An apparently all-Pākehā kapa, Vocal FX, sings in te reo with an excellent accent at the Kaumātua Kapa Haka event at Te Raukura ki Kāpiti today

A cute moment at the Kaumātua Kapa Haka festival at Te Raukura ki Kāpiti today. I hadn't know about these events (there was a national one at Te Papa during Matariki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu8uMiYj38o)

Rereading that first chapter of The Devil's Chord, and my lord Satan, I am just *in love* with these characters. I am *desperate* to spend more time getting to know them. That's good, right? That's not a sign of authorial megalomania?

I haven’t dusted off my camera for years, and since my working life has me pretty much glued to a PC, I don’t have the desire to spend more time at one editing photos.

I’d really like another hobby though. 🤔

Making progress on the sky camera at last! Got it in the box, dome fitted (not sealed, I need to focus the camera) and software is testing.

Haven’t decided between 12v or PoE to it yet tho.

While I do have a bunch of other projects on the go already, I may just have to have a play with this tonight for the hell of it 🤓

Even better is that this is all a bunch of Python code! And there are some easily available datasets out there to tinker with...

And of course, there's been an idea I'm very keen to see if we can try to detect and forecast from such data for a while! I only wonder if we have sufficient data resolution to pull it off (which I suspect we don't)!

Worst case, I can just play with some more dataviz stuff again 😅

Odds look bleak, I agree.

But that's a reason to try harder, not to give up.
To amp up the resistance for a liveable future, not to concede to doom and despair.
There will never come a time when it's not worth fighting for a better world.
And the worse things get, the more important it is to come together and turn them around.

"Collapse isn’t just caused by structures, but also people. If you want to save the world then the first step is to stop destroying it. In other words: don’t be a dick. Don’t work for big tech, arms manufacturers or the fossil fuel industry. Don’t accept relationships based on domination and share power whenever you can.”

Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse

Ooh... Just stumbled across another fascinating area of research that I may just have to have a play with! 🤓

1) Blog title: Weather Model Based on ADS-B Data
https://obrhubr.org/adsb-weather-model

2) Github Repo of Paper from TU Delft about the core tech: Inferring weather data from ADS-B data

https://github.com/junzis/meteo-particle-model

For the uninitiated: ADS-B is the 2-3 Hz publicly available tracking data coming off *all* (*) legally operating aircraft (that most folks are interested in). Most of the world uses this over traditional "radar" nowadays.

(*) Correction: At least here in NZ AFAIK. Other parts of the world may be patchy (e.g. South Korea apparently can't use it due to NK jamming IIRC)

I skimmed through the list yesterday and I don't even know who I will vote for the local elections 😭

#NZPol #LocalElections #WayneBrown (?)

Edit: typo

It was the start of Hamilton Book Club last night, went to hear some amazing panellists, and of course I came home with these!
#books #wahinetoa #readingtime

Best description of current Trump madness on tariffs:
"What an idiot! He's pushed away all his friendly allies so he can spend all his time haggling with intransigent enemies to try to win some crumbs..." 🤣

Really interesting how the different forecast models diverge and have differing thoughts for the same location - even over a short time period.

This is from https://open-meteo.com/en/docs which is free to use (non-commercially) for 10,000 API requests (!) a day. I've highlighted what it things is the "best" fit for here, you can see how the top one is very different! That's from JMA.

Nice solar curve yesterday, I look forward to having solar panels on the roof again...

(Happens to be 4131 photos.)

Whenever someone happens to mention to the British, even in passing, that history does not begin when they show up in a country they have a tendency to get deeply defensive and condescending. (e.g. saying repeatedly that Australia has a short history rather than 60,000 years of continuous human occupation.)

This review is so ridiculously patronising that it reads like satire. Even British liberals have a tendency to act like colonising jerks. I mean, do you know how many fucking dire period dramas based in Britain we have to sit through? Perhaps pay attention, rather than disregarding the exposition that is providing important historical context.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/aug/01/chief-of-war-review-jason-momoa-is-an-underwater-shark-wrestler-in-this-gory-historical-epic

my favourite kebab place put up one of those Park It! posters, and I stopped going.

they closed up shortly after—golden mile killing businesses before shovels had even hit the ground, apparently

right wing candidate/anti-modal shift poster in the window = I go somewhere else

I do not understand what businesses hope to gain by putting up reactionary political posters. they won't win, and you're just alienating people who don't want to support that shit

walked to café laz, saw the karl tiefenbacher poster, walked away to find somewhere else to eat

Earlier, the Chaos Munchkin peeled some bar code stickers off something and stuck them on her knees.

Echoing another bad Dad joke, I was compelled to ask her if it was so she could scan de knee vy in.

Cue tumbleweeds