Everyone is familiar with his work but how many people have seen a picture of Ansel Adams at work? Today on Retronaut they shared just such a picture. Who hasn’t been on a road trip to the US, stopped the car and taken pictures. Of course he is unique in that he stood on the roof with a tripod. Conversely for Timescapes his car became his home so the tradition continues.
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MobileRSS for the Iphone
When you like to control the information that is available to you through feedreaders the one that I have found most useful is google reader. It allows you to navigate using keyboard shortcut keys rather than the mouse. As a result you are able to navigate more effectively through the sometimes hundreds of posts.
For a while now, about three years, I’ve been looking for an app that gives us the convenience of google reader whilst on mobile devices. For a while I had the N95 and ipod touch, the ipod touch and the miniS and now the Iphone and N97.
The problem I kept having is with keeping everything up to date on all the devices. I didn’t want to read through twenty articles on a mobile device only to have to wade through the same articles a second time when I arrived back at the main computer I use for content processing.
That’s where MobileRSS for the Iphone and ipod touch comes into it’s own. It is a simple, intuitive way to go through your google reader feeds whilst mobile. Select the view you want, whether using “show new” or “show all”. Show all will give you several thousand posts along with all the key words you’ve added, something that is not so easy to manage.
The “Show new” tab however is great. When I pick up the phone and update all my feeds it gives me all of the new posts in an easy to process format. I have the option to view all feeds if I desire or to see each feed one at a time.
As you know some information sources like to post dozens of posts a day whilst others like to post just one or two a day. Those that post once or twice a day are usually the first ones I’ll read. This is because they’re more specialised, more thought out posts. As a result they’re more relevant.
There are two three ways to navigate through the content. The first is by selecting the list view. You see the headlines you want to read. In the second view you can read article by article and click the up or down icons to get to the previous or next posts. You can also drag the article from the one you’re reading to the next one. This speeds up the process by minimising the number of button presses.
When I am reading each article I can add notes, keep unread, star, share or even send it to to a number of other places. As a result I can share the articles I find of interest according to the way I think other people prefer to share.
The options for sharing are email/facebook/twitter/readitlater/instapaper and delicious. This means that I can share content within seconds, rather than minutes, anywhere I am, whether in a traffic jam or waiting to pay for the day’s shopping.
Another advantage is that it’s always on. Whether I have wifi or 3g I have access to all of the latest articles. I’d recommend using it. See whether it makes information gathering and sharing easier for you too.
Losing interest.
There are many Geo location websites in the web. They have something in common. Using them openly in front of others will not result in positive opinions.
As a result of this you want them to work flawlessly. Spending three minutes logging in is too long.
That’s why foursquare has been deleted grim my phone. I am not ready to use that type of service when the site goes down for four hours.
I feel this way after twitter. Popular site with a lot if downtime. Relations between people degraded as communication became more hit and miss. Now friendships and the core of interesting users is gone.
Why invest in social networks where indifference is prevalent. Tara for now foursquare. See you in a year.
Cosmic Trip – Physical Video gaming – Throw it like a frisbee
Physical Video Gaming
Physical video gaming is coming of age thanks to the HTC Vive and related Games. Cosmic Trip is one of these games. You can use both controllers to prepare machines that will prepare robots for mining and defence. These two sets of robots are autonomous. The more resources you mine and the more robots you have. These robots are attacked on a regular basis so defence is important. The laser robots provide some assistance. You can attack the enemy bots by throwing disks at them as if you were throwing frisbees. Most people should find this instinctive.
In the last 17 hours more than half a million people watched the video on how to play this game. The game is still in development and building up hype for when it is released properly. The creator of the video above now has eleven million subscribers on youtube. When he produces a video eleven million people are notified that there is a new video to watch.
Out of those 11 million subscribers on youtube only 1.6 million follow on twitter and a quarter of a million on Facebook. Within the next year or two I would like to see social networks such as Youtube and others expand and become niche communities where people can find content of interest without using Facebook or Twitter. I found Jack Septiceye content when I was searching for VR demos. I use youtube rather than Twitter and Facebook because I don’t want content creators and sharers to tell me how to feel or why the content is of value. I want to make that decision for myself. Youtube and social networks that allow us to browse and discover content based on niche interests are going to become increasingly important.
The creators of the game have just two thousand eight hundred followers on Twitter and approaching one thousand on Facebook. When youtube personalities make videos about products they provide companies with a lot of extra visibility. You reach game players, people who want to see what new technology such as the HTC Vive can do and people who like to watch gameplay videos without necessarily being game players themselves.
Niche Audiences
Twitter and Facebook have focused on broadcasting rather than niche audiences. As a result of this strategy they have lost their stickiness. This leads to people spending less and less time on their social networks. This opens up opportunities for Youtube and other content aggregation sites. The more content you watch on Youtube the more recommendations you will get based on your taste. This cuts out the middle man, in this case Facebook and Twitter. We reduce the signal to noise ratio. We increase the user’s Return on Investment.
Interview with the creators of Minsh tomorrow
Minsh is launching tomorrow and I will be meeting with them to record an interview with them about the website. They’re university students who did this as one of their projects.
Minsh is a 3d virtual environment in which twitter users are represented as fish swimming in the ocean. Each fish is a different twitter user. I saw this project in pre alpha and it’s an interesting idea.
Tomorrow I will see how it’s evolved and I hope to have a video up by Friday lunchtime which will help you understand what the website is about.
In August I will be at FIFAD
In August of this year I will be at FIFAD as a volontaire. FIFAD stands for Festival International du Film Alpin Des Diablerets. It’s the international Alpine Film Festival of the Diablerets. I want to participate at this event for three main reasons.
The first of these is that I have a passion for the documentary film genre and adventure films. I really enjoyed going to Montagne en Scène a few weeks ago and I expect to enjoy having the freedom to watch certain of the films at this event.
The second reason I want to go as a helper is that every time I have applied to help at an event I have got something out of it. I have built my confidence. I have met interesting people and I have found new and interesting ideas. In this case I hope to view a number of the films.
The third reason is that I will have an opportunity to spend a week in the mountains once again. I have frequently been to Diablerets for hikes and just once to enjoy a via ferrata. This time I will get to stay for a few extra days and learn to appreciate the town differently. I will have my 360 camera and via ferrata gear with me. Time to ride a tyrolean in 360 right? I hope it won’t rain too heavily. People told me they got wet last time they went under the waterfall.
When I watch an interesting film or hear someone talk about an interesting topic I will try to take notes and write related blog posts. It’s good to share the knowledge and passion with you.
Zwift events, a social ride and a race
Today I participated in two Zwift events, a social ride and a race. The social ride was one hour of pedalling at a comfortable pace trying to keep to the same speed as the group. Rather than trying to be as fast as the group I was trying to pace myself to be within the peloton rather than riding off.
Social rides are amusing because you start on the peer and wait for the counter to get down to zero and when it does you go from being on a home trainer in the real world cycling on a home trainer in the virtual world to cycling on the roads of Watopia. Social rides are interesting because you have people from Australia, England, Denmark and many other countries, so long as they are in a timezone where it would be reasonable to cycle at such a time of day.
It’s the first time that I get out of bed, look at the schedule for Zwift events and feel excited about doing something virtual like riding a bike. Keep in mind that today I could have burned diesel by heading to St Triphon to climb with people I know. I felt no motivation to drive that far so I was happy to stay home.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that riding a bike on Zwift is riding an apartment bike because it isn’t. It’s similar to riding a bike in the real world, with real hills, virtual drafting, virtual fellow drivers, no cars and more. What is real is the conviviality, the desire to share a few phrases, the cheering and the desire to ride as a group.
During the ride we did sprint twice and on the first sprint I beat my personal record and on the second go I had less energy remaining. During the first sprint I put out up to 934 watts in theory. That’s enough energy for me to rest on the handle bars for a little bit before catching my breath and continuing.
When I ride in the real world it’s usually alone and I race against myself but when it’s on Zwift I have a choice between virtual social rides, virtual races, training, or just a “as the wind takes me” option. Of course there is no wind, I mean that you ride for the pleasure of riding.
A Race up a Volcano
The second ride of the morning, about 15 minutes after the first ride finished was a 15km race up the side of the volcano on the Watopia map. I thought that with my abilities I should select group D. I pedalled during the countdown to keep warm and a few seconds before the race started I pedalled at a higher cadence to compensate for the lag that I experience with my current setup. I started well but I tired more quickly than most. While I was trying to maintain 200 or more watts they were racing off into the distance. I found myself in 110th or lower positions but I continued pedalling. I tried to maintain between 180 watts and 220 watts. I kept looking at the riders beside me and most were category C riders.
Keeping up
I worked hard to keep the power up and at moments when I felt that I needed to rest I changed gear, changed my cadence, but tried to keep the cadence up.
I didn’t know what to expect from the other racers so my goal was simply not to be dropped into
I spent hours and days training on Zwift before I felt ready to try a race. I trained for multiple sessions and those sessions got me used to pushing beyond my comfort levels for minutes at a time and it paid off in this race. If I continue training I can aim for better positioning. Today I was in 6th place in D category out of over 40 riders and 99th out of 180+ riders. So half of the racers have trained more than me. I can continue training and see where I come up next time.
What I like about the race, that I don’t have except for sprints is information on how far it is to the end of the race. If I know for how many more kilometres I have to make an effort then psychologically I can push harder. This was just a short race at 15km and I would struggle on a longer race and I would struggle on the flat.
I want to participate in more races and I need to choose which training course to attempt next. It’s nice to race virtual cyclists rather than real cars, e-bikes or people on lighter bikes than the one I ride in the physical world. In the virtual world today I was riding a trek emonda. This might be geeky but it’s pushing me to be fitter so fewer people can object.