Tried out Dungeons of Eternity tonight in #VR where you fight off legions of the undead 🧟 I will say a lot less fun on your own (i.e. creepy AF) but a good laugh with friends! You’re only allowed a group of three though, which means we have to wait for one of our usual four to be away/deathly ill/with better friends/fed up of our shenanigans.
@powersoffour Significantly less real running because I have an affection for my furniture. And bones. On the other hand, I have a crossbow sooooo…. (And the weapon fighting did make me swing my arms!)
For my talks, I draw a lot of my slide deck, with several slides used to illustrate a concept. I love the result: it's engaging and pretty, and I feel people remember images faster than words.
However.... it takes me bloody ages!
I've been designing two talks with a large number of new slides and it's taken me about a 1.5 weeks to get them together as each talk is close to 100 slides (~2 slides / min).
It's hard to justify this quantity of time to work, but it's also why I'm asked to speak 🤔
A rather blistering 5am start for the second virtual #astrophotography gallery event with the IAU and @futuremeetings! But a good crowd, and really fun to listen to the photographers describe how they took these photos with a smartphone (!).
Great evening hearing from the photographers whose photos are displayed in the virtual gallery designed by the IAU OAO x TFOM (International Astronomical Union Outreach & @futuremeetings)! Aside from cruising the art and learning about exposures, I also met a science communicator from Indonesia and we spent a happy 20 minutes roundly abusing TikTok 🤣
There's another opportunity to visit the gallery tomorrow (May 28) at 8pm UTC / 4pm EDT / 1pm PDT.
@elizabethtasker I just realized, I think we chatted for a bit today at the second event (with my partner) -- I very much enjoyed talking with folks and seeing all the photos. I learned about it from your posts, so thank you for posting on Mastodon about it!
Tea in an International Astronomical Union Outreach bamboo mug to start the week and celebrate not only sustainable drinkies, but also the super cool #astrophotography event that will be held TODAY and TOMORROW! Tickets are free, and the 3D virtual space (accessible from a browser) is really fun to explore.
Tried out “Demeo” tonight: a multiplayer adventure board game that you can play in #VR or #AR. It was well done, and fun to see the pieces animate and move! Also easier to learn the rules than for a regular board game as you weren’t able to make an invalid move, and aspects such as the cards were dealt automatically!
I scrubbed down the balcony this morning (a thankless task, partly due to the lack of an outdoor tap, and partly because Casper the outdoor cat never looks impressed!)
Afternoon high tea with a Prince of Tennis (Japanese manga/anime) theme! Each cake is based on the tastes of one of the manga characters (from the Rikkai tennis team). There was also a mini-burger. Also, I can no longer move comfortably 😅
If you are interested in the use of virtual spaces for online events, do check out this event next week!
Organised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), this #astrophotography gallery is hosted in spatial: a 3D virtual space you can explore via a regular web browser or #VR Meta headset.
I love virtual spaces for feeling I've "gone somewhere", and the audio falloff means you can chat to people you meet... or run off and ignore their babble while you cruise the #astronomy art.
This gallery was created from off-the-shelf assets that are freely available at spatial.io. Come and visit the gallery, and think about how a virtual space could be used for original online meetings and events.
Which was one of the more amusing slips I’ve heard during a Q&A session at JAXA, and left me wondering what crazy conspiracy theory I’d just walked into 😂
(What was actually meant was “do you believe there’s water on the Moon”, swiftly corrected but not before the whole room had collapsed with laughter.)
We continue to pursue Japanese studies through… Doreamon! A children’s manga in which a cat-like robot from the future helps a spectacularly dim child.
How dim?
In this scene, he is discovering that if you do not water crops… they die 🤨
I’m listening to “Wildacre”; historical fiction by Philippa Gregory.
The protagonist is evil. An utter psychopath. Admittedly, life for a woman in the 18th century is rough, and the opportunities Beatrice’s skills warrant are passed to incompetent men. But the body count is unpleasant!
It’s a very long book and a stressful read. Frankly, I want to stop but I also want to know the outcome and I’m not sure a synopsis will be satisfactory.
In short, I’m in a hostage situation with an audiobook.
People. I finished the first of three (THREE!!) parts of this audio book that amounted to 8.5 hours listening time.
We leave Beatrice in Paris, having weaselled her way onto her brother’s honeymoon, pregnant with her brother’s child, and fearing her last lover who seems to have survived having his legs chopped off in a man trap to become a Robin Hood-type highwayman.
I… require something more uplifting and am returning (at least temporarily) to the Thursday Murder Club.
She’s horrified, as she wanted an anchor baby boy to inherit the family estate (the only thing she cares about).
She palms the baby off on her sister in law (omitting to mention parentage) and then is equally horrified when her brother is besotted with wife and baby, and wants to end their incestuous shagging.
She therefore sets up a BDSM dungeon room for her bro.
Yes, I returned to this story. Yes, it was without doubt a mistake.
The International Astronomical Union (#IAU) are hosting an #astrophotography gallery in #VR! The event is on May 27 from 11am - 12:30pm UTC and May 28 from 8pm - 9:30pm UTC, and showcases astronomical photographs captured with a smartphone 📱🌌
The event is being held in spatial.io, which is accessible from a VR headset (Quest), or just from your computer browser (i.e. no headset needed).