Rob Masters

See if you can spot us in this collection of wonderful images from Worldcon 75 by Mira Strengell. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mirastrengell/albums/72157685077799093 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mirastrengell/albums/72157685077799093

A most splendid extension to the commonplace, and a positive advance in technology. Originally shared by Raspberry Pi In answer to the age old question 'But how can we make this better?', the team at Netflix have built Teleflix, a Morse Code-based search function for the online video-streaming platform. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/netflix-morse-code/

A Scandinavia and the World​ card game? That is based on stupid bidding wars? Count me in! Originally shared by Scandinavia and the World For the past year we've been working on a card game with a professional games designer. It is amazing fun to play! Please back it on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/820113175/scandinavia-and-the-world-a-heap-of-trouble

As John Samuel​ says, spot on. Originally shared by John Samuel Highly recommended from John Birmingham https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/he-s-right-unaustralian-lawyers-are-nothing-like-our-bloody-icons-20170829-p4yvlv.html

If you live in WA, you'll soon be able to exchange your cans and bottles for cold, hard, 10-cent pieces. ABC News | http://ab.co/2waw7EE http://ab.co/2waw7EE

Ok, there is something seriously wrong with the world when a real human being enters the uncanny valley. I mean, she looks like there should be strings attached to her, like in Thunderbirds! Originally shared by Lordy

Body of Evidence, Series 2, Number 3.

Google's take on the animation of the #ISS https://goo.gl/photos/LKTkn1s79UodRUFQ6

A crop of the frame of closest approach.

Some high cloud, but we had a close pass of the ISS to the moon this evening. NX500, 50-200 kit lens at 200mm, F5.6, 1/10s, ISO3200. GIF from the unprocessed JPEGs.

Body of Evidence , series 2, number 2.

Via rare avis​ This is pretty stunning, really. Originally shared by null https://phys.org/news/2017-08-mathematical-mystery-ancient-babylonian-clay.html

Originally shared by catty _big H/t Grumpy Cat

"mother" - W.E. Coyote (attrib) Actually, the sign is a warning about unstable overhangs and caves, and, for once on Rottnest, not about cliffs.

The latest addition to my Body of Evidence project.

The Morning Yoga Session #seal #rottnest

seagull Osprey butt! #rottnest #birdsinflight #birdbutt Birds In Flight​

Ospreys Dueling, Rocky Bay, #rottnest , #birdsinflight . Birds In Flight​

Ok, now that Sunday What Is It​ is done I can talk about our last day in Finland. We arranged a 2pm checkout at the Ava Hotelii, where we'd been staying this time around, so we headed into town to scout out a couple of places that had caught our eye the day before. Then it was back to the hotel for a bite of lunch and check-out. Back onto the tram, and we hopped onto the ferry for Soumenlinna . We still did not get as much time there as we would have liked, but we did get to visit the Vesikko museum submarine, which proved surprisingly roomy when compared to an Oberon, despite being much smaller! Back to the hotel, and onto the bus for the trip to the airport. Once there, we tried to pay to upgrade our seats to Comfort Economy, but the computer was not having a bar of it. So they forced it through, and gave us the upgrade for free! Have we mentioned how awesome Finnair​ are? Onto our much less crowded plane, and we were on our way to Changi... And you know the rest.

For some years now, I have been active as a player on the site https://www.yucata.de , who provide a free service to play (asynchronously), board games against other human players. They collect only the bare minimum of data needed to be able to contact you as a player, and there are no adds or add-ons. The community there is one of the most pleasant places on the Net, with helpful folks willing to help teach at the drop of a hat, and others willing to donate time and expertise to implement new games. Recently the founder was prompted to post the following note to the community. (reposted with permission) Yesterday, I received a message asking why Yucata didn't charge any money or why it didn't at least introduce some limits for free-riders who don't support the site. There are several aspects to the question. a) This is a great site, why don't you try to earn some money? b) Why do 5% of users have to take the burden to support Yucata while the rest is enjoying the sit...

Shots from the last leg heading home.

Perth No photos today. Just unpacking, cleaning, resting, and restocking the fridge. And catching up on !y written diary, and discovering that I'd skipped a day here!

I missed a day! T+29, we went off on a canal and island cruise around Helsinki. Quite extraordinary things! Also visited the zoo. More extraordinary things!

https://plus.google.com/events/ckbolufmq0c4jae8fd4oq63nqh0?authkey=CISiz_e6mqKeWA Being organised by the Perth Local Guides moderator https://plus.google.com/events/ckbolufmq0c4jae8fd4oq63nqh0?authkey=CISiz_e6mqKeWA

Sometimes Google Photos​​ algorithms produce unexpected (and kind of neat) outcomes. Consider the second photo. It is rubbish. I would not even think about applying additional processing to it. Photos' AI thought otherwise, and produced the first image. Which is still not a great photo, or even a good photo by any reasonable objective standard, but it is kind of neat. Which is a surprising outcome for an image I was planning on binning!

So, yesterday... Our last day in Finland, and discussion of it will have to wait For Reasons. Last night we got on the plane to Changi. A pretty good flight, with free comfort economy seats thanks to a computer problem that would not let us pay! Unfortunately, I awoke with the starts of a migraine... Which is still (just) with me as we wait for the plane to Perth. Thunderstorms abound this evening in Singapore, so it is likely to be an interesting start to the flight. You get a few non contraversial images...

A Message Home When we were setting off on this one-way trip, I asked Al about why she was laughing over the flight manual. I mean, flight manuals are not exactly a prime source of comic relief, are they? And one for a one-way trip to Proxima is even shorter on punch-lines. Well, on ones that are not made up of ‘And then you die.’ So I got her to explain. I still don’t get it, so maybe one of you folks back home can tell me what was so damn funny that she still laughs when we get a boost from the laser. As you all know, this is a solar sail ship, because accelerating fuel just takes more fuel. so we left it all behind. Instead, we got ourselves a really big fuel-tank: The Sun. Only the Sun’s usefulness drops off really fast - the old distance/square rule really sucks that way. So we built a collector and solar-pumped laser system just like that old SF story had. You do it right, and it works really well. Only problem is that it costs a lot of energy to get to the laser system, and you ...

Today we visited Espoo, one of the satellite cities of Helsinki, specifically, we visited the Laajalahti nature reserve. With a supporting centre at Villa Elfvik, this is one of the most important reserves in the area, with huge reed beds, and water meadows. We had lunch on top of mind of the bird watching towers, as Canada Geese preened and washed below is, and a raptor circled above. And on the way there we were alternately taunted and menaced (for admittedly small values of 'menace') by dark red dragonflies. There is also an old boathouse and (now reed-bound) pier in the reserve - and one part of the Helsinki Solar System Model! On our way out (and outside the reserve proper) we spotted some wild raspberries next to the path, and so we sampled a couple. Rather yummy, but very small, and we did not want to strip the bush. Heading back, we decided to go via the Helsinki centre, and picked up some 48 hour travel cards to cover us for the last couple of days. And visited the goo...

Our last day of Worldcon 75. 😢 We made it to the food allergies and intolerances panel. Nothing ground-breaking, but some good PSAs came out of it. Mostly describing what the differencea are between auto-immune diseases, allergies, and intolerances, and how they can all come in different degrees of severity. I spent most of the rest of the day teaching Honshū. Alicia Smith​ was in the first one, and rested up for the rest - except for the last, where she went to the closing ceremony. Post-con, we had dinner at an Indian place near the Ava, and crashed hard. I only have one shot for today. But it is Deadpool!

So we stuck our heads in on the Eurogames panel, but mainly got in games of Star of Africa (or Afrikan tähti ), Glory to Rome, Bells, and I failed completely at the scavenger hunt. And queued for the Masquerade. It was a great show, but far fewer entries than we expected - twenty six in all. We often get more at a Swancon! That said, the standard was high for the most part, with some very clever ideas and very funny gags. In the end a young lady who was gutsy enough to enter the adult divisions took the top award for her portrayal of Halley's Comet over Jacksonville, 1910 (with dad providing a supporting role as Jacksonville). During the judges' deliberations, we were treated to music by Sassafras, headed up by Ada Palmer, who was in much better condition today. We were also informed of a massive storm taking place, and to take care heading back. Fortunately, it had cleared for a time when we headed back.