Dave

In case you missed it, I have an update in this post. TL;DR we are losing our host and will need to move to a VPS.

It seems pretty clear that once we have to start paying for storage, it will be very expensive to keep everything on hard drive storage, so we will need to move to storing images on object storage.

Unless anyone has any objections, instead of doing everything in one go, I would like to do the migration to object storage for images in advance of the main move to a VPS in order to better assess what we will need for storage once that part has been offloaded. The plan is to use Backblaze B2 storage, because it's cheap, reliable, and already used for our backups.

This means we will need two patches of downtime, most likely this weekend and next as we need to be off the current host by the end of the month.

This post is to propose an outage from this Friday after 8pm, through to whenever it is finished on Saturday. I have been doing some testing, and it seems it will be a bit flaky if I try to do the migration too fast. My plan is to set it going the night before, run it overnight, and start Lemmy back up in the morning assuming the migration has finished by then. But there is every chance that it just stops while I'm sleeping and needs to be restarted in the morning, taking most of Saturday.

My current plan is to keep Lemmy itself running during this time, meaning there will be no images but federation will continue so we shouldn't need to catch up after it's done.

TL;DR

• Outage Friday after 8pm through to when it's done on Saturday
• Most likely Lemmy text content will remain available but no guarantees
• Moving image storage to Backblaze B2 - please tell me ASAP if there are objections (American company, but only real alternatives are Cloudflare or big tech and American anyway)
• A further outage will be required the following weekend to move the actual Lemmy service

I just thought I'd let people know that you can watch the winter olympics on Sky Open, which is a free channel Sky has. If you have actual Sky I think you have more options over what events you can watch.

But yeah, Freeview channnel 8 or via Three Now app. I think you might be able to watch online here if you log in to three now,

We already have one silver and one bronze: https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026/medals

Which puts us as 7th per capita 😁: https://www.medalspercapita.com/

Unless we don't get to count the broken one.

As many of you will know, we have been borrowing server hosting, which kept costs very minimal. Many of you donated to the host (thanks!), but a while back they stopped taking donations as they wound down operations including transferring mastodon.nz to new people and gave me notice that we would eventually need to move to other hosting.

That was quite some time back, and now I've been notified that the time has finally come. At some point in this month we will swap over to a new host. It will also involve significantly increased costs to run the server (up from almost nothing), and most likely we will move to a VPS off of the current shared but dedicated hardware to more appropriate specs, and move to using object storage for images. All this will likely require some down time, which I will try to give notice of. I'm currently planning for this to be quite significant (perhaps done over the course of a whole weekend), since this would involve migrating all images to object storage which must be done with pict-rs shut down (others have reported 8+ hours for this), as well as transferring all other data to a new VPS, then a slow period of time as it catches up on federation. The second day would be a backup in case something went wrong.

When this move happens, I'll also start to do regular financial updates. In the past people have been interested in running costs, but they have been minimal out of pocket due to the server hosting being free to me. With the increased costs it makes sense to start regular updates about what it costs to run the instance, similar to what other instances do. There is a very wide range in what this could cost, and it's not clear right now what the lowest spec server is that we could get away with. But I am hoping we can keep this under $50 a month. People have asked previously about donations, a little while back I set up a page so you could donate directly to Lemmy.nz, here is the post about it (with the emphasis on not donating if it will materially impact you): https://lemmy.nz/post/21494039

Before moving forward, I'd like some input from Lemmy.nz users on some specific questions:

Currently we are hosted in NZ, how important is it to continue this? (with cost being the main barrier)

We will try to host in NZ if we can, but if cost becomes an issue, is it a big deal to host in Australia or elsewhere? We will want to try to stay close to NZ so NZ based users have low latency

Do people object to Cloudflare?

Currently we use Cloudflare, with benefits around loading faster for people in other countries (due to the CDN) and the ability to more easily handle AI scrapers.

Cloudflare puts us in the power of a large company and reduces our independence, but it also reduces bandwidth usage and have tools to more easily fight AI scrapers that cripple the server. Cloudflare offers captcha services that help this.

Remember, users on other instances that don't proxy images will also be loading images directly from our servers, which Cloudflare will reduce the latency of due to their CDN.

If people object to Cloudflare, I am willing to attempt to avoid using it, adding Anubus and managing IP blocklists, but it will be more work. It will also be a slightly higher cost, as we will need a higher traffic allocation since Cloudflare currently caches a lot of image traffic.

Pātai?

If you have any questions, let me know!

My biased quotes:

The government says a Liquefied Natural Gas import facility in Taranaki will save New Zealanders about $265 million a year.

Energy Minister Simon Watts on Monday announced a contract was expected to be signed by the middle of the year, with construction finishing next year or early 2028.

"We need to get rid of the dry risk," Luxon told reporters on Monday.

"I'm not going to guarantee, based on the advice I've been given the benefits outweigh the costs."

A factsheet supplied by the government said the infrastructure costs would be paid for through a levy on electricity of between $2 and $4 /MWh.

The facility was expected to cut future prices by at least $10/MWh, and curb an expected 1.25 percent reduction in Gross Domestic Product from higher energy prices.

Procurement started in October in response to the independent Frontier report, which the government largely rejected.

The government largely rejected the recommendations of the review carried out by Frontier Economics, with sector players including Simon Bridges criticising a lack of bold action.

"It would make no economic sense to develop an LNG import terminal to meet just dry year risk as the large fixed costs would be spread over a relatively small amount of output," the Frontier report said.

A flood of "fake NZ news" pages are swamping social media with misleading slop, including using AI to animate still photos of a Mount Maunganui landslide victim.

Dodgy Facebook pages devoted to churning out AI-generated images and videos are almost unavoidable on the site now - and they're still fooling an awful lot of people.

In an investigation I conducted for the Australian Associated Press, a Facebook page calling itself "NZ News Hub" - which has no connection whatsoever to the now-defunct Newshub - has been pushing out dozens of posts a week that take the legitimate reporting by news organisations including RNZ, the New Zealand Herald, Stuff and others, and add sloppy AI-generated images or videos to them.

In one case, a video was posted that grotesquely animates a still photo of a 15-year-old Mount Maunganui landslide victim, making her appear to dance.

The page's bio proclaims "NZ News Hub brings you the latest New Zealand news, breaking stories, politics, business, sport, and community updates", but it does not appear to contain any original reporting.

For instance, on Waitangi Day, the page published a post that appeared to be a video of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at Waitangi, but was clearly generated by AI.

Nevertheless, the page, which has nearly 5000 followers, has dozens of people "liking" and commenting on its posts as if they were real. Many of their followers appear to be business pages and even include a few politicians.

Bosco the French bulldog, known for ripping it up on his surfboard, returned to the moana in Paihia this Waitangi Day, flying the He Whakaputanga flag before the annual waka celebrations.

Now five years old, Bosco the French bulldog was joined by younger companion Treasure, an 18-month-old French bulldog, who is also learning to ride the waves.

• Unemployment rises to 10 year high of 5.4 percent
• 15,000 jobs added in quarter, but workforce and job hunters grow
• Underutilisation rate steady at five year high of 13 pct
• Youth unemployment rises, more woman in the labour force
• Annual wage growth slows to near five year low of 2 percent
• Data worse than expected, backs the RBNZ holding cash rate steady in two weeks

Wellington's Moa Point wastewater treatment plant has been shut down and staff evacuated from the site, after an equipment failure flooded multiple floors.

Untreated wastewater is being discharged into the sea and that may continue for some time, Wellington Water chief executive Pat Dougherty said.

"This is a serious situation and we anticipate the plant will be shut down for an extended period," he said.

Dougherty strongly advised the public to stay away from south coast beaches.

Making the announcement in Auckland on Tuesday, Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the current system was "expensive, outdated and no longer works as well as it should".

Key changes

• No more full licence test: Drivers will no longer need to sit a second practical test to move from the restricted to full licence, saving time and money. This applies to Class 1 (car) licences only.
• Longer time spent on learners for under 25s: There will be a 12-month learner period for under 25s, an increase of six months.
• Option to reduce learner period: There will be an option for under 25s to reduce their 12-month learner period back to six months by recording practice hours or completing an approved practical course.
• New restricted periods: The restricted period will be 12 months for under 25s and six months for over 25s, with no option to reduce it with a defensive driving course.
• Cheaper to get a full licence: The total cost of getting a Class 1 (car) licence will reduce by $80 under the new system.
• Encouraging safe driving: Drivers on their restricted licence will face a further six months on their restricted if they get demerits.
• Fewer eyesight screenings: Eyesight screenings will only be required at the first licence application and at each renewal. This applies to Class 1 and Class 6 (motorcycle) licences.
• Zero-alcohol rule expanded: All learner and restricted drivers, regardless of age, will be subject to a zero-alcohol limit.
• Stronger oversight of training providers: NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) will gain new powers to monitor and suspend driver training course providers.

Resources Minister Shane Jones shut down the possibility of New Zealand signing up to a 'road map' away from fossil fuels at the annual global climate summit, documents reveal.

Opposition MPs say the documents underscore the disproportionate influence that National's minor coalition partners wield over government policy.

But Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said it was "appropriate" to consult Jones because of his portfolios.

Australia, the UK, the European Union and a group of Pacific nations were among 80 countries pushing for a 'road map' to be included in the formal negotiations at COP30 in Brazil last November.

They were unsuccessful, but Australia and several Pacific nations were among 24 nations that signed the Belém Declaration on the Transition away from Fossil Fuels on the final day of the summit.

Documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act show New Zealand's negotiating team was also considering signing the declaration - before officials back in New Zealand informed them that Jones did not want them to.

A passenger aboard a tourist boat that ran aground outside Akaroa Heads on Banks Peninsula on Saturday says some on board were panicked and crying, when they realised the vessel was in trouble.

More than 40 passengers and crew were evacuated to nearby boats, when the Black Cat Cruises catamaran ran into difficulty at Nikau Palm Valley Bay about 12.20pm Saturday.

The vessel was taking tourists to see the local Akaroa wildlife, including Hector's dolphins.