What happened to the fight for the internet? https://dustycloud.org/blog/what-happened-to-the-fight-for-the-internet/

A new blogpost from me. I believe the fight for keeping the internet free is more important than ever but also under more threats than ever.

And the irony is, centralization is partly to blame: people don't feel like the internet is theirs anymore.

But we can't leave it there.

We HAVE to act.

For our sake, for our kids' sake, for ourselves, for the future.

Imagine being a young singer in 2010, going to a music school and having them spend more than half the class time on responsible use of autotune.

You tell them you're not singing into microphones at all right now and you don't have a computer, you actually want to learn about scales, reading music, warm-ups, how to engage the diaphragm, voice box anatomy and building out a repertoire.

They tell you that before any of that you must learn how to use autotune properly and how not to use it, otherwise you'll be left behind.

All the exams are primarily testing that you're not using autotune to 'cheat'. You're not sure what you would use it to cheat at or what other thing you should be doing, because the only thing you've been shown how to do is interact with autotune. None of the teachers seem to know how autotune fits into singing, but they know it's equally naughty for students to use it and to refuse to use it.

This is what uni in 2026 is like.

Yeah so the weather in Pōneke Wellington is very average. Normally there are 1200 cyclists around 6pm. Yesterday 300. Today 100.

I was walking through the Wellington Central Library and ran into this book on the history of photography in New Zealand. It has a lot of words...

https://patricklam.ca/post/20260623-into-the-light-review/

(Lighting conditions were terrible...)

"I don't have to put up with this." The bird on the left flies away. The leftmost bird is also now moving towards the pecker. (5/5) #Birds #BirdsNZ

And once again the bird in the middle pokes at the bird next to it. (4/5) #Birds #BirdsNZ

The bird in the middle is sitting there again. (3/5) #Birds #BirdsNZ

Poke. (2/5) #Birds #BirdsNZ

Grey Teal interaction at Travis Wetland (1/5) #Birds #BirdsNZ

OH: "that wind, eh?" #Poneke

The UK government's plan to teach 10 million British children how to use VPNs may be one of the most ambitious IT education projects ever launched. Experts have praised the scheme, saying that a deft combination of incentives and peer education make it more likely to succeed than other, comparable initiatives.

"With the rise of autocratic governments worldwide, VPN-literacy is more essential than ever.” said one expert, “This bold project definitely comes at the right time.”

#UKSocialMediaBan

There is another paper that has *so many* LLM writing tells, but I don't know how I can desk reject it, because I don't have proof that it was indeed written by LLM. Thoughts?

No thank you. I do not want Gemini in my Google Sheets. #noAI

A few weeks ago I biked to Petone on Te Ara Tapua and visited the Petone Settlers Museum. What are the Mounties doing here and why are they in brown? Is NZ Mounties going to be on the citizenship test?

Let's wrap up this month's pictures with a visit to Nairn St Cottage in Wellington, which shows life in (pretty colonial) Wellington over the past century and a half. /fin

Colonial Knob is also a worthy walk closer to Wellington, also with views of both Kapiti and Mana Island.

There is something to be said for the Escarpment Track near Wellington, looking out over the Cook Strait (and to Kapiti Island, though it's only barely visible in one of the pictures here.)

It is true that Wellington has carparks too. Sometimes there are dragon dances on them, though.

Moving along, this is kind of how I feel about Christchurch...