Read further if you want to see the video :-)

The day was very windy, the clouds were there, little drops of rain were falling every ten minutes. In short, the conditions were not ideal for the first Solo Jumps that some people had planned for the day and that was great for me because I wanted to do a tandem jump.

As the weather had caused some delay for some groups I had to stay “grounded” until it my turn. After waiting a good part of the afternoon at Namur’s airfield in the company of my sweetheart and the group of people from the fitness club we go to, I finally was called by an instructor, showed to a red suit that I had to put on and then follow the two minutes training… The rest is better be shown than written.

What can I say, it is the most exhilarating feeling you can get and as nearly everyone will tell you, those first five seconds when you drop out of the airplane are impossible to describe. I was welcomed with a very relieved and happy girlfriend who could not stop saying: “you are alive, you are alive!!!”

One piece of advice though, if anyone thinks about doing this for the first time; take some gloves with you, nothing big but something to cover your fingers. Why? well you are going to jump from 4 kilometers high; it’s cold out there! On my day it was -10°C!! Granted it only last 50 seconds, but it sure will make your experience even more enjoyable.

Will I do it again? Well, I’m tempted, getting certified requires to pass 7 tests which is not much, so why not…

Last week-end we decided to go to Germany and see some Castles. Over the week-end you can’t visit much and I knew that the border of the Rhine was full of them. We first visited the beautiful Eltz Castle on Saturday and on Sunday take a boat to do some sight seeing of the ones that are bordering the river. Well it was a wonderful week end and I would recommend it to anyone.

As they say in the video it would be perfect for itinerant people at airports, or train stations… of course they do not offer the same level of space that one may enjoy in a hotel room but when you just need a place to crash for the night, it looks perfect. I know I would use it!

New plants and bushes have been planted but in my process of removing all of the other things that were growing back, a very sweet voice screamed at me and asked me to stop removing or stepping on what would become a very nice flower.

Well, it does pay to listen to your girlfriend, because this is what the patch of green leaves became a few weeks later…

Roo and Emma took a little break in their excursion from Switzerland to England. We had nice weather, so BBQ was on the menu, with some great desert in the garden. Time just flew by and before we realize they had to take the road again.

I hope to see you both again soon! Ho and thanks again for the chocolate :-)

Mike it was an honor to be your best man on your wedding :-)

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Now they have gone a step further, they can just film a performance and extract all the movements and facial expression to reproduce or change it to their own desire.

If anyone has seen some movies like Total Recal, Equilibrium or read 1984, you can see where and how this technology can be abused. But on the other hand imagine what can be done if you manage to get some of that technology to work for the benefit of the cinema industry. It has already been used is such movies as Surrogate with a young Bruce Willis or Terminator 4 where Arnie is showing up in his young buffed self.

The possibilities to have performance of dead actors sounds very appealing to some extend. Of course Avatar also showed what can be done as a variance of this technique, the main actors are not really present on screen but it is still a very real performance that they are delivering to achieve the best possible impression of real living beings in front of our eyes.

Whether we are able to finally cross the uncanny valley is something that I don’t think we (as viewers) will realize; because we won’t be able to see the difference between real and CGI anymore.

The point is that anyone cannot do this at this time on any computer, you need a lot of processor power and a good set of specialist to map your face and build the model (which is one of the business of Image Metrics). But who can say that one day, with improvements of the technique and some increase in our every day PC, we will not be able to just pick up a web cam and have a conference call displaying the face of Gorge Bush or Sean Connery.

Just think about it :-)

“Think of it like a movie. The Torah is the first one, and the New Testament is the sequel. Then the Qu’ran comes out, ant if retcons (Retroactive continuity) the last one like it never happened. There’s still Jesus, but he’s not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn’t shown up yet.

Jews like the first movies but ignored the sequels, Christians think you need to watch the first two, but the third movie doesn’t count, Moslems think the third one was the best, and Mormons liked the second so much they started writing fan fiction that doesn’t fit with any of the series canon.”

– Unknown Author

It’s a bit of a shortcut but it sums it up enough to make it understandable to a neophyte.

Anyway, I hope you all had a brilliant time celebrating!