Nov 20 2021 - Reach for your Ray=-Bans

 

In partnership with eyewear brand Ray-Ban, Facebook has released its first pair of smart glasses, offering wearers the ability to capture photos and videos without even needing to pull out their phone. The glasses, called Ray-Ban Stories, are now available for A$449 and are functionally similar to devices already on the market, such as SnapChat Spectacles. They allow users to capture images and video and upload them to their social media accounts, via an app called Facebook View. Users will be able to share content on Facebook and other Facebook-owned platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as non-Facebook apps such as Twitter, TikTok and SnapChat. Besides two 5-megapixel cameras, the glasses have three microphones and built-in speakers, so they can respond to voice commands and also be used for calls.  The glasses are the latest step in Facebook’s initiative to develop wearable tech. As chief executive Mark Zuckerberg puts it, such devices represent “a future where phones are no longer a central part of our lives”. These are not augmented reality yet - that's where one has the ability to overlay one's view of the physical world with digital images.  Doesn't that mean that we could live our "dream lives" - overlaying something "better" than what is in reality.   Our dream life will be within reach.  The glasses came out in September so I can imagine how soon more developments will be on the way.  This is the start of "Metaverse" to me. We step into it via a great tradition of celebrities in Ray-Ban Sunglasses. Think Roy Orbison, James Dean, Bob Dylan, John F. Kennedy, The Blues Brothers, Men in Black, Justin Timberlake,  David Beckham and others.  What a tantalizing idea that Rayban Wayfarer glasses can make my dreams come true.    This is what a perfect year looks like around the corner when there isn't any wind - the large Japanese Maple drops its leaves in the driveway, making a brilliant carpet.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 2 2021 - It's so Meta

 

Let us have a meta moment together. Facebook has changed its parent company's name to Meta. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company will be called "Meta" to reflect the company's focus on building a larger virtual world beyond the Facebook platform.  The Free Dictionary found 1054 words that contain meta.  You can see them all HERE.  The scope includes the word metal, rather than just meta.  Meta comes from Greek, meaning after, beyond, more comprehensive, transcending. That Facebook has made it its new name may reflect its decent into colloquial usage as in "It's so meta". Meta in this fairly recent, casual context is supposed to mean self-referential, or recursive in some way.   Here are a few. of our contemporary usages and products: MetaVoice is a patent pending system that creates an accurate mathematical model of human speech. Unlike conventional voice compression methods which condense the audio waveform to reduce bandwidth, MetaVoice models every element of the human voice including resonance, pitch, timbre, timing, and character. Metalife is a supportive online community with incredible life advice. Here's an instagram post:   3 New Videos up now! (LINK IN BIO!) We understand that times are tough right now but we have to make the most of it! This is a great opportunity to focus on taking care of yourself and making deep connections with those closest to you.  Metamood is a term used by psychologists to refer to an individual’s awareness of their emotions. It can be described as being caught up in any emotion and then becoming aware that you are being swept away by it.  Summary by The World of Work Project MetaGo is a way to move your cursor to a position quickly and without using your mouse/trackpad. Here's a quick preview to see what MetaGo can do... Metaword - A word, such as a search keyword or dictionary headword, that stands for itself as a word rather than having a meaning and a context.  a word which describes, classifies, or refers to another word. Metaliving - Our journey to find and add life's missing puzzle pieces, as we awaken to transcend the boundaries and beliefs of mere existence. These Japanese Maple frosty leaves were from quite a few years ago.  The conditions have to be perfect for this kind of frost on this brilliant colour.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Hallmark's Version of the Advent Calendar - Countdown to Christmas

Do you know about the Hallmark Channel?  It is very popular with feel-good movies.  It began its around-the-clock 24/7 Christmas movie schedule on Friday, Oct. 25th.  Search on Countdown to Christmas and Hallmark comes up for pages and pages. I didn't know about the channel until it came to town - to Grimsby - to make one of its movies.  And then there was our Main Street dressed up in snow and Christmas trees at the beginning of October.   Christmas in Montana - New 2019 Before the holidays, Sara goes to Montana to help resistant Travis save his ranch. Can time on the ranch help restore her faith in Christmas in time for a miracle? Stars Kellie Martin, Colin Ferguson. There are no pictures with Grimsby in the background pretending to be Montana on the website.  But you can go to the Niagarathisweek.com  coverage of it with Teddy's Food, Fun & Spirits looking excellent. The Hallmark Channel has evolved from an originally religious channel.  It was overhauled into a family channel in the late 1999's.  In 2015 Mariah Carey directed and starred in a Christmas movie and show which turned out to be the most viewed show ever.  The Countdown to Christmas programming had started in 2009. It took flight in 2016. So here we are a few years later with 24/7 Christmas from October to January 1st:  The end of the Countdown season culminates with the broadcast of the Tournament of Roses Parade.   Our snow day pictures show the Japanese Maple with its snow-covered leaves.  Many of my trees such as theSeven Sons Flower Tree have all their leaves and are just starting to turn autumn colours.  The big Japanese Maple Versacolour out back has hardly begun to change colour.  The second plant is Ironweed, one of our natives for bees and butterflies.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

She Sees We See

It seems interesting that luck is both good luck and bad luck.  Yesterday's luckiest man had both bad luck and in the last instalment of his story had good luck in winning the lottery.  I might bet he has more instalments of luck on the way. Amongst the luckiest people from yesterday's search is one person who is called a tetrachromat.  She's Concetta Antico and she sees 100 times more colours than the rest of us. Her story was included with the lucky people.  Here's the story. "The human eye is stacked with millions of cone-shaped cells that help us recognise colours. For the normal kind like us, there are three types of cones which allow vision for about one million distinctive colours. Birds, insects, fishes and reptiles have a fourth type of cone cell that extends their colour perception, making them see the UV range as well. Although evolution has mostly scrubbed that fourth cone from the mammalian lineage, there is evidence that a small group of humans may have a genetic variant that allows for tetrachromacy.  A tetrachromat will be able to see, roughly 100 times more colours than an average human being. Concetta Antico is a tetrachromat. “It’s shocking how little colour people see in their lives.” Says Antico. The fact that she’s the only one (one of the handful) in the entire world who sees the world a lot more vividly than the others, makes her a really lucky person. When she looks at a leaf, she sees much more than just green. “Around the edge I’ll see orange or red or purple in the shadow; you might see dark green, but I’ll see violet, turquoise, blue,” she said. “It’s like a mosaic of color.” Deciding to show how she sees the world, Concetta became a painter. She conjures masterpieces in one sitting. All her paintings are insanely colorful, and feature shades you wouldn't generally expect to see." Here's her website:  https://concettaantico.com Our images today showcase the wonderful colours and lines of Canna leaves.