Steeple Jacks and laddering towers
Scaffolding used to be done a completely different way. With guys like Fred Dibnah.
Once you’re up at the top, you still have to build the plank scaffolding.
Developing for foldable devices
A recent Meetup event I went to featured Alexis Menard talking about development for foldable devices.
The original Ford Interceptor from ‘Mad Max’ is up for sale
One of the V8 Interceptors used on-screen in the cult classic film Mad Max is being put up for sale in Florida by the Orlando Auto Museum.
Titular character Mad Max’s ride of choice was a 1974 Ford Falcon XB GT, modified with a “Concorde” nose and nicknamed “the Pursuit Special.” The car was built in 1977 for Mad Max, which saw wide release in theatres in 1979.
Facebook Connect: John Carmack Keynote
Check out some current and future developments in the world of VR.
GWar has new competition
Cybertronic Spree is a Transformers-themed tribute band who plays a variety of cartoon, videogame, and anime theme songs dressed in awesome costumes. During a 2019 concert, they also performed a truly entertaining cover of Led Zeppelin’s emphatically chanted Immigrant Song.
The Art of Code
Dylan Beattie leads us through a really fun history of the ways programming has evolved and opened new avenues of exploration over the years: Conway’s game of Life, Mandelbrot set, Obfuscated code, and many more.
Would make a great first class for any programming major in school and invigorate students.
Check out more of NDC’s talks, courses, and conferences in the following links:
https://ndcconferences.com/
https://ndc-london.com/
Kubrick and The Shining
The Shining is one of my favorite horror movies. It’s not about cheap jump-scares, oodles of blood and over the top gore/sadism. It’s a slow burn as ghostly forces invade the mind of a man being driven slowly into homicidal rage. A homicidal rage we can see all too often in murder-suicide tragedies today.
Here’s a great background of how Kubrick approached and looked at the themes of the Shining – which is why he largely threw out most of Stephen King’s script and worked instead with Dianne Johnson. She had written a book about a woman terrorized by an unknown horror called ‘The Shadow Knows‘. Kubrick had no desire to collaborate with King, but instead spent days with Dianne Johnson talking about gothic horror literature and even watching movies together.
Unreal and films – highlight reel
Epic Games and Unreal Engine helped to develop the amazing virtual environments used in The Mandalorian.
As I have reviewed before, this is not done with greenscreens – but instead are projected backgrounds that are rendered realtime based on camera position. This solves almost all the visual problems created when using greenscreens.
As this highlight reel shows, their technique of combining projected, camera-tracked CG environments with live actors and props can be used for all levels of production, not just blockbusters.
I suspect we’re going to see some very interesting applications soon.
I worked on this
Intel Overclocking Thermal Velocity Boost is a feature that allows you to set a temperature threshold and overclock based on that temperature.
When paired with sub-ambient coolers, it opens a whole new realm of overclocking.
Here’s another overclocker also experimenting with the feature.
How close are we to living on Mars? Well…maybe not so close.
This February was the sixth iteration of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. Since 2013, small groups of people have made this drive (up the Northern slope of Mauna Loa) and moved into the dome, known as a habitat. Their job is to pretend that they really are on Mars, and then spend months living like it. The goal, for the researchers who send them there, is to figure out how human beings would do on a mission to the real thing.
HI-SEAS is a social experiment, and the participants are the lab rats. They wear devices to track their vitals, movements, and sleep, answer countless questionnaires about their own behavior and their interactions with others, and journal several times a week about their feelings. The durations have varied, from four months to a full year, and participants come from all over the world and different fields.
However, on February 19th, the most recent experiment came to an abrupt end. The batteries powered by a solar array for the habitat lost power due to lingering clouds over the volcano. Two crew members donned their space suits, went outside, and started a backup propane generator while the two other crew members flipped a switch on a circuit breaker inside the habitat.
When the suited-up crew members returned to the habitat, a crew member was typing furiously at a computer. The other looked stricken and pale. They said they didn’t feel well. They said they had sustained an electric shock.
It’s a reminder that even small tasks can become matters of life and death. Fortunately for this team, help was just a short drive away. Learn about the HI-SEAS program, previous missions and what went wrong during Mission Six at The Atantic via Get Pocket.