Month: December 2017

Mutually Assured Distractions

Christmas is now over for me, and I’m back at work. Only a three-day work-week before new-year’s, so I won’t complain 🙂

But I did have a fun present experience this year, that I would like to share with you.

 

As me and my partner were spending the holiday apart, at each of our families, we opened each other’s presents together on the 23.

My gift to her was a SNES Classic Mini, the newly re-release of the classic Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It included 21 games, some I knew she loved as a child, and some I knew she had wanted to try.

My girlfriend is not the biggest gamer, but she do sometimes get into it. We have played some stuff together, the kinds of games that can have two players. Or games that are entertaining to watch, aswell as play.

I figured this was a pretty good gift.

 

But as we brought out our packets, I started to get my suspicions.

Her gift to me was giant and soft, as if she had wrapped a duvet. And I was pretty sure she had not gotten me a duvet.

“Hey, do you think we may have gotten each other the same gift?” I said. She seemed horror-struck by the idea.

 

She was the first to unwrap, and seemed very happy. Then it was my turn.

Sure enough, a duvet. And inside…another Nintendo! But not a SNES.. A Switch, the newest console on the market (worth about double of what I paid for her gift).

I must say, her poker-face when opening her gift was commendable.

 

Did you get, or give, any good gifts? Continue Reading →

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Was the uncanny valley in “Star Wars: Rogue One” really that deep?

A lot of people are talking about how the Star Wars: Rogue One was effected by The Uncanny Valley. But was it really as bad as everyone is saying?

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When the last Star Wars Movie “Rogue One” came out, a lot of people criticised it for its use of Computer Generated Imagery to recreate dead and aging actors.

The movie’s story was set just before the events of the original Star Wars movie from 1977, and featured cameos from the characters Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia.

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But the actor who portrayed Tarkin, Peter Cushing, was now dead. And the actor portraying Leia, Carrie Fisher, had obviously aged over that time.

So they tried to recreate their original look with CGI. While the attempt is impressive, something is off about the way they look.

The CGI looks almost like a real person but not quite, resulting in a hideous aberration.

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This effect is called The Uncanny Valley.

Here is a video from Extra Credits explaining the concept further.

But I would like to contest that the face-CGI in this movie is not as bad as we think.

Continue Reading →

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Rudolph the Red Roast Reindeer

Have you ever looked at Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and thought “Yummy!”?

No? Well maybe you should.

 

This months geeky recipe will show you how to make a tasty reindeer christmas-roast, with baked vegetables and a red wine sauce.

 

The Roast

1. First start by chopping up the vegetables, you can use whatever vegetables you prefer. I went with mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and baby potatoes. Place it all in a large roasting tray. Mix in a bit of oil, salt and pepper.

2. Tie the roast. Here’s how you do that. My roast was 1 kilogram, serves 4-5 people.

3. Put some spice on the roast. Salt, pepper, juniper berries, thyme and marjoram should do the trick!

4. Fry it in a pan, in oil and butter. You need to do this to keep the juices inside the meat while it cooks in the oven.

5. Place the tray with the vegetables and the roast (with an oven-safe thermometer in it) in the oven, at 125°c/257°f. When the internal temperature of the roast is at 60°C-65°C/140°F-150°F it is medium done, this will take about two hours.

If you want it medium well, the temperature needs to be 70°C/160°F.

6. After you take the roast of the oven, let the roast rest for 15 minutes before you slice it.

The Sauce

  • While the roast is in the oven: Dice an onion, fry it up!
  • Pour in 5 deciliters of red wine (not an expensive one!) and 5 deciliters of beef stock. Add a spoonful of sugar.
  • Let it boil in for an hour, stir sometimes.
  • Stir in 100 grams of butter. Done!

    • Continue Reading →

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    Glacier Hike

    I’m continuing with my project of curating my own facebook photos.

    We are still in 2008, but this time the subject is a mountain hiking vacation I spent with my mother’s side of my family in the Norwegian mountain-range Jotunheimen.

    My grandmother loves walking in the mountains, so it was there she wanted to celebrate her birthday in ’08.

    We stayed at the hotel Leirvassbu. That location had been used to film the 2006 Norwegian horror movie Cold Prey just two years prior, and we watched that there one night.

    One day I, my uncle, his dog and my cousin joined up with a group that were going on a hike far up in the mountains, to a glacier.

    This was just prior to my year in the military, and I must have been at the most unhealthy spot I have ever been this far in my life. I weighed almost 100 kg.

    But I felt I could not miss that experience, so I joined up.

    The climb was steep, but I got some really cool pictures.

     

    Just a little before we reached the top of the mountain we were hiking up, I just could not keep going any further.

    I was too cold and tired to keep climbing, so I let the rest of the group continue while I rested there for 20 minutes.

    I may not have reached the tippy-top of the mountain, but coming down I still felt great for having managed what I did.

    And now, writing this, I feel even more great.

    Because I know that if this were this year, I would absolutely get to the top!

     

     

    Here’s the entire album 🙂

    Hiking in Jotunheimen 2008

    //s.imgur.com/min/embed.js Continue Reading →

    5

    I’m a Sleepy Christmas Kitty

    I was going to write a Top 10 Christmas Movies list today.

    Those lists take a lot of time to begin with, and then I got an important email with concept-art for the comic I’m writing, so I had to take some time to review that.

    It involved a corgi. Now I’m sleepy and snuggly.

    Good night! You’ll get your movie-list on friday 😉 Continue Reading →

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