For those wondering why she's wearing wool and gloves indoors - New Zealanders typically can't afford electric heating, and wear woolen clothing in doors to to make up for this, when they can't burn firewood or coal.
as the country grapples with record numbers of citizens leaving the country because of a weak economy, high living costs and high unemployment.
More than 60% of those moved to Australia, where average weekly incomes are higher and New Zealand citizens have work and residency rights.
The spokesperson did not elaborate on when the family arrived in Australia nor what kind of work they were doing, but noted it was not unusual for former leaders to spend time overseas after leaving office.
Often kiwis can afford it but just choose not to. My own parents are well off and yet still have an absolutely freezing house all winter, it drives me crazy. Just put on a sweater, and another one over that, and a blanket....
Electricity was several times more expensive than in the US when we were there, and houses not insulated well. Sock hats and fingerless wool gloves it is.
Imagine thinking that wearing a sweater in wintertime means you're poor. Couldn't be me.
The gloves are a special kind made of thermal material for people with Raynaud's disease, where narrowing of the blood vessels reduces circulation in cold temperatures.
Of course they have very low wealth inequality so they don’t have trillionaires at all which some people may see as a problem. In fact remarkably despite the median wealth of NZ being so much higher than the USA they have a lower average wealth per capita.
They just spread the wealth around making the middle class 3x richer.
Wikipedia's (UBS') US figure ($69k) is probably wrong? US median household wealth is ~$193k[1]. I don't think there's a way to square claimed median individual wealth of $69k with that? Even taking into account children (22% population) and assuming 2 adults/household (more favorable to the math than the real 1.2-1.4 figure). I can't find anything on UBS' methodology, just the short 1.5 page paper.
I don't have an explanation for this but I did note that the 2023 UBS report had US Median Wealth per adult at $107K[1].
I wonder if there is a per adult vs per person vs per working person difference in the measurement or something like that?
Edit: I've dug into this more, and the closest thing I can come up with for an explanation is that UBS changed its model for 2026 to "normalize household debt" in order to make it more comparable across countries. There doesn't seem to be sufficient information to explain how that change caused such a radical change.
$107k is getting closer to being reconcilable with household $193k, yeah. The gap between $69k and $107k cannot be entirely explained by children (only 22% of population).
Emphasis mine. US median household is 2.53 persons [1]. 193/2.53 = 76k, which is within spitting distance of the 69k per person listed. The wikipedia is median wealth per capita
I think this analysis is conflating two different kinds of household -- a 2.53 (average) figure must include non-financially interdependent roommates, which aren't included in the $193k household figure.
Ticket based (Jira) it's a rough estimate but we are getting 5x as many tickets completed since adopting our current workflow/set of skills. Obviously tickets aren't a standard unit of measurement but we attempt to keep them the same size as pre-Agent work. I think our ticket size is the optimal size for a human to read and understand what that ticket is supposed to change and we do our best to keep to one change == one ticket. I've also found that if we go with larger tickets or less detailed tickets the work that Claude produces is far worse.
This has been my experience too. The initial euphoria of "wow it did that thing quickly", then I'm stick with code that's subtly broken and I don't understand.
Getting very close to treating AI tools as "read only" at this point.
Illinois can put up a great firewall like China and search citizens devices for contraband operating systems. The onus is not on tech to enforce it, it's on them.
Is anyone just overwhelmed by the propaganda and partisanship as you read this? I have no great opinion on this Syrian regime or the previous - like basically everyone on HN when it comes to geopolitical topics, I do not know much about it - but the bias in the article is almost comically ham-fisted.
It is distressing to hear someone on hacker news describe this, and the history of Syria over the last couple decades, as something that might be "propaganda" and "partisanship."
My god, man - do you even slightly follow the news? Are you really that unaware such that you feel there is some degree of question over just how horrific the Assad regime was for Syrians?
Why do you care? It's their country, let them mess it up as much as they want.
That's the problem with you Westerners, you stole and genocided people around the entire world, and when you were finally thrown out, you come back to pass judgement and impose your own dubious morals on other people.
Was reading book by Sue Black on forensic anthropology , Written in Bone, and she recalled incident where she was an expert witness for commission in Qatar, she confirmed the veracity of eyewitness and photo evidence of Assad Syrian regime of torture - for Arab instigated investigation. Not just Western values.
I was neutral and responded to your comment. The approach portrayed in the book is pretty clinical and she sticks to things that she can back up in court as factual to the best of her knowledge, it was kind of surprising to come across anything in the book that was remotely topical.
Hardships any country faces always affect innocent people. For example, immigrants were affected by the opioid crisis, so how does the flimsy, sad idea of "group karma" hold up here?
Sharing uphelpful, embittered opinions like this only spreads pain that wraps back around and bites you, in the end. Treating the suffering of people as a sport or spectator event, by proverbially pointing your finger and laughing, is repulsive and puts you exactly in the same league as the people you detest.
No, I get their point if you ignore the stuff about karma. It does stoke anger when you say "we know better than you" and try to fix other nations' governments though. This is the same kind of shit where the government says "we know better than you how to live your life", and starts meddling in citizens affairs.
Furthermore, let's be real. All such cases of "help" have never had altruistic goals in mind. I have never heard of a nation stepping into the affairs of another and actually "helped" and left with nothing in return. In ancient times it's mostly just an excuse for invasion. More recently, Osama started out as "help" against the Russian invaders. Saddam Hussein being installed and then toppled was also "help". Iran, was also due to "help" against the monarchy. I can't find a single instance where the help actually worked or was even meant to be true help. We cry for democracy but how many South American democratically elected governments have the leader of the free world toppled? Again, since ancient history the "help" part of the action is always just propaganda and an excuse to go forward to take advantage of some current crisis.
Your comment about "the stuff about karma" is an example of what is annoying about "western culture."
You push your desert cult's evangelism and whine when governments push back on your funding evil missionaries (see the latest brouhaha about FCRA, for example). Senators and even JD Vance are now screeching from their pulpits.
But the US has FARA and that's good? You can push your desert tribalism and that's good?
I’m actually not overwhelmed or see it as partisan
> There are widespread calls across Syrian society on social media for former senior officials to be held accountable
> Syria's Attorney General, Hassan al-Turba, told the BBC the government had launched a lawsuit against Luka, accusing him of "premeditated murder, torture, and death resulting from torture".
Syrian administration is using the court system and these aren’t leanings of BBC
I understand your general sentiment regarding being involved in other countries, I just don’t think it applies here
Regarding the term “partisan”, Syria is under a single party system, for now… ostensibly. They have grievances with the prior regime and are seeking information which is now irrelevant and has no possibility of being restored. I don't think it is possible for that to be considered partisan
Partisan in the sense of - there is a clear bias for the new regime, and against the old one. Not the literal sense. Note the weasel words from the first few paragraphs:
- "dictator"
- "henchmen"
- "conducted from the shadows"
- "regime"
- "brutal crushing"
- "pro-democracy uprising"
- "rebels"
One paragraph is almost entirely weasel words:
"But his most egregious action in the city, many argue, was his alleged involvement in the so-called Eid Massacre, known by some as the Children's Massacre, which the US noted when sanctioning him."
I don't know. I would have to compare the regimes side by side. But I am so incredibly skeptical about western interference in the middle east (and I say this as a proud westerner). Gadaffi was overthrown and the end result was too civil wars and open air slave markets. Syria is a different country of course, but my meta point is just because a new government is supported by the west does not mean it's better, as a general rule.
Anyone who knows any history of these countries - which share a common cult - knows that they are only relatively stable and somewhat secular if and only if an iron fisted minority rules over the intolerant majority.
Once the intolerant gain control you get slave markets in Libya, Yazidi girls being burnt alive in cages, and ISIS head choppers as president and massacring the Alawites, the Taliban banning women from studying. Even banning them from reading loudly.
Proud Westerners helped a 7th century tribal cult regain power. Congrats.
You can't "both-sides" atrocities of the sort the Assad regime practiced, which are well-documented. Even if you want to grant an individual associated with Assad the benefit of the doubt, this is the the point of a trial, in international court, the same sorts of trials that were given to Hitler's associates post WW2.
I know as much about it as every geopolitics expert who's responded to me - in that I have seen news stories. What of it? Do you take every news story you read at face value? I don't. Hence - no opinion; unlike all the experts on modern Syrian history we have here who have no doubt great amounts of knowledge on the civil war, finer points of ideologies, accurate death counts from third party sources, et.
Also, do you know how to read? I said it was propaganda and laughably biased. Weasel words. Can you not see them? Never accused them of fabricating anything.
So because you deem others to be speaking in ignorance, you decided to follow their example, but with a contrary position? What a waste of everyone's time.
It's interesting how every single person replying to you here has the same impression of what you're saying, except of course for the other person saying the same thing as you, but louder. I'm not going to suggest anything by that, other than the fact that if your communication style is so readily misunderstood, and the topic involves a regime who's mass graves are literally still being disinterred, why do you feel such a strong need to wade in and announce your... ignorance? Your susceptibility to propaganda?
1) I am less affected than others if people don't like what I say. I'll say things I think even if I know it won't be well received.
2) If you say things outside peoples overton window, they will immediately conclude that you believe the opposite to them. So the misinterpretations do not surprise me. Of course I must love Assad, probably rUzZiA too, and the nazis etc etc.
Argumentum ad Populum based on the opinion of HN commenters talking about geopolitics genuinely does not sway me.
The software development profession is in the midst of upheaval. Nobody knows how the AI revolution will play out in the end, but it is clear many aspects of work and life will be transformed—including programming.
I'm still not seeing it.
I'm seeing a lot of loud people, a lot of LOC produced, and a lot of people angrily pointing to their sideprojects... but no massive impact outside our bubble. Remember it's 2026, we are 5 years into this hype, the models are better than ever, and all the software we used around us is basically in the state it would have been in had we projected 2021 tech 5 years into the future ("in 2026, there will be... another backend JS runtime!")
I'm afraid all the personal anecdotes of technologists have not translated to real world results... other than negative ones like GitHub now having 0 9s of reliability.
Of course I suppose I'm "coping", as if I wouldn't be over the moon if AI had made me 10x productive... but maybe, just maybe, a lot of people really like talking to chatbots?
Those are two different things. Chatgpt being sycophantic while playing the role of a therapist with a teenager is much different from Codex being sycophantic while reviewing user feedback. The former is extremely dangerous for society.
I'm one of the people who gets accused of this. I don't mind skepticism. But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or running a scam. That gets really old.
I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year.
Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago.
I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking
If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.
As it is, a lot of people are actively looking but still not seeing it.
I'd love for HN to explain why I was flagged here for answering:
> If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.
with:
> If you can't see this - you should probably get your eyes checked.
He is clearly suggesting I am delusional about my productivity gains, and I'm the one who gets flagged.
Don't be a jerk. A lot of people have had bad experiences with these systems from people basically saying exactly what you're saying. This "you should get your eyes checked" mentality is pervasive with the nerds who confidently say that their analysis is solid when it's... not. It's a big problem in communities that have non-conventional videogame puzzles for example. Someone will come in, announce some novel solution.... leading to a four hour fight about the efficacy of LLMs, only to find a mistake in their code the next day.. never to be seen again.
Mind you, I'm not saying that these systems aren't great at reverse engineering and whatnot. They're spectacularly good at that. But RE is a relatively constrained problem because everything is still right in front of you. For complicated problems where the signal is mixed between noise... less so.
My point is just that you're talking past people and being an asshole in the process. Not everything is about winning an argument. Lower your temperature and you'll have more productive discussions that revolve around disagreements.
I'm not disputing that it's a hard thing to do, but we had decompilers before; "miracle" is rather stretching it.
Even granting that framing though, the claimed increase in productivity isn't a one-off, but asserted for everyone using them; you're claiming mass-produced miracles but trying to depend on a single example.
I used to use dotPeek all the time back in like 2012. There are also things like Ghidra that the NSA made. I dunno, google them, there are a lot. I'm not saying LLMs aren't useful here, just that it's not a huge deal. Also, why are AI people always making tools to take other people's IP? You are kind of fucking with people's intellectual property without permission it seems like. I'm not saying it's the crime of the century or anything but it's distressing how many AI projects come out of "let me repackage something someone else made"
I'm seeing more examples of you saying you're providing evidence than of you actually providing evidence. So far I've heard a single anecdote about what you did.
That's a pretty far cry from the "evidence" you claim to have dropped on multiple comments.
The claim was this is not possible. I show it happening. That's a proof.
You're confused because the example is my own project. But I'm not merely describing it - I am giving you full access to it to confirm or reject my argument.
Not anecdotal. Saying it three times does not make it true.
What things have you tried that didn't go well? At this point, that's more interesting.
If you want to have a whack at a hard problem, have a try at the cryptographic puzzle in Noita if you want to see the silly failure modes of these systems. Lots of people have tried to solve it with AI and nothing's budged. If you can solve it, great.
If you'd like to change the subject I'd be happy to do so.
You're right - there are still many problems that have not been solved by AI. AI has not found a cheap and effective way to turn lead into gold, as an example.
But I sorta think that's a silly metric. There are always going to be unsolved problems for any system. The interesting metric is how many problems have been solved - and how surprising are they.
Like I said above - a decompiler that produces semantic understanding of the machine code it's looking at (this address is score; this address is how many lives are left; this address is...) would have been considered literally impossible before LLMs. Today, I was able to implement such a system in under two weeks.
That's an impressive result. If you disagree, I'd love to discuss it with you.
I'm aware of what they're good at. I got claude 4.6 to run linux as a native postgres module inside linux inside postgres inside linux inside postgres on a mac. It was impressive then and it's still impressive. IOW, I really think you're misinterpreting my comments as significantly more inflammatory than I actually mean. And you seem to be taking it personally.
But what I'm interested in is in the edges of their failure modes because those failure modes prop up frequently in pernicious ways. For a similar reason that I want to understand the edges of my own intellectual failure modes by regularly challenging myself. This conversation is an example of that.
It seems like you're just not interested in discussing the edges and failure modes. You call that a "silly metric", I call it, "understanding your tools".
My primary interest in these threads is to debunk the claims that "AI is a hoax".
Granted, that's not exactly the claim these days, the claim's goalposts shift constantly, as these things do.
But if you go back to the top of this conversation - I asked why people aren't seeing the miracles (not cute tricks - useful things that simply were impossible before) and I was largely met with the response "you're delusional if you see miracles."
But the thing is - I am not. So I am going to continue arguing that case every time I see a version of it.
So no, I'm not interested in exploring other issues. Sorry. Yours in particular I find as interesting as discussing whether Microsoft Word can be used to edit video files. Not interesting.
But if you need validation, here it is: there are many problems that AI cannot solve. Of course there are. There always will be.
HEH. Not sure why you're implying I have changed my position. I said as much above and would have said the same at any time. I don't think it's controversial in the least that there are things AI can't do.
Do you have a weird need to reframe this so you can feel like you won? You shouldn't do that. It's not healthy.
Oh hey - the timer finally kicked off. In case you didn't see my reply - here you go:
HEH. Not sure why you're implying I have changed my position. I said as much above and would have said the same at any time. I don't think it's controversial in the least that there are things AI can't do.
Do you have a weird need to reframe this so you can feel like you won? You shouldn't do that. It's not healthy.
What counter example did you provide? You said you had tried a few projects. You can just claim that without any evidence. I have no reason to believe you're not lying.
You could say "I used AI to cure cancer." This isn't a counter example, because there's no evidence for it.
I'm sorry downvoters - it's true. In his opening statement he complained about nastiness and then became extremely nasty himself, when I had said nothing like that to him. Other than just disagree and provide evidence.
I've had one conversation that was sorta like this, it was around the time some kid kept releasing videos of him interacting with a very bad TTS gpt model or something and it would give very very bad answers confidently.
Their frame of reference was that, and this was at a time when opus 4.5 was around. Hard to expect a reasonable conversation when one person has such a different view of what the tools are capable of.
In 2026 that advice feels antiquated. SQLite now is absolutely useful now for concurrent, mutli-writer applications.
https://www.sqlite.org/src/doc/wal2/doc/wal2.md