The daily thoughts

Well, it's obviously not daily, but it's at least something to help you piss away a few minutes this afternoon and maybe next.

The past couple of days I've been working on a new project, that is neither game nor photography related.

GPS mapping.

As many of you know, I used to work for a company that created these wonderful little things, and now that I've given my due diligence (I signed a 1 year non compete clause) to them, I can now start poking around in the realm of mapping again. I'm building maps for two different brands of GPS's. Garmin, the national leader in GPS units, and Lowrance, a local favorite because of functionality, and in reality, they are a LOT cheaper than the Garmin units.

To start off with, I'm creating an overall map of Newfoundland. It contains a number of different map items, of which I won't get into right now, but needless to say, these maps will be FAR greater in detail than the national brand stuff. I'm creating them in two different styles for each brand. One for hikers and photographers, which contain slightly less detail and have more of an overview of the land than any specific detail. The other is for motorized vehicle use (not routable... yet) which has more detail in it that makes it far more ideal for ATV, snow mobile, and car use.

This is a very VERY time consuming effort, as some maps have as many as 20 to 25 layers of detail, which all have to be modified, placed, and checked individually. Truthfully though, it is very rewarding, as the finished product is great to use and far more useful than the basic maps that either Garmin or Lowrance put out yearly.

I haven't got a name on them yet, but when I do and am ready to go live with them, I'll obviously post it here.

More soon.

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I sat down to play a little of Final Fantasy 13 last night for the first time in weeks. I'd just finished Brutal Legend and wanted to see if I could bring myself to settling into it again. I was 12 hours, 45 minutes in, and I finally have run into one of the coolest characters in the game, Fang. (Yes, she has a LAME name, but she's a great fighter and has the roots for a great back story). It's very interesting that the developers have given some of the characters Australian accents. Fang and Vanille in particular, both of whom share some back story, both have this accent. I find it interesting simply because it just isn't very common. I do not recall there being ANY Australian people in any of the games I've played in recent years. Lots of evil British, Arabian, Russian, and Japanese people and tons heroic Americans, but no Australians. It'll be interesting to see if they try to parallel their stories to similar events in Australian history. So far, both Vanille and Fang are from the savage planet below Cocoon called Pulse, a sort of prison colony where people are sent if they become L'cie... kind of parallels so far... hmmm....

Anyway, that's all for today.

C