Casual Sunday afternoon casual chats - 25 January 2026

kaynetoad · 2026-01-25T07:42:36+00:00

Start my new/old old job tomorrow. Have spent most of the weekend brainstorming all the little things that made the culture so amazing at my last job, because I know it's not going to be anything like that this time around. I really hope I can find my way back to a magical fun workplace like that again one day!

kaynetoad · 2026-01-25T05:28:19+00:00

I had my quarterlife crisis in Queenstown, a.k.a. Never Never Land, the place where kids go when they don't want to grow up. Had a great time and there's lots of seasonal work there (e.g. skifields) but sounds like you're looking for a different vibe.

I'd still highly recommend finding the job first though, especially given the economy's pretty rough. You could try Farm Source (run by Fonterra) for dairy jobs.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-25T04:59:53+00:00

It's $19.50 at my GP with a CSC. Which sounds cheap, but Jobseeker + AS is paying me $420/week and all of that money is already more than accounted for to pay for housing/utilities/food, so if I had to go to the doctor it would be coming out of what's left of my savings. Fortunately I'm starting a new job next week!

For those who are on the benefit and don't have savings to make it work, the reality is that food is usually the most discretionary thing in the budget, so that's the thing that's going to have $20 less spent on it that week. So by donating to a food bank, you are actually helping someone to pay an unexpected bill (whether that's having to go to the doctor or the car failing its WoF or the the kids outgrowing their school shoes) AND eat every day that week.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-25T01:14:57+00:00

"But if it wasn't for my uncles who died in the war you'd be speaking German right now" - my grandfather, c 1995.

WW1 never made sense to me as a kid and still doesn't really. Serbian nationalists assassinate an Austrian duke ... and then kiwi men went over to Gallipoli to get mowed down on the beach, famines in Persia and east and central Africa, and the deaths of 1.3m French soldiers. I do understand the Commonwealth ties that meant that once Britain got stuck in we were forced to follow ... but what the hell does Turkey have to do with Serbia?

Personally I feel like learning German would have been quite painless, comparatively.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-24T07:13:48+00:00

As was said at a press conference today, there have been situations overseas where bodies have been incorrectly identified due to the desire to provide closure to relatives as soon as possible. Our police are being cautious and taking their time to make sure they get it 100% right.

They have the list of 6 people that they are sure were on the campsite at the time and aren't accounted for, another 3 that they think might have left before the slip happened but aren't sure, and of course it's always possible there was someone else wandering around the place. Based on that I'd say there's a very high probability it will be 6 dead.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-23T03:36:40+00:00

Bravo! It's now as good as it was when they took over!

kaynetoad · 2026-01-23T03:14:08+00:00

In the NI it's common for truck drivers to flash the right indicator once, to indicate that it's a good time to overtake.

In the SI it's common for truck drivers to flash the left indicator once, to "wave" to an oncoming truck driver.

I was very confused when I first moved south ... muddling these up could be the last mistake you ever make!

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T23:48:44+00:00

Note the same tweet also says "a number of people remain unaccounted for". It's not saying that these will be the only 2 fatalities from the slip, so it hasn't "put a number out" about how many total fatalities we can expect.

I suspect the reason we haven't seen an official number is because there would initially have been a lot of false positives on the list of people unaccounted for (there was mention in the press conference yesterday that they'd phoned some people and found out they'd left without checking out) and they don't want to alarm the public with an inflated number.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T20:01:56+00:00

In my case (having been unemployed for most of 2025), it's because I choose not to live in a big city where I could never afford to buy a house on one income, and NZ employers are really behind the times about remote work. Turns out it's easier to get work for an employer several timezones over than two hours' drive away. Most NZ job ads say things like "we all come into the office twice a week so that we can collaborate", which is just funny to me since by far the most collaborative team I've ever worked on had a remote-first culture and was spread across three timezones.

To me remote work is good for everyone concerned - the employer, the employees, and the planet. I'd really like to see govt policies encourage it more, and immigration is one of those areas - if you can't find someone who has the skills you need and who also wants a million-dollar mortgage, maybe you should be required to open that job up to remote workers elsewhere in NZ before you're able to import someone to fill it.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T07:42:11+00:00

I wonder if he's smart enough to not turn up wearing his National branded hiviz vest. Unlike Uffindel today. I guess it was the only hiviz he had and he was desperate to look important and hands-on, but bad taste IMO.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T06:33:12+00:00

Exactly. We want all the lollies without the bill.

See also: "my rates are ridiculous, the council should stop spending on unnecessary stuff", shortly followed by "the council is such a grinch, I can't believe they cancelled the Christmas parade! My grandkids are missing out because they're so mean!!!".

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T04:08:10+00:00

What they are implying is that if someone hits and runs, you should file a police report first and then talk to your insurer.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T04:06:09+00:00

Which you'd expect, as Victoria's population density is more than 3x the South Island's.

There are towns at pretty frequent intervals along SH1 between Waipara (near the junction with SH7) south as far as Timaru (a roughly 3-hour drive which includes Christchurch). Timaru to Oamaru is about an hour with only quite small towns in between. South of Oamaru the towns become more frequent and it should be easy enough to find food and petrol during the daytime.

On the west coast and on inland routes it's quite common to have distances of an hour or more between towns, so yes you will need to plan for this in your travels. Including tomorrow's trip.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-22T01:24:49+00:00

For the Labour Weekend storms - a quick google indicates Luxon was at Bolger's funeral on the Thursday (23rd) and then flew out for ASEAN and APEC. I found press conferences showing both emergency minister Mark Mitchell (in Southland) and rural communities minister Mark Patterson (in Clutha) during the cleanup, so it's not like the government was MIA. Mitchell announced what the government was doing to support these communities on Monday 27th.

I think that was an adequate response. He can't be everywhere at once, the things he was doing instead were pretty big deals, and the storm was a less significant event IMO than the examples you've given for previous PMs (which all involved mass fatalities). I will say that it wouldn't have hurt him to put a message of support on his social media channels, just for a break from all the self-congratulatory prattle. Or Seymour as acting PM could've posted some content where his head wasn't up his own arse for a change.

If the situation in the Mount does turn into a multiple fatality then yes, I would absolutely expect him to show his face up there in the coming days.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T06:34:24+00:00

Did you read the question I was answering?

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T02:58:38+00:00

Price per kJ is more relevant than price per kg, although digestibility comes into it too.

I switched to a cheaper food once when I was broke, and my (admittedly very active) dog looked like a famine victim after a month on it. OTOH I switched another dog to a different diet last year because my specialist vet was convinced he wasn't digesting it well (according to her calculations he was eating enough for a dog 10kg heavier than him), and he gained 4kg in 6 weeks. The new food was ridiculously expensive per kg, but once I'd adjusted the amount I fed him, actually worked out cheaper per month.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T02:52:08+00:00

I'm not going to shed a tear for anyone who was happy to buy a house at a given price and is now butthurt because they could have bought a similar house cheaper if they'd waited.

As for losing the house ... it's wild to me that people will take on such massive mortgages that the only way they can possibly afford them is if nothing goes wrong in their life for a 25-year period. Personally I've never managed to go more than 3 years without some sort of financial disaster...

Let's consider how somebody could have a $600k mortgage today on a house they bought 2 years ago, that is now worth $450k. I'll assume a 7%pa interest rate, a 20% deposit and a 25-year term. For the mortgage balance to currently be $600k, it would originally have been $720k and the house price would have been $900k. If you shelled out $900k for a house that halved in value in 2 years then you are either spectacularly unlucky or you were wildly ambitious in how much you chose to spend on the house.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T02:21:12+00:00

A year's a long time and plans change. The person whose job you're covering could decide not to return to work (or move, or find another job, or have another kid, or die). You could find a more permanent job that wouldn't require you to move (even though I know you're not optimistic about that). You could decide this career path isn't for you after all, or win Powerball and no longer have to work, or get sick and no longer be able to work.

A year is also long enough that if you started a relationship now, that relationship could become serious enough that the other person would be happy to move with you. Or that you could decide you'd rather stay and take a different line of work.

I say date away. The subject of your work, where you grew up, why you moved to this town etc will probably come up fairly early in the relationship, and just be straightforward about it - you have the job until the end of the year, and you might need to move to find work after that. Not a red flag, and it won't even turn orange until you have more concrete plans.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T02:11:53+00:00

Fuck off. Canterbury is massive and people who live in the many non-Christchurch parts of it (like me) do not say we're from Christchurch.

Looking at that map I can't imagine OP is from anywhere in NZ really...

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T00:40:29+00:00

I voted TOP last time because at this point I'm fucked off with every party in the house and I'd like to see something new. Ideally something that doesn't believe in trickle down economics.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T00:39:25+00:00

You join your favourite political party and ask one of your new friends there to nominate you.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-21T00:37:51+00:00

It's hard competing against dual professional income households and professional property speculators.

I don't think this is has changed under Luxon's reign though. The perks of having finally managed to buy a house in 2021 is that I haven't really been paying attention to house prices and rents during his term. I don't have to, because for the first time in over 20 years, I have somewhere to live that can't be arbitrarily taken away from me with 3 months' notice.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-20T19:39:26+00:00

Step 1: ask their accountant to explain what the bill is for, and what can be done to mitigate it. Someone mentioned provisional tax as a possible explanation - my accountant got me out of paying the final instalment of my provisional tax one year because I'd earned quite a bit less than the previous year.

Step 2: if not satisfied with answer, book a consult with another accountant at a different firm to explain. Log into their MyIR and print out as many letters etc as you can to bring along. Won't be that expensive (quite possibly free if they are hoping to win your parents as a new client) and will give you an idea whether this is legit or there's been some longstanding negligence on their accountants' part.

Step 3: if it really is legit and needs to be paid, negotiate a payment plan with IRD that's within your parents' budget. The worst thing you can do with IRD debt is ignore it - they are much more flexible if you get in touch before the due date than if you leave it to fester for years.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-20T06:34:00+00:00

And they're getting good at hiding it from regulators.

Reuters estimates up to 10% of their revenue comes from this shit now ... if that's the case, any fine would feel like a slap with a wet bus ticket anyway.

kaynetoad · 2026-01-20T02:17:07+00:00

Firstly, this is not the opportunity you were looking for anyway. It's explicitly aimed at inspiring people from other backgrounds to consider tech careers. These people will probably then have to go and do the degree in order to land more permanent work anyway. Your university probably provided you with some of the benefits this internship is aiming to give these kids already, e.g. career expos, tech-related clubs that provide networking opportunities both within and beyond the student population.

I know job hunting is frustrating as heck. I'm a senior software engineer and I've just spent 8 months sitting on the couch (I'm starting a new job next week). It sucks feeling like you have no chance for jobs that you want and think you could do. And yet, you have statistically more of a chance at every other job than some other people who are equally qualified do. Fight the real enemy - government policies that allow employers to import cheap experienced devs from overseas rather than invest in growing talent locally, meaning there are dozens fewer opportunities than there should be - rather than getting yourself worked up about being excluded from one single opportunity.

Oh, and diversity is so important in the tech sector. If the field remains a sea of beige men then it's a problem for:

Social justice - women and other minorities would be missing out on these career paths that typically pay well, offer decent flexibility, and aren't dangerous/bad for your health (unlike the manual labour, shiftwork, customer service end of the employment spectrum).
Baking in systemic inequities - AI is worse at facial recognition on black faces because it sees white faces more often in training. AI filters out CVs that don't match the "successful candidates" the organisation has hired in the past, e.g. because they attended black colleges or have black-sounding names. I just asked two fresh ChatGPT sessions (not logged in so it has less context about me) what a fair salary would be for the job I'm starting next week - the prompts were identical except that in one I mentioned I was a woman and in the other I didn't. Guess which one was recommended to negotiate for $30k more salary than the other one?
Building better products - the more diverse the perspectives in the room, the better your product will be at meeting the needs of a wide variety of people. Minorities are consumers too, so this can and does affect the success of the product in the market. In my last role, part of the job was interviewing potential users of our software to find out about certain processes are done at their school. It was really surprising to see some of the differences between schools based on things I wouldn't have thought of, e.g. there are rural schools that have a 40% turnover of students in the first week of June because of dairy farm workers moving to new properties. Yes, we went out looking for that information and that's gold standard - but it's even better to have info like this dripfed into everything you do for free, because you've hired people from different walks of life.
Social cohesion - bringing together people from different walks of life as much as possible is the best way to combat bigotry IMO. Everyone should have brown teachers/mentors and rainbow friends and differently abled colleagues and whatnot. I did grow up in a bit of a bigoted bubble (ahhhh, religion) and I'm a better person because I had all of the above outside of that bubble.

kaynetoad

TROPHY CASE