I’m not sure what the situation is now, but they used to keep a pool of houses in Wellington for MP’s and their families to live in but like everything many have been sold off over the years. It makes sense to have them available as these representatives need to be in Wellington, but renting them back from the owners like this sounds weird.

Pinterest links are the worst. I just don’t want that shit and images of random crap isn’t what I’m after.

Not sure how they gather or process that data, given different companies are different and vary a lot. I live in rural Wairarapa and pay 30 cents peak, 23 cents off peak and 16 cents night rate, but it reckons Masterton is 37 cents? Seems doubtful.

The music streaming platforms (admittedly with their own challenges) have to compete based on service offering rather than exclusivity. Imagine if all the streaming platforms competed on quality of service instead of exclusivity.

I’d personally pay a lot more if I could just have one service that had all the content I want, but instead we’re in this situation where the platforms (in my opinion) are lacking innovation and the content is all over the show. Here in NZ I find different seasons on different platforms or plenty of shows that just aren’t licensed for our market. We all know how that problems going to be solved.

Meanwhile in the thread on ACT policies, the guy saying he’s going to piss on their door handles was the most upvoted comment.

I think your comment was about the only one that disagreed with their policies in a civilised way without resorting to name calling.

I wish more people could recognise differences of opinion or perspective without resorting to name calling but this the internet so pretty sure that isn’t going to happen any time soon. Unfortunately I think it encourages those people who take it too far to keep running with their over the top opinions that I reckon lead to violence. One of the biggest challenges on social media when everyone lives in their own little echo chambers.

I use YouTube music because it’s bundled with premium but man that app is so janky, and it often seems to fail with downloaded music for me when out of cellphone / wireless service which defeats the purpose of having downloaded music.

Nope, they’ve lowered it to 80, and we’ve been told that they weren’t going to increase it. The council said that Waka Kotahi was looking to lower all rural roads to 60 which would be pretty slow in such a big area in the Wairarapa. Hence I’m keen for a policy change to return roads that are designed for it back up to 100.

My partner actually purchased a little thumbs up light with a button we can hit when driving to thank the folks that do pull over.

I’m sure this whole situation depends on the particular road in question. On the remutakas the only people I’ve ever seen passing on blind corners are motorbikes which is incredibly stupid and suicidal. But there is a big speed differential between people who know the road and people who don’t - understandably so - but plenty of inconsiderate drivers (both slow and fast too). Generally trucks are the best at pulling over

Not sure I’d describe it as narrow, certainly not compared to other Wairarapa roads, or Wellington roads either for that matter. It’s got a wide median on both sides the entire way. If I could figure out how to post a picture form the mobile client I use, I’d add a picture to demonstrate. I do understand what you mean about the side roads though.

In the Carterton to Masterton stretch they’ve now put roundabouts in 3 different locations and a wire divider down separating the two sides - although I know some locals are unhappy as there is now a lack of turnaround areas - which presumably is to deal with the side road issue, but still the limit is (theoretically when complete) also 80 even with upgrades, again pushing more traffic down side roads.

Pity it’s not sooner but will be great when it comes. The Wairarapa trains are often standing room only during peak times and the lack of options is pretty poor too. Any idea of these will be any faster or just more regular?

If it were fit for purpose each location they changed it, that would be great. But I’ve yet to meet anyone who (for example) thinks changing the road from Featherston to Masterton to 80kph is fit for purpose. Especially the Featherston-Greytown section which is probably the straightest and best maintained piece of road in the Wairarapa.

The only thing it’s done is force more traffic onto side roads which are still 100.

Also, well I appreciate the frustration of having others up your arse (ha) there could also be something to be said for pulling over if/when you are in a slower vehicle (e.g. towing a trailer) - not saying that you don’t pull over, but the amount of people that don’t, even with slow vehicle bays (or worse speeding up at passing lanes) makes the whole thing more dangerous.

Would love a seed box recommendation if you have one to share? My new place is off grid so with limited power prefer to offload a 24 hour server elsewhere so I can be a responsible seeder.

Come join us in the wops. With Starlink everywhere is pretty liveable now I reckon.

I should really post up a picture of our vegetable garden - we’ve got a couple of hundred square meters of vege garden as well as a 30sqm greenhouse, and we grow everything from seed so we’re quite set up for it. We do live on a lifestyle block though.

I’d also be shocked if we only got 1kg of courgettes from each plant too. Last year we had 3 and couldn’t give them away quickly enough to keep up while also eating them everyday. Some with cucumbers. We’ve also got about 40-50 brassicas in the ground, and are on our 3rd year of our own garlic and onion supply, and aiming to survive on our own potatoes only this year as well - last year harvested about 100kg worth and this year aiming to 3-4x that. We’re definitely keen gardeners though so I know that’s not for everyone.

Wait so the NZ government is lying to me about our renewable energy sources? And my home solar panels are just faking the energy production? Or did you forget the world is more than just that place you live in?

I’ve got a small 3kw solar system with about 9kwh of battery storage and that manages about 90% of our yearly charging. Otherwise in nz I pay about 10(US) cents per kWh from 11pm-7am (about 20 cents in daytime) for my charging at home. Public chargers are generally around 40 cents /kWh but range from 50-200kw so can dump power in pretty fast (although my car maxes out at 50kw for charging).

Nz too apart from old people who still use acres.

What would be great if the parties in power put these kind of policies in place when they had the opportunity rather than when the are clearly going to lose the election.

My Reddit account is significantly older than my kids - apparently I joined in June 2007. And they had to go fuck it up like what happened to Digg.

What I want to know is where all the Digg (or going back further to slashdot) refugees are.

It does work although breaks occasionally and you seem to need a (free) token from tuya to get it running now. That said it let’s me use my tuya devices through homekit now which is pretty handy.