Quicktime VR
I played around with Quicktime VR a little today and made a VR up of our new house.  You can check it out at http://web.mac.com/graemedevine/

Graeme.

Weather in Dallas
From our office window.

Let it Snow Roque and Santa (and I hope photo’s work)

Loop 12
I commute around 24 miles to my office every day.  50 mile round trip by the time you figure lunch in.

I normally take the 30 freeway to 635 down to 75, but if 635 is backed up, as it often is, I have an alternate route I can take down “Loop 12”.

I used to take the Loop 12 route once or twice a week, but recently I’ve avoided it.  On Monday though 635 was backed up and I decided go.  About 10 minutes later I worked out why I’ve avoided Loop 12.

Earlier this year, on the day of Halo Wars “go no go” discussion with Microsoft I was at a stop light on Loop 12.  My eyes wandered over to an apartment building nearby and I could see someone standing out on the third floor balcony, on the actual railing itself.  Then that person jumped.  They jumped down to the ground.  They were committing suicide.

That wasn’t the best thing to see.  It wasn’t good.

So now I generally don’t take Loop 12, because when I stop at that stop light and look at that apartment building I only see the jump.

Graeme.

I wish you could see what I've seen with your eyes
An old friend of mine has been posting to his flickr photostream some amazing photography lately.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/

(I don’t know if links work in this update style or not, go cut and paste!)

I’m truly amazed at the images and the range.  I’m even more amazed that in 2007 we share information this deep so easily and yet we’re still using the computing equivalent of steam engines (when steam engines were all the rage people thought they were pretty advanced).  The fact I’m conforming to this computer and not the other way around doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.

Which brings me to the subject.  Bladerunner is back out in the theater and a new release hits DVD on the 20th.  In the still haunting future of 2019 Deckard finds clues in the photographs of the replicants he is hunting.  He uses a machine to reconstruct, or perhaps it’s already in the image, the three dimensional details of the picture, looking into the shadows.  Which brings me to wonder.  I get a lot of emotion from looking at Wili’s photostream.  Does it need to be deeper?  Do I need three dimensions?  Am I just being the James Watt of 2007?

I’m betting that Wili has processed a few of the pictures in his photostream, making them “hyper” realistic (either that or I’m outta here tomorrow to go see this stuff).  When HDR was first bandied around a few years ago it’s application in digital pictures was not as clear to me as it is now, and I’m pretty sure the original thinkers behind HDR didn’t see digital imaging as the original killer app (probably wrong there).  But it really is the killer app.  In one picture we get the picture all the way from the squint to the blue sky.

Anyway.  Steam engines and Bladerunner.  Go check out his pics.

Graeme.