Tech Related

If you’re a geek and you like mobile phones with a data plan then ingress is for you. Over the last two days I walked 18 kilometres playing ingress and winning back the City of Nyon for the Resistance. It didn’t last long. The same evening the enlightened players destroyed my hard work. I will just have to go back and liberate the city later. I have more important tasks this weekend. Tomorrow Ingress FS Neuchatel will take place. At least twenty of us will be playing, walking around the city, looking for portals and trying to take over the city. Staring at a phone while walking around a city may sound counterintuitive, or absolutely normal for those who still use text messaging apps or tweet. In this case though you discover details of cities that you would not notice. You notice plaques, the names of places which you always walk by but never knew about and more. Playing the game has two parts. Attack and defence is one part and farming the second. Attack and defence are good because they don’t require much walking around. They just require having a lot of “toys” to play with. The drawback to having a lot of toys to play with is that you probably walked around like I did going from portal to portal and hacking it. You get weapons, modules, resonators and more. They are good for game play. There is a cultural aspect to farming. Missions designed by L9 players of ingress have portals related to a certain theme. If you walk in the old town of Geneva you can follow the Calvin track, the park brunswick mission or the Geneve, around the Cathedral mission. There is a good chance that you will know some of the monuments and you will discover others. With each portal players can write a description. These descriptions can provide you with a new understanding of the places you pass by. In essence it could serve as a guide book for those who like to see things in a different light.

Documentaries have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. This year I started with the Documentary Rome’s Lost Empire narrated by Dan Snow. With Sarah, an associate professor they travel from Rome to Transylvania, to Petra and to Tunisia to uncover the Roman Frontier. Using a mixture of both satellite and Lidar imagery they are able to identify archeological sites before going to them in person. The documentary provided me with a greater understanding of how technology helps archeologists today to do their job and to provide me with information about aspects of Roman Civilisation that I had not spent too much time thinking about. For this reason I recommend that you watch the documentary.

Not the most inspired year in search.

Ingress is a game that requires a data connection, GPS data and the screen to be on. As a result of this battery consumption is high. Earlier today I took the Sony Xperia Z3 out in the rain and played for two solid hours non stop walking from portal to portal and the battery was at 50 percent. This is excellent compared to other devices.   The phone is also waterproof to a depth of one meter therefore the rain we had this afternoon was no hindrance to game play. Every so often I had to wipe the screen as the touch screen stopped functioning as well as it should due to the signals it was getting from the rain.

The joy comes in the pursuit

Up to date earth imagery every day.

Birth of a Regulator - Commercial Film for Apeks from Scarlet View Media on Vimeo.

  I was curious to watch part of the process. i am more and more tempted to start diving again but I think without being too technical. I think I need to return to recreational, non challenging dives.

It makes me want to go diving again. Now that summer is over the lakes should be better. Visibility should have improved.

The importance of design, also an opportunity to see macbook air components before they are all assembled.