Sanctuary Season 3 Trailer

Oh man am I looking forward to season 3!

Going to be epic!

New Domain!

For the past 4 years or so I’ve owned the www.ysflight.co.uk domain. That domain has forwarded to a variety of different sites. First of all on a very simple site hosting my mods. This was then changed into a squad web page for 22 squadron and the Delta Rangers in 07. The YSPilots Mod Database was also hosted from here for a while, before moving to Yspilots.com. From here the site went back to being a single page forwarding to a variety of diffent sites, including the Delta Ranger’s site, 22 squadron’s pages, my mods page, YSPilots, etc.
In 2009 I switched my whole modding host over to google sites, just to get it out of the way and into something permanent. My Google sites site had all the squad things, stats page, mods etc but was easier to manage, and looked better (Wasnt made by me using PHP)
in mid 2010 I stopped support for my YSFLIGHT mods, and retracted the download file. The reason for this is that nearly all my models have been replaced by far superior models done by other people, so the pack had no point in being. With no more mod support, Delta Rangers and 22 squadron finally shut down for good, my Google sites site had no need to continue existing. Since my blog has remained active all this time, I redirected ysflight.co.uk to my blog (:cough: the thing your reading now)
Since my blog has nothing to do with ysflight I felt this was a little misleading. My YSFLIGHT.co.uk lease expired August 2010, so I simply did not renew it, opting instead for a new domain. And here it is:

www.skipper-iwb.co.uk

Bookmark it! I’ve also pimped the blog out a lil bit, there is a share button below each post, so feel free to share anything you find interesting or amusing on facebook, twitter, google reader email, etc etc. Also added a subscribe button thingy, so you can subscribe via google reader and all sorts of good things.
I’m going to be branching out a little bit more into the blog on more than one topic than just Biology. There’ll be reviews for various things, from software to food, and other random things. (Like my Windows 7 theme, check it out! Its like 2 posts down)
Aye… so, Watch this space!

Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)

Ah, I love this video. Very well done. Yea, Watch it peeps!

Skipper’s Windows 7 Desktop Nature Theme

Awrite!? Was just collecting some of my best pictures into a lil’ Windows 7 theme package, and figured why not just let the general public have it? So, without further a-do, here is Skipper’s Windows 7 Nature Theme. All images copyright to David Caplin (..thats me!), so dont go selling them or anything, or I will hunt you down and eat your babies.
So, enjoy!

|Download Link|

Sample image:

Warning, may contain images that some viewers may find disturbing.. if they are afraid of spiders...or plants...

Microsoft ICE review

As promised, the Microsoft Image Composite Editor/ICE review.

Link to the download here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/
I'm also giving a plug for Autopano Pro (And their even better one, Autopano Giga)
Its amazing (..I havnt actually checked it out) http://www.autopano.net/en/
(Yes, I'm hoping they'll send me a free copy to review and plug.)

Move…. Pretty much complete!

Aye! So, my move is nearly complete!

 

New House vlog

I’ve still got a couple boxes and some under bed draws to bring over, but I think this is about as messy as my room is going to get! Well… that's the optimistic view anyway! So I figured I’d take the opportunity to shoot a quick panoramic shot of the room and stitch it up in the new Microsoft ICE (I’ll do a blog post on it at some other point…. but here is the link)

Clicky on the image to get a full size view. So… let me talk you though it.

From the left hand side… Thats my bin in front of my roll mat… The one I…. procured… I left in Heathfield Villas… Then comes my desktop. Twin monitors for the win! (Blog on one, and Spotify on the other… Tegan and Sara’s “The Con.” Excellent album.) Moving on.. Xbox 360, Surround sub-woofer, and desktop tower… the “Rat’s Nest” cable pile… Laser printer (soon hopefully to be relocated…) Bed..still without covers… Camera bag (minus D80… as its taking the picture!) …and gas mask… The picture went a bit weird at the end as I moved the camera position. Bunnies! So, thats my new house. Added bonus it is opposite Wendy’s house (Blog link in the side bar). So yea.. I see great opportunities!

:NB: Seems there is also a poltergeist as my door just opened randomly. Sweet!

Well! Its been a while since I’ve done one of these!

Yes its true. It has indeed been a while since I’ve done a written one of these! So, what’s been happening? Well… If you honestly dont know, then watch the videos below If, however, you dont feel like watching them, let me explain. I’m currently working on my dissertation. The topic is diatoms in the River Taff. Diatoms are small unicellular algae, with silica frustules (shell like structures surrounding the actual cell) I havnt had that much success photographing them down the microscope. This is one of the better ones:

Basically, I need to identify each one in each sample down to species level. Thats a pretty impossible task though, so I’ll be doing a representative selection of each sample (Most likely to be 30 or 25, something that will make nice percentages) and identify them to the nearest possible unit (species, genera, family etc…) These percentages will hopefully indicate any changes in water quality over the sample area (The River Taff, from source to Radyr) 

Work aside! I’ve converted my D80 DSLR into a pinhole camera by drilling a small hole in a spare lens cap. The results have been pretty sweet:

The only downer is that i have dust on my sensor. I’ve tried to clean as much off using a blower, but there is still some on it, as can be seen from the dust specks on the above image. Gutted…

Also, got my new house. Though there was a slight mold problem on one wall.. See below…

However, (gotta love Detol…) with a bit of work, I got it looking way better:

I’m pretty proud if it myself  

So! Thats pretty much it. Will post some more stuff when I get it!

-Skipper out.

Dissertation: Day off: New T-shirt!

Dissertation: Lab Day 3: New Iphone?