Day Twenty-Four of ORCA in Switzerland – The Smell of Colza
Today I walked along roads that would be filled with non-stop traffic if we weren’t in a pandemic. As a result I could enjoy almost the entire walk without avoiding people. In the process I passed by colza fields, an open garden centre and more. The image above is of a colza field, looking towards the lake, the Alps and the Mont Blanc.
I like that flower shops stayed open during the pandemic because it would have been a shame for all those flowers to have been left in the shop to die and become compost without being enjoyed. It’s not that I’m a flower person, but rather that flowers perish, so finding a way to sell them safely makes sense. It also offers moral support for those that need it.
During this pandemic I have hardly used Youtube. It takes so much effort not to watch videos without sensationalist titles that I’ve skipped the network for the most part. I did find some interesting content. The video below is a flight over Petra as a 360 video at 8K resolution. It is worth watching, even if you don’t have a 360 headset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSiv4TkfSOE
I see people encouraging encouragement to people spending this lockdown in families but I don’t think that spending time with family in a lockdown should be seen as hard or difficult. In fact I think it would be exhausting but it should also be really fun. With to to four year olds you keep them entertained and you keep them entertained. Look at what Jimmy Kimmel and his children got up to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xSdI72ZnQ
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Family edition
It’s worse for those of us in solitude. Imagine if the only way for you to socialise was to look at your company and visit social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Wordpress or others. They’re filled with impersonal sensationalist content that really does nothing to make you feel happy and content. Social media has not been the parachute that I hoped it would be.
The problem with social media during a pandemic is that you can’t take a break from the pandemic. It’s either pandemic or pandemic. There’s no other topic to read about. I mention this because i just took a break of sorts to watch this joke of sorts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5CNHDeF2xA
For a few seconds I was relaxed, refreshed and thinking of other things. I then made the mistake of coming back to twitter and it’s nothing but pandemic talk. I don’t want pandemic talk every second I use Twitter and Facebook, as bizarre as this may seem.
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Why the three meter rule? A simple explanation.
A post shared by Richard Azia (@richardazia) on Apr 8, 2020 at 8:32am PDT
Today I saw that quite a few dandelions were out and I tried several times to use them to illustrate how breath propagates with the wind. In this case, I was in the middle of a field far from people so I suspect the risks were minimal. I blew on the dandelion and we can see how it propagates within a few meters of me. It’s a useful way to illustrate with a real-world, seasonal example. That’s why I take self-isolation so seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcI7tWIfnkw
After that music interlude let us speak about how great it is that editing systems allow for so many tracks of video simultaneously. Thanks to this ability we have been able to watch concerts while sitting at home. Musicians have been able to call each other, record, and then re-combined all the feeds at once. These will be a symbol of the 2020 pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p09hpKAv9Jc
Of course I had to add Ode to Joy. Notice the use of a white background in both of the videos I shared. It makes the video much nicer, especially on a white page. There is unity in isolation. There is collaboration whilst remote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kayw0iXoK7g
I like how many of these videos dim the instruments that are not playing to highlight those that are. It’s a way of seeing how music works for those who may listen to music, without really seeing the dynamism of one part of the orchestra, and then the next.
And now to end on a joke.
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A post shared by Katharina Saurwein (@katha_saurwein) on Apr 8, 2020 at 7:01am PDT