Selection Made Simple

As part of the course work for my Life On Earth module, we had to do a ‘poster project’.
However, one of the first things pointed out was that it didn’t actually have to be a poster. I toyed with the idea of an interpretive dance, but finally decided I wanted to do a multimedia presentation, backed up with posters.

Here’s what I whipped up.
(Needs Microsoft Office to run)

Darwin’s Natural Selection

I’m placing it in my Unfinished Works blog because, as you may have noticed, the audio is a bit shoddy. Not to mention the fact that my accent goes all over the place (Mark Strong to Alan Wicker via Mr Gargles-With-Rocks). In other words, it could do with a bit of polish, but it was still enough to impress my lecturer and get a few laughs.

Land Of The Giants

I recently went and bought myself a USB microscope. I was planning on saving up for a proper light microscope myself, but since they’re so expensive, I was very happy to be told that it could become a christmas present. Of course, me being the impatient bloke I am – and with impending nature study commencing soon (tomorrow, actually) – I went and took a midstep and purchased a USB one. It’s only capable of 200x magnification, but that’s plenty for me to be getting on with for now. And, as you can see below, it’s results are more than passable for a fun wee hobby.

One of my initial reasons for wanting a microscope now is because I want to practice drawing things under magnification. My attempts at doing so, all those years ago the first time I went to Uni, were, well, crap. One instruction stuck with me, though: draw what you see, not what the textbook tells you you should see. I was hoping to start drawing cells and such as they appear irl, so to speak. Of course, at 200x only the very largest of cells show up, and not with any real detail.

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But, hey! Using this is helping me get a better grasp on scale. For example, I was rather surprised  to discover that sperm cells are visible at only 200x. As I watched their motion on the computer screen, and the sheer scale of their number hit home… it was one of the most… terrifying moments of my life. However, I’m not quite prepared to share that video with the blogosphere, just yet.

Wait For Me To Sketchup

I’ve missed 3d modelling. Partially because I was too lazy to learn a new package or would let myself get overwhelmed with the ones I had access too. Last night I downloaded and installed Google Sketchup. After the initial freak-out at how alien it all was, I calmed down and went through a few tutorials.

I like it.
My main reason for aquiring Sketchup is because I’m due a kitchen refit soon and need to see what I can and can’t fit. I’m already happy with how easy it was to get the basic layout down and am confident I’ll be designing away over the next few days.

After that…?
Well, a quick look at the available free models online is a ton of inspiration. Who knows, maybe the bipeds will make a comeback. Or maybe that should be a re-imagining.

Home, Green Home

I decided, given that I’m about to devote the next four years (if not the rest of my life) studying biology in various forms, that it might be fun to get started on my own steam. My initial plan involved doing some kind of ecological survey of the nearby reservoir. I mean, I’m sure that the appropriate authorities already have the info, but this is more of a fun thing for me to do than any actual ground breaking research. However, before I went to the lengths of travelling to the reservoir, I figured I’d start closer to home. Actually, at home.

I live in a small 6-block of studio flats with a communal garden. What this translates into is that nobody really seems to know who is responsible for cutting the grass. There’s a storage cupboard in the hall that I’m fairly certain houses a lawnmower, but I’ve never had a key to it. I think the council send someone around once a year to attack the whole lot, but only after summer. This means that I have a big patch of fairly wild garden around the house – complete with a seldom pruned tree that is now higher than the building.
I love it.

A quick look around the garden – an actual look, as opposed to the usual glance – revealed what I had expected; my garden is not just grass. It always amazes me the sheer variety of life that is present in the smallest area. I doubt I’ll be able to identify everything growing and crawling around outside my window, but this is my fun attempt at just that.

After a few false starts and some dodgy photos, I’ve begun to throw things together into a PowerPoint (well, OpenOffice) presentation.

Let’s see if this project bears any fruit. :)

Grand Safari Pages

I tend to avoid ‘coming soon’ type posts, but since I’ve already done most of the work on this one, I think I’ll risk it.

This is a link to the pages I’m putting together that detail the Kenyan Safari I went on in 2006. The same Safari where I took the photo of Diaspora Lion, from the previous post on here.

As you may note, the pages for the Safari holiday are on my ‘creative blog’, while my previous holiday’s have been documented on this blog. There are three reasons for this:

1. It has been filed under ‘projects’ on my computer for nearly six years.
2. It’s involving lots of editing (photo, video and audio).
3. I started making the pages before I checked which of my blogs I was logged into.

It’s a bit of a teaser trailer at the moment, but hopefully everyone will enjoy what IS to come.

Edit: Just discovered that I can’t add audio or video without forking out the readies (or hosting it myself, but that’s another project). So, I’ll be sticking up the pages without all the bells and whistles, but still plenty of rambling from me and Awesome pictures from Kenya.

Diaspora Cat Lion

A friend of mine offered me an invite for the Diaspora beta.
I whipped this up using one of my safari pics as a wee reminder.