Personal – Page 74 – Fooyah

February 1 2013February 1 2013

Simulview and Dual Play

Simulview is Sony’s buzzword for displaying two player images on a 3D television so that each player sees only their screen. Essentially the shutters on the active glasses activate at the same time rather than alternately and so P1 sees only his/her image and P2 sees their image only. This is quite cool and displays (I assume) a 1080p picture to each player.
Downside: This only works on the Playstation Monitor.

DualPlay is the technology that LG have introduced to try and allow two players to see their own picture full screen. It has taken me four days to figure out how to get this to work (which is slightly embarrassing). DualPlay uses passive glasses with P1 having a left/left combination and P2 having a right/right combination. The standard two player screen (up/down or left/right split) is then stretched over the whole screen. This will work with most games with that picture split.
Downside: Aspect ratio issues.

I haven’t yet tried this on my TV but will soon. I am quite excited about it but also worried about the aspect ratio change. Nice of LG to think of gamers though.

January 29 2013March 11 2014

New Aquisitions

So, it’s been a busy time. I have bought a new TV to replace my 40″ Sony that I bought in the summer of 2006. I don’t know if six years is a good length of time for a TV. I guess so. The problem is that I am an early adopter of technology [see this post here – currently in draft form].

The old TV was HD Ready which, it turns out, is only 720 lines of beautiful picture. It looked deep and gorgeous in HD. But it was time to upgrade. There were just too many TV advances for me to ignore anymore.

I now have an LG 3D TV. I went for 3D because Gran Turismo will output 3D and I like playing that. Do I think that 3D is a good cinema format? No. But for Gran Turismo . . .

Current TV Room Set Up:

Current Equipment:

Television – LG 47LM670T
AV Amplifier – Sony STR-DN1030
BluRay player – Sony BDP-S790
Satelite Decoder – Amstrad Sky HD
Console – Sony PS3 320Gb
Front left and right and passive sub-woofer – Bose Acoustimass Cube
Active sub-woofer – Sony
Centre, SL, SR, SBR, SBL speakers – Sony

When I get the chance I also use a Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel.

January 22 2013

Percentage

Recent tweets have carried some information about me in terms of percentages.
The first percentage I wrote in an email and it was 50% when I was trying to be realistic.
Then I tweeted some values, 5% and 1%. I’m pretty sure that the percentage is now in exponential decay. The more time the lower the percentage.

P=100e^(-0.05t)

Soon to be looking at a 3D TV. Will post about whether I think it’s any good.

January 22 2013

Snow In Kent

Here’s some pictures I took in the lovely snow this last week.

January 16 2013January 16 2013

Latest iPhone Backgrounds

These are my latest iPhone backgrounds. Many thanks to @Cmdr_Hadfield and his tweeting of pictures from the ISS!

Current lock screen:
Sunrise through the atmosphere.

Current home screen:
The ISS solar panels.

January 4 2013January 4 2013

The Country

Here’s some photographs I took while walking the dog yesterday morning. I think next time I want some really good shots that capture the look and feel of what I see I’ll have to take my D-SLR.
Problem is that by the time I have set the D-SLR up properly the moment will be lost!

WW2 Barrack Ruins

Sunrise

The Path

More Sunrise

Even More Sunrise

December 19 2012

Heaven and Hell

I’ve been thinking about the dark nature of heavy metal music and I am not sure that the reputation is deserved!

My hypothesis is that heavy metal music and hard rock is not at all as bad-ass as people think. I predict that the number of song title references to Hell will be fewer than those that reference Heaven. At the time of writing this is just a confirmation bias speaking.

Assuming that my music tastes for heavy metal and hard rock are reasonably consistent with the music genre and assuming that I have a random collection of this type of music in my library I will perform a count of the words in the song titles of my library.

This really is being done live. I don’t know the results at the moment. Here goes:

Heaven:

Heaven’s Dead
Heaven Sent
When Heaven Comes Down
In Heaven
Heaven Can Wait (Gamma Ray)
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
Heaven Can Wait (Iron Maiden)
Stairway To Heaven
Heaven Help
Heaven For The weather, Hell For The company
Heaven Can Wait (Meatloaf)
Good Girls Go to Heaven
Christmas In Heaven
I Wish U Heaven
To Be With You In Heaven
South Of Heaven
Heaven’s Gate
Super-Charger Heaven
Heaven and Hell
Heaven Tonight
Heaven Beside You

So that’s 21 song titles that include the word Heaven out of around 5000 songs in my library.

Now for Hell:

Cold Day In Hell
Right Next Door To Hell
Highway To Hell
Go To Hell
Heaven for the Weather, Hell for the Company
To Hell We Ride
Hell Child
Bat Out Of Hell
Into The Lungs Of Hell
Green Hell
Hotter Than Hell
Help Me I Am In Hell
Hellraiser
Run Like Hell
Come Hell Or High Water
To Hell And Back Again
Hell Awaits
Hellbound
Hell Raisers
Heaven and Hell
Hells Bells
Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be
Hell Or High Water
Private Hell
Hell To Pay
Earth On Hell

So that’s 26 references to Hell in a song title out of about 5000 songs in my library.

Now, I have no idea if that a significant statistical difference. It doesn’t seem so to me. It also appears from the titles of some of these songs that perhaps the context in which the title is used might be more important. A couple of the Heaven songs seem more to do with the dark side that good stuff and some of the Hell songs come from sayings.

I don’t think any conclusions can be drawn from this initial study. Perhaps with a research grant I’d be able to investigate the context of these words within the Heavy Metal form and get a good answer.

Rock On!

December 17 2012December 17 2012

Angel

Here’s a picture of the guardian angel I have looing over my Christmas tree. We have a non-religious star at the top of the tree and this chap is standing to attention just below that. It’s nice to consider him overlooking the children and keeping an eye on them. Much like Obi-Wan in this comminication.

December 10 2012

Table

I was called to the front room the other day as son #1 wanted to show off his handy work. He had set up his play crockery set as a tea party on the little table. I was very surprised by the symmetry and neatness of it all! Quite pleasing to the eye. What have I created?

December 10 2012

Meme

One of the standard explanations and examples I use when teaching the mechanics module of A Level is to consider driving a car around town. Most pupils have experienced, or are aware, of people thier age who drive circuits around the local town trying to get noticed. I used to just talk about this practice but a few months back a friend was talking about his teenage experience of this form of behaviour and he used the term:

Barry Laps

This term didn’t really need any explaination as I already knew what it meant. I’ve never really partaken in the the Barry Lap experience. I think the closest I got was riding around Bishop’s Stortford on my Honda NTV 650 with Daryl on his Silverwing just after we had set up radio communication between us. We went around town a few times chatting to each other on the way. Being able to easily communicate between different bikes was far more of a novalty than trying to get attention from onlookers. This was in 1999 and quite before either of us owned mobile phones.

Anyway, I hope that with my continued use that the term Barry Lap might one day make it into the OED!

December 1 2012December 3 2019

Testament – KoKo

Went with my best man and best pal to watch Testament at KoKo in Camden on Fri 30 Nov 2012.
They were good and very good fun to watch. Not a great front man but the music was hard and fast.
Liked the venue. Small and intimate.

Here are my photos:

November 28 2012November 28 2012

Upgrade

It’s coming up to the time when I can upgrade my phone. Upgrade is a curious term as essentially it means I sign up for two more years on an increased tariff. So although it sounds like I’m getting something for nothing it’s the mobile carrier that makes the money!

I need to get a phone with more memory. I don’t like having to delete apps because I want more music on my phone. My iPhone 4 has 32Gb of memory and it’s not enough. This means I have to go for a 64Gb phone. Also, as I have completely bought into the closed garden that is the App store and iTunes. I don’t want to have to spend a load of money re-buying all the apps I have for iOS on another OS. However, if the contract and phone is a ton cheaper that might be the most cost effective way to get what I want.

Anyway. In a few weeks I will trundle down to the Vodafone shop and sign up to spending a ton of money with them so I can have a phone that will fit all the stuff I have bought from Apple. The thing is that along with the new phone I need a case, screen protectors and new cables given that Apple have decided to “improve” their USB connector. That’s even more money. Is it worth it given that the network coverage in my house is rather shabby!

IF Vodafone are willing to give me a Sure Signal box then I am going to stick with them. It’s a box that connects to my hub or switch and gives me a good signal throughout my house. At the moment if I am in the lounge then WW can’t get in touch although I guess she could call the home phone if I knew where that was!

If Vodafone can’t do the deal then come March I’m off to another carrier that has a good signal throught my entire house.

November 20 2012April 17 2020

Vindication

The BBC News website carried a story yesterday about a high speed yacht that broke the world record. I was instantly interested as my final year project at university was the conceptual design of a high speed yacht.

The major design innovations of my yacht were:

outrigger
hydrofoils
aerofoil shaped sail

Here’s a picture of my concept:

High Speed Yacht Concept - Drawn By Richard Oussedik — High Speed Yacht Concept – Drawn By Richard Oussedik

Here’s a technical drawing of the main body of the yacht:

And so, to compare, here’s some pictures taken from the Vestas Sailrocket website.

So, the sail is in a different place and at an angle but I think my original choices for my final year project have been vindicated. I feel quite pleased that I managed to conceptualise a design that, in general, has worked.

Well done to the Vestas Sail Rocket Team.