In an unusual move I went to the cinema this morning to an 11:00 showing! I’d already had a run so I figured why not? I won’t embed that here, you can search my Twitter timeline if you want to see that. As is usual I rated the film on IMDB and for an explanation of the rating system you should read this communication.
So, I enjoyed the film. It was pretty violent and very well done. It wasn’t that violent given what I have seen in the past but I guess for a 15 it was impressive.
WARNING there are SPOILERS from HERE.
I don’t like superhero films. Or mutant films. Most of them are rubbish. This one was good but not brilliant. I’ve seen people raving about it and I think that’s mostly the rubbish they’ve been fed over the years colouring their view.
I need to add that the whole idea that the kids would be safe once they “crossed the border” was odd given that the company chasing them was perfectly happy to blow shit up in Mexico and the USA and so probably wouldn’t mind popping into Canada.
It was lovely to see Richard E Grant being evil.
This film was going to be rated 6/10 but I have given it 8/10 because of the major deaths that take place in the film. I though it was important to give those characters some honour.
With reference to the previous communication I can update the main blockages on the ADS-B splat. I wrote about this before here.
Blocked Areas Labelled
The blocked area labelled 1 covers the North Downs. This natural boundary lurks to the NE of me and I can’t do a great deal about it.
The blockage labelled 2 is, I believe, down to the aerial being inside my loft and the terrace houses of my block extending in that direction. I wrote about that here. The only way to improve this range would be to get the aerial placed above the roof of my house, which is not a job I am going to undertake. I may, however, consider getting someone else to do it.
These communications contain many items concerning the virtual radar system that lives in my loft and you can see a selection here. A short while ago I decided to buy an pre-amp and filter for my system to improve the range and number of aircraft being received. So, this communication now requires a large number of pictures to give you an idea of what this means.
Pre Filter Range 1
In the above picture you can see that there are around 20 aircraft and the black area [the range of the receiver] doesn’t quite reach Norwich, Portsmouth, Bristol or Calais. There is the NW-SE block as described before.
Coloured Splat
This coloured splat gives pretty much the same information but uses colours for the ranges of aircraft at different altitudes.
I bought a filter which only allows signals close to the 1090MHz requirement through to the USB stick I bought. It also acts as a pre-amp so there is an overall 14 dB gain.
Pre-Amp and Filter held securely in place
Here is the whole Virtual Radar system living in the loft:
Pre-Amp Filter, USB, Raspberry Pi
Once this kit was turned on I looked at the DUMP1090 output from the Raspberry Pi and pretty much shat myself at the number of aricraft shown:
Initial DUMP1090 view
When this view is compared to the twenty or so aircraft that I had before you can see an immense improvement in the receivers ability.
Virtual Radar Server View
Virtual Radar Server is a program I use on the RPi for a more detailed view, there are quite a few customisations you can create also. It is the software that will create the splat over time, keeping track of the aircraft and their position.
Holy Splat!
The distances have increased as has the overall coverage. I now track around 100 aircraft at a time. For a small sum of money the overall increase in detail has been terrific. I can now reach over northern France, over Wales and a lot of the channel to the SW.
Last night I went to see Hidden Figures. It has been a while since I’ve been to the cinema as things are just a little busy at the moment. I’m sure I’ll catch up in the next month or so. I’ve had a recommendation to see Logan and given my general dislike of superhero films it will be interesting to see it.
I went to see Hidden Figures. It is customary for me to rate films on IMDB and I did so.
Perhaps you should read my reasoning behind my ratings, although I have to admit the logic is shifting slowly over time, as should be expected I guess.
Hidden Figures was a good film. It was about some of my favourite topics; space, rockets, maths, civil rights, humanity.
Quite a broad range of topics there, but this film managed them all. This was the story of three mathematicians at NASA. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you suddenly say BLACK FEMALE mathematicians at NASA in the early 1960s. Everyone should see this film, it has the right amount of everything, really worth while.
It stuns me to see how different people were treated. God, people can be fucking assholes.
Saw a lovely part of London today when I walked along the Regent’s Canal today. I was learning some maths in town and I had to walk from St Pancras to the venue and rather than walk along the main roads I took the tow path. I’m glad I did.
Part Of The Canal
I also saw this exquisite book shop. There was music playing from loud speakers as I walked past and plenty of vinyl on display.
Bookshop
I also saw a lovely old industrial building that, if I had loads of money and the relevant experience I would turn this into a music venue.
It’s a shame I don’t have money, the contacts, the experience or any industry knowledge at all!
My Future Venue
When I got back home I went for a run and jogged past this quality piece of Kent countryside. I think this is the second burnt out car to grace these pages!
They cut out the VIN
But, there is good news: This lovely view over the Medway and Tonbridge and Malling Borough.
The Scala is a curious venue in Kings Cross. It might not actually be in Kings Cross geographically but it is close enough to the station and so that is where I proclaim it to be. I had been here before to see Therapy? and quite liked the venue. This time I was watching VNV Nation who I very briefly saw last year at M’Era Luna when they got a harsh review from me but Smith and I were rushing off to see Hocico so we only saw them briefly.
Doors were at 7pm and we got in there around 19:30 hrs after grabbing some food at a Cho Zen [where I had never eaten before]. The room is up three flights of art-deco stairs [I think they were art-deco] and around a few corners. It’s not an easy venue to fire exit I imagine.
This particular tour was a compendium tour. I hadn’t realised that, I think Smith and I got tickets because we thought the atmosphere and people would be quite similar to Slimelight and we figured the music would be bearable. There was no support. Just straight in to VNV Nation playing loud and proud.
I didn’t know a great deal about the band before this gig and I still don’t really but I can tell you the singer is Irish. He also has similar issues with people using camera phones as I do. After the first song he said that he is happy with people videoing or photographing the band but everyone needed to turn off their flash/lights and also keep the camera in front of their own face, not block those around. In terms of the flash he is spot on. Why use a low powered flash in that sort of scene, it won’t work, it’ll just ruin your final product.
VNV Nation
One of my issues with people and cameras is they use the digital zoom to get a “better close up” but the problem is they would be better off taking a full zoomed-out picture and then cropping. Digital zoom and cropping achieve roughly the same thing but less jerky.
More VNV Nation
So, I need to speak about the songs. All of their songs are pretty good. They are well constructed and good to dance to. The lead singer was good at getting the crowd going and he was really the only one doing any movement as the others were stuck behind electronic stuff.
They played two slow songs. During a song, which may or may not have been a slow one, the singer got the lights turned down and the room was lit by people holding the lights on their phones up. This was very nice and atmospheric.
This was a good fun gig. Nearly three hours of a single band playing their greatest songs from over twenty years of work. I enjoyed it. I’d happily see them again.
The “scene” wasn’t as alternative as I was expecting. There weren’t that many people who were part of the dress up scene such as the ones at Slimelight or M’Era Luna.
While taking a jog from SMP near junction 12 of the M20 here in Kent I noticed the gorgeous curves of a water tower. I like this design because it clearly is a DESIGN and not a “let’s build it as strong as possible” clump of bricks. Most water towers are inelegant, this one is gorgeous.
Curves
I have a suspicion that these curves are catenaries, Gaudí uses them a lot in his cathedral.
Along with the lovely curves of that delicious monster the sun was rising over the sea. Here’s a view.
I’m quite proud of that last picture. I do think I’d be quite happy living is this home:
This particular Lego model is coincidence. It has nothing to do with the excursion yesterday. Surprisingly the shop at the Identities Exhibition had zero Legos!
