Worthy stuff to watch and read - issue 6

August 17, 2014 3-minute read

World’s largest model of the Solar System can be found in Sweden. The Sun is represented by Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, all the planets and asteroids are placed and sized proportionally and located all around Sweden all the way to the north.
One of many R&D departments in Microsoft is actually doing amazing stuff - last week they broke the (hacker)news by coming out with the technology for stabilizing and speeding up video footage made during various sport activities - such as riding a bike. The result is something called hyperlapse - video, which is speed up, but still remains watchable. My speculation is that engineers at Microsoft improved on the tech used in Photosynth app, by analyzing all the frames from video and recreating the 3D environment, together with the virtual camera in it. Fascinating stuff.
More of a news than a proper story - fresh rumor of the Babylon 5 being brought as a fully featured movie. JMS is still fully enthusiastic about having a properly budgeted project, which is said to be more of a reboot to the original story.

More…

There is this begger dude next to the Old Street station who is hard to miss - he always wishes everyone a good day of the week. Name of the day is carefully maintained, and on Friday he is as cheerful as ever.
Did a day trip to Eastbourne, which is on the South of British island, right between loud Brighton and historical Hastings. The town is apparently mostly quiet, but this weekend they had a huge airshow titled Airbourne. It was also my first time to see a performance by famous Red Arrows of the Royal Air Force - they do not disappoint. It’s pretty ingenious idea to have airshow in the Eastbourne - you could watch it from any place on the long beach, or you could walk further and climb to the Beachy Head cliffs and still see all the action.
Beachy Head itself is a place just few miles outside of the town with tall chalk cliffs, green pastries, sheep, cows and lighthouses. Highest cliff is said to be 176m high, and the fall is basically vertical - it’s hard to imagine anything steeper. Judging by the memorial crosses next to some cliffs, it is also a very popular place to end your life.
Our podcast Badger Don’t Care got a domain and a page, where you can find download link to the first episode. Second episode is now recorded and will be released to the public soon.