Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Spot the stupid

There are places on the internet where people have trawled through Google's scanned books and collated the traces of the people who scanned the books. Sometimes, a single purple digit, or a shadowy hand, a curled page or a strange reflection.
Today was the first time  I found a super clanger example. Someone, somewhere was scanning a book and I think they may have been drunk or hungover. Just look at the state of this - they weren't even trying.
I've added some useful sarcastic text to help you spot the gaffs

Play at home or with friends "spot the stupid"

It even happened, less frequently, on text pages

Partial focus on the tip of a digit

Even the fingers look like there is something wrong with them

Angles are just a concept. Sideways is best.

I really do recommend a glance through "The Art of Google" to see some much more spectacular examples: http://theartofgooglebooks.tumblr.com/

You can also scroll through the example I found, learn about Cistercian Architecture, and play "spot the hand": https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hOaaZ8lQ-wAC&lpg=PA11&ots=-Zlk0HoEYw&dq=cistercian%20church&lr&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Autodesk is amazing

Just downloaded a host of Autodesk programmes for free via the University's licensing agreements with the company. After only a few minutes, I had my 3D laser scan data of the Hell-Fire Caves in an accessible format. Whoop whoop. Too much excitement. Some of the views even look quite painterly and pretty.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) were kind enough to send me the raw data over the last couple of months (thanks Lee!) (following our fieldwork last year) and it's been an interesting learning curve getting a handle on data that so massive!

A painterly view of the Hell-Fire Caves laser scan data using Autodesk