For anyone interested, a bit of fun working out which one you are. I got 'lawful good'  apparently, as is Luke Skywalker.

Although of course, he's a fictional character...


https://easydamus.com/alignmenttest.html

From Reddit, an adorable posting

https://old.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying...s_animals/

Sneaky little devil.


https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/35026...amazon-box

Quote:A Utah couple have been reunited with their beloved cat Galeana after they accidentally mailed it in an Amazon package.
For nearly a week, the cat remained trapped in the package and survived without food or water.
One of catÔÇÖs owner Carrie Clark told NBC's Utah affiliate KSLTV that she noticed Galeana was missing from the house on April 10.
The couple searched their house and neighbourhood, and plastered missing posters around town to find the pet, KSLTV reported.
"Galeana loves boxes, it's just part of her personality," Carrie Clark told KSLTV.
The indoor cat was rescued by an Amazon worker after six days from the package that also contained a pair of steel-toe work boots.
The Amazon worker took Galeana to a vet who scanned the cat's microchip to get her ownerÔÇÖs details. The vet then called Clark in Utah.
Clark and her husband then travelled more than 1600km to California to bring their kitty home.
"It was an amazing reunion. Galeana instantly stopped shaking and relaxed in my arms when I got to hold her again.

Also interesting to hear about that elecjet graphene battery, I always thought this was still years away.
But looks like groundbreaking developments have been made into implementing graphene into integrated circuits.
I wonder how soon it will arrive into our desktop CPU's?

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here? 

oh joy...



https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/...af162&ei=8

Quote:Former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett is taking up a new role as the boss of Pharmac's board.
The former National MP, who was in politics for 15 years before leaving in 2020, held portfolios including social development, associate finance, state services, social housing, police, local government and tourism.
Now, she's been appointed as a member and chair of Pharmac's board.
"Paula brings a wealth of experience to this role, with extensive experience in governance and organisational change," Associate Health Minister David Seymour said in announcing the appointment on Sunday.
"As chair, Paula will lead the Pharmac board in their role of managing the pharmaceutical schedule and driving greater efficiencies and access to medicine for New Zealanders."
For the 2023/24 financial year, Pharmac's Government-allocated pharmaceutical budget is $1.245 billion. The agency invests this into medicines, vaccines and related products for New Zealanders. 
Pharmac's 2022/23 spend was $1.186 billion - far lower than Australia's AU$17 billion, however unlike New Zealand, Australia doesn't have a fixed budget.
"I'm confident that Paula has the leadership qualities that will make her the best person to make the decisions needed to ensure that Pharmac is world-leading," Seymour said.
"As the Minister for Social Development, she led significant reforms to the national welfare system. In her current role, she leads engagement with select corporate, government, large developers, and private stakeholders as the National Director of Customer Engagement and Advisory at Bayleys Realty Group."
Bennett will take up the role from May 13.

This situation playing out in the Northern Hemisphere and USA in particular is worth being mindful of. https://bnonews.com/index.php/2024/04/4-...n-the-u-s/

So for some time now my fibre only has a 100mb download speed, even though I got an email some time back saying that my fibre had been upgraded free of charge to 300mb download speed.
After calling them, they made some excuse that my line is not on Chorus, but ultrafast fibre and the lines they manage dont provide those speeds yet and some other vague reason, i gave up in the end.


I gave up worrying about it in the end as i was getting by at 100 all this time, but my parents live just round the corner and i tested their speed recently and found they were getting 300!
Still didnt have the time to chase them up and ask this, but by now I get a call this week from their sales team and it turns out they had set me up with a business account unbeknown to me all this time!
I bought up the subject about my download speeds and they told me right away that thats not right what I was told.
He said to call 888 and you will get someone based in NZ who can help, so i did that and this was at the end of the day, but they still sorted out the issue within minutes.

Turns out that my ONT has an issue and he could see at his end that it was throttling down to 100megs.
He then told me he was going to get ultrafast fibre to switch the ONT port over to a different port and get me to switch the ethernet cable over, all this done in the matter of 10mins after putting the phone down with them, notified in a txt message when complete.
Worked a treat after that, typically ive had to wait days in some cases for this with regular household customers for this sort of thing.

Just goes to show how these telcos treat business over residential customers.
Here all this time i would call their regular 0800 number and get their overseas call centre and not a single member told me I was a business customer and to call their business team.
Im not complaining, but it still sucks that i have been given the run around all this time, not only on the phone, but in store too!
Its almost like you have to tell these guys how to do their job, but they dont listen, even though you know more about the issue than they do.

Feel a bit sorry for residential customers who dont have access to the priority service, once upon a time like 20+ years ago, everybody got the same customer service.
It feels like im in an exclusive club or something lol

Greens can get stuffed and Act is putting them in their place.
This country used to have 70 million sheep,now down to only 25 million but that's still not good enough for them?
How do they think they can reduce methane without reducing animals?
If their plan is to remove animals then that won't help our economy will it?
Or taxing the poor farmers will make our weather better won't it, meanwhile making food unaffordable?
Now national are proposing genetic engineering as the solution which I'm not too keen on along with methane inhibitors etc, but they asked for it.

For anyone who saw the recent TV series about this dire situation, this is interesting - especially the fact that someone who worked for the Post Office for 20 odcd years 'can't  recall' much of it.



https://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-68893655

Quote:We're soon going to be pausing our live coverage of the Post Office inquiry. But before we do, here's a recap of some of the evidence we heard today from Angela van den Bogerd, who spent 35 years working for the Post Office and was a senior director during the Horizon scandal:

    She began with an apology to former sub-postmasters and postmistresses, saying she was "truly sorry for the devastation caused to you, your family and friends"
    Van den Bogerd maintained that she wouldn't knowingly do anything wrong and blamed Fujitsu for not being transparent about the faults with its Horizon software
    The inquiry counsel showed her a number of emails and documents, starting in 2010, that discussed the ability for Fujitsu staff to remotely access Post Office branch accounts through Horizon. But she argued that she either didn't see the correspondence or didn't fully register what it meant until years later when the scandal came to a head
    Asked about her denials of any fault with Horizon when BBC's Panorama covered the story in 2015, van den Bogerd said she was true to the findings of the investigation by forensic accountants Second Sight
    On the topic of that investigation, she said it was not her understanding that the Post Office wanted to remove Second Sight because it was "too independent" and denied knowledge that she was picked to head investigations in its place
    She also said she could not remember being told that Fujitsu's Gareth Jenkins - who was ditched as an expert witness from Post Office prosecutions - had given "tainted" evidence

The largest independent supermarket in NZ has opened in Hamilton. Started by an Indian man who had only $2000 to his name when he arrived here from India.



https://www.waikatotimes.co.nz/nz-news/3...s-hamilton

Quote:The new supermarket, a┬áconcerted initiative between the buildingÔÇÖs owner John Sinclair┬áand Thakkar, will offer everything from deli, meat, produce, grocery, and other essentials.
But the grocers will personally be procuring the supplies and stocking as it is an independent store.
ÔÇ£If you go through a franchisee with certain groups like Progressive (Enterprises) or Foodstuffs, we get stocks directly supplied through them.
ÔÇ£But now, being independent, we have to organise the supply.ÔÇØ
However, it also meant more varietyfor customers as they were not tied to one supplier.
ÔÇ£There are so many different ranges of product which is not available in the supermarket that we're going to introduce in our store.ÔÇØ
The supermarket was tailored to ÔÇ£cover the requirementsÔÇØ of Nawton residents, Thakkar said.
ÔÇ£But gradually, once people start buying, weÔÇÖll get a better idea of what more is needed here.