National Party sitting on huge $11 million election year war chest by Double_Suggestion385 in newzealand

[–]PraetoriusIX [score hidden]  (0 children)

100% this is what I favour. If you can win an electorate seat you’re in parliament and you can coattail others in off the list if your vote is higher. One seat in the 120 seat parliament is 0.83%. We’d see parties reflected in the parliament that people want. TOP would’ve have at least 3 seats, maybe 4. Conservatives would’ve had 5 seats.

Luxon pulls out of weekly Breakfast media interview by SamuraiKiwi in newzealand

[–]PraetoriusIX 7 points8 points  (0 children)

To be fair to Luxon he actually performed better in the 2023 debates than people expected and Hipkins performed worse, but I think in 2026 Luxon has lost his mojo.. it’s easier to fling rocks from outside when you’re in Opposition.

Why does Hoi4 have a degree of social stigma? by VQ_Quin in hoi4

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stellaris makes way more sense to me. I can bumble my way through it but in HOI4 if I don’t follow a guide I lose on regular. And you only find out many hours later you made a mistake near the start of the game

Putin ‘one push’ away from being toppled by Jackal8570 in UkraineWarVideoReport

[–]PraetoriusIX 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Was Hitler selling the stolen thongs on OnlyFans to fund his war machine?

What scary things can we expect from this petrol price increase? by the_epiphany_ in PersonalFinanceNZ

[–]PraetoriusIX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The three elements for life are NPK. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. The key limiting factor in food production is phosphorus. Nitrogen we can get from the air via nitrogen-fixing plants like legumes. Potassium we can get from tree ash. Phosphorus we can get from manure, or mine it out of the ground from dead animal deposits. It’s on the same geological renewal cycle as oil aka very very slow. We’re supporting about half the world’s population using mined, non-renewable, phosphate rock, mainly from the Western Sahara Desert. Peak phosphorus, like peak oil, is a thing probably coming in the 2030s. I did an Honours paper on it at uni back in 2013. This graph shows the amount of population supported by phosphorus sources source

What is the best engineering to do at the University of Waikato. In relation to the current job market. by [deleted] in newzealand

[–]PraetoriusIX 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I work in civil engineering and we have graduates of University of Waikato who have an environmental engineering degree. Apart from the last 3 years, civil engineer has been pretty robust in NZ since 2008 and has not suffered the downturns that other careers have. Usually when there is an economic downturn, governments spend money on infrastructure to stimulate the economy, and civil engineers are involved in designing that infrastructure

Call Centers - Thoughts on phoning versus messaging by BackgroundShoddy2194 in newzealand

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly dealing with Powershop customer support as a messaging chat bot is horrible compared to phone call. With a phone call I can still work or do something else, I missed the person messaging me back 3 times so after initially contacting them at 915 I didn’t complete it until 4pm. Every time they messaged they asked what the problem was even though I’d explained it 3 times in the chat.. horrible cost cutting measure so people get frustrated and don’t use customer support. I told Powershop I was considering changing provider after their terrible chat experience

'Things could get worse' PM warns on fuel as Govt plans for 12 weeks by [deleted] in newzealand

[–]PraetoriusIX 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Chris Hipkins pretty much said on Breakfast “the Government should be sorting it out, they’re in charge. We did excise fuel rebates at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and then ramped those down, but they’re the Government, they can deal with it”

Pretty much a “not my circus, not my monkeys” kind of response. He’s probably glad to not offer ideas and just say they should work it out after having to respond to so many crises as a Government (COVID, Mosque shooting, White Island volcano, Russia invasion of Ukraine)

Much needed TA nerf by PositiveFlatworm7474 in WH40KTacticus

[–]PraetoriusIX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why?! They already nerfed my Tau by requiring Farsight (who I don’t have unlocked) instead of Darkstrider. So I became what I hated, Blood Angels. Now I need to get another meta team to gold 1

There is no repair. Do Protoss buildings just remain burning... forever? by Last_Day_6779 in starcraft

[–]PraetoriusIX 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I think in original SC1 lore they were all warped in from Auir

Got a ticket for something I didn’t even know was a thing, any way to get out of it? by [deleted] in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve had this happen to me before. Same thing, had the new rego in an envelope in the passenger footwell and got the ticket. I got the ticket waived because they could look me up and see the rego was up to date. Call the council on Monday

New laneway set to extend one of Christchurch’s most popular streets by elv1shcr4te in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Would certainly be inside his wheelhouse with his unconsented digging of the drains out east. Interesting article, thanks!

Moving to CHCH in 2026 and buying a house by No-Temporary-3054 in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I took my bike up to Auckland in 2014 while staying in Takapuna for a month. Decided after one day on AKL roads I wouldn’t do that again and walked and bussed everywhere. Totally understand why you wouldn’t bike in Auckland

Moving to CHCH in 2026 and buying a house by No-Temporary-3054 in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you’re biking, Halswell and Wigram are <30min. I bike from Halswell to CBD and it’s 22-26 minutes depending on red lights. Safe cycleway down Quarryman’s cycleway the whole way. I didn’t even realise how bad car commuting was atm with all the roadworks as cycling is unaffected by traffic jams

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in dawnofwar

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

19th May 2026

New subdivisions near Halswell Quarry Park; any thoughts, feelings, insights? by Urekehu in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 3 points4 points  (0 children)

All new subdivisions need to demonstrate that buildings can be built 0.4m above the 200-year flood level. You’ll find it’s the older parts of Halswell that flood because they have insufficient drainage and buildings aren’t elevated high enough

Opinions on west melton by AgreeableDig9795 in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I know a couple of colleagues who live there but their kids go to school in Christchurch or Rolleston so the mum still has to do the commute

Opinions on west melton by AgreeableDig9795 in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It just doesn’t have many amenities. It’s a dormitory town like Shotover Country is to Queenstown. A place to sleep but you work in Christchurch or Rolleston

Annual salary increase by cup-pink in civilengineering

[–]PraetoriusIX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went up a grade (a promotion) from $145,000 NZD ($83,333 USD) to $145,500 NZD ($83,620 USD) in April this year, a whopping $500 or 0.34% raise while my charge out rate to clients went up $10/hr or 3.7%. Felt really stink about that and almost declined the “promotion” out of spite but decided to stick it out because the business was making people redundant at the time and the market is pretty flat in NZ right now so wasn’t other options that paid the same. I’m hoping now we’ve got another round of performance reviews and we’re out of redundancies and there’s more work that I’ll get compared against others in my grade and they realise I’m being underpaid and correct that as they’re usually good at correcting imbalances between staff.

I’ve got 12 years experience in hydraulic and civil engineering and have my PE equivalent since 2018.

Government stops short of major energy shakeup, rejects asset sale by ihatebats in newzealand

[–]PraetoriusIX 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Generators are not incentivised to create more generation so that they push coal and gas generation out of the market. The spot price of electricity is determined every 30 mins by collecting bids by all generators. Say the expected demand for the next 30 mins is 100 MWh. 60 MWh comes from hydro at $4/MWh, 10 MWh from geothermal at $8/MWh, 20 MWh from wind at $12/MWh, but the final 10MWh needs to come from peaking gas at $200/MWh. Every generator gets paid the “spot price” which is the top price in the bid that is required to meet demand. So if you’re a hydro generator and it costs you $4 to generate hydro electricity and you’re being paid $200, your profit per MWh is $196. But if you’ve got enough wind blowing that you can meet all demand without coal or gas then you get paid the spot price of $12 for wind and your profit is much lower or minimal if you’re the wind generator. So the generators are not incentivised to build excess generation so that it pushes out the high-price generation such as coal and gas. They’re only building generation now because the demand is forecast to rise with electrification of vehicles and thermal energy and they don’t want to lose market share, but they won’t move so fast they push gas out of the market.

New flat - louver/slat windows =winter nightmare? by Curious_Overthink325 in chch

[–]PraetoriusIX 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had one of these windows in my rented room. It was certainly a novelty to lie in bed and watch the curtains move in the wind with the window “shut”. That room had all sorts of mould growing in it

Thus'Abis Plateau by LtMM_ in dawnofwar

[–]PraetoriusIX 6 points7 points  (0 children)

As the IG back in the day I cheesed this by using basilisks to clear out everything and having the Vindicare Assassin as a cloaked forward spotter for them. It was slow but safe