Credit Crunch hits the RAAF

Wow, the Credit Crunch is really hitting the Australian air force ;-)

Lets give up the expensive jets and patrol the skies at a more sedate pace.

(This picture was taken just after sunrise when the balloon was just about ready for takeoff.)

Wii Fit - Sunbathing in Winter ?

It seems that we in Australia have been given what is essentailly the UK version. Its the middle of winter here and my we fit keeps teasing me with messages like this

Well here are the temperatures for the next five days in Canberra, not exactly sunbathing weather!

A little bit of thought like swapping the season around for us southern hemisphere types would not have been too difficult.

Solstice Clouds after Sunset

This is a panorama from Gungahlin, Canberra of the clouds just after sunset on the 21st June (the Shortest day in the year for us in the southern hemisphere).
Note the clouds in the background are in shadow but the clouds nearer to the camera are lit from below by the sun which has just gone down over the horizon.

Wiimote Hacking!

Hmm .. I took my Wii on a trip to Perth and left the little sensor bar sitting on top of the the TV .. Doh. Now I know that Wii sports does not use the Infra Red sensor, so Powering up my Wii I slipped in the Wii sports, but of course there was no way of selecting the Disc Channel to start the sports games ... Damn.
A quick check of prices in the local shops $30 (Aussie dollars) for a replacement, no way I was going to pay that. OK so I'll get it sent back from Perth to Canberra .. that would take at lest 3 days arrrggghh .... I'll get withdrawal symptoms.

Then I remembered seeing the Johny Lee demo of how the Wii remote can be fooled by a pair of infra red transmitters on a pair of glasses. So its out with the Xmas tree lights .. mask all but 2 of them and arrange them about 20cm apart.



Switch them on point the Wii remote at them and hey presto I can control the cursor on screen & select Wii sports. I was amazed t how well it works. At least it will do until I get back to Perth next month.

Clouds Arches/Vortex ?

I took these cloud images last year, they were all taken over the space of about 30 minutes. There was a very strong wind blowing and some clouds seem to forming in the shape of Arches. It was a really strange phenomena the arches seem to be created then roll across the sky towards me before dissipating.

Below shows the detail of one of the arches.

This image shown more examples taken slightly later.

Here are a couple that were much closer ..... the top one was dissipating.

This shows a broader picture where the arch shape could be seen in a lot of places.

3D Cat

Well I've been playing with photoshop and followed the instructions from the web site below.


Its not perfect (I didn't try and get his whiskers) but It turned out petty well, I think this is just a neat effect.

This is our cat Blue in one of his less lively moments posing for me.

Its actually pretty simple to create this effect, just follow the instructions and can be done with the free GIMP image editing software.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Creating-a-3D-effect-with-image-editing--software-/

Strange looking fog in Gungahlin

This is photo of some fog taken from my flat in Gungahlin (close to Canberra). The fog is closely following the contour of a hill which it is covering. To me this looks like something out of "Lord of the Rings", the photo was taken in the early morning.
Notice the blue sky above the fog and the lack of
fog in the foreground.

Below is the same view on the following day without the fog. It is possible to see how closely the
fog was following the contour of the hill. In fact a little time later all that could be seen was a fog bank and no sign of the hill at all.