Family « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Retro Gamer

Wednesday, July 17th, 2013

This is an arcade system from 1982 called the Vectrex:

Specifically, the above is KLS’s Vectrex, purchased during the fire sales of 1983 that followed the crash of the video game industry. About 1X years ago, I found the above in an attic at her parents house and ferretted it away into our attic, where it now lives. We have the system (which still works!), one controller and about a dozen games including the screen overlays and the manuals.

Here’s an example of a manual for one of the games:

Last week, when KLS’s parents were in town, I got the Vectrex out for a tournament. The rules were simple: KLS, JBF and myself would play each game precisely once. The highest score in each game got a point, and the most points won. We started with the inbuilt game, Mine Storm:

That’s me playing like a pro, sans overlay. The raster works perfectly and it still looks breathtaking. This is rare in devices of this nature that are 30 years old like ours is, so the dry darkness of our attic seems to be a good environment for it!

Other games followed: Berserk, Cosmic Crash, Spike (with voice!). Here’s some shots of the action:

You can see the overlays – which are transparent plastic – add colour to the black and white raster.

We also had several games that we couldn’t get working at all, probably due to the contacts being hosed. I suppose if I spent time cleaning them I may have seen more success, but we skipped them and focused on the games that worked. After JBF left I also managed to get another game – Fortress of Narzod – working, so KLS and I played that one as well. Here’s a shot of her scoring big!

And so… the final score!

Rather than spell it out here, I’ll just show you the score card itself:

Yes my friends, even if we ignore Spike (which bugged out and inflated her score for no reason), she still won every game but one, beating both myself and Jim quite handily. Who knew she was an expert retro gamer?! 🙂

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech, Time, Toys | 2 Comments »

Japandemonium

Thursday, May 30th, 2013

In a little over 48 hours we’re off once again to Japan. The trip will take about 6 hours in airports and 18 hours in planes and we’ll meet my brother in Tokyo.

As usual, I’ll be blogging (assuming I have internet!) and tweeting, so follow for all the fun. I’ll be renting a SIM card when I arrive, so if you get an iOS message from an unfamiliar number, that should be me!

See you there!

Posted in Blog, Family, Miscellaneous, Trip | Comments Closed

Postcards

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

I love postcards. They are more than just a piece of paper with a picture on them, sent through the mail. They are little time capsules that can be revisited time and time again. Over the years I have sent hundreds, many to myself. And I have kept them all.

The ideal postcard, to me:
1) Is funny
2) Could be potentially embarassing to purchase
3) Contains nudity, and
4) Is dated

As you can see, the fine example above – sent by me to KLS in 2001 – satisfies 75% of the criteria. (Although since Chimps are almost always nude, I suppose this is an example of the rare ‘reverse nudity’ card). Here’s an example, received in 2007 from SFL when she went to Paris, of all four criteria:

Tasteful isn’t it? I have many cards far less tasteful than this one, since I can’t help but purchase ‘nudey cards’, especially now they are going out of vogue. But this being a family friendly blog (?), I dare not post any! Well, maybe this one is ok…

The back of the card is at least as important as the front, and I like to think I have become increasingly innovative over the years. Here is one such example from my recent trip. Note the strong relationship between the photo and the writing on the back 🙂

Here’s another example of an innovative back. I have tried this technique successfully twice now in two separate countries (USA and Australia):

The above cards betray nothing about what I was doing at the time, and that’s perfectly fine. But sometimes nuggets of memory make there way onto these cards that will never be forgotten and are a joy to read so many years later. If it wasn’t for a scrawled message on the back of a postcard, I may have forgotten that I weighed 215 lbs in 2001 (!) and on one day in January 2000 spent A$120 on MTG cards at Charlestown Square with my brother 🙂

Over the last few years of travels, I have been averaging more than one postcard per day, sent to most everyone who reads this blog. Do you enjoy them I wonder? Actually I don’t wonder, or rather your enjoyment is immaterial, for I will continue to send them.

My rules for effectively postcarding are as follows:

1) While traveling, always have a pen and addresses with you. Keep them in your pocket!
2) Purchase postcard stamps as soon as possibly, preferably the first day of your trip
3) Obtain postcards. Buy more than you think you’ll need. If you find really great ones, buy a few copies!
4) Write and send them whenever the opportunity arises. In a restaurant! On a train! On the toilet! (<- never done this, but should)
5) Sending the postcard is paramount! If you can’t think of anything at all to write, just write anything!

In a little over a week we’re off to Japan again. This will be our fifth trip, and I’m looking forward to it like a child on Christmas eve. Trips to Japan are different from ‘normal’ vacations in many ways, and one is the difficulty in finding postcards.

Indeed, in four previous trips I have only ever sent myself two postcards, one in 2002 and one in 2009. Here’s the 2002 one:

Cute isn’t it? But postcards like this – at all! – are very difficult to find over there, as the past three trips demonstrated. My determination is greater than ever though, and here’s hoping you’ll be receiving some in the mail from that fair island in the very near future 🙂

Posted in Art, Family, Time, Trip | 1 Comment »

Battle of The Cameras!

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

The other day, we purchase two new digital cameras, both because of our upcoming trip. They are the Nikon Coolpix S-01 and the Sony DSC-WX80. Here is a photo of me holding both on my palm:

As you can see, they are both very small. Even the Sony is about as small as any camera we have ever owned, and the Nikon is just tiny! Both cameras are smaller than and weigh less than an iPhone.

Nikon Coolpix S01
This 10.1 megapixel camera is remarkable for it’s size, and is indeed so small you could easily take it with you anywhere. It is rechargeable, and the 16GB of memory is internal and non expandable. Some may view both of these as negatives, but considering the size and cost (under $100) I don’t. The camera has 3x optical zoom, a touch screen and can record up to 30 minutes of 720p video.

DSC-WX80
This camera is 16.2 megapixel and can record full HD (1080, 60 fps) video. It has 8x optical zoom and a whole host of shooting modes including burst mode and full 360 degree panoramas. It also has built in wi-fi which turns the camera into a wi-fi transmitter than can then send photos or video to my iphone via a (free) app I have already downloaded and tested. And then there is the beauty correction, which I will get to later 🙂

Let’s compare shots from both cameras:

Two shots of my dinner last night. The first is the Nikon, second is the Sony. Aside from the slight difference in focal length, both cameras performed well in low light, with the Sony perhaps capturing more detail. I didn’t notice until doing this blog that the Sony had defaulted to 16:9 mode, which can be changed. As an aside, that food looks delicious doesn’t it? I may have it for dinner again tonight 🙂

Here’s another subject, this time using three different cameras:

From the top, the Nikon, Sony and my iPhone (also a 10.1 megapixel camera). Hard to tell any significant difference in these scaled down to 1000 pixel versions is there? At full resolution, the Nikon had more noise and the Sony was clearest overall. But for all intents and purposes the cameras all perform very well.

For all intents and purposes both of these cameras take remarkable photographs under various conditions. They were inexpensive (the Sony was under $150), easy to use and easy to get the photos off. Both will be used to take many hundreds or thousands of photos in Japan in a little over two weeks!

And so I move on to the bushel in Sony’s basket, the beauty correction mode! Take any photo of a human face, and built in software can make them more beautiful. For instance, take this dour shot of yours truly:

Ugly isn’t it? Well, through a miracle of modern technology, the camera magically makes me look beautiful:

AMAZING!

Here’s a few other examples, showing how the camera can remove blemishes, make eyes more attractive and even change skin tone:

What’s that you say? We went overboard, posing in unnatural ways and cranking all the settings up to maximum and effectively making us look inhuman? Furthermore – detractors may claim – these photos just look like bad use of a Photoshop blur tool and this technology should remain in the ???? machines where it was pioneered.

To me, saying such things is tantamount to saying “I hate beauty”. But if you insist, I will present a more subtle example. In this case I eschewed most of the beauty options, and allowed my vanity to permit only one. I think you’ll admit the effect is striking…

Posted in Art, Family, Miscellaneous, Tech | 5 Comments »

Timelapse

Monday, May 13th, 2013

Remember in yesterdays post when I mentioned making a timelapse video of the camera photos? Well I did something clever:

That’s about half of the photos compiled into a timelapse video! About 6 days separates the first and last shot.

Toward the end you can see two frames of a furry rogue being very close to the camera! Very shortly after those photos the camera was knocked over, which is why the viewing angle changes afterwards 🙂

Posted in Animals, Family, Garden, Miscellaneous, Pets | Comments Closed

Robot Claw