mastodon 4.6.6pākehā New Zealander settler & educator-scientist living & working in Dish With One Spoon territory. trans, queer, disabled, autistic, born at 323 ppm, covid-cautious, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anarchism-curious, working to do & be better. fled twitter in early 2023.
background: breaking ocean wave, in shades of teal/blue. avatar: grey slightly tousled short hair, matching short goatee, navy rectangular glasses, light skin, teal shirt, expressive blue eyes, friendly smile. #NoAI #NoBots
well this is super shitty.
The website WE NEWS has three northern Indigenous 'AI correspondents.' Their profiles say they are 'a member of Yukon First Nation,' 'of Dene heritage,' and 'an Inuk raised in the North.' Experts in the industry call the site disturbing and say it muddies the waters for readers trying to get authentic information.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/artificial-intelligence-indigenous-journalists-9.7345554
Why bicycles are surprisingly stable
A common myth is that bicycle stability comes mainly from the spinning wheels acting as gyroscopes. Gyroscopic effects help, but they are actually not the dominant factor.
The major sources of bicycle stability are:
Steering geometry (trail) • The front wheel naturally "falls into" a turn when the bike leans. • This automatically steers the contact patch underneath the rider's centre of mass. • The bike performs a kind of continuous self-correction.
Large wheel diameter • Large wheels roll smoothly over imperfections. • Small steering disturbances produce gentler changes in direction.
Long wheelbase • Reduces sensitivity to perturbations. • Creates slower, more manageable dynamics.
Rider position • The rider's mass is located relatively high and centred between the wheels. • Subtle body movements can effectively influence balance.
At speeds around 10-20 km/h, many bicycles are remarkably self-stabilizing. If you've ever seen a bicycle coast for a surprising distance riderless, that's evidence of these effects.
one hundred per cent!
The Waitangi Tribunal says the conservative coalition government of New Zealand's rewrite of the school curriculum was ideological, aided by people hostile to Māori knowledge, and breached multiple Treaty principles.
Most e-scooters move in the opposite direction on several of those factors.
This is probably the biggest issue. • Typical bicycle wheel: ~66-74 cm diameter (26-29 inches) • Typical e-scooter wheel: ~20-30 cm diameter (8-12 inches) if that A bump that's trivial for a bicycle can represent a significant fraction of a scooter wheel's radius. Consequences: • Easier to be deflected by cracks and potholes. • More sensitive to rough pavement. • Higher likelihood of "catching" on obstacles. • Faster steering reactions. This alone accounts for much of the subjective feeling that scooters are twitchy.
An e-scooter's wheelbase is often around half that of a bicycle. The result: • Quicker pitch motions. • Greater sensitivity to weight shifts. • More rapid response to steering inputs. In control-theory language, scooters tend to have faster unstable modes and less passive damping.
The handlebars are directly above the front wheel. On a bicycle: • Hands are farther from the steering axis. • Steering motions are somewhat filtered by body posture. On a scooter: • Small hand movements can create substantial steering angles. This is one reason inexperienced riders often exhibit slight "wobbling" on scooters.
Standing has advantages, but it changes the dynamics. The rider's center of mass is: • Higher above the deck than a cyclist's center of mass is above the bike frame. • Less constrained by a saddle. This means: • Greater potential leverage on the vehicle. • More body sway. • More active balancing required. The rider becomes part of the control system in a stronger way.
many Canadians definitely need lessons in how to recognize fascism. nobody should be surprised that it has a foothold in this country.
Second Sons' leaders have welcomed neo-Nazis into their ranks, called for mass deportations "at gunpoint" of non-white people from Canada and said Canadian politicians should be executed as traitors.
if you haven't done a First Aid and CPR course i highly recommend it. even if you can only afford to do it once in a lifetime it's worth it.
the youngest person in our course couldn't have been much older than thirteen or fourteen. i and another guy were the eldest at over fifty, everyone else was i am guessing between eighteen and thirty-five. all of the others needed the certification for work/training/study purposes. i was the only one doing it purely for the joy of knowing. 🤓⛑️
good. the entire strict setup of the school sounds like child abuse tbh.
A Saskatoon jury has found Duff Arthur Friesen, 68, guilty of assaulting three former students at a private Christian school with a wooden paddle.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/duff-friesen-christian-school-guilty-9.7350549
i fucking hate how austerity policies of right-wing governments are causing so much carnage in public hospitals in New Zealand & elsewhere.
> Christchurch Hospital has emergency plans to **pitch a tent outside** as corridors fill up with patients in beds, according to one doctor.
& in some cases, beds are already being angled in corridors in order to fit more in. 🤦🏼♂️
Canada screws over temporary foreign workers (TFWs). How can it be legal to make farm workers labour in such conditions without being allowed water in the field?!
> This summer, Ontarians were warned to stay inside as humidex values climbed to 48 C in parts of the province and wildfire smoke made for some of the worst air quality in the world. But many migrant farm workers were told to keep working.
Human-caused climate change made the hot and dry conditions responsible for Spain's record-sized inferno 20 times more likely to happen and it doubled the chances of extreme fire conditions for the flames in France, scientists at World Weather Attribution calculated in a rapid analysis Thursday, conducted while fires were still burning.
> The wise path to energy superpower status is use of solar energy. There are many ways to do this: with more vegetation cover and photosynthesis, with solar panels that use the photovoltaic effect, with hydroelectric power enabled by solar-powered evapotranspiration, or with wind turbines powered by the differential solar heating of the Earth’s surface.
https://rabble.ca/columnists/the-sun-is-our-energy-superpower/
fuck. the conservative coalition government of New Zealand is planning on cutting Jobseeker benefits from 2700 young people with a health condition, injury, or disability.
Canada is on fire, underwater and overheating. Here's what we can do about it
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/07/29/opinion/canada-extreme-weather-disaster-planning
> Indigenous communities around the world face mounting, and colliding, impacts from climate change, violence, rising threats from artificial intelligence and many other crises. Their leaders are demanding that the world take action, and they’ve given the United Nations a 12-point plan for what they say it must do.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/08/04/news/indigenous-leaders-12-point-plan-un
Nauru has officially changed its name to 'Naoero', the Micronesian Island nation's government announced in a statement on Wednesday night.
Nauru is the world's smallest independent republic, with a population of approximately 12,000 and a land area of 21 square kilometres.
the Indonesian government is systematically silencing environmental activists in West Papua, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch
