I've been insanely busy the past two weeks.
E. Writer
I've made the solar system 3D. So visitors can toggle between 2D and 3D https://aclockworkuniverse.com/rotatinguniverse3D.html
Alex Morton Very cool! As soon as I get over the fog of jet lag, I'm going to spend some time with this. There's virtually no light pollution here, so I've spent many hours gazing at the night sky.
E. Writer
Thank you! It was fun to make. One of the testers suggested that I add an ISS space station model. Im thinking it over.
It's weird bit we have a lot of light pollution but my backyard has complete darkness
A Clockwork Universe Cosmos Exploration Tool. The app will be here in the next few days. This is an educational app, that can be used by schools, as a phone download from Google Playstore. it's still in the testing phase. So I am gathering testers as required by Google.
https://aclockworkuniverse.com/rotatinguniverse.html
Amber Diva Wow that’s impressive
E. Writer Thank you do much
I have something really cool that I made for my Clockwork Universe: URUT book. It's an interactive page that allows you to explore the universe. You can click planets, and celestials and learn about them. I put a lot of thought into the design and I would love if you checked it out. Keep in mind that on a mobile device you won't see the interactive model. You'll get a fact first but close those facts to reach the interactive screen. Be sure to give the images about thirty seconds to fully load. It presents the universe as clockwork, all parts working together https://aclockworkuniverse.com/rotatinguniverse.html
Andrew Morgan That is so impressive. You have deep skills and aren't afraid to tackle the biggest questions.
E. Writer Thanks. I had fun making it. The concept is not original. I use NASA Eyes on the Solar System and wanted to make an interactive site that would allow people to explore facts about the universe. But with less static detail.
Chicago
Amber Diva My father was born and raised on the south side. On black stone he used to say.
This is insane but, my cat recognizes YouTube. I've been letting her watch Cat TV. Basically it's a YouTube video that caters to cats. Usually its a video of squirrels and birds eating from a bird feeder or different bowls of food for squirrels and birds. My cats are extremely engrossed by these YouTube videos and will sit and watch them for hours. Sometimes I leave it's on for them. Each video is usually 2 to 8 hours long of just animals scrambling and eating. This morning I went to the app screen. The second the remote control highlighted the YouTube app my cat set up and started to get really excited she then leaned the and set up even more when I clicked YouTube and when the YouTube profile page opens she jumped off the chair and ran to this TV screen and waited. I selected the profile and she immediately stood up to the TV on her hind legs and waited for me to pick her favorite program. From the moment that I highlighted the YouTube icon she leaned in and a nudged my son and told him to look she's getting excited. So I wasn't the only person who witnessed this.
E. Writer Awww that's too cute. I saw a video ofva dog who would get anxious during a horror movie.
M. C. Ryder My fur kids love songs and scripture. My one cat, Monkey, has them memorized, knowing when certain wildlife are going to make an appearance. So much smarter than people give them credit.
Alex Morton The name is cool, but cats are much much much nicer than actual monkeys. I still have a scar from a monkey bite.
E. Writer MC do your cats watch their own programs too?
M. C. Ryder They used to also enjoy watching Peppa Pig lol
Today's haul from my garden. My hubby picked them because I'm so busy. I've been in my garden only a handful of times this summer. Planted everything then worked all summer. My flowers grew beautifully 💕 too.
Amber Diva Looks wonderful 😃
Alex Morton It's true that most olives are bitter when harvested and need to be put in brine for months until they are good for eating. There is one variety called the Kourmada that can be eaten right away,. I have one of those trees and to me, it tastes like mud. Most of my olives I take to the mill and have pressed into oil that I ship back to Vancouver for my family. All of my firewood comes from the prunings of my olive trees, and it's a wonderful wood. You can burn it two or three days after it's cut.
E. Writer Really... that's so interesting. With my love of gardening, and nature I would love to live in a place where I could grow olive trees, burn my wood, and press it into oil. That, how I imagine it, is my idea of a dream place.
Alex Morton I was feeling more than a bit trepidatious about the trip because emotionally it's going to be a jolt being there without Mina. Twenty years ago, I went to the island with one of my oldest friends to get the house in good enough shape so that Mina and I could stay there. After Bob was there for a week, he turned to me one day and said, "You didn't just marry a woman, you married an island." I'm going back now because I don't want to lose the other half of my romance. This morning, when I was speaking with my pal, Socrates, he told me it was good that I was coming back because the island missed me. Almost everything is set. I won't even need a taxi from the Ikaria airport to my house because my friend, Athena, is picking me up. Socrates will have the gate open and my trusty Suzuki Jimny (little jeep-like vehicle) uncovered and the battery will be hooked up. If I know him, there will be eggs from his farm in the refrigerator and probably fresh cheese that his wife made. from their own goat's milk. All I have left to do is reach the shop in Athens where I get my haircuts and make an appointment. That ... and finish packing.
Alex Morton Back to the olives ... I'll be on the island until the end of September or a bit longer before I head back to Lions Bay. If the grapes are in good enough shape, I'll make some wine while I'm there. Then, I may go back to Iklaria again at the end of November to harvest the olives. If I do that, I'll jar up a bunch of olives in brine. It's a lot of travelling if I do that, but I don't want to be away from my family for too long at a stretch. The whole family and some friends will be coming to Ikaria next summer to have a celebration of Mina. The wine will be for that.
Ancient light from distant stars permeate our bodies daily, so we are truly at one with the stars and cosmos. When we perceive something visually in the sky, whether its the local sun, a distant star, or a galaxy... photons of light traveling millions of miles from the actual star, enter your eye, your retina, and your brain, producing an electrochemical signal. So when we gaze at the stars, we are not just looking at something from a distance, photons from the star is physically interacting with our minds and bodies. We touch stars (or starlight touches us), everyday.
Amber Diva Lady you are very intelligent
Andrew Morgan That's so fascinating. I learned that the Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object the human eye unaided can see. A smudge that looks like an olive in a martini glass not far from the constellation Pegasus (that big square of four stars). 2.5 million years away. I wish I had known this when young while my eyes were sharp but I was able to find it some years ago with a pair of binoculars. Exciting!
E. Writer It is very exciting. And just think, when you saw it through the binoculars, photons/ light from Andromeda galaxy permeated your eyes, was processed by your brain, and sent through your body as an electrical signal.
Andrew Morgan Just like a martini :)
E. Writer Indeed lol
When Mike Tyson almost met his match. This guy he was fighting was scary. This fight was about forty-years ago and I am still biting my nails because I don't know who won, so I'm going to watch the whole thing. Yes, boxing is a sport that is a bit brutish but I still respect the athleticism.
Amber Diva I remember watching Mike Tyson fights with my father when I was a little girl. Those are some good memories.
E. Writer Same here, I grew up watching it with a house full of adults so it's a bit nostalgic.
The internet and social media shows the dangers of what happens to the psychology of a culture that has spent nearly 30 years on the internet. It's a social experiment with a terrible outcome. When you view it objectively, from a distance you realize how strange it is. It does masquerade as "entertainment" but it's strange because masses of people are doing it. On social media, I see videos of adults playing "pretend" in full dress-up or low-quality costumes and wigs. Adults inventing make-believe characters, often babbling to themselves about nothing important. Sometimes they're pretending to be multiple people interacting, when it's really just one person having a conversation with themselves. I see people making randomly rude remarks to complete strangers, people filming themselves running around in public harassing strangers for "entertainment." Sometimes they're humiliating themselves--all for likes and clicks. The rest are passive voyeurs, watching it all for their own enjoyment, commentary, or anger. Then there's the constant watching and mimicking each other if someone becomes popular doing dome odd or unusual thing. The corporate overreach and data collection, lack of privacy. AI scraping... There is something deeply disturbing about it all from the corporate corruption and exploitation of these extreme behaviors, has all become so normalized, that society is unable to recognize the dysfunction or dystopian nature of it.
Frank Hutton With respect, there's nothing you can tell me about the degradation of intellectual property values as regards imagery. I worked in the 1st commercial digital imaging dept. in a major city. Used the 1st Macs, 1st Photoshop, etc. It was mid-late 90's when in a camera store I saw for sale (10 bucks if I recall) a CD of 500 royalty free images and knew in terms of earning any kind of respectable income off my work, I was royally screwed.
I mean, images propel every sort of commercial endeavor on the face of the earth. Billions of dollars generated yearly, basically all of it kept in the master's hands.
Which is why when every dog & his brother @ Zoe jumped on the self-publishing bandwagon, I knew writers were screwed too. Fact is, the 'democratization of all media' merely granted more wealth, power & influence to new gatekeepers, not less.
I yelled and yelled and yelled @ Zoe how writers & other wannabes dreaming wet dreams of almost always illusory fame & fortune should be careful what they wished for, because they were really just begging to get a sharp stick up their collective punk ass.
But...alas.
E. Writer Images, print, and film... people, particularly young people don't watch movies anymore. They watch tiktok. I remember people on Zoe refusing to jump on the bandwagon and dismissing it as vanity publishing. When they finally jumped, it was too late, the industry was oversaturated. Fast forward to today, AI Books flooding authors out of the industry, generating images, and videos.
Frank Hutton I dunno. The new Spiderman movie's made like a zillion dollars in it's 1st couple weeks and I'd bet most of those seats were filled with young folk. Yeah, it's Spiderman. But it's also a film. In theaters, no less.
E. Writer Oh of course some blockbusters are going to make money. Michael Jackson biopic did well, too.
Frank Hutton Also of course, a pretty big chunk 'o that great big pile of change has to be particularly due to those young people that don't watch movies anymore going to the movies. Just sayin.
Also, just to tie the bow…
While one could traditionally make a decent living shooting stock images all along if you were really good and worked tirelessly @ it, perversely the halcyon days of shooting stock was mid-80’s, when deep pocket clients finally paid extra for quality. which was just prior the great collapse brought by digital ubiquity, when ‘good enough” proved well worth the pittance one had to pony up after all.
Lots of old timers up & retired. Me, I’d just bought my Linhoff.
SJ Blues It's been a crazy two weeks
Amber Diva I hope you get to take some time to relax soon