About SJPONeill

Retired(ish) and living on the side of a mountain. I love reading and writing, pottering around with DIY in the garden and the kitchen, watching movies and building models from plastic and paper...I have two awesome daughters, two awesome grand-daughters and two awesome big dogs...lots of awesomeness around me...

Five Question Friday! 1/25/13

Posted on 26 January 2013 by SJPONeill

That I don’t always contribute to Five Question Friday is often not so much an issue of whether Mama M’s questions float my boat in any given week but is often more of me getting motivated…but certainly in this period of seeking employment and optimising the great weather for domestic projects, motivation is running high…so here goes…

1. Do you embrace or dread snow/cold weather days?

When it’s straight cold e.g. like this:

…I don’t mind it too much…when it’s ongoing days of this:

…when all the heat is sucked from the ground and house, and it is just miserably cold and wet…nope, not much embracing going on then…

2. Which game show or reality show could you totally win?

As a spectator, I usually do OK in ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire‘ but would probably freeze and stutter if actually on the spot; reality shows just leave me cold so I think that’s a non-issue...

3. What is your preferred climate?

I like New Zealand, specifically where we are now on the Central Plateau where both winters and summers are comfortable but not extreme…I’m not sure that I’d be so keen to return to the deepest South again, certainly not anyplace where urban snow and frost would be regular occurrences…then maybe, I’m just over urban…?

4. What do you buy every time you walk into the grocery store, no matter what?

I always stock up on dairy: milk, butter and marg…if we don’t it it now it can always wait it the freezer til it’s time comes…

5. If you see a spider/bug in the house, are you brave enough to kill it, or do you call for your other half?

I’d prefer that someone else deal with it, but can general wind up enough backbone to deal with it myself…I spent enough time in South East Asia sharing space with greeblies to want to still do it now…

World of Tanks gets physical

Posted on 25 January 2013 by SJPONeill

It has been a while since I posted anything about my modelling hobby other than occasional hopefully relevant images in the Weekly Challenges…

Once upon a time, I used to be into gaming, either on the PC, Xbox (CLASSIC!!), or the Wii – we even have two Wii’s so that we can play NZ or US Wii games – but nowadays, I simply don’t have the time and when I’m sitting at the PC it is to work or, at the moment, look for work…so while I am aware of World of Tanks, mainly through its pop-up ads that permeate through the webosphere, I am not a player…World of Tanks, parent company, wargaming.net is also the major sponsor of David Cundall’s quest for Spitfires buried in Burma (perhaps) at the end of WW2. In mid-2012, WoT also began to post at Paper Modeling, a site I monitor pretty much daily piquing interest in the paper modelling community with promises of new paper models based on tanks in the game. Those promises are now being fulfilled at the rate of one a month.

Although the initial design work has been done to already incorporate these vehicles into WoT, the game, there is a little more to converting a gaming 3D model to a (buildable) paper model so this is more than just a cheap marketing ploy on WoT’s part, although that we should also recognise that paper modelling is far more popular and widespread in Eastern Europe and Asia than it has ever been in the West.

At the same time, using some of my few spare moments each day, generally while watching Coro, I am building a paper model as part of the UAMF Small Scale Armour Group Build and trust me, it’s not as easy as it looks and I probably would be finished now if I had opted for one of the more basic Airfix or Matchbox kits…but I have to be different and so have taken on a what is turning into a bit of a challenge. To a certain (possibly large!) extent this is self-inflicted as I am finding myself relearning a lot of previously learned lessons (pretty ironic for the lessons learned guru!!) as the time I have been able to devote to regular modelling.

Anyway, someone posted in my UAMF thread for this GB (I can post all these links but it doesn’t really matter ‘coz no one ever clicks them) last night that a. maybe it would be an idea to have a paper/card (one and the same thing, really) group build on UAMF sometime this year which lead to a. me posting this response, and b. thinking that it would be an idea perhaps to acknowledge within a wider audience the efforts of those designers that design and share their paper models as free downloads (and also to note the launch of the revamped Ecardmodels.com website)…

A paper/card model GB has been mooted before but I think that there is growing interest in the idea. As Ian says, there are a broad range available for download for free, of all degrees of complexity although I would recommend some relatively simple ones for starters so that builders can come to grips with the different techniques required, especially for folding and rolling – none of it rocket science, but none of it just quite that way we do it with other media…as a start point for anyone who might be interested, I would recommend that they check out the free model section at www.ecardmodels.com (select “free Models’ from the menu bar on the left of the home page) which has a range of mainly aircraft and vehicles with a few ships and buildings as well. There are also sites like the download section of www.papermodelers.com (must register and post in order to download), the models section of www.landships.info, the free section at www.currell.net, and, for those into World of Tanks, the model section on the Russian language (YOU MUST GO TO THE RUSSIAN VERSION AS THE MODELS ARE NOT LISTED ON ANY OF THE OTHER REGIONS FOR WoT) version of the site: http://worldoftanks.ru/media/?category=10 where they are releasing one 1/50 (of course, depending on your preference, printer and copier, the scale could be whatever suits…) tank model each month…

So that’s it really, just trying to spread the paper modelling love…in this days of financial crises and ongoing insecurity, it is nice to have a modelling-related hobby that doesn’t want an army and a leg just for the raw materials i.e. a traditional kitset, but which still provides for the satisfaction of seeing a model take shape into a (hopefully) recognisable facsimile of the original…

Hawks Over Rangiora

Posted on 24 January 2013 by SJPONeill

There I was…cleaning out the hard drive…when I found this…a draft post from almost two years ago…some imagery that the lads at Hawkeye UAV shared with me after flying tasks in the direct aftermath of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake…

I’m not sure why I never posted this…possibly too many authoring tools and it was just overlooked…this mission was flown using Kahu as the team started its journey back north. Although Hawkeye’s capabilities have increased geometrically in pretty much every way (aircraft, sensors, software, etc) in the intervening two years, this series still is till a good look at the sequence of a mission from…

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…initial mission planning in the flight control software…each of the dots on the map above represents the point where an image will be taken from the aircraft, taking into account factors like wind and light.

The next five images are part of the imagery set collected during the missions

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These are then combined into a mosaic…in this case a thermal image of the town from a night mission because silly me has misplaced the daylight mosaic shot…

…and also the image of the 3D model of the town created from these 2D images are photogrammetric processing (some interesting work at Otago University on this process)…but here’s a short clip of some 3D imagery from another task…

Pretty cool…more so when it’s all homegrown Kiwi technology and ingenuity…

Weekly Photo Challenge: My 2012 in Pictures

Posted on 19 January 2013 by SJPONeill

Takeaways from 2012…

Meat Loaf 4-08-2012 6-28-15 p.m.

…culinary adventures continued…

Raurimu renovations 009

…the digger that ate the lawn…so much more room…

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…Kirk discovers that TV is more entertaining than chew toys…

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…the chickens finally get their act together…possibly attributable to the mega-mansion that Carmen built for them…

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…the Tupperware Terminator mini-gun of kitchen utensils – instant salsa with a couple of pulls on the ripcord…

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…not so much the mega-hit on blog views the weekend that the ‘family’ came together to rebut the poisonous views of activist Summer Burstyn as the imagery of the three columns covering that weekend…

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…a day in Flanders fields…so sobering…

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…chicken curry and roti for breakfast at Din’s Diner in Singapore – flashbacks to the really good old days of NZFORSEA…

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…a week at the beach…I wasn’t too sure about this at first but it was the best break I’ve had in years…

…and…

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…having a hand in helping these guys grow up…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination

Posted on 18 January 2013 by SJPONeill

This ‘illuminating‘ craze has caught on down here now as well – it doesn’t really float my boat but this is a house just up the road from my parents’ when we went home for Christmas in 2009 – its main claim to fame is that my best friend when I was three lived here – his room was the end window above the garage…

Oamaru Christmas Light House 001

Oamaru Christmas Light House 004

Oamaru Christmas Light House 002

We also stumbled across Santa’s house too…

Gary Watling IS Santa 001

Weekly Photo Challenge: Resolved

Posted on 18 January 2013 by SJPONeill

I’m not really that big on New Years resolutions as resolving can and should happen any time it is necessary…but anyway…

…work less, play more…

DSCF6544 …turn the ‘desert’ into green…

Raurimu renovations 008

…actually finish a modelling project…

1/72 Bromry-Eyevan

1/48 Northrop N9M

1/35 203mm B4 cannon

1/48 Avro Arrow

1/35 PaK 44 128mm Cannon

1/72 Martin-Baker Tankbuster

1/72 Tiger Moth

1/48 Mirage III

1/72 Saro SRA.1 Stingray

1/32ish BV P.170

1/48 P-39 Airacobra

1/48 XF-91 Thunderceptor

1/32 Avro Vulcan B.1

1/72 Udarnyj river monitor

Mach 2 Blohm & Voss BV-142 air liner

Dujin N-20 jet fighter

…just once…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise

Posted on 17 January 2013 by SJPONeill

DSCF6596 Hmmmm… surprises…a couple of years ago, my parents gave us some garden centre vouchers for Christmas – they lasted as long as the Boxing Day sales and a novelty we picked up at the check-out at Palmers in Taupo was a rather small – may be 15cm high – fly trap…it took a while to settle in but since spring, it has just exploded in height. We’re not quite sure what we’ve down right with it but it seems to be working…

Our surprise this Christmas was a flower – who knew these things flowered…?

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It’s not too bad at catching bugs but if it starts to sing, it’s out of here…!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

Posted on 20 December 2012 by SJPONeill

We don’t have clearly defined seasons here so coming up with some pictures that represent changing seasons has been a challenge ( which, I guess, is the whole idea!) and required a little thought and introspection – just a little mind…

Although we live on the side of one of the North Island’s whole two mountains, the arrival of snow is really a herald of seasonal change…sometime we get a decent dump as early as ANZAC Day, only to have another further couple of months of decent weather…other years, this is all we get all ‘winter’…

Raurimu 12-09-2012 8-23-26 a.m.

When I was living in Singapore and Malaysia, it was easy to tell – the monsoon had arrived when roadways became waterways…

Thailand-Singapore Bike Ride 1988 162

…and one sure sign of summer, as I have mentione din these challenges a few times before, is the explosive growth of the punga as they emerge from hibernation…

Raurimu Pungas 005

…and this is usually coincidental with the spike in Christmas music herald that seasonal shift…but in thinking on the subject, I think that we might only have two seasons here now: daylight saving and not daylight saving…when this…

Carmen and Bill the Bedford Go South 068

…and this…

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draw closer together and further apart like the handles on a season concertina….

My Little Life: I Wasn’t Going to Say Anything.

Posted on 20 December 2012 by SJPONeill

My Little Life: I Wasn’t Going to Say Anything...

…and neither was I but I think that Mama M hits the nail fair on the head in this post…

Borrowed from “http://lcooks1.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/as-seen-on-tv/”

Muzzle the media. They add no value to tragedies like this other than feeding of it for their own benefit and gain. Like suicide, and regardless of whether or not the perpetrator dies in commission of the act, this is a ‘look at me’ act. We need to take all the value from such ‘look at me’ acts.

Deal with the problems not the symptoms. Banning guns will not stop this type of senseless act – it will just change the tools. Let’s not forget that New Zealand’s most deadly but most overlooked mass killer DIDN’T use a firearm, and neither did many of the all-time high scoring serial killers.

Accept that the information genie is out of the bottle. It is so easy now not just for people to self-publish their own manifestos (no matter how loony-toon) and but also to locate the information that not only enables but that almost encourages them to commit such acts of destruction. I followed a thread over the weekend in a remote-control aircraft forum that pretty much detailed how an R/C or light general aviation aircraft might be used in a terror attack – ironically to prove how ineffetcive it might be (debatable) to protect the ‘rights’ of R/C enthusiasts.

People look after people. over the last couple of decades, governments across the western world have decided that it is cost-beneficial to close down the places where people with social issues could be cared for and watched over. Placing them back into the community was meant to be a good thing and, once upon a time, it may have been – back in the day where care staff would physically visit them, and the ‘bobbie on the beat’ had a fairly good idea who on his or her patch needed special watching – and that’s just not the criminal element.

Put the machine back in its box. One of the reasons that it appears so cost-beneficial to let these people out in the community is because we get to save money through needing less people for monitoring, caring and supervision and we think we can get away with email and other digital monitoring. It doesn’t work, not the same as good old regular face-to-face contact. It is all too easy not for the socially dysfunctional to avoid the human contact that might offer indications that someone is gearing up to elevate their social status from ‘just a bit odd’: banking, shopping, mail can all be done now from behind the ‘safety’ and anonymity of a screen.

I’m not a big supporter of the NRA nor do I have any intention of being drawn into any arguments over the right to keep and bear arms…that’s just a big red herring…guns are the tool of choice in America: in other parts of the world, high explosive, sharp instruments and clubs fill the same gruesome role…we need to focus less on the tool and more on the problem of identifying and intercepting these people before they get anywhere near their selected ground zero…

Like a fine wine, a good year…

Posted on 20 December 2012 by SJPONeill

Just in from Hawkeye UAV, their end of 2012 newsletter…

2012 is nearly at the close and since the last update there has been much to report.

Our new operators, in Turkey and South Africa respectively, have been busy flying sorties with their new AreoHawks. Quickly settling into their work and undertaking a range of tasks and a lot of flying. Some sample data from a Middle East survey task is shown here.

One of our AreoHawk airframes is currently being used as a testbed aircraft for the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology. The Defence Technology Agency (DTA) here in New Zealand is undertaking a project to perform airborne testing and a capability study in conjunction with the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), who are sponsoring the project. The AreoHawk has been selected as it is considered a robust and stable platform, with the ability to support modification and more weight. The fuel cell technology is expected to push flight endurance out to 5-6 hours!

Serious game changer for Class I UAVs which have been traditionally limited by short legs…all of a sudden a CLASS I UAS could have a 200 km operating radius and still have a two hour loiter time over its objective…

Another AreoHawk airframe has been on display as part of an exhibition at The National Library of New Zealand, in Wellington. Part of the “Big Data / Changing Place” programme, our aircraft represents a Kiwi company that is contributing big things in the world of data. The exhibition and events run until the end of Aril 2013.

If you’re in the capital, GO AND SEE IT!!

Also here at home we have good news on covering the domestic services market. Hawkeye UAV is forming partnerships with 3 established North Island survey companies. Within their distinct regions these agencies will operate the AreoHawk, and grow the UAV survey capability around New Zealand with ongoing support from Hawkeye. This collaborative arrangement will greatly help all parties and ease the pressure from the influx of domestic services work that keeps building month to month.

Amongst the tasks mentioned above are extended contracts for road building and engineering survey, conservation work and an extensive government facilities management portfolio (more on this next year).

We are making successful inroads into the development of both infra-red and multispectral data acquisition capabilities. These will add some powerful tools to our arsenal and once again cement UAV technology as a very viable alternative to traditional manned aerial photography.

We have been mentioned in dispatches lately with a good news piece about our development of industry training packages for the safe and legal operation of UAV technology. Published by the Aviation, Tourism and Travel Training Organisation (ATTTO) this article reaffirms our safety-first and procedural approach, and recognises Hawkeye UAV Ltd.’s commitment to working as an operator certified by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Long overdue and about time…this will both make the skies safer by requiring operators to be trained AND certified AND accountable.

A new and exciting development for us that has only occurred in the past few days is the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA)certification of the AreoHawk for commercial use by our partner, AeroMetrex. They are now the first AreoHawk UAV operator in Australia. AeroMetrex, with the support of Hawkeye have been working very diligently with CASA for the better part of 2012 to obtain this endorsement. They promptly capped off this great news by announcing the sale of six AreoHawk systems within Australia.

Look for our write-up in the January edition of Coordinates magazine in the article “UAV/UAS – Potential and Challenges.” Hawkeye has made a contribution on how we see the development of the technology and any hurdles to overcome.

Very way cool and great to see the Kiwi influence on the other side of the ditch…

Coming up early next year is a road trip of tasks and demonstrations in the western United States. We have a succession of jobs to undertake that have been generated by the good work of Hawkeye UAV Americas (HUA). There are some really interesting things on the list here, including the mapping of a whole town. We hope to have some interesting shots and even more interesting stories to tell on our return.

Also in January Hawkeye will be running another UAV operators course for up to six new students. These students, on completion of their conversion are likely to receive some serious on the job training as they are employed to assist with New Zealand tasks. The summer months should permit plenty of flying and see each gain a lot of experience in a relatively short timeframe.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!