Winter of Misery - The End is Near!

Yay!  Today officially marks the "end" of winter 2024 here - a season that unfortunately will be remembered as one of misery and lots of sickness...

 

What's Your Number? Multi-National People You Know

Was just having an interesting discussion with someone about how many people from different countries / nationalities we each knew - either from working with them directly, VS just knowing them / being acquainted. Having made a few passes at this, it turns out I know a hell of a lot than I'd realised (i.e. I suspect I'm probably a fair bit more "international" than I realised...)

 

Totals:

* Current Workplace in NZ (Currently) = 9 10

* Current Workplace (Previously / On Top of Current Total) = 3

* Previous Workplaces in NZ (Combined) = 13

* Blender (In Person) = 9

* Blender (Online that I've Interacted With... IIRC) = 18

* Other FOSS Work = 3

* During School Days = 21

* Total Unique =  Approx  25-30   (will carefully re-count later)

So, what are your numbers?

Mozart's "Magic Flute" Opera - Papageno - YouTube Rabbithole

For anyone who needs a bit of a cheer-up on this grey rainy day, here's a bunch of clips of a fun duet from a Mozart opera. 😍

1) The clip that started this rabbit hole, featuring (Huw Montague Rendall & Elisabeth Boudreault) 

This was the first time I'd ever heard this piece. I really loved the energy of the performers and the chemistry they had. (Also have to say that Elisabeth's little dance there at the end was quite cute LOL ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP9V7_fevgQ

2) Trying to find out what this song was about / the context for it, I came across this next clip from The Royal Opera (feat. Christina Gansch and Roderick Williams). 

This one had subtitles, and between these + the staging (i.e. all those kids), the meaning of the song suddenly all made sense (besides bringing back memories of the portrayal of Mozart in Amadeus) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q0ZDZB-AnM

3) From a comment on that one, I learned that the following is apparently a famous performance by Detlef Roth and Gaële Le Roi.

The key highlights of this were seeing the matching costumes along with a bit more of the context leading up to this scene, along with watching the actors' snuggly expressions as they performed the scene. Personally though, I thought the soprano's singing in this one sounded a bit "soft" compared to the others, and didn't really like it that much TBH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87UE2GC5db0

4) This final one (a "children's version" from 25 Feb 2024 in Vienna apparently, featuring Rolando Villazon and unknown soprano) takes the cake!

I love the staging of this - particularly how it's this really fun + playful setting within a gigantic opera theatre (seriously... look at all the tiers of seating/boxes in this thing) that looks like it was put on specifically to expose kids to classical works in a much more intimate and less intimidating setting. 

Also this one comes with a lot more context, along with the matching costumes, and everything...

All in all - I thought this was just  SO. MUCH. FUN! 😍

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaldPP44oas

My Second/Third Ever Aurora Sighting

Wow! I was finally rewarded again tonight after multiple attempts over the past few nights (and multiple ones earlier in the evening - when others had been reporting lots of successful sightings)... but to no avail until this last-ditch attempt for the night.

More highlights from this show just after midnight here in suburban Christchurch on the night of the 12/13th August 2024 can be found in the following album:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aligorith/albums/72177720319476435/

Tip: Getting Threaded Conversations Working Consistently Across Your Desktop Outlook Mailbox

Here are some notes on how I've got Outlook set up to make my work mailbox a bit more manageable. Most of these things are probably officially documented "somewhere", but it's nice having a quick guide for getting a setup that seems more sane (for anyone coming from Gmail)

 

This post comes about because, while I had this working in my Inbox, I found that this was not the case for my other folders once I moved threads there. Hence my search for answers. 

Short Instructions  - For Enabling Threading on "Other" Folders (see image above):

1) Go to one of the affected folders
2) Go to "View" tab on Ribbon
3) Enable "Show as Conversations"
4) In the confirmation prompt, click "All Folders" (vs just "This Folder")

I suspect I'll have to go in and redo this for any new folders I add at some point in the future. But at least this gets all the current ones working nicely.

Bonus Tip:  Fixing the need to triple-click on the annoying little triangles to collapse threads

Make sure you've got that "Always Expand Selected Conversations" thing from that menu selected, which fixes that problem (it seems).

Oh, and you need to do that per-folder... unfortunately, this case doesn't show the handy "change for all folders" popup.