timelapse

Lego Build! Darth Vader

I made a decision this year, that each year I’ll do at least one extravagant Lego Build. Its my way of affirming:

My inner child matters
I am affluent and I can afford it

Turns out, the universe was in sync – for Christmas, I received an unasked-for Lego Darth Vader to build. 800 pieces! I set out to build it, but of course I had to timelapse it.

There were 5 stages, and I recorded all of them:

#1 excluded because all you see is my back.
#2 Nest camera, facing me and the model. I really liked the idea, so I upgraded …
#3 GoPro Timelapse at 0.5sec, 1080P. I felt my hand kinda got in the way, so I changed the angle
#4 GoPro Timelapse at 0.5sec, 1080P. It felt too slow, so I changed again
#5 GoPro TImelapse at 1sec, 4K.

I put them together in this video, which I’ve put on Youtube because that’s where everything else video goes. I’m thinking, the best angle and subject was #1 – you don’t see all the parts, you see the human and the model. But its not the best camera.

I think the next build, I’ll stick the GoPro where its Model + Human centered, and parts not necessarily in sight.

What I loved most about building it:

Wondering how the pieces were going to be used
Sorting and organizing the pieces
Admiring the novel ways they used pieces that I could not predict

Stuff not so great: Seemed there were a bunch of very custom pieces. Meh.

Its been forever.. here, lets watch some ice melt.

One of my gifts to our life was a GE Opal Nugget Ice Maker.

I was curious how stale the Ice could get. So I timelapsed it. Here it is, from about 6am to about 11pm:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G6I-FdJVZI]

My guess is that its loosing maybe 1/3 volume in about 12 hours. So maybe 36 hours for a full refresh of ice?

In other news:

I finished up a session with Code Louisville .. several unlisted videos from that. May make them public in the future.
I’ve transitioned over to covering maintenance tasks at work – and figuring out my tooling for capturing that flow:

I’m also trying out using a google group in “shared inbox” mode to capture requirements naturally from emails
I’ve got a zapier zap for converting emails into cards on the above board.
I ran more than 2 miles for the first time in 2 years or so!
We as a family tried to go without an internet connection at home, and we only lasted about 2 weeks.

I’m hoping that my schedule has cleared up a bit..

At first, I barely had time to take care of just the emergencies, I had left myself no time to breathe with all my projects / commitments
Now, the last 3 nights, I’ve had options of what to do with my time.. and I’ve mostly been catching up, decompressing, regaining my humanity
I’m promising NOTHING (that’s how I get into trouble), but just writing this blog post .. feels like I’m coming back to an equilibrium of some sort.

Blue Apron–Timelapse + Minor Analysis

I am investigating different ways to go about eating. First up to try: Blue Apron.

There are a gazillion reviews of it, so I won’t focus there; instead I’ll go for my reaction.

First, here’s a timelapse of me preparing https://www.blueapron.com/recipes/potato-artichoke-quiches-with-romaine-orange-salad . The time covered is from 5:54pm to 7:15pm or so – from the time my wife picks the recipe to me plating the food.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GptVmizTcIA]

video caption here is what i entered

Analysis

Going through the video at normal speed, and inventorying myself:

Stage	Their Est	Me	Comments
analyze recipe so I don’t miss anything.	(none)	5:56-6:04 8 min	The text is pretty scrunchy, so I convert it to a flowchart of sorts. I don’t refer to the flowchart again, but connecting all the things in a flow helps me consider everything.
Get Hardware	(none)	6:05-6:08 3 min	Pots, pans, salt, pepper, oil, etc… and bowls for ingredients.
Unpack food	(none)	6:08-6:11 3 min	Sorting 2 recipes, I had already made one.
Arrange	(none)	6:11-6:13 2 min	I wanted everything easily visible and available in its own bowl.
Prep	15 min	6:13-6:31 18 min	I slowed down on the orange, I think. It was frozen-ish and my hands got numb.
Cook:	35-45 min	6:32-7:14 48 min	Broken down further
Taters	12-13 min	6:33-6:46	13 minutes
Taters+Art	2-3 min	6:46-6:49	3 minutes
Mix with Egg		6:50-6:52	Everything till starting to pour them in
Pour them		6:52-6:53	I was afraid of missing.
Bake	18-20 min	6:54-7:14	20 minutes. Thank you Timer.
Salad		6:58-7:01	(Extra Salad Chopping)
Plating		7:14-7:16	2 minutes
(eating)			Not included in the time lapse.
Cleanup		7:35-7:44	Unload + Load Dishwasher, Clean stove.

So end-to-end time with no technical debt: 2 hours.

It was quality time, with my wife hanging in the Kitchen with me as we chatted about stuff.

So Is It Worth It?

To try to analyze it more objectively, I think its a 3-D plot.

For Health Level, its a bit arbitrary. 1= bottom, 2=mid, 3=good. Circle size = bigger = healthier.

I did not include Tastiness.

The labels overlapped, its in the bottom right of the grid.

So,

Its healthier but much more time-costly than going to a place like Noodles & Co which is 20 minutes away.
Its better than costlier long-wait-restaurants like Mikato.
Its about the same as driving 40 minutes to the Whole Foods to eat at the buffet there.
Amortizing the cost over 4 meals, its probably the same as going to a grocery store to shop, and then cook, something healthy .. maybe. I don’t have actual samples on this yet. I will soon.
I put Soylent on there.

Assuming you don’t have an adverse reaction (I do)
and you don’t have objections to the idea
its “perfect” nutrition, very fast, and at fairly low cost.
Its not friendly with my diabetes, either.

When viewed through this lens, I guess its okay. Its not earth-shatteringly better, its just.. more tuned.

Summary (so far)

You have to like, and have the time, for the cooking.

If you like cooking, and hate shopping, and like trying new things, it would be PERFECT for you.

For me, cooking is okay, the hard thing for me is the time.

I have one more recipe from them to try, then its off to Green Chef or something like that.

Timelapse of Ames 3d print

Thanks to DropCam and a $10/month subscription, I have a 7 day window that I can create Time Lapses from.

The Dropcam has a hard time focusing this close, so it’s a bit blurry. You can see the pauses and filament changes in the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgyZ8fEe70M&w=448&h=252&hd=1]

Caps are Shunned!

I’ll point the camera out the window and see if I can come up with some other cool timelapses.

Three Sunset Timelapses of Louisville Downtown

I found an app, The Photographer’s Ephemeris, and in playing with it I figured out that I could predict when the Sun would line up with certain landmarks. So I decided to try it with Downtown Louisville. I set a reminder to myself.

And promptly forgot to bring my Video Camera in that day. It was Friday 3/29/2013, and the sunset was gorgeous.

No problem, I’ll just catch it the next day.

Saturday 3/30 – Overcast and hazy. That’s #3 in the video.

Sunday 3/31 – Beautiful Sunset. I skipped part of Louisville NCAA Madness to set this up. User error – it didn’t record.

Monday 4/1 – Pretty good. That’s #1 in the video. Pulled back from my first attempt. Every 5 seconds

Tuesday 4/2 – hazy, skipped.

Wednesday 4/3 – Not quite as good. #2 in the video. Pulled even further back. Every 2 seconds, but I sped it up for the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpFvINjSK_I&w=448&h=252&hd=1]

Downtown Sunset Timelapse

The video is in 1080, so fullscreen is best.

By this point, the sun had slipped away from being lined up with downtown; and I had figured out that the stock zoom lens on my camcorder does not make for a great picture in low light conditions. So ends that project; I’ll resume from a Tripod on the Pedestrian Bridge later in the summer… sun reflecting off the buildings.