Pixar 40 Years - Into the Archives Official Clip

Wow, it's hard to believe that Pixar is 40 years old this year!

I just stumbled across the following look into their archives!  A very neat look into a bunch of interesting stuff!

On "Ethnicity"

It's recently come to my attention that this whole "ethnicity" thing may not quite be what everyone seems to have been trying to get at.

At least according to our (NZ) own government:

"Ethnicity is a measure of cultural affiliation. It is not a measure of race, ancestry, nationality, or citizenship. Ethnicity is self perceived." 
-- https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/ethnicity/

🤯

In which case, I really should have ignored what all those silly forms have been saying over the years with their misleading categories, and just said:
"New Zealander"

And if really pressed further (if a long form box shows up):
"New Zealander first and foremost. A New Zealand born Hong Konger perhaps. But most definitely, not really 'Chinese', in the conventional sense of that loaded term..."

Guess what the forms usually really want to try to get me to say though... 🙄 

February Music Recommendations - Interesting New Additions from An Impromptu Hour of Classical Music Radio

Just added two new additions to my rotation/library of classical-music for re-listening this morning, after first hearing them earlier this week on Wednesday on RNZ Concert when tuning in for a while to cope with the annoying roadwork noise that's been foisted on us for the next few weeks (!)

1) Kaija Saariaho - On Fire  (From Notes on Light)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ugRbOUdao

Admittedly not something to everyone's taste, but was quite appropriate "grungy rage against the intrusion" type music 

(And also reminded me of watching movies on a plane with a cheap headset for some reason - Maybe given that I had to do that very thing, as that's the sort of headset I have hooked up for use with my work laptop to get acceptable mic-input for all the Teams calls that we inevitably need to make)

2) Doreen Carwithen - Suffolk Suite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXKJuZ2kaS8 

This "most English" of pieces (i.e. with similar echoes of the general style employed by Vaughn Williams / William Walton [1][2] / Benjamin Britten) caught me by surprise, especially with that lush sweeping opening movement, and became an instant "must add to good music list".

To then hear that it had apparently been written for "a school orchestra" is even more surprising!  (Then again, comparing the standard of orchestras I was involved in "back in my day", and the equivalent ones you hear now... eh... *ahem*)

Moar Crazy Project Ideas: Mastodon Archives / Live-Feed, and Personal "Boss Mode" Dashboard

As if my current projects slate wasn't full enough, I did admittedly spend some time this weekend thinking how nice it would be to have a few other little utilities to solve a bunch of problems I don't currently have nice solutions for.

    1) A Mastodon Archives/Live-Feed viewer - Mainly for searching for past posts (and/or managing ones you no longer want to keep up) - e.g. to extract a bunch to a blog post for easier access in future (e.g. similar to how this post came about).

    2) A personal "boss mode" ish dashboard screen that can be launched with a single keypress, and can be used to put up a placeholder / dashboardy type screen that allows monitoring a whole bunch of feeds = info that you'd like to keep an eye on, while you step away from your machine OR are interrupted (and/or don't want others to look at what you were doing)... Sort of like the lock screen, but more fully featured, and maybe also a bit like the  

 

Now, both of these "ideas" aren't really something I plan to go "all in" on. But, having had the thought, they are tempting enough to at least toy around with to see if I can clobber together some prototypes (or at least draft designs) - as a bit of an "itch scratching" exercise in creativity.  Whether I ultimately built these properly for my own use (or even for others) is moot... it's likely I won't get that far, as these are not really priorities!  But still, it's fun to tinker with!

Christchurch Wastewater Treatment Stench Rant (+ A Layman's Alternative Interim "Workaround" Scheme)

If you've been following the news from Christchurch in the past week (or my socials for that matter), you'd be aware that this week, we've been *plagued* by waves of a putrid poopy stench (that irritates the eyes and airways, and yes... aggravates asthma in folks like myself). The last time many of us were faced with this stench was for the first half of 2022, after the water treatment plant caught fire in late 2021!

That was 5 years ago now! Yet this, we suddenly have the same bloody problem again!

For additional context:  No we are *NOT* in the "Eastern Suburbs" near where this plant and all the open-air "oxidation ponds" that the poopy water is pumped into are located, next to the Estuary / Eastern coastline lining the Pacific Ocean. Anything past the centrally located "Hagley Park" really cannot be considered an "Eastern Suburb" here, with places like Wigram, Halswell, or out around Burnside/Harewood where the airport is located certainly falling *well outside* the range where you'd expect to smell stuff like this!

Despite all this, and the problem first *really* rearing its ugly head city-wide (after having been a problem for months already in the areas surrounding the plant), the latest council update today says they are still "monitoring" the situation and hoping it miraculously improves - somehow... by itself... when hopefully some algae miraculously grows to fix it!  WTF?!!   🤬 

"Monitoring" (i.e. standing there with you hands to kept to yourself, scribbling away on a clipboard, while peering into the abyss / monitoring screens, staring at the charts) is about as much use as "thoughts and prayers" after yet another mass terrorist / gun violence incident... jeez 🙄