hylobatidae.org

Sorry for being a bit quiet lately. I've been busy.

I really ought to post more to this blog-beast. So, in a brief moment of calm and as a Christmas / Saturnalia / Newtonmas / Whatever gift, have some recently posted photogrammetric captures for VR!

First up, Cadillac Mountain, Maine, USA - with photos taken back in September. (I have many more conventional photos I need to post as well.)

With disappointingly few synths, radioactive creatures and/or post-apocalyptic fog, there's a suspiciously clear view of Far Harbor, sorry, Bar Harbor below in this autumnal scene.

Secondly, have the InSight Landing Site, Elysium Planitia, Mars lovingly rendered in room-scale VR and put together from recently posted raw images from this NASA space probe. The landscape is ominously flat - the interesting stuff being underground. I, for one, welcome our new Bayer filtered engineering cameras. Full colour!

Expect more, conventional photos - eventually?

Starting to catch up with unposted photos, starting from August last year and making it all the way to October.

There's some Belgian ones in there too. These are just vague highlights - and I've got another trip to post stuff from too...

I certainly didn't learn from last time - the main camera's battery went flat, the spare battery was already flat, while the spare spare battery was also flat. Cue choice between a point-and-shoot with focus issues in dismal post-apocalyptic lighting, and an elderly dSLR with an allergy to ludicrous ISOs. Hmm. I decided to embrace the crappy apocalyptic aesthetic. It absolutely felt like a real-life Left 4 Dead.

Oh, and the impromptu, augmented foodie-compatible earthquake response kit was distinctly handy for a fully-electricity-dependent flat. The all-important French RCIRs, incidentally, were an eBay-fuelled response to the grotty-looking energy bars provided with the original emergency kit. So absolutely any excuse to try these French combat rations - they're famous for their edibility. The cassoulet au canard didn't look like much, but was rather good! I'm now considering which red wine to pack in this emergency kit...

...

The power went back on some time during the night. Quite disappointing, really.

Yes, I'll get back to posting more frequently. I've got photos from multiple international trips to get round to uploading eventually!

What, this? It's the Sunday Things. Remember?

Broken News - something has gone terribly wrong. Huw Edwards takes several minutes to reboot, it turns out. Apparently a computer glitch rather than a piece of modernist performance art.

Self Driving Potato Hits The Road - vegetables provided with agency. What a world we live in.

What football will look like in the future - do you hear that? Do not be afraid, but something is terribly wrong. I'm afraid that this page is going to disintegrate. Is this what all modern sports writing has become, and if so, why did nobody tell me? Avoiding spoilers, but this is pretty much the Frog Fractions of American football - and there's still a week to go.

Bonus Musical Hacking corner:

• The Red Special: Brian May's Handmade Guitar - as a youngster, the noted astrophysicist, friend of badgers and Isaac Newton lookalike made an electric guitar with his dad. Apparently he still plays it.
• The Legend of the Deacy Amp - meanwhile, the fellow hacker, engineering student and part-time musician John Deacon finds an old circuit board in a skip and turns it into a guitar amplifier for his own musical stylings. Supposedly he used it quite a lot.