat if they’d show us how it’s done. Really looking forward to that.

Which criminals though.

Wage thieves? Polluters? Tax evaders? Or just the poor ones?

It’s the question.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how you’d design a racing sim that rewards and gamifies clean racing but the basic answer is that you’d have to set it in world so different from our autoracing history and technology that you’d lose 75% of your player base who are mostly interested in real cars (the same way FIFA games appeal to people who want the real players, and don’t actually care about the game design of football).

On PS5 there’s platform native ‘Accolades’ where you can rate the people you’ve played with, but Bruce I never play the kinds of games that they’re designed for I have no idea if they’re used or how they even work. The point being though even Sony were trying to approach this topic at an OS/ecosystem level.

We have, but not specifically because of the cost of living. More that we had an expensive holiday, and now need to focus on savings again. So I’ve been pretty insistent that we cut the thoughtless spending and the treats, at least for the rest of the year and then can re-assess.

Most of this has manifested in food budget. I’ve limited us to $15 a day each max on food spending, and that includes going out for dinner or work drinks. So if I’m going to get a few wines on friday night that’s a couple of days of making sure lunch comes from the grocery budget. So on that front I’m cooking up a weeks worth of curry or rice and beans or doing a roast if it’s on special.

I grow spinach/broc in winter and tomato/kale in summer which takes the edge off veggie shopping prices.

My nearest Pizza Hut has always been one of the good ones, so their $5.50 ham and cheese pizza is excellent value. If I wannt pig out I’ll grab one of those and put Baby Ray’s or hot sauce on it.

Petrol is a non-issue for us as we both live in our CBD close to our offices and drive a hybrid anyway. We spend like, 20 bucks a month on gas.

Feuerzone tickets, worth every penny

I’d been putting up with shitty FM transmitters the whole time.

That’s brutal

Yesterday I discovered, after nearly 4 years in our house, that the showerhead has a heavy massage option.

Last week I’d mentioned to my sweetie that I’d like to look at adding a new shower system to the long term list of Things To Buy. We’re currently in scrimp and save mode after a month-long Europe trip in August. I went to a Rammstein concert in Poland and halfway through I realised I was at the end of my headbanging days - the incredible shower system in our hotel and a very firm mattress was the difference between walking out the next morning or what felt like would be the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

So I’d resolved to get a new shower system, wasn’t going to have the money for a while, and then just made my discovery. So I’m feeling like a million bucks this morning, and saving a thousand or so too.

It’s funny how a lot of people seem to assume that it’s more or less a forgone conclusion!

It’s interesting, because I’ve read several times over the years that one of the strongest predictors for an election isn’t just counting up who people say they’ll vote for but rather who they think will win.

Everyone I talk to seems to think a National coalition will win, regardless of their political leanings. I certainly do because of this, even though though polling suggests it’s far from a forgone conclusion. Elections can be so much about a general mood of the country on the day.

high profile, very public, violent crimes in the last few months.

This is what the media chooses to show.

If “statistically speaking” crime isn’t trending up, but it’s being sensationalised to the point that people feel like it is, what’s the actual issue?

If you’re essentially saying here that the facts don’t matter if they contradict peoples feelings, shouldn’t we at least be looking into who is influencing peoples feelings in the first place and what they have to gain?

I just spent a month in Europe and tapped-to-pay my credit card every I went, from the center of London to a train station in the south of France to a small cafe in Poland - without a surcharge.

Why are they getting away with it in NZ? Are we just too much of a captive market to do anything about it?

(money talks?)

“Land talks” should be our new national motto.

The idea is that the city will build upwards, rather than outwards

Yeah an absolute bolt from the blue, how can New Zealand ever prepare for the sudden and unprecedented invasion of multistory buildings.

Saw a comment on my local councils post of someone worried that the Tauranga CBD would look like Shanghai in a fews years “at the rate they’re going”.

Some of the most popular, picturesque tourist spots and residential locales in the world make NZs “high density” plans look laughably wastaful in comparison, and people are still tearing their hair out about it.

The idea is that the city will build upwards, rather than outwards

Yeah an absolute bolt from the blue, how can New Zealand ever prepare for the sudden and unprecedented invasion of multistory buildings.

Saw a comment on my local councils post of someone worried that the Tauranga CBD would look like Shanghai in a fews years “at the rate they’re going”.

Some of the most popular, picturesque tourist spots and residential locales in the world make NZs “high density” plans look laughably wasteful in comparison, and people are still tearing their hair out about it.

Same deal, never had to worry about it or think about it ever so I consider it money well spent.

The sale to twodegrees doesn’t leave my hopeful though. Not because of twodegrees themselves, but if myrepublic found this product unsustainable I can’t see it lasting unchanged or at the same quality from it’s new owner

Maybe something to look into when my wifes position stabilises. I’m in Tauranga though so the critical mass here for IT employment may not be sufficient.

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Ain’t that the truth. Or the ones that have been advertising for 3 months straight.

But I’m not sure I’m built for the contractor/project hopping lifestyle. Maybe I need to change my attitude about that stuff. I’m very precious about building good foundations and that sort of thing

Reminds me of an internal project I saw named Project Horizon, presumably named for the fact that despite the years spent moving towards it, it never seemed to get any closer.

Have you considered high pay, short hours, not caring about everything imploding because the people who make decisions don’t understand them, just let the implosion happen?

As long as my ability to do my job doesn’t get sledgehammered by the implosion, where do I sign up?

Just got back from a month in Europe. It’s cold here yo.

While I was gone, work had to make some decisions about what direction to pursue our data needs. I made my recommendation but of course come back to find we’ve taken the most conservative, manual, one-size-fits-“all” solution. Must be that time of the year where I look for a job with worse quality of life but that actually takes data and IT seriously.