leighelse{}

I've spent half my working life as a broadcaster and half as a software developer. Along the way I've been a professional musician, and an assistant to apiarists and undertakers (although not at the same time).

I live in Whanganui, where I write and record music, write web and desktop software utilities for my own amusement, and enjoy biking, reading and travelling.

Music: https://sidesister.bandcamp.com/
Website: https://www.else.co.nz/

Public Key

npub1aljf63tx9hvnmj0lejcn3wf776e6yr5vqslnwwhm26qnc29nwahqzwfln8

NIP-05 Address

leighelse_at_mastodon.nz@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswleyag4nzmkfae8luevfchyl0dvazp6xqg0eh8ta4dqfu9zehwmsprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqywhwumn8ghj7mn0wd68yttsw43zuam9d3kx7unyv4ezumn9wsqx5cy3

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

nostr-pub.wellorder.net

yabu.me

Author Public Key

npub1aljf63tx9hvnmj0lejcn3wf776e6yr5vqslnwwhm26qnc29nwahqzwfln8

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Last Notes

2026-10-29 03:42:32 UTC

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This is not going to work for Richard. In the past I've set up dedicated NUCs and laptops for TV streaming, but they didn't meet with success. I bought us a wifi + bluetooth box for streaming audio to the sound system, and I'm the only one who uses it.
The Apple TV box seems like the best solution.

2026-10-29 00:07:52 UTC

The purple patches on our six year old Panasonic FirefoxOS smart TV are getting larger, and we need to actively look for a replacement. In addition to broadcast television we play DLNA content from the NAS, and use the Sky Sport Now, TVNZ and Three apps.
I'm very concerned about privacy and security; Richard is concerned that the replacement is as easy to use as the current TV.
Initial research tells me all the current crop of smart TVs are compromised by tracking' advertising and, in many cases, artificial intelligence. I know I can build a PiHole device and limit the telemetry, although if we chose a Google TV I'd also need a separate WAN subnet for this as Richard has stock Android devices and will still want them to phone home.
Personally I'd be happy never to connect the new TV to the internet and use a separate box for streaming, but I can't see that working for Richard, who wants a single remote control and no faffing around.
If anyone has insights or suggestions I'd love to read them.
The only device I might sell Richard on is Apple TV. The apartment we leased in Barcelona two years ago had it, and he thought it was brilliant. We have four Homerun tuners already antenna-connected, and I could dedicate and connect one to an app on the Apple TV box.
Apple TV users: I'd welcome your input and have a question. I assume the Apple TV box is connected to the television via HDMI; can you set this up so that when the TV is turned on the Apple TV interface is automatically displayed?

2026-10-21 18:53:11 UTC

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Knowing how much work is required updating large, complex PHP software from one major version to another, and having some awareness of how many sites are still running PHP7 and even PHP5, I expect this is going to be a serious headache for a lot of organisations.

2026-10-17 19:14:06 UTC

In New England, rivers blocked to fish for hundreds of years are being rewilded as dams are removed.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dam-removals-are-bringing-fish-back-across-the-northeastern-united-states-striking-down-one-tiny-barrier-at-a-time-180989679/
'“We’re in this dam-removal renaissance, where we’re losing barriers faster than we’re putting them up for the first time in history,” says Nathan Furey, a fish biologist at the University of New Hampshire. Per one inventory, however, at least 35,000 dams still truncate northeastern fish runs, including more than 3,000 in Massachusetts, 5,000 in Connecticut and 9,000 in New York.'

2026-10-15 19:07:40 UTC

A Fentanyl dealer explains why his street corner deals are a net benefit to the world.
https://morewrong.lol/?post=overdose-offsets-why-every-bag-of-fentanyl-i-sell-is-net-life-positive
'Longtermists have taught us to weigh not just the life saved but the future that life makes possible. A girl under a net in Malawi has, in expectation, sixty years ahead of her, children of her own, grandchildren, and descendants across a future that may hold trillions of people. A 46-year-old man nodding on the steps of the Somerset station has, with respect, a shorter and less branching future. Weighted by descendants, I’m not trading one death for 1.3 lives. I’m trading a cul-de-sac for a family tree.'

2026-10-10 19:03:01 UTC

How much credit should Japan's Tuna King receive for stopping the epidemic of Somali piracy?
https://www.japaninsides.com/the-sushi-king-who-went-to-somalia-how-japans-most-famous-tuna-buyer-says-he-turned-pirates-into-fishermen-55344
'... he provided four fishing boats. He taught the crews to catch yellowfin tuna. He set up freezer capacity on shore so the fish would keep until it could be shipped. He helped Somalia engage with the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, the body that manages the fishery. And he committed to buying what they caught, at a stable price, so that a tuna was worth money the day it came out of the water.
“They didn’t even like pirating. I suggested that they catch tuna instead, and make a proud living for their families.”

2026-09-28 22:37:00 UTC

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Painting your face with white lead and strapping yourself into corsets are the first two self-destructive consequences of social conditioning I can think of.
Technological conditioning? Microsoft Windows and default cloud integration for mobile operating systems immediately come to mind.

2026-09-09 20:51:42 UTC

Screenshot from Reddit.
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/117/243/050/009/396/353/original/e757980e81117fb8.png

2026-08-07 07:45:46 UTC

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Could you post a link to your album?

2026-07-01 19:44:51 UTC

Google's new reCAPTCHA wants you to turn on your camera and show it your hand, so it can identify you more definitively.
https://reclaimthenet.org/googles-new-recaptcha-wants-your-camera-access-and-21-points-of-your-hand
'This is a company whose business runs on gathering and monetizing personal data, now asking to switch on your camera and read your hand.'

2026-06-14 21:53:16 UTC

Rather than attempting to completely stop any harvesting of personal information, how about we poison it with similar quantities of false but coherent data?
https://blog.digitalgrease.dev/posts/fauxx-cant-stop-the-signal
'The problem with fully random noise is that it’s still a fingerprint. If your real browsing is highly clustered (say, you mostly read about software development and personal finance) and your synthetic activity is uniformly random, the gap between your real pattern and your noise pattern is itself detectable. A sufficiently sophisticated classifier can eventually separate the signal from the uniform noise and filter it out.
What you actually want is noise that’s different from you, not noise that’s different from everything. Targeted noise. Off-demographic synthetic activity.'

2026-03-29 19:19:13 UTC

Miasma will send poisoned training data from the poison fountain alongside multiple self-referential links. It's an endless buffet of slop for the slop machines.
https://github.com/austin-weeks/miasma
'... we'll start Miasma and specify /bots as the link prefix. This instructs Miasma to start links with /bots/, which ensures scrapers are properly routed through our Nginx proxy back to Miasma.
We'll also limit the number of max in-flight connections to 50. At 50 connections, we can expect 50-60 MB peak memory usage. Note that any requests exceeding this limit will immediately receive a 429 response rather than being added to a queue.'

2026-03-03 18:51:24 UTC

Hegseth preaches Armageddon to US troops on the eve of battle.
https://jonathanlarsen.substack.com/p/us-troops-were-told-iran-war-is-for
'A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.
From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).'

2026-02-28 20:42:33 UTC

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I was saddened to hear Albanese's statement.

2026-02-28 18:43:15 UTC

The artificial intelligence note-taker Scribe has been rolled out to Emergency Departments in Aotearoa New Zealand.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/588244/ai-scribe-tool-being-used-in-emergency-departments
Talking with an ED doctor on Wednesday, he said that in his experience the tool is not sufficiently accurate to rely on, particularly when dealing with Kiwi accents. A specific concern was the transcription of values and units; 20 mls can become 20 kilos. For now, he uses it solely for dictating his reports. He feels that using it to do more could risk patient safety.

2026-02-18 04:26:53 UTC

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That makes uncomfortable reading. And, yes, I've had similar encounters.

2026-02-06 01:51:51 UTC

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This rings a bell across the Tasman too.

2026-02-01 00:53:22 UTC

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It is possible there have been at least a few reviews and ratings, but IMDB knows on which side its bread is buttered, and has ... ummm ... made them less visible.

2026-01-28 23:44:28 UTC

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Oversharing turned up to eleven.

2026-01-25 09:18:35 UTC

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Congrats.

2026-01-02 00:58:11 UTC

Can any other Aotearoa New Zealand centre better the incomprehensibility of this Whanganui road sign?
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/822/778/641/602/755/original/fdfb811894a96854.png

2025-12-25 18:55:56 UTC

SalesForce now regrets replacing 44% of its workforce with artificial intelligence
https://maarthandam.com/2025/12/25/salesforce-regrets-firing-4000-staff-ai/
'For a company that once positioned itself as a model for AI-first enterprise transformation, the episode now stands as a warning about the limits of technological optimism and the consequences of moving faster than the tools are ready to handle.'

2025-11-29 20:50:06 UTC

AltSendMe is a free, open-source app for Linux, MacOS and Windows that lets you send files or folders of any size directly to someone. It uses Iroh (also free and open-source) for initial routing, then works peer to peer. It will resume interrupted transfers from the point of failure.
Tthe official site: https://www.altsendme.com/en
A comparison with commercial services: https://www.xda-developers.com/i-swapped-dropbox-for-this-self-hosted-alternative/
The inevitable Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/editors/comments/1on52om/removed_by_moderator/
There are also mobile versions in development.

2025-11-15 01:28:29 UTC

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An updated list of Firefox settings to change in about:config to rid your Firefox of any AI activity:
user_pref("browser.ml.enable", false);
user_pref("browser.ml.chat.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.ml.chat.sidebar", false);
user_pref("browser.ml.chat.menu", false);
user_pref("browser.ml.chat.page", false);
user_pref("extensions.ml.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled", false);
user_pref("pdfjs.enableAltTextModelDownload", false);
user_pref("pdfjs.enableGuessAltText", false);

2025-11-14 20:29:40 UTC

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The only downside for me is philosophical.
Vivaldi seems currently to be the best of the Webkit browsers, but if I want real browser choice in the future I need Firefox to survive, at least until Ladybird comes on line.

2025-11-14 20:27:35 UTC

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Vivaldi works well, but so does Firefox. I turned off all the AI in about:config to be sure it stays that way.

2025-10-30 20:21:22 UTC

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I LOVE this.
'Ours once transcribed a side conversation about my water bottle we had while waiting for someone to arrive, and then assumed the entire meeting, which was actually about software design, was about the water bottle.'
'I was on a Zoom call with AI notetaking software and was referring to a colleague named Bridget–but on the transcription, every time I specifically mentioned her name, it appeared as “Piglet.” This did not happen when others on the call said “Bridget”! It looked like that was just my nickname for her. I was so embarrassed.'
And much more ...

2025-10-27 18:42:52 UTC

When a lock company's product is proven* to be easily picked, the effective response is not to go after the lock picker.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/suing-a-popular-youtuber-who-shimmed-a-130-lock-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/
'... on April 3, McNally posted a saucy little video to social media platforms. In it, he watches the Proven promo video while swinging his legs and drinking a Juicy Juice. He then hops down from his seat, goes over to a Proven trailer hitch lock, and opens it in a matter of seconds using nothing but a shim cut from a can ...'
* Pun Intended

2025-10-16 00:31:57 UTC

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Nice to see; gives me some hope.

2025-10-03 14:53:19 UTC

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Sarah is a significant and controversial choice.

2025-09-16 05:55:38 UTC

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I hope that heals quickly.

2025-09-11 19:35:30 UTC

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Google is now starting work on a task of consummate importance to them; making independent builds of Android unworkable.
See https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115164183840111564

2025-09-10 22:34:54 UTC

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What, they've rounded up all the trans people in Utah already?

2025-08-12 20:14:55 UTC

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It's a key weakness of federated systems.
Servers aren't configured to accept external search requests because the additional load would be substantial and would make the minimum resourcing for hosting an instance significantly more expensive.
This could perhaps be mitigated by each server periodically building a cached index, but even so the additional traffic alone would be problematic for many servers.

2025-08-10 20:40:17 UTC

Open AI's release of GPT5 shows a substantial gap between artificial intelligence promises and reality.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/gpt-5-overdue-overhyped-and-underwhelming
'Altman’s reputation should by now be completely burned. This is a man who joked in September 2023 that “AGI has been achieved internally”, told us in January of this year in his blog that “We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it”. Just two days ago he hold us that as quoted above) interacting with GPT-5 we “like talking to … legitimate PhD level expert in anything”.
In hindsight, that was all bullshit.'

2025-08-07 22:43:34 UTC

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My best bit:
'I had a male colleague tell me I didn’t understand how a particular computer system worked. I designed it. When I asked him how he thought it worked he said “I don’t know”.'

2025-07-25 20:47:03 UTC

We have a Dropbox subscription with 2TB storage. Our devices back up automatically to our NAS, and each night the NAS backs up the critical directories to Dropbox. It costs around NZD200 a year and has been working seamlessly for about ten years.
Dropbox has embraced our new AI overlords and our subscription is up for renewal in four weeks. Can anyone recommend other services with similar capacity and cost that might be a drop-in replacement? Local or at least non-US hosting preferred.

2025-07-19 21:58:42 UTC

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This seems like (cautiously) good news.

2025-07-11 08:08:08 UTC

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As with this one I spotted (I think) in inland Victoria.
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/114/833/567/801/409/227/original/d9aedbd387b38b1a.png

2025-07-04 01:12:45 UTC

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We shouldn't assume there'll be anything approaching free and fair mid-term elections.

2024-12-27 19:20:48 UTC

87.4 per cent of the world’s population lost freedom from 2019 to 2022.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/human-freedom-index-2024
Aotearoa New Zealand may currently be second on the list of countries with the greatest freedoms, but we must never be complacent.

2024-12-23 03:20:44 UTC

https://www.thefarside.com/
https://mastodon.nz/system/media_attachments/files/113/699/970/297/725/237/original/0106ef5106a146c2.png

2024-11-27 18:35:45 UTC

Fully 24% of the world's identifiable plastic waste comes from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone, and Altria, with Coca-Cola well in front.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/just-five-companies-produce-nearly-25-percent-all-plastic-waste-worldwide

2024-08-15 20:53:41 UTC

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Luxon's claim that Aotearoa New Zealand cannot afford the infrastructure it needs is disingenuous. The government can borrow at a lower rate than any private sector company. We could develop an investment programme to deal with our infrastructure deficit, and pay less for it than the piecemeal passive-aggressive PPPs proposed by the outgoing government.
[... ends]

2024-08-15 20:50:07 UTC

Public-private partnerships hold no advantages for the public sector. They require every private participant to make a profit, and for deferred payments from the public sector to accrue interest, pushing the total cost across the life of the infrastructure well ahead of a fully public project. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/525251/watch-luxon-seeks-australian-help-to-make-progress-on-critical-infrastructure
[more ...]