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.
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.
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.
Beatrice is pregnant again. BDSM sex with your bro in the 1800s will do that.
She marries a charming young doctor as a cover-up, but his skillset means he knows that the child is not his when it arrives "early".
Mother catches her children humping in the drawing room.
Mother dead at dawn of an overdose, for which the doctor is mysteriously blamed. Career in ruins, he drinks until he's committed, leaving his fortune in his wife's hands.
And that is the end of part 2. I am... taking a break!
@solsetur Now you understand how I ended up in this fix! I liked her Tudor books too, but when she veers off real historical people, things apparently go a bit wild 😅 Truthfully, I would not recommend “Wideacre”: Beatrice is a nasty piece of work and you’re stuck with her narration! I am trapped to the end of this book, but intend to resist moving onto the sequel 😱
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.)