This might be a big city thing. In my town the cost of bulk rice for example is always cheaper at Pak n Save (which does 5kg bags) than in either Bin Inn or the Asian supermarkets. Same with meat versus butchers.

Veg is hit and miss everywhere but green veges are sometimes cheapest at some of the Asian places, though to be fair it’s not usually the same veges.

When I lived in Aucks and Wellington we shopped more like you describe, but frustratingly it just doesn’t work like that here. Might also be that I have way less money now and am always after the cheapest things.

I agree, but I really hope some of us are at least in a position to sort it out. There’s this concept Surveillance Capitalism that points out how corporations have become more powerful because of it and their interactions with governments.

Even without that, in the US they have had legislative capture for decades (eg they are not allowed easy online taxes like we have because HR Block and TurboTax lobby against it) and NZ is beginning to show signs of it. Peter Thiel owns a surveillance company that develops war AI.

That said historically there are always swings in favour of human rights every now and again so here’s hoping we as a species see sense.

I don’t think they can kick you out straight away if you let it lapse into a periodic tenancy? Hopefully you can find somewhere else within the 2 months before rent can be increased under periodic.

Youch! Hope it heals up nicely!

Maybe there was a lot more but they took it? It’s a lot of money to us but if you had cartel connections I imagine it’s the equivalent of change that got stuck in the couch.

Meta has been heavily implicated in a couple of genocides - the A Death Sentence For My Father report gets its title from a heartbreaking example where this doctor who didn’t even have a Facebook account was killed because of it.

But that was passive i.e Meta deliberately ignoring reports and refusing to take genocidal content down. More recently Meta has more actively chosen to “take sides” re the widespread censorship of Palestinian human rights posts.

I worry that this attitude combined with its surveillance powers is probably having a catastrophic effect. It would not surprise me at all to learn Meta is data sharing with war AI (which is already being alleged re Whatsapp).

What worries me most about non transparency of data is their politics and what is happening to people in conflict zones.

That’s a good sign, fingers crossed! Hopefully it’s just strep and the antibiotics are giving it a kicking.

Yikes, that’s creepy about facebook. I’m not on there much but I remember google once wanted to include something I’d booked in my google calendar (whatever the hell that is) so I never booked through that system again. I hate to think what fb is doing that I can’t see, apparently it even has profiles on people who don’t have accounts with it.

I wish it were easier to avoid this stuff.

Glad you got some sleep! I’m not a doctor and obviously they know best. I was mostly thinking about how part of the way anti-inflammatory steroids work their magic is by dampening down the immune system.

Hopefully it’s the least worst option!

I know it’s not really my place to say this but if it does turn out to be glandular fever/mono/Epstein Barr I’d suggest you get a second opinion on whether to use steroids during the acute phase of a viral infection (unless it’s just a throat spray or inhaler or something like that).

Homeopapes are definitely a thing. News agreggators, RSS feeds and customizable news like Reuters, and things like pocket being able to send to ereaders.

Alias phone is not some exciting tech unfortunately. I just have another phone that has a number and email account of its own that get used for signups. It’s on casual prepay and is associated with its own human name and online accounts. It’s kind of like I have an invisible flatmate who likes things like fuel cards and free streaming services.

Hopefully we will soon have glasses you can buy that use AI to block out adds within our vision

If we get that I want the They Live plugin!!

I meant that more as a workaround!

Ah yes the nonsensical myth that the number of lazy people (so insanely lazy that they prefer to live below minimum wage) magically grows and shrinks in tandem with the economy and changes to the elasticity of the labour market …without being in any way related to it.

So scary.

Oh no, easypeel are the best. Sudden childhood flashback to my mum having to demonstrate to me that actually no a sausage roll is not hard crusted dried meat all the way through, only the bits that stick out the ends. 🤦‍♂️

Yep tangelo, still going crazy, so is the mandarin. I was going to cut some fruit for the birds and post a photo friday PSA about feeding windfalls to waxeyes and tui but got too caught up in mundane paperwork. Citrus is great though isn’t it, comes along at the perfect time!

When it ends will be the best time for pruning too, to repay the tree with a bit of tlc.

Hmm maybe you need a triple shot?

Pretty sure Philip K Dick predicted it in the 60s but I can’t remember which book or story. I sometimes worry that we make things because he predicted them, but I do like the homeopapes.

Yeah I’m in a similar boat, I don’t watch broadcast tv or listen to the radio unless someone makes me, I have ad blockers and tracker blockers, my loyalty cards are all signed up to an alias and its alias phone.

Now that we don’t have a cat to spoil, I don’t think I’m anyone’s preferred target market though, except maybe some low level grifters!

I guess in the absence of data it will default to what advertising always defaults to, i.e penis enlargement.

Yes, it coming sooner than expected was, as this article said, “WTH” and a sign of things to come not being all that great. Austerity is more or less proven to not work, it’s frustrating to see it being wheeled out again especially in the form of public sector job losses.

Google algorithms pounce on vulnerable people, billboards could do the same.

Not looking forward to the dystopia where one minute I’m admiring a picturesque landscape in a New Caledonia holiday ad and the next minute it sees me and hastily changes to an ad for cheap chocolate from The Warehouse.