That chart scares the crap out of me as I am well past the center of the time line and it looks like death is the only event left.

Mike, an interesting comment on business success vs engineering excellence. In the US the Solyndra thing is being characterized by the right as both a scandal and an engineering failure. From what I have read the engineering was quite advanced and far from being a scandal the failure was more like a lack of a viable business model.

Solo, you forgot one thing about the most interesting man.

He uses the women's bathroom so lesser men will not peek and feel inferior.

@unknownuser said:

Jargon . . .MOI???

I wouldn't know an F-stop from F Troop. . . .

But I do and promise that after this house purchase lunacy of mine I will create a tutorial on the subject of panoramas and HDRIs.

Would the Missus be offended if you asked her to ride with the dog? Maybe not such a good idea as I think about the consequences.

See:
http://www.pauldebevec.com/Probes/

You can use panos for simple backgrounds and you can also use them as lighting simulators. And, you could probably use one background and mix it with another HDR used to set the subject lighting although the two would need similar qualities if you wanted the effect to be convincing. Since the tripod feet are unlikely to be in a final render and they are unlikely to have much effect on your lighting I would not worry about them. If somehow they did effect your final image, a little photoshop prior to combining your images should get rid of the problem.

I really enjoy the most interesting man in the world thing, but the world is just an illusion so perhaps a Buddhist Rene Descartes would have said, "I imagine, therefore I am."

AND nice photos Chris. In a few weeks I am moving to Arizona's wine country. Bet you didn't know we had a wine country. It is to Arizona what Andalucia is to Spain. I am moving so far south I have to pass the border patrol check point just to see a doctor or buy groceries. Hasta la vista . . . . baby!

Here is the GigaPan system created for NASA by some of my Carnegie Mellon alums:
http://www.gigapan.com/cms/create-make

Out doors, far away, and not much foreground you can get away with handheld Panos. If your shooting professionally and the subject is indoors, close up, wide angle, and marginal lighting you will definitely want a Gigpan rig or something similar.

The trick to spherical panos and panos with a lot of foreground:
When you are going to merge multiple images, you are going to move your camera so the images overlap. You can get some pretty good handheld panoramas as long as you don't show much foreground. Once you start showing objects in the near foreground the whole process becomes a bit trickier. And the trick is to rotate the camera around the nodal point of the lens. Some people claim nodal point is not the right term, but I find it actually helps people visualize the problem. Most of us now how a lens inverts an image top to bottom and left to right. The nodal point is that point where the visual rays all cross over each other. And when you move your camera vertically or horizontally for a group of panorama shots the point of rotation and the nodal point must coincide. When you are just using a tripod or shooting a hand supported camera those two spots will almost never coincide. As a consequence foreground objects in your pano will be broken or distorted.

Above is a 275 degree pano of the cave district in Guadix, Spain. It is composed of about 12-15 separate photos and works fairly well without much distortion. The nodal point and point of rotation were not spot on but close. In the full size image you can make out some of the automotive license plates.
Here is a two photo pano I shot of a cave house I almost bought in Spain. Can you spot the problem? It is not real obvious because I did a little PhotoShop cheating, but it does illustrate the problem. Look at the spacing of the vertical staves of the near-foreground fence. See where the spacing goes bad. Because the nodal point of the lens and the point of rotation don't match a gab appeared in the fencing spacing and I tried to fudge in an extra stave. Mist people would attribute it to bad workmanship by the builder, but it is the laziness of the photographer.

So how do you correct the problem? You need a cradle for the camera that fits inside a gimbaled mount that allows a camera placement where the camera rotation point and the lens nodal point are coincident. Examples of this would be an armillary sphere or a compass binnacle on a boat. You can buy pano heads of varying quality that go from $75 to over $900. At the very top of the line is the GigaPan System that has a robot head that you preposition the lower left corner of your final image and the the upper right corner and then press the go button and the machine moves your camera in perfect increments and also trips the shutter. Click, click, click, click etc.

Are you doing photo stitching to capture your background environments. I suspect this is the case and if so I can provide hints on how to better capture your background. What kind of camera and software were you using?

Clouds, 2 point instead of 3 point perspective, cut your exposure until you can see some texture in the white area, change the shadow of the car so it is not a perfect rectangle, cast some shadow on the street from trees or other buildings, and make the sun later in the afternoon. Do something with that empty lower left hand corner. Maybe some birds or planes in the sky.

Wyatt, I am running SU8 and as of now, all attempts to go to the 3D warehouse are crashing my machine. Brand new computer with fresh installs.

Well I tested and did not find lead. There were other problems, but no lead.

@oganocali said:

End of cheap oil and climate change are my main worries. I do not believe total annihilation is imminent but a serious reduction in total wealth and well-being seems unavoidable for the next generation. Hopefully internet will be forever...

Oil only became important in the unfolding of human history about 100 years ago. As oil becomes a rare commodity I find it difficult to believe we could not get along without cheap oil. As late as 1933 the Saudi's were importing Rolls Royces and towing them with Camels due to a local lack of oil and gas.

I am less certain about the effects of climate change. I already live in what many would consider an extreme climate, but the architecture and engineering are so poorly adapted to the environment I think we have a tremendous margin for improvement. On many summer nights it is miserable indoors even with air conditioning and yet I can step out doors and enjoy a gentle breeze which is denied men by building designs that do not have openable windows.

Water is a greater concern, but at the present time we have more golf courses per capita than any other comparable metropolis in the world.

The economy has fewer easy answers and am am not at all prepared for that discussion.

@mike lucey said:

@elmer said:

Very good Roger
May be a new question, did god creates humour?

Good question! I recently read that it was thought only humans possessed the ability for humour but it seems this is not that case as chimps and dolphins also some other animals that I can't now remember do also. I often think that my dog shows some form of humour when he tries the get me to play with him!

Funny thing humour! It has kept me going in dark times!

The other day my dog comes in and says, "Descartes walks into a bar in France and the bartender asks if he would like a Bud Lite, Descartes says, "I think not" and poof Descartes disappeared."

It seems like this debate has become the ultimate source of renewable energy and could easily replace petroleum, coal and other forms of stored solar/nuclear energy. The only down side is that it is all heat and no light, but free energy is free energy and the fact it does not die proves it is renewable. I think, like Elvis, God has left the building. Unfortunately so has Christoper Hutchins (or is it Hitchens?).

Its well known that architects are believers because both the phrases "god is in the details" and "The devil is in the details" originated with Architects.

Yeah, I know I capitalized Architects and not god. However, it is because when I
was small and someone referred to the "Creator," I thought they were talking about an architect.

--Roger

OK, where is your mind located?

Dave, may your wood working become more refined with each passing year.

Nice clock, did you design it?

Where is the building located?

Very good looking render.

Box, thanks for the good advice.