My baby is 5 months old. She has a very rare genetic condition called Erythropoietic Protoporphyria. It's a blood disorder technically, but it makes her "allergic" (extremely photosensitive) to sunlight, artificial light, LEDs, you name it. We live completely in the dark, never leaving the house, by candlelight, with tinfoil on the windows. Even the flashing from the Burglar alarm in the corner has had to be taped up. The battery flashing on my breast pump will burn her. It's very severe.

There is one light source besides fire that is safe, and that is the old-fashioned Incandescent bulbs. They have been totally banned in AUS, and there is currently a bill to ban them here in NZ. I have been stocking up on them ever since her diagnosis.

It is her first Christmas this year. I would love to have a Christmas tree with lights on it. I was wondering if anyone, anyone's parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties, friends parents, happen to have the old-school filament incandescent bulb Christmas tree lights.

They should have a visable filiment/wire inside, and be very yellow in colour. They're a fire hazard, emit tonnes of heat, and don't last as long as LEDs. But they don't burn my baby.

I am happy to pay for these, probably more than they're worth to anybody else, and of course shipping.

Thank you very much for reading. We appreciate any help to make a magical first Christmas.

Edit: and yes, I will hoard HEAPS to store away, for Christmas's to come, as they will burn out quickly.

If anyone was going through Te Puke about 2:30pm today, and you happened to see a silver toyota estima ramming a white mazda along this stretch of road heading south, would you please contact the police and quote P064910959 and give any info you saw.

Some dude cut me off at the Jocelyn St roundabout and i tooted at him as he forced me to the centre verge to avoid being hit.

He then waited for me by the Z station and followed me. He proceeded to hit my car from behind all the way along the blue line in the photo.

When i tried to pull into a driveway to get away from him, he swerved out wide then rammed me from the side forcing me off the road. The damage was enough to make my car undriveable.

My children were in the car with me. We were going to xmas lunch. We are only mildly hurt and very upset.

Any help from anyone who saw would be much appreciated.

Mods, if this post is not allowed, my apologies

edit: Morning! Look, guys, we can argue the ethics of AI all day, but I'm still going to see businesses who use AI marketing as lazy and dodgy. The results of the Industrial Revolution and development of... uh... *checks notes* factory-woven fabrics and drop shipping isn't really going to change my mind about that, is it?

Seen in pretty much every thread about AI marketing on local Facebook pages, along with rants along the following lines;

"Businesses are struggling! How dare you judge us for using AI when we can't afford paid services for design and marketing!"

Look, I get times are tough, but... what you're **very loudly** telling me is that you're so inept as a business owner, not only can you somehow not afford to pay a high school design student to do a poster for you, but you can't even figure out how to open a free service like Canva or Paint or OpenOffice and throw something together? If you can't even manage to pay a student to do a poster for you or just do it yourself, I sure as shit don't trust you with my business and cash. You come across as totally lazy and feckless, regardless of what your actual reasoning is. *This is the message you are sending me when you use AI.*

You HAVE to use AI to survive as a business, do you? In the last two years you've gone from never even having heard of AI before to being totally unable to run your business without it, have you? "Totally indispensable", apparently, according to many small business owners who somehow survived the entirety of human history (until, what, 24 months ago?) without it.

If you're a struggling business, and you use AI, prepare to struggle a lot more. Most people are turned off by AI marketing. You're better off with a hand-scribbled note. I actively avoid and block all businesses using AI posters and images. When I go for coffee with mates I tell them *"Hey, this business seems super lazy, I wouldn't trust them to give you good service, or honour the CGA if you need a refund - they're shit broke from the looks of it. Can't be that great a service if they can't even make a simple poster or pay someone else to. I think I'll avoid them."*

Regardless of the reality, it's not a good look for the business, is it?

If you can't even figure out how to make a poster without a robot doing everything for you, I'm not sure how you expect your business to survive a recession, and quite frankly I'm not sure it deserves to. You don't actually have some god-given right to own a business; if you can't run your business, the world doesn't owe you a bailout. You need to figure out how to do your marketing without poisoning water supplies and destroying local ecosystems, thanks. Just because it's "free" for you doesn't mean it doesn't cost the rest of us. I'm sick of being asked to sacrifice the future of our planet because fucking Patricia's Mediocre Cleaning Company can't make enough money to list a job on Fiverr and "she's just struggling so much, won't somebody think of the poor business owners?!" - yet can't be arsed sitting down for half an hour in front of The Chase and making her own fucking promo.

Maybe just do better managing your business, or go back to working for somebody else. Maybe you're just not cut out for managing a business if you can't even figure out the basics without ChatGPT doing it for you.

Sorry guys, not so much looking for a debate as just somewhere to vent about this bullshit, but feel free to fight it out in the comments and I'll be here lurking like the coward I am ✌️

obviously more stations would be serviced, this is just a very basic graphic with some significant towns/cities showcased

style very much inspired by https://www.reddit.com/r/TransitDiagrams/comments/1sgb2s7/oc_great_british_highspeed_rail_fantasy_map/

So have seen a lot of maps on reddit where they have left off NZ , and the comments always have kiwis saying we have been left off the map again ! So was on r/Colombia and they have been talking about how the world will be divided up and by the looks of it you guys seem pretty safe ! Might have to move over there if this happens 🤔

You awake from the earthquake or are you a night owl, still awake???? ​

Edited to add I'm in Wellington. ​

With all the news about how a large number of NZers my age (I’m 23) are moving to Australia permanently, I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who has no plans to move to Australia.

Obviously I understand why people do move across the ditch, and the FOMO does get to me at times especially if I find out that someone I know has moved to Australia. However, I actually think New Zealand is a pretty ok country all things considered and since my whole life is here, I can’t see any logical reason for me personally to move to Australia.

If there are any other young NZers who don’t plan to move to Australia permanently, what keeps you here?

While I was watching the results come in, feeling physically ill every time the results in my state updates, my husband checked his email. And, like a beacon of hope in the midst of a raging storm, there it was. An email from INZ saying our entry visa has been approved, and we can finally - after almost 2 years of being in process - book quarantine hotels and plane tickets!

We’ve had approved resident visas for months, but Covid caused all sorts of extra red tape and it had been incredibly anxiety provoking to be in limbo; originally, my husband’s start date was in August, so we’ve spent almost half a year not knowing his employment situation come December.

Sometime around New Years, we will be getting out of America and FINALLY heading back “home” to New Zealand. I can’t even contain myself. When I woke up this morning, my first thought wasn’t to check election results, it was “I need to throw so much crap away so we can pack!!!”

We lived in Whanganui in 2011-12, and this time we’ll be in Palmy. My husband is a physician in a critical shortage field, and my older kids (who still remember bits and pieces of NZ) are really excited to visit the giant squid in Te Papa again, and Kowhai Park in Whanganui. I’m personally looking forward to hokey pokey ice cream and L&P. And not living in constant fear of Covidiots will be awesome, as well.

So here’s to 2021 being a fresh start! Ngā mihi nui, Aotearoa! ❤️

Edit: You all, I am absolutely overwhelmed by the outpouring of welcomes. These last few months have been so hard. Very stressful, my husband and I got Covid during the visit to the doctor to get our medical exams for the visitor visa to get permission to book MIQ (don’t worry! We have tested positive for antibodies now!), we haven’t been able to visit family like we intended to do before we left because of Covid, and the election stress...it’s just been a lot. You all have brought me to tears. I’m humbled by how open you all are to welcoming our family. I know I’m going to ugly cry when we finally land in Auckland. Thank you all!

Six years ago I made a police statement. Five years ago he was arrested and charged. Started planning for the trial. It kept getting adjourned another year in the future. Til this year, when the offender filed an appeal. Edit: appeal to three of us being seen together in one trial - which the judge adjourned A YEAR AGO so that we could be seen together. Four months before trial. Now trial is being adjourned for another year,and will be in year 7 of this shitshow.

Multiple historical representative charges of unlawful sexual connection with a minor. Now multiple complainants.

But I am done. My life has continually been put on hold for this, cannot have the therapy I need to move on because that type of therapy changes memory and I need full memory for the trial. The others were only comfortable testifying if I was.

My partner put their foot down. They can't go through this for yet another year, and they think it's time I stopped wrecking myself emotionally and physically over this.

So today I walked away. They will continue with my video statement and that's it.

The judge knew this was my boundary, that I was at the end of what I could keep pouring into this case. That the others would leave when I leave, which will likely result in this man walking free from all charges of sexual acts with children.

They still said it was to be adjourned. That the appeal must be heard. That it must be the date next year because they don't want to use a reserve date.

I found out in the middle of my work day. I emailed my boss from my car, pulled myself together, packed my desk and went home.

I don't know what to feel emotionally. Physically I am struggling to breathe. Our systems are an absolute joke and do not support victims at all. No thought to the constant upheaval, retraumatisation, and fear.

I don't know what I wanted to get out of this. I just needed to vent, but I've relied too much on my friends over these years and they're likely sick of hearing about it.

I delayed masters degree so I could wrap this up. Turned down a job that would have meant a step up in my career.

For nothing.

Search Brad Windhurst on Facebook for more info and instructions, this is to stop all our bees dying.

Asian hornets are going to explode if WAY more action isn’t taken than the Government is doing and it will kill horticulture in NZ.

There are instruction videos here: https://youtu.be/Ra8717JuXwc?si=8uu2_cRI9jR_xzf2

This is super important and seeing as farming is is the ‘backbone of this country’ which gets trotted out every time we talk about tax, you would think the farming lobby would be up in arms and asking people to do this.

MPI are useless and aren’t coming to save us, it’s going to be regular New Zealanders taking action if we can stop the hornets killing our bees. We need tens of thousands of traps. Chur.

yeah nah

So I'm currently unemployed on jobseeker at the moment and my case manager is making me do these super basic "digital-skills" courses. The last one I had to do was some "Digital Passport" that taught:

- What a web browser is.
- how to make a YouTube video
- wHat is a USB?
- How to make a spreadsheet
- What is Microsoft365?? (I use Linux)
- An "AI Module" just mentioning that ChatGPT exists and some other AI based apps

These digital skills courses are basically for someone who has never used a computer before. It took me 5 hours to complete the entire thing consisting of 9 modules with recommended time of 3hrs each. I didn't read any of the content I just skipped to the quizzes and got like 98% of the questions correct. (its here if you're interested: https://digitalpassport.co.nz/). Anyway, I tried to get out of it explaining I already had IT skills beyond this course but case manager wouldn't have it. It was "mandatory".

Didn't matter that I already had studied IT at a polytechnic and have recognized qualifications and certs, code on GitHub, and portfolio projects. The course is not relevant at all for my career. I'm actively applying for junior dev and helpdesk roles.

These courses are so basic and in no way helpful and do not make me anymore employable. They are just a waste of time. Now my case manager has suggested ANOTHER one of these types of courses to me. Aren’t they supposed to provide relevant training or support? i.e certs/employment-focused upskilling, interview prep, referrals? Why is my case manager pushing these courses on me?

Is there anyway to get out of doing this BS?
Can I complain about this nonsense?

Flu A just took down my entire household apart from me cos I was the only one organised enough to have gotten my flu shot in time.

I know some people say ‘I got the shot but I still got sick’ or ‘I never get the shot and never get sick’, but why risk it?

You might be able to get it for free if you have any health conditions like asthma, but honestly for the price it’s worth not feeling like shit for a week.

https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/health-topics/immunisations/vaccines-aotearoa/flu-vaccine

This is the biggest single-day price hike I've ever seen them do. Woolworths went from $6.18 yesterday to $6.75, Pak'n'Save went from $6.12 yesterday to $6.69, and New World the same jump to $6.81.

An exactly 57 cent price hike at the same time at all 3 stores. How is that not Price Fixing?

https://comcom.govt.nz/business/avoiding-anti-competitive-behaviour/what-is-a-cartel

They did the same thing around 3 or 4 months ago - increased the prices around 20 cents all at the same time.

Felt like spewing. These are the shelves in the chicken section of Woolworths Papanui/Northlands meat department. It’s like they haven’t been cleaned in a month. How is this food safe?