December – Year review, Christmas and a Virtual Reality recording studio

Year review… This year I released four books, the first to be illustrated with my own photos as well as covers. Dublin People newspaper has just publicised A Pony For Quarantine, which has been gaining all good feedback.
Lockdowns affected all our lives. College has been on Zoom since February, leading to some complications as I wrestled with software and hardware which doesn’t work as expected when running Pro Tools First. I’m working on my thesis journalism articles and engaging with the employment skills class, generally hearing positive noises from the helpful lecturers.

I’ve also taken on the role of Vice President and blog Editor of the Green Campus / Sustainability Society. Dublin Business School has been doing this work for a couple of years now and this is a joint staff / student movement. I’m a Peer Mentor, and President and blog Editor of the Journalism Society.
I attended the DBS Diwali celebrations and wrote that up. I attended and reported on the United Nations Environment Programme conference called Sea of Solutions, about marine plastic, hosted in Viet Nam. On Goodreads, I have been co-moderating Green Group, and have taken on the role of Moderator of Horse Lovers Central Group. But I get to wind down a little over Christmas.


Christmas story about growing up in Ireland: my mum used to give a Christmas tip when the bin men called - there were no women in the job in those days, though I insisted on saying binperson and postperson. Then the council decided the practice was corruption and potentially intimidating when some householders did not have spare money at that time. So they ordered the bin men not to ask for tips. Whereupon the bin men would come around collecting the bins and one of the cleaner men (it was a dirty job before wheelie bins) would knock on every door and take off his cap and tell the lady of the house the date of the first collection after Christmas. Habit, or fellow feeling, often produced the desired result.

This year for once I did not hit 366 books but according to Goodreads my reading total will be over 300.

Crowdfunded short film, apparently one shot (though we can see at least two obvious potential breaks) about all of 2020. As I am learning film making, I found this well made and interesting, as well as funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skgcr...

Virtual Reality Recording Studio
Here is an excerpt from my notes on the 6th Feb 2020 VR/AR Meetup.
Paul Cullen, musician and developer. Leitrim. Creating virtual objects to simulate real world objects with Skywatcher VR studio.
VR – drumkit, percussive instruments, piano, electric, acoustic and bass guitars, 6 separate haptics, chords, vibrations. World’s first VR recording studio with support from Oculus.
Musicians from Relish, an NI band, shown playing on BBC, helping to test and record.
App launched Dec 2019. Approval from Oculus.
Reducing audio latency – lag.
Audio zipping – when you play notes too quickly. Optimising, etc.
Frame rate - 90 frames per second required to be believable.
Slides and talk on challenges he faced and progress. Oculus Start program in March 2017 helpful. Playing virtual instruments in empty space is harder than the real thing.
VR Recording Studio - Demos on screen and for anyone to trial, using Oculus Rift headset and monitor with laptop. Now in Oculus Store, can be found on YouTube.

Follow my published articles on my JournoPortfolio page.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

All my books are in the Kindle Unlimited programme. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.
Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie
for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. We have created a new page for Young Adult readers. This contains plenty of horses and dogs! You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.