Dave

Last thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

Last thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

Way back at the beginning, when genAI was new and LemmyNZ had but one user, our logo was created. It's terrible, it's AI generated, and I hate it.

I am keen to get a new one! There's also an option to get a new banner if that's what people want, though people have expressed that they like the current banner.

This post is to ask for people to supply their ideas for a new logo or banner. Hopefully there are some artists out there that can help! After we have some options I will organise a vote.

Reply to this post with your suggestions or your submissions.

Just a quick note to say I've updated LemmyNZ to run 0.19.19 today.

It was only just released, and only resolves security issues, so you shouldn't see any changes. Release notes here.

Labour has vowed to cap public transport fares at $20 a week in main centres and $10 everywhere else if elected.

"This is real cost-of-living relief. It means cheaper commutes, more money left at the end of the week, and a public transport system that works for everyone."

The cap, which would be introduced on 1 July 2027, is $20 in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and $10 everywhere else.

The party said it was higher in main centres because they offered more services, that cost more.

The policy would cost about $65 million each year, using about 1 percent of the National Land Transport Fund, Labour said.

I've got a (9 yr old) kid that loves the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. But it's terrible. The main character is a terrible friend, and a poor role model. The character frequently calls people stupid or morons, makes fun of kids outside the norm, and has weird 90s views of how boys and girls interact.

Can anyone suggest a series that their kid enjoyed for a similar audience? Even better if there are lots of them.

We're inviting audiences to join Waiata 100: our search for Aotearoa’s favourite New Zealand song. Music is at the heart of who we are and we want to know what songs move you (or make you move).

We've compiled a list of around 1000 New Zealand songs (and 200 waiata Māori) for you to choose from. You can cast your vote in Waiata 100 here. Voting closes at midnight on Sunday 21 June.

We'll release the top 100-51 songs during the week of 4-9 July, then the top 50 songs will be counted down in a special live Waiata 100 show hosted by Music 101 host Kara Rickard and guests on RNZ National on Friday 10 July.

Last thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

(some quotes from the article)

The government has framed its NZ$503 million budget spending on prisons as necessary to maintain public safety and manage a growing prison population, forecast to increase by 36 percent from the current 10,000 to 14,000 by 2035.

The appeal to public safety is tied to the goal of reducing violent crime, which most voters will understandably support.

But this broad messaging obscures two crucial facts. Most assaults in New Zealand happen inside private homes, not in public spaces. And the increase in the number of people in prison comes from an excessive remand population (people awaiting trial), not from an increase in serious offending.

From a fiscal perspective, it is a striking decision to build new prisons for the growing remand population instead of changing the law to release those who pose no risk on bail.

The remand population currently accounts for 41 percent of the prison population, up from 13 percent in 2000.

Over the past 25 years, a series of legislative changes has steadily increased the number of people on remand.

The most consequential change came when the previous National-led government amended the Bail Act in 2013 to tighten bail eligibility. Until then, most defendants were granted bail automatically.

This amendment shifted the burden of proof onto defendants. Instead of bail, remand became the new norm, because it is harder to prove something will not happen. For example, how can you prove you will not intimidate witnesses?

For the men and women held on remand, the consequences are often severe. People lose jobs, housing and family connections, all of which increase the likelihood of offending. Remand has become a costly and counterproductive system that harms both individuals and the public purse.

It is an old line, but it remains true: every dollar invested in early childhood support saves around 13 dollars in criminal justice costs later on.

A society that keeps expanding its prisons is admitting its social policies are not working. If we are serious about reducing crime, the government needs to invest earlier.

Parliament is currently considering a bill that would officially define what a man and woman are in New Zealand law.

The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, a member's bill introduced by New Zealand First MP Jenny Marcroft, passed its first reading last month.

The bill is open for public submission through 2 July.

It's likely to draw a significant amount of public feedback as it works its way through the halls of Parliament.

They can be made direct to Parliament through their website.

Parliament offers a guide to making submissions, urging people to be clear, accurate and relevant. Submissions that have offensive language can be rejected or returned.

TL;DR LemmyNZ turns 3 today. I made a video!

For the last two years I've posted a video celebrating LemmyNZ’s birthday. Today it's our birthday again, and I'm back with another terrible video!

As usual, here’s a bit of history of the last year here for those that are unable to watch the video or who just want to know more. If anyone has other memories to add, please do!

About a year ago we added a new frontend Blorp, one of many ways to use LemmyNZ from a browser (Blorp is also a mobile app).

We participated in Canvas, drawing a pretty substantial design, and with LemmyNZ users also contributing to other art across the canvas (and users from other instances also helping us).

We had our usual annual census, which was quite extensive. I will probably cut back the number of questions this year as it was a lot of work to pick through.

In October, we added a new community Maps without NZ.

Around November/December Lemmy.world had federation issues where they would suddenly stop sending us (and a range of other instances) content, which they traced to some faulty RAM on their server.

In February 2026 we migrated to storing images in object storage, and then migrated the server to a VPS when the team providing our hosting for free shut down their operations.

With this new cost, we started collecting contributions to pay for the server, and have collected over $150 already, which should cover 2-3 months of operation. We also had our first financial update ever, covering January-March 2026. I'll do another after June is over, aiming for quarterly updates.

To protect the server from a deluge of scraping bots that are a problem for anyone running sites these days, we implemented a tool called Anubis that weighs the soul of incoming requests. Following this we saw a significant reduction in bot traffic, and could hear the server sigh with relief.

We also added two new admins as a step to removing a single point of failure.

The video also covers some news articles around meth usage, alcohol usage, heath records hacks one and two, as well as climate change related events, research, and sporting impacts. And briefly mentions Wellington's sewage plant disaster.

Not mentioned - when I started a logo vote because I hate the little AI generated gremlin thing, and I seriously underestimated how much people care about these things. So we'll do a better job of getting some options, vote separately for the logo and banner, and hopefully do it a bit more justice.

Anyway, thanks everyone for being here!

Last thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?