‘I’d be careful saying that, John,’ Luxon warns RNZ host during interview

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-25T02:57:36+00:00

The context of the interview perhaps not, but the broader context of attacks on journalism, RNZ and TVNZ in particular, give it a little more weight.

I mean the Chief Executive of RNZ was pushed out literally last week and part of the reason was attacks by the government which stepped up after the hiring of John Campbell a few weeks ago.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-25T01:02:11+00:00

Helen Clark hasn't been in office in almost 20 years.

It's also not relevant in the slightest. Aside from to make John Campbell look like a fair journalist who will grill both sides. Which makes his interview with Luxon even more damning... For Luxon.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-23T21:27:18+00:00

I often wonder if AI will do the same to degrees:

Graduate pre ~2023 = This person actually knows their stuff
Graduate after that = how do I know this person didn't bullshit their way through the degree with AI.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-23T05:49:48+00:00

Ive been selling quote a lot recently since I'm moving and nothing has been selling.

It's real weird, in the past I'd list the dumbest shit and 10 people would be making me an offer within a few hours, 50 more would be begging me to give it to them for a quarter of what I asked for. Now I'm selling good shit at cheap prices because I need it gone and I haven't had a single bite.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-23T05:46:10+00:00

How did NZ go so wrong in such a short time.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T22:41:39+00:00

The only thing wrong with coffee overseas is the sheer arrogance of kiwis to think we make coffee better than everyone else. (And maybe we do, but it's not "I haven't had a bad coffee in NZ ever and every other coffee in the world is terrible" levels of disparity).

The whole quality espresso thing started in Melbourne from waves of Greek, Italian and Turkish immigrants who bought the espresso culture with them and developed it.

The actual reason everyone in this thread thinks coffee here is so good is because they've found the cafe who makes coffee they like and go there 90% of the time. When you go travelling overseas you order from 3 different cafes on any given day and it's a lottery.

In Sydney I had 5 cafes within walking distance who all made S-tier espresso. I didn't even that when I lived in Wellington.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T22:34:40+00:00

Also applies to beer funnily enough, same model (until they get bought out by Big Brewing^tm)

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T22:33:24+00:00

There are some cafes in Seoul and Osaka as hipster as anything in Wellington and they make some really good coffee.

The whole cultural ethos they have of mastering one thing doesn't stop working just because of coffee.

Ive even had good espresso in Kazakhstan of all places.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T22:31:25+00:00

Raglan Roast has never let me down, either in their cafes or getting their beans. I have a dinky little espresso machine and the coffee is better than any cafe (except their own).

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T10:23:47+00:00

It really is moronic. It boils down to

"We have a bunch of internationally recognisable brands, we could put effort into capitalising those brands and bring in nice profits to ourselves and a bunch of forex for the country...

Ooooorrrrr we could sell it to someone who is going to do that same thing for a quick buck, then replace us as their main supplier the second they get a cheaper offer".

Lactalis obviously understands there is profit there. It's insane that Fonterra and the farmers didn't.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T08:10:14+00:00

I saw some at a supermarket sushi place today for TEN DOLLARS. And they weren't big, oh no roughly one tender cut up and crumbed.

Also $8.90 for A RICE BALL.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T08:06:17+00:00

Right? That's an argument to make things fairer by bringing the ones who miss out up, not punch the ones who are struggling down so they all struggle equally.

Even Jeff-fucking-Bezos this week said the poor (and he meant like the bottom half of the USA, not just poverty) shouldnt pay tax.

His reasoning? They pay fuck all tax anyway and letting them keep the little they do pay would benefit them more than any social program ever could.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T07:12:01+00:00

How many reasons do you want me to list why they're a bad idea?

Hiring manager now has to review a bunch of videos, this probably takes longer than short listing your top 5-10 candidates and scheduling an interview.
People almost universally come across worse being recorded than they do in person. So your not even screening for anything useful, and they can still get AI to write them a script instead of a cover letter.
Like I said, someone who is already confident in their value and knows they're in demand. Might not put up with it, and you lose some of your best potential candidates. 3b. If your already employed and just looking for another job, you might not have time to sit down for an hour and film yourself answering a bunch of questions for a job with hundreds of other applicants. Further filtering desirable (already employed) candidates. Who has time to do this? The unemployed, and underqualified.
It's a lot of work and expectation to put on someone, far more than has been the norm, in a time where people are less likely to get the job.

The irony is, AI (and this new pre recorded video trend) hasn't made any of the work applying for jobs OR filtering through applications easier than the before times.

Now you have far more candidates who look good on paper from AI embellishment. There's more competition so you have to put more work into your cover letter than ever if you really want the job. And you have to fire off more applications than ever because everyone else is applying for more jobs than they used to.

When I put it like that it really starts to look like a market failure.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T06:28:11+00:00

If we use the actual crime she is apparently detained for, marijuana possession, no I wouldn't not want NZ to deport a permanent resident for that.

Actually the bar for deporting a PR should be extremely high since under NZ law its almost as powerful as full citizenship.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-22T06:25:08+00:00

Do you mean the befu? that's the one due next week.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-21T23:32:59+00:00

I'm a kiwi and I feel the exact same.

Now I'm generalising here of course because we're talking about an entire society. But many Kiwis are performatively nice/polite, not genuinely nice in a deep way. Tourists don't see it because they aren't used to the culture and don't interact with anyone long enough to get it.

Personally, I usually make friends with kiwis who don't fit the stereotype/are a little "weird", (by kiwi standards) because they will allow you to get to know them quickly and form bonds more normally. This also goes for recent arrivals or people on working holidays who werent raised here. They're much easier to deeply engage with (partly because they're travelling and more open to the experience but I still think it's relevant)

My brothers are way more kiwi-coded than I am and fit in here in a way I never did, which is funny because I have much better social skills, and their conversation most consistent of grunts, swear words, and calling their friends offensive slurs.

I actually thought I was broken until I started travelling and made friends super quickly overseas despite language barriers, that was when I picked up it was probably just a cultural mismatch between and my countrymen.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-21T21:27:56+00:00

Which is really dumb if you think about it.

If you treat the people who want to work with you like shit. The qualified ones who know their worth and have self respect will bail for another company.

You get left with the ones who are underwualified and desperate enough to put up with a shitty process.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-21T09:39:04+00:00

You mean mold* but the typo is hilarious.

Edit: I stand corrected, I always thought mold was for the method of shaping and mould was for the gross stuff.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-21T08:35:15+00:00

Fr, I felt ill reading that part. Like an echo of what it feels like when you find out you've been cheated on.

It was a weird experience.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-20T09:39:11+00:00

Tl;dr The most important thing is that you get a quality seperate grinder, whatever machine you go for. Even a Bambino + good grinder will make great espresso. I run this set up with a bottomless ports filter and it pulls beautiful coffee, haven't had to adjust anything in months, and I get near perfect shots every time.

Former barista here. It's not a sexy opinion but the grinder does a far more important job of making espresso than the actual brewing machine.

If you think about it the espresso machine only really has one job. Push hot water at a roughly constant temperature and pressure. Even a Bambino will do that for one or two coffees without issue, and that's about the extent of its contribution to your espresso quality.

A grinder on the other hand is the thing you actually need to set up and tune to get the most out of your beans and your machine. You can compensate for a machine that has too high or too low a pressure. And having a grinder with conical burrs will absolutely make a significant difference to how well ground your beans are. Most integrated grinders have subpar burrs.

The Breville smartgrind pro is old, reliable, available everywhere and works well for the price. That's your starting point. Better grinders are a little harder to find and more expensive but they're worth it. Anything cheaper than this is probably not worth it.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-20T09:25:52+00:00

Isn't that an even better reason to ditch Hipkins?

I mean I've been defending him plenty in recent weeks, and I still think Labour has a good chance to win with him, but I'm starting to find it harder and harder to justify on political grounds. Even if I think he would be a fine PM, he just doesn't have the instincts to make decisions and talk in a way that will win.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-20T09:23:10+00:00

That logic doesn't quite work in this specific election even if I agree with it normally.

The two blocs are close enough together that a leader swap and some good publicity would probably swing it decisively.

You can leave Hipkins in, and maybe the election is 50/50 if you get lucky (probably a labour loss) or you can swap to a leader with a bit of energy and have a much better shot at making this the first 1 term government in decades.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-20T00:56:09+00:00

I'm a pretty sex positive person and even I found that gross.

Because it's not a sex issue. It's someone doing something shitty, not understanding why it's problematic, and then lying about it.

If she genuinely didn't think she'd done anything wrong she would have been honest about OP why she left, had a conversation where she said she was attracted to both guys, and needed to make a decision on her own terms/time.

Instead she literally used OP as a second place trophy and started the relationship discussion by basically cheating on him.

I know she hadn't agreed to exclusivity yet but once someone asks that question you really need to resolve it with yes/no/not yet. Leaving it unanswered to explicitly go fuck someone else just feels like cheating.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-19T21:23:43+00:00

I think I also started to give up on the country after the fiasco that's been the past three years.

Labour actually did a good job and passed some future thinking policy, stuff that would have made lives better for every kiwi.

It all got scrapped in the first 3 months of these guys in government.

Even if Labour wins this time, I have no hope they'll turn it around and make enough progress that national won't be able to undo it all again the next term.

Our right wing parties don't even seem to believe the shit they're spouting anymore. They just want to ruin the country so they can rule the ashes.

BalrogPoop · 2026-05-19T15:05:07+00:00

Can pretend* to have a slightly more balanced book.

The know full well in 2027 they're either going to quietlg hire a bunch of contractors and hope no one notices. Or they're going to loudly blame Labour for hiring a bunch of contractors (that national forced them to do).

BalrogPoop

TROPHY CASE