Work-life balance

This is our office beer fridge. It’s quite common in NZ to have one or two drinks in the office on Fridays towards the end of the work day. Many companies, including ones I’ve worked for, have this kind of tradition.

After 1-2 drinks, colleagues usually hop into their cars and head home. At first I was hesitant to join in, but I was reassured that it’s normal - drivers over 20 are allowed to consume a small amount of alcohol.

Legally, up to 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood is permitted. It’s individual, but for most this typically means 1-3 bottles of beer (~330ml) within two hours before driving.

There are also checks - police may ask you to blow into a device (I’ve seen it once in three years). If you exceed the limit, you get a fine and demerit points. In serious cases, the consequences are more severe.

But I haven’t seen anyone drink more than allowed or heard of anyone having problems with police - people behave responsibly, and the state treats them accordingly.

(Russian)

Claude reports

Some of you might not know that Claude can produce surprisingly deep reports if you ask it to output a file (DOC, XLS, or other formats).

Ways I’ve used it:

1. Compared construction drawings against a design brief to identify discrepancies. It turns out Claude can already read drawings - it picks up inconsistencies not just in the text, but also in geometry and dimensions.

2. Converted a screenshot of a table into a proper XLSX file with formulas restored.

3. Asked it to analyse a topic and compile a report with references to studies and documents. Here is an example from the channel's chat.

4. Restyled documents to match a template. Claude can work with styles, fonts, colours, etc.

To get this, you should ask it to deeply analyse the task and return the result as a file. It usually takes ~2-5 min, and the result is almost always worth the wait. This is available even in the free version.

Other LLMs can output files too, but at the moment none match Claude's level of quality.

(Russian)

Video version of my post about the sun in New Zealand.

MP3 version of the video above.

Woke agenda in NZ

Before moving to NZ, while I was still doing my research, I had questions about the woke agenda - specifically whether NZ schools had gender discussions and that sort of thing. I put the question to the largest Russian Telegram group about NZ, and a moderator deleted my post almost immediately. I checked the group rules - my message didn't breach any of them. So I contacted the group owner, who told me that challenging moderator decisions wasn't allowed, and that the deletion was entirely justified.

Now that each of my channels has more subscribers than that group, it feels like the right time to find out what the moderator and owner were so scared of.

I've already found answers to all my questions, so I'll just share my experience here - everything related to the woke, LGBT, progressive, sex, and gender sides of NZ life.

Feel free to post any questions or opinions below - same as everywhere else on my channel, there's no censorship, no moderators, none of that hypocritical nonsense. This is a place that values free speech, just like New Zealand itself.

Streets

➖Auckland is a very tolerant city. You can be whoever you want and nobody cares. I've seen men in dresses, trans men and women, people in all kinds of religious and national dress - burqas, turbans, etc - or people with fully tattooed faces. Nobody really cares.

➖Public displays of affection aren't common. I've seen people holding hands but never anyone kissing in public - gay or straight. It seems to be considered a private thing.

➖Rallies of all sorts happen most weeks on Queen Street and Britomart Square in the CBD. I've seen a lot of political ones (pro-Palestine, pro-Israel, pro-Maori), but haven't caught a gay parade yet. I'm sure they happen too.

➖Prostitution is legal in NZ. There's one street in Auckland - Karangahape Road - where you'll find brothels, gay bars, hemp stores, strip bars, escort agencies, adult shops, and similar. I don't know what it's like at night, but during the day it's just a normal street. I actually walked down it while filming my video about learning English.

➖Gambling is allowed under regulation. There's one casino in Auckland, right in the city centre - next to Sky Tower, and a few in other cities around the country.

Work

➖Gay people generally don't hide their orientation - some of my friends have had gay colleagues, and it made no difference to how anyone treated them. Nobody seemed bothered, religious people included.

➖Harassment is barely an issue in practice. I've never seen or heard anyone raise it at work. There's no nonsense like women complaining about men holding doors for them - everything is completely reasonable.

➖In everyday conversation people are pretty open. I've heard all sorts of views on woke, vaccines, climate change, left/right politics - everything gets discussed except the most extreme stuff like racism.

➖Diversity is on the radar at many companies, especially larger ones. Job application forms often include questions on gender (with 2+ options), ethnicity, and cultural background.

➖On paper everyone supports diversity. But in practice the majority hires based on merit rather than race. I've also heard there are "whites-only" companies - I haven't seen it myself, but a few people, Kiwis included, have said it in private.

➖A friend of mine said he got accused of racism and banned in a professional Facebook group, just for saying the best approach is to hire on merit rather than race. I haven't seen anything like that myself, but I can believe it happens in isolated cases.

(continued in comments)

Another day of nothing happening in NZ. No drama, no catastrophes, no big news. Just an autumn Saturday near Auckland, where I filmed the upcoming video.

A video report after three years of living in New Zealand.

MP3 version of the video above

NZ Political Compass

There will be elections in NZ on 7 November 2026. As residents, we're allowed to vote - which seems quite fair - we've been paying taxes in NZ for a long time, so we should be represented.

While looking into New Zealand political parties, I came across a good online test that helps people quickly figure out which parties align best with their political views.

You can see my result in the screenshot above. Less government, lower taxes, fewer benefits, and more economic and personal freedom. ACT's programme aligns most closely with my views.

That doesn't necessarily mean I'll vote for ACT - this test is just a starting point, and things may change over time.

Would be happy to see your test results in the comments.

(Russian)

NZ Political Compass (AI version)

The test I posted yesterday focused on specific issues in NZ politics. To get a broader picture, I asked Claude to create a test that captures each party's overall political outlook.

My prompt was:

Create a NZ voter-matching test that:
1. Asks plain-language questions covering the real divides between the parties
2. Frames each question as a trade-off between two legitimate values, with no obvious "correct" answer
3. Matches answers against parties' stated positions using neutral wording and scoring

After the initial result, there were a few rounds of refinements and fact-checking of the underlying data, also carried out by Claude.

The final result is here.

ACT still fits me best (see the screenshot), but the overall result is more moderate this time.

Keen to see what results you get.

PS This is an AI-generated test, not political advice. It may contain mistakes, so verify any claims using the fact-check section on the final page and your own research.

(Russian)