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Plague inc is a game that is available on multiple platforms. These are pc, android, ios and windows phone. The version I played was on android. If you want to watch someone play the game you can watch this series: I was at the first general Staff Meeting for the UNAIDS program a few years ago and more recently I was at the World Health organisation during the SARS crisis helping with Virtual Press conferences. During these two weeks I learned about the language used when discussing epidemics and how to mitigate the threat they posed. During and after the Ebola crisis I was able to go to two or three conferences discussing how best to prepare future responses as well as to discuss what systematic weaknesses there were and how best to address them to deal properly with a future epidemic. Plague inc is a real time decision based game. There are four tabs. Overview provides you with an overview of air and sea transportTransmission: you can decide whether it is spread by air, water, blood, animals or birds. Symptons: You can decide how it affects people, whether through coughing, fever or other forms of discomfort. Abilities: You can develop, cold, heat, drug and bacterial resistance. The game is an opportunity for people who do not live a 20 minute drive from the World Health Organisation and other UN organisations to learn more about the terminology of diseases as well as the factors that can make it more or less virulent and how best to counteract the threat. In the game you may spend two or three years spreading a disease but in the real world diseases can spread over decades or even centuries. Look at Polio for example. Within the last two weeks we saw this headline Only complacency can stop Nigeria – and Africa – from finally conquering polio. For context UNICEF has a fact sheet about Polio eradication milestones. The Virus was first described by Michael Underwood in 1789, it was theorised as contagious in 1840 and in 1907 Dr Ivar Wickman categorised the different strains. It was first hypothesised that Polio was caused by a virus by Karl Lendensteiner in 1908. You can read more details in your own free time but the first vaccinations in Europe started in 1955 in Denmark. It is in 1988 that the World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation yearly conference, adopted a resolution to eradicate Poliomyelitis by the year 2000. This goal was not reached due to various factors but finally in 2016 it looks as though the disease is ever closer to being eradicated. Polio type 2 virus destroyed as strain no longer in Kenya

Most people think of the concerts, the food, the alcohol and the social aspects of Paléo Festival. If you are one of the collaborateurs (sounds Cold Warish doesn’t it?) then Paléo is about sleep deprivation, roasting in a tent, sleeping under trees, eating with others and occasionally doing the task that you are collaborating on. I decided to look at Paléo Trafic this time. I have spent at least ten hours standing at la Barillette over the last two days filming the Paléo Festival terrain. In that time I have looked at the landscape, photographed the landscape and talked with people up there. During this time the camera has captured the crowds of people walking from the train stop to Paléo, the cars driving from Nyon and tractors harvesting crops in the background. In effect I have captured life in summer. I have been lucky over the last two days because the weather and visibility has been excellent. We can see really see everything at the moment. You can see the valleys on the French side, you can see the Cervin, the Dents du Midi, the Mont Blanc, Lausanne and more. If you spend as much time as me enjoying this landscape then you can see places you have been to in person from afar. [gallery columns=“4” ids=“3162,3163,3164,3165,3166,3168,3169,3170,3171,3172,3173,3174”] If you want to get to La Barillette and enjoy the views in person then follow this link

The VR Shinecon Virtual Reality glasses provide a low cost opportunity for people to experience Virtual Reality content and immersive videos with their existing phone rather than investing hundreds in a new phone and VR headset. it can fit phones from 4 to 6 inches easily. The front panel opens to accommodate a diversity of phones and sizes. You can open the front panel, place your phone and centre it, and then close it. Before you close the front panel make sure to launch the VR app or content that you want to experience. Jaunt VR is one app that is easy and intuitive to use. Once the front panel is closed and you put on the VR headset you can adjust focus  to suit your eyesight. This control is on the right and left side of the goggles.The inter-ocular distance can be adjuste to suit the spacing between your eyes via the wheel at the top of the headset. The straps are velcro so adjusting the headset to your head size is also intuitive. The phone compartment has two openings on either side. This opening allows for headphones to be plugged in to the VR headset as well as a USB cable to charge the phone if you are using this device for an extended period of time. With the Samsung Gear headset the USB port is taken up by the external controls. This means that although you can use your phone with the headset on you lose the ability to recharge the phone.

Pokemon Go has been available in Switzerland officially since yesterday but people have been playing the game for longer than this. Some have achieved level 20 and above. There is a vibrant Swiss Pokemon Go community in the French speaking part of Switzerland. Pokemon Go Switzerland is one place where French speaking players can unite. One thousand nine hundred people have already liked the page so if you are looking for other players this is a good place to start. There is the Pokemon Go Lausanne group. This group has 430+ members at the time of writing. Friday they had their first event and at least elevent people were present. Another event is coming up on the 24th of July 2016. 2850 people have liked the Pokemon Go Genève page. Ingress players from Lausanne, Geneva and other french speaking towns have had a Google Hangout dedicated to Pokemon Go for several months. At this moment there are 83 members. 50 members of the Yellow Instinct faction are also highly active on Telegram. Hundreds of messages are exchanged. These communities form online to facilitate meeting other players offline in the physical world. By playing the game there is a good chance that you will come across other players, as would frequently happen with Ingress. Having online communities allows people to plan events and meetings, shares hints and tips and more. Factions can plan a campaign, come to my village and lets capture it from this faction or that faction. Come to that train station or event and you will find these pokemons. The game is creating new social groups and the age range according to one thread I saw today is between 15 years old and 45. I am certain that all age groups are playing. That is the range people disclosed in that specific thread. I expect the community to grow and for events to be organised on a regular basis. If you do play the game then there are hundreds of people to meet and play alongside in the Léman region of Switzerland.

In August of this year I will be at FIFAD as a volontaire. FIFAD stands for Festival International du Film Alpin Des Diablerets. It’s the international Alpine Film Festival of the Diablerets. I want to participate at this event for three main reasons. The first of these is that I have a passion for the documentary film genre and adventure films. I really enjoyed going to Montagne en Scène a few weeks ago and I expect to enjoy having the freedom to watch certain of the films at this event. The second reason I want to go as a helper is that every time I have applied to help at an event I have got something out of it. I have built my confidence. I have met interesting people and I have found new and interesting ideas. In this case I hope to view a number of the films. The third reason is that I will have an opportunity to spend a week in the mountains once again. I have frequently been to Diablerets for hikes and just once to enjoy a via ferrata. This time I will get to stay for a few extra days and learn to appreciate the town differently. I will have my 360 camera and via ferrata gear with me. Time to ride a tyrolean in 360 right? I hope it won’t rain too heavily. People told me they got wet last time they went under the waterfall. When I watch an interesting film or hear someone talk about an interesting topic I will try to take notes and write related blog posts. It’s good to share the knowledge and passion with you.

How technology disrupted the truth is currently a popular topic. This statement is a fallacy because technology is not misleading people. People with political agendas are disrupting the truth. If you remember back to the Obama campaigns you will remember that bloggers were seen as part of the solution, not the problem. In the social age when everything shifts towards clicks and audience reach people lose focus on the value that the world wide web and user generated content can play. With the way in which social media have been hijacked by political groups, trolls, flamers and others it is hard to see social media as sustainable.

  [caption id=“attachment_3100” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Summer Nyon[/caption] This is an image of Nyon on a day when the thermometer indicated at least 31°c on a sunny Sunday afternoon. In this image you can see the CGN boat leaving Nyon and heading towards Geneva. You can see the Jet D’eau in the background. You can see a sailing boat in the distance, some kayakers nearby and two pedalos. What you don’t see in this image are the people playing volleyball, other people sitting at Nyon Plage or yet more people at the Nyon Swimming Pool. From Nyon you can cycle along the lake road to Geneva or Lausanne and if you feel you have the stamina you could cycle from Nyon to Nyon by taking the long way around. This may take 10 hours depending on your level of fitness and endurance. If this does not tempt you then you could go up to the Jura. You can either go up towards La Dôle and choose one of three routes to get to the doppler radar or you could go to St Cergue and walk from that side to the peak. The walk is short but physical so make sure to take appropriate shoes and something to drink. If those options do not tempt you then you can catch the boat you see in the image above or the smaller boat that you see below. These boats are regular. People like to take the boat from Nyon to Yvoire, have lunch, dinner or an ice cream and then come back. If you have the right friends then you could do this trip on a sailing boat as we used to do frequently with one friend. [caption id=“attachment_3102” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] CGN boat[/caption] Nyon has quite a few activities to distract people in summer so if you’re in the region there are a few events and activities to choose from.

Thanks to cheaper cameras, cheaper editing systems and cheaper means of distributing video content automotive narrowcasting has become an entertaining way to cover the subject. Everyone knows about Top gear, the flag ship of automative journalism and mischief but there are dozens if not hundreds of lower budget and fun alternatives. One of these alternatives is by Motor Trend, an automotive magazine that provides written reviews of new cars and other automotive news. Their about page ignores their video activity and yet this is the part that I enjoy. When I watched this specific episode it reminded me of articles from Popular mechanics because it is about reviving an old vehicle that has been dormant in a garage/barn for many years. They show us the steps that were carried out in order to make it road worthy and then they throw in a road trip and fooling around for good measure. Some of these projects are light hearted and fun. The idea for the PreRangerRoverLandeRunner is amusing. “…_they combine an old Range Rover with a Ford Ranger to build an overlanding prerunner that can also play in the mud and rockcrawl with the help of Maxxis’ Bighorn MT-762s.  The build process uses the eyechrometer and by the end of the video their machine is broken. _ The stats for this channel are impressive. They have 50 channels and twenty four thousand videos. The average views per video is fifty five thousand two hundred views although globally they have one billion three hundred thousand views overall. Those figures are no longer about narrow casting.

When I first wanted to become a camera operator cameras could cost more than one hundred thousand francs a piece and a simple edit suite would cost more than seventy thousand francs per edit suite. This was a setup with a player and a recorder. Producing content for broadcast was expensive. These days automation and the changing face of broadcasting allow anyone with a creative idea to get out there and do it. For context imagine that from the moment I wanted to do camera work to the moment I was able to edit that material I had to wait for several years. As I had no access to edit suites I would read books by Eisenstein and others and I would prepare a paper edit. I would have a list of shots and build sequences in my imagination. This changed with the coming of the Miro DC30+ and Adobe Premiere. The first time I edited someone thing alone I spent a day for a two minute video. I had to learn to use the technology after all. This was fun. I bring up this topic because Sky News and Sky sports are making camera operators and other skilled technicians redundant. Why have three or four camera operators when you can sit one person at a console who can control each camera remotely. When I was at France Télévision a few years ago I saw such a system. On the one hand it means fewer jobs for camera operators and on the other it means less indoor work. I bring up this topic because both the United Kingdom and the United States are having “We hate foreigners” movements. Fifty two percent of British citizens who voted this time voted against the rights and freedoms of Europeans. They voted this way because there is a narrative in Anglo-Saxon media that foreigners steal jobs, that they are willing to work for much less money and that this is undercutting the demand for their skills and expertise. That narrative is wrong in a global economy where automation and more efficient work flows are being implemented.

Cycling to Geneva and back is a relatively short route. It is a 60km round trip. Two things make this ride more challenging. The first is the wind if it is blowing against you and the second is the need to cycle uphill. This is true of all cycling in this part of Switzerland. You have to choose whether to cycle upwards at the start or the end of the bike ride. If you start with the uphill then heading back to the starting point can be a pleasure. I went cycling yesterday because the conditions were perfect. The weather was good, the temperature was low and as I was not rock climbing in the evening I could afford to invest my energy and stamina in this bike ride. The outward journey is easy. You start at the foot of the Jura and using the route I used you spend a lot of time cycling downhill towards Geneva. Once you are in Geneva you can cycle around the city and enjoy seeing the city as a cyclist rather than pedestrian or car driver. I like cycling in Geneva and other cities because distances become much smaller. Getting around is easy as long as you don’t cycle over glass and you can stop anywhere. On the way back you can cycle along the lake road. It is flat for most of the way. From Nyon you cycle uphill. I hadn’t noticed that we can see flyby information even when not riding in a group. If I am so inclined I can see who I waved to and find more information about their cycling habits. [caption id=“attachment_3081” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Strava flyby[/caption] By moving the mouse cursor around on the grey graph you can see where and when people overtook you or when you crossed path. You can see when you overtake people and when they overtake you. On the right ride you can see that there is a representation to show how far ahead of or behind people are. I find it comforting to see that with some people the separation was stable for extended periods. This is illustrated by the coloured bars on the graph. My projects for the coming weeks are to cycle to Lausanne and back and then to cycle around the Lac de Neuchâtel. Lausanne and back should be around 80km and Neuchâtel should be around 96km. The goal after that would be to cycle around the Lac Léman.