A very pretty high tech set.
Intriguing premise.
But I quit half way through. Too slow.
Any plot that concerns time travel in any way is likely to end unsatisfactorily.
Requiem by Geir Tangen
Geir Tangen is a Norwegian crime fiction writer and blogger.
Requiem is a good book — but I gave up at 55% finding it too bleak. Too dark.
Nobody to cheer for.
In fact, I should give up Nordic noir completely.
Happy Valley – season 1
I finally got round to watching the 2015 BAFTA for Best Drama Series.
Happy Valley is fantastic TV — but very hard to watch. It’s simply too intense.
Devastating.
Catherine Cawood is a divorced police sergeant with two children.
She is still trying to recover from the suicide of her daughter, which happened eight years ago.
Catherine is raising her grandson, Ryan, who was born due to her daughter being raped by Tommy Lee Royce.
Just when it seems like Catherine is gaining control over her life, she discovers that Tommy, whom she holds responsible for her daughter’s suicide, has been released from prison after serving time for other offences.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Lazarus by Lars Kepler
One of the best thrillers (2020) of the year!
Kepler treats us readers to a nonstop roller coaster of suspense, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of perfectly realized characters.
And, oh, what a villain!
—Jeffery Deaver
This is a very intense novel.
A mysterious killer is brutally murdering Europe’s most loathsome criminals.
When police discover that two of the victims have disturbing connections to Detective Joona Linna, it’s clear that somebody’s trying to send him a message.
As the body count rises, the evidence seems to point to a ghost from Joona’s past… the most terrifying villain he’s ever had to face.
Surprisingly, detective Saga Bauer is the main character in this book.
Joona Linna disappeared in order to protect his daughter from the bad guy.
The Artful Dodger (2023)
The Artful Dodger (2023) is an Australian / New Zealand television series …
… sequel that includes characters from the classic Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist (1838).
It features Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Sam in Love Actually) as the eponymous Artful Dodger and David Thewlis as Fagin. …
Maia Mitchell as Lady Belle Fox, the governor’s daughter, self-educated in the field of medicine …
The two do have chemistry.
What I like about this show is the fast, YouTube-like editing. Modern music. Funny dialogue.
A fresh take on Oliver Twist.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Inspired by Photographer Peter McKinnon
Best of the best when it comes to photography online.
How does Peter motivate himself?
…. Change. Challenge.
He switched to film only for a year, for example.
Click PLAY or watch his year in review on YouTube.
My NEW Insta360 Ace Pro Action Camera
A Christmas present to myself 2023.
Here’s my 1st video using mostly Ace Pro footage.
Videotaping animals and birds is particularly challenging when using cameras without much optical zoom.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I’d long planned to replace both my old GoPro and my Sony ZV1 camera with one action camera — and finally made the leap when the Insta360 Ace Pro was released December 2023.
My minimum gear for shooting video has never been lighter nor more compact.
- iPhone 13 Mini
- DJI Mavic Mini S.E. drone and extra batteries
- Insta360 Ace Pro
I can use the Ace Pro with all my GoPro attachments.
Action cameras are even more durable than phones.
Of the dozens of cool features available with the Ace Pro, I’ll actually be using very few for my hiking videos.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Settings
90% of the time I will be shooting:
- 4K 30fps HDR. Stabilization STANDARD.
- Automatic focus.
I like HDR (high dynamic range) and shoot the same on my iPhone. Over-saturated video looks good to me on YouTube. Especially if watching on a phone.
4K 30fps is the most I can shoot in HDR on the Ace Pro. (Better would be 60fps in HDR. That would be my #1 request for future upgrade.)
I export at 1080p 30fps so can crop / zoom down without losing resolution.
Shooting in this setting I can quickly zoom 50% and yet still end up with 4K video whenever I want by double tapping the screen. How does 4K zoom to 4K? … Some sort of digital trickery in camera they call clarity zoom.
Their 8K is 4K with 4 small pixels replacing each normal 4K pixel. So far I haven’t been much impressed with 8K for video.
Ultrawide gives the widest possible perspective for outdoor scenery. I’ll use that mode when shooting BIG outdoor vistas.
Most of the time, I’ll use Dewarp (minimal distortion) as it most closely matches a normal camera with almost no curvature to the image.
iPhone App and Apple Watch App
I’ll be using the Apple Watch app quite a bit. It’s simple. Quick. And intuitive.
I might never use the phone app which is complicated. And really not needed for someone who plans to edit video later on laptop.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Photos
Initially, I thought I’d shoot photos on iPhone 13. Video on the Ace Pro.
Comparing different photos on the Ace Pro v iPhone 13, so far I’m MUCH preferring iPhone. Seems Apple does a much better job with photos.
On the other hand, it’s bloody convenient to take a photo simultaneously while videotaping with the new camera. A great feature of the Ace Pro.
AND I’m thinking it will be more convenient to take selfie photos and video with the Ace Pro on the tripod using Voice Command.
Voice Command on iPhone seems to screw up a lot for me. I probably won’t use it.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Voice Command on the Ace Pro works most of the time, even in noisy environments.
This camera has Gesture Control — but it works inconsistently, as it does on every other product I’ve tried with that feature.
Downsides of the Insta360 Ace Pro
The AcePro has no GPS. With iPhone photos and video, I sometimes look up the metadata to see exactly where and when I took the picture — very useful.
It’s possible to use the phone app — or even the watch app — to get the metadata, but that’s too much hassle for me.
The biggest problem now, however, is lack of much zoom on any of my cameras. I’d love to have something with 10x optical, as well.
Since I export at 30fps, in my normal shooting mode I won’t be able to slow down video. In reality, I don’t use much slow mo anyway, so it probably won’t be a problem. BUT I’ll need to remember to switch to slow motion if I ever want some of those captures.
Still experimenting …
My CHRISTMAS PRESENT to YOU
A concept for YOUR future series of speculative fiction. You can write those books during retirement. 😀
Human kind is going extinct on Earth.
Elon Musk and others launch as many long range space craft as possible. Towards as many remotely feasible planets and moons that might be able to sustain life.
The ships are unmanned — aside from frozen sperm and eggs. This seems far more possible than sending folks cryogenically frozen.
Those (few) ships that survive the trip after hundreds of years at sub-light speed are possible story plots.
After landing, Androids start in vitro humans growing. They attempt to adapt the planet for homo sapiens.
This is something similar to the TV series Silo.
It sounds like Allen M. Steele traveled forward into the future to STEAL this idea from me in his book Arkwright (2016).
There may have been other literary thieves. 😀
Fallon & Trainor – Wrap Me Up
My favourite new Christmas song in 2023.
Jimmy Fallon and Meghan Trainor – Wrap Me Up
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
1st Music Video on MTV …
Appropriate.
The Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star
“Video Killed the Radio Star” (1979) with Thomas Dolby on keyboards.
The music video written, directed and edited by Australian Russell Mulcahy, was produced on a budget of $50,000. It was filmed in only a day in South London.
The video is best known as marking the debut of MTV, when the US channel started broadcasting at 12:01 AM on 1 August 1981. It originally aired on the BBC’s Top of the Pops.
Hans Zimmer can be briefly seen wearing black playing a keyboard.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 