May 28, 2022 • 37 mins
A few weeks back, Christine and JJ began exploring and describing the world of virtual reality. Today, that exploration continues. First they discuss the connection between the visual and physical, then giggle about childhood dreams of a real-life holodeck. Finally, the intrepid pair takes a quick trip to the International Space Station!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
JJ Hunt (00:03):
Talk description to me is Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.
Christine Malec (00:27):
Hi, I'm Christine Malec.
JJ Hunt (00:28):
And I'm JJ Hunt. This is talk description to me, where
the visuals of current eventsand the world around us get
hashed out in description richconversations.
Christine Malec (00:47):
In a previous episode, we talked about virtual
reality and the Oculus, we did alittle chatting than we did a
little demo. And there was somuch to cover. And we had so
much fun with it, that we'rereturning to the Oculus, and to
VR. So we're gonna chat a bitmore about some of the more
(01:09):
refined aspects of using thetechnology and what it's like.
And then we're going to go offinto a virtual world. So from
the inside, does the littlescreens inside they cover your
entire visual field? Is thatright?
JJ Hunt (01:24):
100%. Like, there's nothing there, you can't see
past it. If you keep turningyour head, the then your field
of view changes, and it justkeeps going. So you can't see
the edges Ever. Which is prettywild.
Christine Malec (01:41):
So if you had a really, really, really big
screen, I guess, would, sorry.
So if you're at a theater, likeone of those IMAX, would that
ever contain your entire visualfield?
JJ Hunt (01:53):
It could. But it's still different.
Christine Malec (01:58):
Like he has this is using by an ocular
vision, things to make it 3d,right. So it's not like looking
at a movie screen. It saysthough, you're looking off into
the distance --
JJ Hunt (02:08):
Exactly.
Christine Malec (02:09):
-- in a way that's just like reality. Is
that accurate?
JJ Hunt (02:11):
That's right, if you do a still shot of a giant screen
that has whatever environment onit, say it's an underwater coral
reef, or whatever. And it's on agiant IMAX screen, and you take
a screenshot of that. And youput that screen in front of you
so that you can't see anythingfrom side to side, and you keep
your head still, that might lookthe same as if you did a
(02:32):
screenshot of what's being seeninside VR. But it still doesn't
look the same. Because themoment that you move your head
even a little bit, the image,the depth perception, the fact
that nothing is going to move onthe screen, something that's
closer to you and somethingthat's further away, there's no
there's no separation of that.
Whereas it's this entireseparation of that if you move
(02:56):
your head across that space, inthe virtual reality, you are
seeing the things that arefarther away or moving
differently than the things thatare close by and you are you
can't see the edges, you cannever find the edges. And then
the fact that whatever your bodydoes on the outside your hands
or your head, it translatesexactly in the VR world. Your
(03:21):
brain very, very quickly getsused to that and treats it as
real. And so the immersion is,is total, it's, it's shockingly
accurate.
Christine Malec (03:40):
What do your hands do? So when you your hands
appear to you? Do they look likehands? Or do they look like
something else?
JJ Hunt (03:47):
Yeah, they look like hands generally, they usually
make an avatar of a hand and itmoves kind of like your hands
move. There are some slightdifferences. This one game that
that I've played, I expect youto die, which is this early
James Bond, like very midcentury Mad Men kind of design,
(04:07):
you are a James Bond kind oftrainee, and you are sent on
missions. And with that handgrip that I described, you do
different things, you have atrigger. So that's actually
shooting things. But then theway you grab is by, you know,
pressing, I think it was themiddle finger button. And so you
see your hand in the virtualreality world, you move it to an
(04:29):
object on a table. And in orderto pick it up, you press that
button on the inside, and thenyour, your visual hand grabs it,
and so very, very, very quickly,your mind read, it changes its
understanding of action andresponse. So you press that
button with your actual hand.
You make a certain gesture withyour actual hand and the hand
(04:53):
that you see, picks somethingup. And so that quickly becomes
how you pick something up. Somuch so that I played this game
for about half an hour, 45minutes. And then I took the
headset off I needed to, Ineeded a break, I took the
headset off, and I went to thebathroom. And I reached for the
doorknob and I stopped my hand,but four inches in front of the
doorknob, and I made the actionto press a button. And I so I
(05:16):
did genuinely. And I did thatfor about three or four seconds
before I realized, oh, wait, no,no, this is my actual hand. And
I need to actually grab thedoorknob. That's how quickly my
brain made that. Thatadjustment, what is real, what
my action action, what my mentalthought and physical action can
(05:37):
achieve. It was it's, it's, youare really in these spaces.
Christine Malec (05:45):
I'm feeling a bit queasy.
JJ Hunt (05:49):
Yah!
Christine Malec (05:49):
So let's talk about the elephant in the room.
Is this make you seasick to dothis?
JJ Hunt (05:54):
Yeah, it really does.
There are some games that aresome games or experiences that
very much give you motionsickness and others not so much.
So the the James Bond, one thatI was describing, you're always
seated, that's how they workaround this. So they always put
you in missions where you're ata desk or in a car or something.
So you don't actually physicallywalk around, you move your hands
(06:15):
and grab things. Then there areothers. There's another really
kind of cool game called superhot, which it's like an assassin
training simulator. So you'rebeing attacked by these angular
red mannequins. And they move inslow motion, kind of like, like
bullet speed and the matrix. Andyou have to fight them off using
whatever weapons are availablein the in the level that you're
(06:36):
on. But whenever you move, theattackers move out of bullet
time, and they move at fullspeed. So you have to do more
physical action. But your feetare always more or less planted
on the ground, you're notrunning or walking anywhere, and
your actions are human, they arelike the kinds of actions you
would normally do. So you don'ttend to get a motion sickness
(06:58):
feeling there. However, you goto something like one of the
first things a lot of peoplewant to do is I want to fly.
Because I get to do that in VR.
And you can. And that's when themotion sickness kicks in.
Because your brain doesn't getit. It just the it's just too
much. So the going on to theInternational Space Station,
(07:20):
which is one of my very favoriteearly things to do with this
machine. You are inside thespace station and you move as if
you are weightless, so you don'twalk, you pull yourself or push
yourself you have littlethrusters if you leave the space
station and go on a spacewalk,you fly around the space station
(07:41):
with using a little thrustersare charged to the right or left
and that will push you in onedirection or another. And it's
remarkably accurate, it feelsreal. And you've got to be very
careful because because of thosethrusters in the way you pull
yourself, if you maneuveryourself slide ways a little
(08:03):
bit, if you kind of jiggle yourpoint of view, you're no longer
going down these corridors ofthe space station in a way that
looks like there's like theceiling is above you and the
floors below you, you can tiltyourself a little bit so that
now you're on a slight angle.
And as soon as I get myself inone of those positions within
literally within seconds. Oh, Iget queasy and my stomach starts
(08:26):
rumbling and it's it's bad and Ikind of have to log off. Give it
a few minutes. Yeah, there'sanother game my kids have called
Ritchie's plank experience. AndI mean, half of the game is just
stepping out on two planks, likewalk the plank like on a pirate
ship, except the plank is at thetop of a skyscraper. And you
(08:47):
tiptoe out onto this plank. Andit's you have to overcome fear
to actually do this because theexperience that your brain is
understanding is real enoughthat you have to push past the
thing in your brain that saysdon't do that. That's stupid,
(09:08):
even though you're in yourliving room and stepping forward
it's that real? And so you knowyou you do step out to the end
of this plank and then you leanforward to like how far can I
see around the corner of thisbuilding and and it's the you
get agitated and then you canfly and the flying is where a
lot of people really get getquite motion sick.
Christine Malec (09:36):
I'm having, well I'm having several
disconnects. But one of them isthat your point of view is
yourself and I'm having troublebecause I'm used to thinking of
cinematography where your pointof view is outside of yourself.
You're seeing the main characterthe protagonist, ie you in this
(09:57):
case from the outside, but Whenyou're doing this, you're always
seeing it from your own eyes,like your own point of view. Is
that right?
JJ Hunt (10:05):
That's right. It's always first person view.
Christine Malec (10:09):
Yeah.
JJ Hunt (10:09):
Which is, it's interesting because, you know,
so here's where we're gonna geta little trippy. Right now, as
I'm sitting at my computer Ihave in my life, as does every
sighted person, they experiencedthe world as a first person. So
I see my hands in front of me infront of my screen, right now,
when I turn my head from side toside, my view changes. And it's
(10:34):
so instinctive, we don't noticethat. And in fact, it's very,
very, very difficult to paint,or to take a photograph
hundreds, like every sightedperson who's ever gone to a
beach has, you know, they laydown on a on a, on a, on a beach
chair or something like that.
And they take a picture of theirtoes, you know, on the edge of
the seat, because that's theirview, and it looks so perfect to
(10:56):
them. And the photos are alwaysterrible. They're never right.
It never captures the feeling.
I've done this so many times,where I'm like, I'm gonna draw
what I'm seeing right now. Andit never, ever, ever, it's such
a skill to make that look good.
It's a very, very particularkind of artistic skill to
recreate that feeling thatemotion of first person, but you
(11:19):
get in VR, and it's accurate.
It's so accurate, that firstperson view of the world, that
your brain immediately registersit as real because it genuinely
tricks it tricks your brain intothinking, No, you're in a
different space.
Christine Malec (11:38):
I'm curious to do a compare and contrast
between your kids favorites andyour favorites.
JJ Hunt (11:44):
Oh, that's a good question. So we all liked this
James Bond one. That's good,because they're good puzzles
that you work out in the designis so amazing. The actual the
opening credits for that gameare some it's some of the best
animation I've ever seen. It'slike living inside the madmen
opening credit sequencesanimated, the music is really
(12:07):
cool. The lyrics are a littlecheesy, but it's so the design
is so beautiful, the way yourhands move, that's great. This
this assassin trainingsimulator, that's a really cool
one that we all like, I'm not abig fan of the first person
shooters, I don't like them ingeneral, just on any video game
platform, they're not my bag.
And I particularly don't likethe idea of a first person
(12:30):
shooter when everything looksand feels real. I actually don't
want that experience. Like thereare some of these first a lot of
images because it's first personyou are attacking other beasts.
And there, there are horrorones, there's a game that we
none of us have played. That isit's like a ghost ship, like so.
You know, I think it's a postapocalyptic. There's a ship
(12:51):
that's floating around in thesea, and it's been taken over by
zombies or something and you'reon that ship. And I remember we
talked about it, I think it wasin the in the Northern Lights
episode where I talked abouthaving the headlamp, and it
scared me. So it's the samething where they put a virtual
headlamp on your character. Soyou are in VR, you can only see
(13:13):
the pool of light from yourheadlamp. So as you turn you
reveal, so you might be insidethe hull of a ship, and you hear
something to your right, butit's in the dark. And it's not
until you physically move yourhead, and your headlamp goes
over to it. And it exposes thatthere's some zombie that's
attacking you. And then you havelike an axe and you're supposed
(13:36):
to like chop down. And that'stoo much for me, I don't want
that. I don't want that idea inmy head of holding an axe and
chopping just feels wrong. Sonone of us have done those but
my kids have they're kind ofokay with that idea. They think
I'm weird and old, which I amlike, What do you mean, you
don't want to just shoot it'sdoesn't it's a computer thing?
(13:57):
It doesn't matter. Like thatdoesn't cause real violence.
Christine Malec (14:00):
Right. Right.
Right.
JJ Hunt (14:01):
That doesn't work. We were so Lois and I -- my wife
and I -- were far moreinterested in the exploring the
International Space Station andthe kids were they thought it
was cool. They were done withthat in 10 minutes. Whereas we
could keep going back to it overand over again. And then the
real separator and this is thisis where I admit to being a
(14:25):
total dork. I when I first putthe headset on, they hadn't my
kids hadn't loaded a game forme. I was just in the headset.
And so the first thing thathappened was I basically found
myself in what I would describeas inside a virtual geodesic
dome.
Christine Malec (14:45):
Hmm.
JJ Hunt (14:46):
And I loved it.
Oh! Ha ha!It was nothing. It was just
black. You can only see thefaint outlines of the pattern
around me. But it was it waslike being inside of the
holodeck, when, when a characteron Star Trek would go into the
holodeck before the programloads, it wasn't a it wasn't a
(15:07):
dome, it was a was a boxy shape.
But it felt like I was inside.
And I knew -- the anticipation,I'm going to load a virtual
program and it's just going topop up. And this is going to
change from being... it's likebeing inside a computer, and I
loved it. And my kids killedthemselves laughing. It's like,
(15:29):
"Dad, we haven't even turned iton. There's no game!"
Christine Malec (15:37):
Ha ha ha!
JJ Hunt (15:37):
And I'm just standing in the living room. My jaw
hanging open spinning incircles, like looking at nothing
looking at the inside of this...
Christine Malec (15:47):
Framework! Ha ha ha!
JJ Hunt (15:48):
It was so ridiculous looking at this, like nothing
space, this virtual placeholder.
Christine Malec (15:59):
So we have talked about a demo. Are you
ready to slip the goggles on?
And describe your way throughsome seasickness?
JJ Hunt (16:05):
Totally. So I'll get I'll get my kid involved so that
they can they can set me up andI'm going to switch mics because
I gotta have to be, I gotta bemoving around. So so I'll set
that up.
Christine Malec (16:15):
Get the barf bag ready!
JJ Hunt (16:16):
That's right! Ha ha!
Christine Malec (16:19):
You know where I want to go? The International
Space Station is what it's allabout for me.
JJ Hunt (16:24):
So the international space station it is. And I am
likely. I mean, I love thisspace station. It's very cool.
And that one I probably did myvery first time spent like, half
an hour there happily. Okay, sothe way this starts, is you're
in space and you float toward anabsolutely photorealistic you
(16:49):
float past the space station.
And you're not tethered toanything. It's just an
introductory This is like theopening. Wow. Yeah, it is like
it's the opening credits,basically. And the way they do
the opening credits is just thespace station, you float past it
before anything else happens.
(17:10):
And and it's pretty spectacular.
Christine Malec (17:15):
Does your nervous system want you to be
standing? Because this onedoesn't require your movements?
Right? Is it tempting to justwant to sit down or lie down?
Does your body wants to bestanding?
JJ Hunt (17:25):
This one actually very much does require your
movements?
Christine Malec (17:28):
Oh, it does?
Oh!
JJ Hunt (17:29):
Because in order to get through in order to move
through, you have to eitherengage your thrusters or you
grab on the handles on the walland hold yourself through. Yeah,
and so I just I don't want torotate. That's the one thing
that like is a killer for motionsickness is the rotating. All
(17:52):
right. So I'm starting outinside the space station, and it
is not 100% photo realistic. Sofor example, there's some coiled
cables, and they're notperfectly round, the coils are
not perfectly round. They're alittle bit Angular. But the
attention to detail inside thisspace station is extraordinary.
(18:17):
There are warning labels andstickers. And here's how to open
this hatch. And someone's putsome magnets on the wall that
you can interact with. And, andjust like there would be in the
real space station. There arehandles everywhere. And so the
way you move a boat, is bygrabbing onto the handles, and
then pulling more. I mentionedthat thrusting my hips before.
(18:39):
Yeah, you put your grab onto thehandles, and then you pull and
because it's it's the game, thisspace is mimicking zero gravity.
As soon as you push yourself inone direction, you just keep
going. You just float. Oh, gosh.
So you really are simulating,okay. That experience you're
(19:00):
simulating the floating 00gravity.
Christine Malec (19:10):
So could you push off like swing yourself in
one direction? Keep going andhit some kind of? Yeah, well
like because there's no inertia,like you'll just keep going.
We'll just, we'll just make youhit something.
JJ Hunt (19:21):
That's right. So right now I'm in along like the space
station is kind of a series oftunnels a series of tubes. And
right now I'm in one of thosetunnels there are several bays
so you kind of go through these,these open window ways these
open doorways from one space tothe other. And there are just to
make it fun. They've got thesefloating bundles all over the
(19:41):
place that you can pick up andpush around and there are
computers, laptops that areattached to posts on the wall
and so when I'm going to do isI'm going to see how far I can
fling myself to go to see if Ican go in a straight line to see
how many of these littlesections I can get through
before I bunks something. Oh, sohere we go. I'm grabbing on and
(20:02):
I'm going to pull myself throughcrura well Oh no, I got too high
too high too high. Oh, I bumpedmy head. And now I feel queasy.
Like it's really unnerving.
Christine Malec (20:16):
Okay, is it the sudden stop the visual looking
sudden stop?
JJ Hunt (20:21):
Yeah, totally. Okay, I'm in a. I'm in a room full of
patches. So it looks like allthe different missions like
everyone. Oh, yeah, has beenfrom different missions has Oh,
I just accidentally knocked abottle of ketchup off of a
table. And so now the ketchup isfloating. I'm going to throw the
ketchup out of the way. There wego. I've just tossed the
(20:43):
ketchup. And it's floating away.
In. Yeah, because it's it justfloats and it will keep
floating. According to the rulesthat have been established,
there's a big bundle in front ofme, I'm going to punch it. And
it's Yeah, so it's like a hugesquare pillow that I just
punched into the next room andit's going to just float there
(21:03):
until it until something stopsit. Okay, so now I've come to a
part of the station where theyhave the spacewalk suits are
available. And so I'm going togo in... Want to go on a
spacewalk?
Christine Malec (21:23):
Squeal! Oh my gosh!
JJ Hunt (21:24):
Proceed to go on a spacewalk. Yes. Hmm. Okay, so
right now I am floating besidekind of underneath part like I'm
floating underneath the hatch,the exit hatch of the space
station. So I do have littlethrusters. Oh, there's the
(21:47):
Canada Arm right there.
Christine Malec (21:49):
Yay!
JJ Hunt (21:49):
Okay, so I'm holding on to the side of the, the space
station, but I don't have to, Ican just push away. And I can
float under. So the sun is inthe sky above. Or there's a
there's a Japanese module there.
Okay, I'm getting a little faraway. And I'm gonna have to say
I use my thrusters, I'm going totry and get myself there. Okay,
(22:11):
I've just grabbed on to the endof the Canada Arm. Oh, and the
solar panels are to my left. Andto my right, the main station is
behind and above me. And if I ifI push off of the Canada Arm, I
think I can get all the way toone of the solar panels. Because
(22:36):
they just float I don't stopuntil I hit something. So if I
aim myself correctly, I'mgripping with one hand the arm.
And I'm going to pull it backtoward me and then let go. And
that will thrust me forward.
Yeah. Towards so now I'm justfloating through space. And to
(22:58):
me, this is the exciting momentbecause I have to grab on as I
pass. Otherwise, I'm going tojust keep going into space.
That's a fun little game toplay. So now I'm underneath one
of the solar panels. And I canpull back and peek up. So I'm
looking straight up the solarpanels to the stars beyond. And
(23:20):
I can turn around and see theentire space station. And then
the thing I haven't evenmentioned yet is of course, the
space station isn't justfloating in space. It's above
Earth. So as I look down,instead of seeing the floor, or
instead of seeing space beneathme, I'm, I'm seeing the surface
(23:44):
of the earth.
Christine Malec (23:46):
Gasp! Is it rotating, like what are you
seeing on the earth?
JJ Hunt (23:49):
It's very... it's probably rotating at something
that is akin to what I'm stillliterally by the way, I've got
my arm in the air as if I needto be hanging on. I'm gonna let
go now because my arm wasgetting sore. That's ridiculous.
But the earth is rotatingslowly, ever so slowly, and
(24:12):
you're above the clouds. So wecan see down over through the
clouds as a green is that Italy?
That might be Italy. There's arecognizable kind of strip of
land. That could be the boot ofItaly, but I don't know. I can't
I can't tell exactly where I am.
(24:34):
And you can see the edge of thecurvature of the earth. Oh,
okay, so now I've got myself tothe other side. This is
fascinating. So I'm floating infront of the space station here.
And the to the left is theJapanese module. And it's clean
and neat and and it looks new.
And to my right is the old asthe Russian it's Russian. It's
(24:57):
got Russian flag in Cyrillicwriting, and it's older and
looks, it looks dirtier andaged, it looks worn. And you can
that's clear. Okay, I'm justgoing to stop my grabbed on and
I can stop myself. So Chris, youhave any questions you want me
to do? Is there anything youwant me to do while I'm here or
turn to Or try to?
Christine Malec (25:22):
Like, oh, gosh, I have so many questions. When
you look at the Earth, is itexplicitly clear that you can
distinguish land from water?
JJ Hunt (25:32):
Yeah, yes, definitely.
So the land is, I mean,everything's like a got this
mist of cloud over it. So it'snot 100% bright, like it's not
bright blue and bright green orbright brown or anything like
that. It's a little bit dull.
Because you're looking throughcloud and mist, but the waters
(25:53):
are definitely a bluish color.
And the, in the landforms. Fromhere are our greens. I'm sure if
we were over different parts ofthe world, the landforms, the
land masses would be browns, buthere they are. Greens Clear,
clear delineation of land and
Christine Malec (26:12):
In our episode on the about the moon, which I
water, though.
think was 44. Um, we talkedabout Earth rise from the moon,
if you can remember thoseimages? Is is it reminiscent? Is
there anything similar? Is thislike orders of magnitude better?
(26:32):
How do those compare?
JJ Hunt (26:34):
There are some definite similarities here, and one is
that you're seeing the edge ofthe earth. So the This one's got
a slight curve to it really,from this point of view, it
looks like I'm floating over agiant dish. Because it looks
like the Earth is a flat discbeneath me from this point of
(26:57):
view. But if I'm looking just inone direction, then the, what I
would call the horizon, which isthe edge of the Earth is
slightly curved. And that slightcurve of the earth I remember
when in that describing from thethe earth rise from satellite
(27:21):
cameras, you could I think Imentioned you could see the
curvature of the moon whenlooking at the Earth beyond. And
that is an experience here thatI've got looking at the curve of
the of the of the edge of theearth. And beyond that is just
space is just stars in the sky.
Christine Malec (27:43):
Is there any way you can rotate your head or
your body so that you're notseeing the space station or
earth where you're just lookingout into space?
JJ Hunt (27:53):
Yeah, totally. So I've got thrusters, and I'm going to
thrust above the space station.
So that it's beneath me. Soyeah, now, the space station is
kind of behind and beneath me,and the sun is really, really,
really bright. And they've donea beautiful job. So as I move my
(28:16):
head there are like, SunShadows. Sorry, I just got a
note from Mission Control that Iwas too far from the space
station. So I have to back up alittle bit.
Christine Malec (28:31):
Naughty, naughty. Heh heh heh.
JJ Hunt (28:32):
I know. It's hilarious.
Yeah, so the sun is sobrilliantly rendered that there
are kind of the I don't knowwhat they're called. But they're
like optical echoes, littlerainbows that the like traces of
the bright sun as you move awayfrom it. So the sun is bright
(28:55):
and yellow. And I would never becomfortable looking at the
actual sun that's this brightfor this long, like that would
be too much. It would reallyhurt or even damage the eyes.
Christine Malec (29:10):
Can you turn away from the sun as well, so
that you're just looking into astar escape?
JJ Hunt (29:15):
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I'm doing so right now.
Christine Malec (29:18):
And how does that compare? Obviously, you've
seen images from satellites andspacecraft that show you that
view, how does this compare tothose images?
JJ Hunt (29:30):
So that's interesting.
So one of the things that makesthis a less convincing is that
there are so many stars if I'min a in a in a dark, you know,
remote place, and I've gotaccess to a beautiful starry
sky. I get this The sky islittered with stars. From here,
you're there's no lightpollution at all, you're above
(29:54):
the earth. And so the number ofstars it's extraordinary. It's
it's, it's, I would never everever get to see this. So it
doesn't look like my personalexperience from Earth. It's too.
It's just too much. It'sridiculous.
Christine Malec (30:13):
Yeah, yeah.
JJ Hunt (30:13):
But it does look kind of like use, like you said, like
photographs from space of, ofspace, it looks pretty real.
It's just not as crisp. It's not100% crisp. But again, that
might be just be about theimperfections in my eyes. Right?
Not the imperfections of thetechnology.
Christine Malec (30:36):
Right.
JJ Hunt (30:37):
Wow.
Owen (30:39):
That lighting is called back scatter.
JJ Hunt (30:41):
Back scatter. Cool. So it's like a little rainbow. If
you look at the sun, and thenturn away from the sun, there's
like this little trace thisrainbow trace, like an like an
echo, and it's called abackscatter I'd never heard of
that.
Owen (30:59):
It's refracting through, like circular or spherical
glass, it's curved glass. And sothat's why you see it in a lot
of photographs. And in thiscase, it's simulating that
because he's having an astronauthelmet around him.
Christine Malec (31:12):
Wow!
JJ Hunt (31:13):
So I'm looking at the sun. And when I turn away, I can
see these like rainbow lightechoes, because they are
replicating the designers havereplicated the experience of
looking through a rounded glassor, you know, temporary Yes, or
whatever it is. face shield on aon a spacesuit that's
(31:38):
incredible. Like, that's thekind of attention to detail that
makes these experiences even ifit's not as 100% crisp. Even if
the space station itself looks alittle bit digitized, like you
know, if I saw pure photographof this, like if I saw still
image of this space station, Iwould know that it wasn't real,
(31:58):
I could see that it wasdigitally rendered. But none of
that really matters. Because theattention to detail, even if
it's look slightly digital orslightly perfect, or the lines
are just too straight, whatever.
It's still, it's so close. Andthe experience is so accurate
that I believe that I buy it.
Christine Malec (32:21):
I'm curious about the fact that you are
supposed to be in zero G andwhatever I wonder about what
attempts are made to simulatethat.
JJ Hunt (32:31):
So I think the reason zero G is simulated by the speed
with which you move like itfeels like you're moving through
through syrup, like everythingis just a little bit slow. And,
and then comes in bursts. So ifyou push yourself off of
(32:51):
something, you get that momentof energy. And then you just
glide like I'm right on the endof the solar panel right now.
And I am going to grab on andliterally just fly up the solar
panel, right to the spacestation. And when I do that, the
(33:13):
smoothness of my Glide is itdoes, it does. This isn't the
way my body moves. When I walk,my point of view when I'm
walking is... there are steps.
Christine Malec (33:29):
Oh!
JJ Hunt (33:30):
But here it's just smooth. You're just floating.
It's absolutely smooth in thosemoments. But then when I push
there's a jerkiness. When I pushoff of something, before I get
into that super smooth movement,so I think that's the speed and
(33:51):
the and the smoothness ofeverything of movement of
floating. It does give the itdoes give the physical
impression of zero. Geez.
Christine Malec (34:04):
Is it reminiscent of the simulated
movement underwater?
JJ Hunt (34:09):
Yeah, quite a bit. But what's different there is that
there's a there is a there's apattern to that movement that's
different. So that there it is,there's a smoothness to it. But
then you kick and right you havethat first thrust of of energy
and movement, and then thatdissipates because the water has
resistance. Whereas here,there's no resistance. You just
(34:32):
keep floating. And you just keepgoing in whatever direction
until you hit an object untilyou bump into something. And
that's super. Whoa. Yeah, I justdid it to describe my way
through it and then when Ibumped I missed the thing I was
(34:52):
grabbing and I ended up bumpingmy head so to speak.
Christine Malec (34:56):
Yeah. I don't know if you feel up to this But
I wonder about going right fromthat reality that you're in now
the virtual and don't do any ofthe shutdown procedures or don't
go back into the space station?
How would you feel about takingoff the headset right now and
just slamming back into yourliving room? Is that something
you would do?
JJ Hunt (35:18):
Totally, I'll do that right now. So here's what I'm
gonna do. I'm gonna move myselfaway from the space station. And
then I'm going to with mythrusters, and then I'm going to
thrust myself toward the spacestation. And while I'm doing
that, I'll take my my VR headsetoff.
Christine Malec (35:35):
Oh, my God, you're brave. Okay.
JJ Hunt (35:39):
Okay, I'm going to thrust myself toward it, so that
I have some movement. And thenwhile I'm moving, I'm going to
let the controllers drop. AndI'm going to take my headset
off. Yeah, that's a littledisorienting.
Christine Malec (35:54):
Are you nauseous or just disoriented,
JJ Hunt (35:57):
Just disoriented, just disoriented. And it's in this
case, it feels like what wasreally hard was to go from the
vastness of that world, to mytiny living room. Eating Yeah, I
was interrogating the movement,giving me concern like that was
(36:20):
what was going to bother mysystem and I was going to feel
ill. But in fact, it was goingfrom the massive, like I was in
space to my living room.
Christine Malec (36:37):
We love making this podcast. If you love
hearing it, perhaps you'llconsider supporting its creation
and development by becoming apatron. We've set up a Patreon
page to help cover the costs ofputting the show together. You
can contribute as a listener oras a sponsor to help ensure that
accessible and entertainingjournalism continues to reach
our community. Visitpatreon.com/talk description to
(37:00):
me, that's pa t ar e on.com/talk description to me
have feedback or suggestions ofwhat you'd like to hear about
here's how to get in touch withus. Our email address is talk
description to me@gmail.com. OurFacebook page is called Talk
description to me. Our websiteis talk description to me.com
(37:22):
and you can follow us on Twitterat talk Description.
Talk description to me is Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.
Christine Malec (00:27):
Hi, I'm Christine Malec.
JJ Hunt (00:28):
And I'm JJ Hunt. This is talk description to me, where
the visuals of current eventsand the world around us get
hashed out in description richconversations.
Christine Malec (00:47):
In a previous episode, we talked about virtual
reality and the Oculus, we did alittle chatting than we did a
little demo. And there was somuch to cover. And we had so
much fun with it, that we'rereturning to the Oculus, and to
VR. So we're gonna chat a bitmore about some of the more
(01:09):
refined aspects of using thetechnology and what it's like.
And then we're going to go offinto a virtual world. So from
the inside, does the littlescreens inside they cover your
entire visual field? Is thatright?
JJ Hunt (01:24):
100%. Like, there's nothing there, you can't see
past it. If you keep turningyour head, the then your field
of view changes, and it justkeeps going. So you can't see
the edges Ever. Which is prettywild.
Christine Malec (01:41):
So if you had a really, really, really big
screen, I guess, would, sorry.
So if you're at a theater, likeone of those IMAX, would that
ever contain your entire visualfield?
JJ Hunt (01:53):
It could. But it's still different.
Christine Malec (01:58):
Like he has this is using by an ocular
vision, things to make it 3d,right. So it's not like looking
at a movie screen. It saysthough, you're looking off into
the distance --
JJ Hunt (02:08):
Exactly.
Christine Malec (02:09):
-- in a way that's just like reality. Is
that accurate?
JJ Hunt (02:11):
That's right, if you do a still shot of a giant screen
that has whatever environment onit, say it's an underwater coral
reef, or whatever. And it's on agiant IMAX screen, and you take
a screenshot of that. And youput that screen in front of you
so that you can't see anythingfrom side to side, and you keep
your head still, that might lookthe same as if you did a
(02:32):
screenshot of what's being seeninside VR. But it still doesn't
look the same. Because themoment that you move your head
even a little bit, the image,the depth perception, the fact
that nothing is going to move onthe screen, something that's
closer to you and somethingthat's further away, there's no
there's no separation of that.
Whereas it's this entireseparation of that if you move
(02:56):
your head across that space, inthe virtual reality, you are
seeing the things that arefarther away or moving
differently than the things thatare close by and you are you
can't see the edges, you cannever find the edges. And then
the fact that whatever your bodydoes on the outside your hands
or your head, it translatesexactly in the VR world. Your
(03:21):
brain very, very quickly getsused to that and treats it as
real. And so the immersion is,is total, it's, it's shockingly
accurate.
Christine Malec (03:40):
What do your hands do? So when you your hands
appear to you? Do they look likehands? Or do they look like
something else?
JJ Hunt (03:47):
Yeah, they look like hands generally, they usually
make an avatar of a hand and itmoves kind of like your hands
move. There are some slightdifferences. This one game that
that I've played, I expect youto die, which is this early
James Bond, like very midcentury Mad Men kind of design,
(04:07):
you are a James Bond kind oftrainee, and you are sent on
missions. And with that handgrip that I described, you do
different things, you have atrigger. So that's actually
shooting things. But then theway you grab is by, you know,
pressing, I think it was themiddle finger button. And so you
see your hand in the virtualreality world, you move it to an
(04:29):
object on a table. And in orderto pick it up, you press that
button on the inside, and thenyour, your visual hand grabs it,
and so very, very, very quickly,your mind read, it changes its
understanding of action andresponse. So you press that
button with your actual hand.
You make a certain gesture withyour actual hand and the hand
(04:53):
that you see, picks somethingup. And so that quickly becomes
how you pick something up. Somuch so that I played this game
for about half an hour, 45minutes. And then I took the
headset off I needed to, Ineeded a break, I took the
headset off, and I went to thebathroom. And I reached for the
doorknob and I stopped my hand,but four inches in front of the
doorknob, and I made the actionto press a button. And I so I
(05:16):
did genuinely. And I did thatfor about three or four seconds
before I realized, oh, wait, no,no, this is my actual hand. And
I need to actually grab thedoorknob. That's how quickly my
brain made that. Thatadjustment, what is real, what
my action action, what my mentalthought and physical action can
(05:37):
achieve. It was it's, it's, youare really in these spaces.
Christine Malec (05:45):
I'm feeling a bit queasy.
JJ Hunt (05:49):
Yah!
Christine Malec (05:49):
So let's talk about the elephant in the room.
Is this make you seasick to dothis?
JJ Hunt (05:54):
Yeah, it really does.
There are some games that aresome games or experiences that
very much give you motionsickness and others not so much.
So the the James Bond, one thatI was describing, you're always
seated, that's how they workaround this. So they always put
you in missions where you're ata desk or in a car or something.
So you don't actually physicallywalk around, you move your hands
(06:15):
and grab things. Then there areothers. There's another really
kind of cool game called superhot, which it's like an assassin
training simulator. So you'rebeing attacked by these angular
red mannequins. And they move inslow motion, kind of like, like
bullet speed and the matrix. Andyou have to fight them off using
whatever weapons are availablein the in the level that you're
(06:36):
on. But whenever you move, theattackers move out of bullet
time, and they move at fullspeed. So you have to do more
physical action. But your feetare always more or less planted
on the ground, you're notrunning or walking anywhere, and
your actions are human, they arelike the kinds of actions you
would normally do. So you don'ttend to get a motion sickness
(06:58):
feeling there. However, you goto something like one of the
first things a lot of peoplewant to do is I want to fly.
Because I get to do that in VR.
And you can. And that's when themotion sickness kicks in.
Because your brain doesn't getit. It just the it's just too
much. So the going on to theInternational Space Station,
(07:20):
which is one of my very favoriteearly things to do with this
machine. You are inside thespace station and you move as if
you are weightless, so you don'twalk, you pull yourself or push
yourself you have littlethrusters if you leave the space
station and go on a spacewalk,you fly around the space station
(07:41):
with using a little thrustersare charged to the right or left
and that will push you in onedirection or another. And it's
remarkably accurate, it feelsreal. And you've got to be very
careful because because of thosethrusters in the way you pull
yourself, if you maneuveryourself slide ways a little
(08:03):
bit, if you kind of jiggle yourpoint of view, you're no longer
going down these corridors ofthe space station in a way that
looks like there's like theceiling is above you and the
floors below you, you can tiltyourself a little bit so that
now you're on a slight angle.
And as soon as I get myself inone of those positions within
literally within seconds. Oh, Iget queasy and my stomach starts
(08:26):
rumbling and it's it's bad and Ikind of have to log off. Give it
a few minutes. Yeah, there'sanother game my kids have called
Ritchie's plank experience. AndI mean, half of the game is just
stepping out on two planks, likewalk the plank like on a pirate
ship, except the plank is at thetop of a skyscraper. And you
(08:47):
tiptoe out onto this plank. Andit's you have to overcome fear
to actually do this because theexperience that your brain is
understanding is real enoughthat you have to push past the
thing in your brain that saysdon't do that. That's stupid,
(09:08):
even though you're in yourliving room and stepping forward
it's that real? And so you knowyou you do step out to the end
of this plank and then you leanforward to like how far can I
see around the corner of thisbuilding and and it's the you
get agitated and then you canfly and the flying is where a
lot of people really get getquite motion sick.
Christine Malec (09:36):
I'm having, well I'm having several
disconnects. But one of them isthat your point of view is
yourself and I'm having troublebecause I'm used to thinking of
cinematography where your pointof view is outside of yourself.
You're seeing the main characterthe protagonist, ie you in this
(09:57):
case from the outside, but Whenyou're doing this, you're always
seeing it from your own eyes,like your own point of view. Is
that right?
JJ Hunt (10:05):
That's right. It's always first person view.
Christine Malec (10:09):
Yeah.
JJ Hunt (10:09):
Which is, it's interesting because, you know,
so here's where we're gonna geta little trippy. Right now, as
I'm sitting at my computer Ihave in my life, as does every
sighted person, they experiencedthe world as a first person. So
I see my hands in front of me infront of my screen, right now,
when I turn my head from side toside, my view changes. And it's
(10:34):
so instinctive, we don't noticethat. And in fact, it's very,
very, very difficult to paint,or to take a photograph
hundreds, like every sightedperson who's ever gone to a
beach has, you know, they laydown on a on a, on a, on a beach
chair or something like that.
And they take a picture of theirtoes, you know, on the edge of
the seat, because that's theirview, and it looks so perfect to
(10:56):
them. And the photos are alwaysterrible. They're never right.
It never captures the feeling.
I've done this so many times,where I'm like, I'm gonna draw
what I'm seeing right now. Andit never, ever, ever, it's such
a skill to make that look good.
It's a very, very particularkind of artistic skill to
recreate that feeling thatemotion of first person, but you
(11:19):
get in VR, and it's accurate.
It's so accurate, that firstperson view of the world, that
your brain immediately registersit as real because it genuinely
tricks it tricks your brain intothinking, No, you're in a
different space.
Christine Malec (11:38):
I'm curious to do a compare and contrast
between your kids favorites andyour favorites.
JJ Hunt (11:44):
Oh, that's a good question. So we all liked this
James Bond one. That's good,because they're good puzzles
that you work out in the designis so amazing. The actual the
opening credits for that gameare some it's some of the best
animation I've ever seen. It'slike living inside the madmen
opening credit sequencesanimated, the music is really
(12:07):
cool. The lyrics are a littlecheesy, but it's so the design
is so beautiful, the way yourhands move, that's great. This
this assassin trainingsimulator, that's a really cool
one that we all like, I'm not abig fan of the first person
shooters, I don't like them ingeneral, just on any video game
platform, they're not my bag.
And I particularly don't likethe idea of a first person
(12:30):
shooter when everything looksand feels real. I actually don't
want that experience. Like thereare some of these first a lot of
images because it's first personyou are attacking other beasts.
And there, there are horrorones, there's a game that we
none of us have played. That isit's like a ghost ship, like so.
You know, I think it's a postapocalyptic. There's a ship
(12:51):
that's floating around in thesea, and it's been taken over by
zombies or something and you'reon that ship. And I remember we
talked about it, I think it wasin the in the Northern Lights
episode where I talked abouthaving the headlamp, and it
scared me. So it's the samething where they put a virtual
headlamp on your character. Soyou are in VR, you can only see
(13:13):
the pool of light from yourheadlamp. So as you turn you
reveal, so you might be insidethe hull of a ship, and you hear
something to your right, butit's in the dark. And it's not
until you physically move yourhead, and your headlamp goes
over to it. And it exposes thatthere's some zombie that's
attacking you. And then you havelike an axe and you're supposed
(13:36):
to like chop down. And that'stoo much for me, I don't want
that. I don't want that idea inmy head of holding an axe and
chopping just feels wrong. Sonone of us have done those but
my kids have they're kind ofokay with that idea. They think
I'm weird and old, which I amlike, What do you mean, you
don't want to just shoot it'sdoesn't it's a computer thing?
(13:57):
It doesn't matter. Like thatdoesn't cause real violence.
Christine Malec (14:00):
Right. Right.
Right.
JJ Hunt (14:01):
That doesn't work. We were so Lois and I -- my wife
and I -- were far moreinterested in the exploring the
International Space Station andthe kids were they thought it
was cool. They were done withthat in 10 minutes. Whereas we
could keep going back to it overand over again. And then the
real separator and this is thisis where I admit to being a
(14:25):
total dork. I when I first putthe headset on, they hadn't my
kids hadn't loaded a game forme. I was just in the headset.
And so the first thing thathappened was I basically found
myself in what I would describeas inside a virtual geodesic
dome.
Christine Malec (14:45):
Hmm.
JJ Hunt (14:46):
And I loved it.
Oh! Ha ha!It was nothing. It was just
black. You can only see thefaint outlines of the pattern
around me. But it was it waslike being inside of the
holodeck, when, when a characteron Star Trek would go into the
holodeck before the programloads, it wasn't a it wasn't a
(15:07):
dome, it was a was a boxy shape.
But it felt like I was inside.
And I knew -- the anticipation,I'm going to load a virtual
program and it's just going topop up. And this is going to
change from being... it's likebeing inside a computer, and I
loved it. And my kids killedthemselves laughing. It's like,
(15:29):
"Dad, we haven't even turned iton. There's no game!"
Christine Malec (15:37):
Ha ha ha!
JJ Hunt (15:37):
And I'm just standing in the living room. My jaw
hanging open spinning incircles, like looking at nothing
looking at the inside of this...
Christine Malec (15:47):
Framework! Ha ha ha!
JJ Hunt (15:48):
It was so ridiculous looking at this, like nothing
space, this virtual placeholder.
Christine Malec (15:59):
So we have talked about a demo. Are you
ready to slip the goggles on?
And describe your way throughsome seasickness?
JJ Hunt (16:05):
Totally. So I'll get I'll get my kid involved so that
they can they can set me up andI'm going to switch mics because
I gotta have to be, I gotta bemoving around. So so I'll set
that up.
Christine Malec (16:15):
Get the barf bag ready!
JJ Hunt (16:16):
That's right! Ha ha!
Christine Malec (16:19):
You know where I want to go? The International
Space Station is what it's allabout for me.
JJ Hunt (16:24):
So the international space station it is. And I am
likely. I mean, I love thisspace station. It's very cool.
And that one I probably did myvery first time spent like, half
an hour there happily. Okay, sothe way this starts, is you're
in space and you float toward anabsolutely photorealistic you
(16:49):
float past the space station.
And you're not tethered toanything. It's just an
introductory This is like theopening. Wow. Yeah, it is like
it's the opening credits,basically. And the way they do
the opening credits is just thespace station, you float past it
before anything else happens.
(17:10):
And and it's pretty spectacular.
Christine Malec (17:15):
Does your nervous system want you to be
standing? Because this onedoesn't require your movements?
Right? Is it tempting to justwant to sit down or lie down?
Does your body wants to bestanding?
JJ Hunt (17:25):
This one actually very much does require your
movements?
Christine Malec (17:28):
Oh, it does?
Oh!
JJ Hunt (17:29):
Because in order to get through in order to move
through, you have to eitherengage your thrusters or you
grab on the handles on the walland hold yourself through. Yeah,
and so I just I don't want torotate. That's the one thing
that like is a killer for motionsickness is the rotating. All
(17:52):
right. So I'm starting outinside the space station, and it
is not 100% photo realistic. Sofor example, there's some coiled
cables, and they're notperfectly round, the coils are
not perfectly round. They're alittle bit Angular. But the
attention to detail inside thisspace station is extraordinary.
(18:17):
There are warning labels andstickers. And here's how to open
this hatch. And someone's putsome magnets on the wall that
you can interact with. And, andjust like there would be in the
real space station. There arehandles everywhere. And so the
way you move a boat, is bygrabbing onto the handles, and
then pulling more. I mentionedthat thrusting my hips before.
(18:39):
Yeah, you put your grab onto thehandles, and then you pull and
because it's it's the game, thisspace is mimicking zero gravity.
As soon as you push yourself inone direction, you just keep
going. You just float. Oh, gosh.
So you really are simulating,okay. That experience you're
(19:00):
simulating the floating 00gravity.
Christine Malec (19:10):
So could you push off like swing yourself in
one direction? Keep going andhit some kind of? Yeah, well
like because there's no inertia,like you'll just keep going.
We'll just, we'll just make youhit something.
JJ Hunt (19:21):
That's right. So right now I'm in along like the space
station is kind of a series oftunnels a series of tubes. And
right now I'm in one of thosetunnels there are several bays
so you kind of go through these,these open window ways these
open doorways from one space tothe other. And there are just to
make it fun. They've got thesefloating bundles all over the
(19:41):
place that you can pick up andpush around and there are
computers, laptops that areattached to posts on the wall
and so when I'm going to do isI'm going to see how far I can
fling myself to go to see if Ican go in a straight line to see
how many of these littlesections I can get through
before I bunks something. Oh, sohere we go. I'm grabbing on and
(20:02):
I'm going to pull myself throughcrura well Oh no, I got too high
too high too high. Oh, I bumpedmy head. And now I feel queasy.
Like it's really unnerving.
Christine Malec (20:16):
Okay, is it the sudden stop the visual looking
sudden stop?
JJ Hunt (20:21):
Yeah, totally. Okay, I'm in a. I'm in a room full of
patches. So it looks like allthe different missions like
everyone. Oh, yeah, has beenfrom different missions has Oh,
I just accidentally knocked abottle of ketchup off of a
table. And so now the ketchup isfloating. I'm going to throw the
ketchup out of the way. There wego. I've just tossed the
(20:43):
ketchup. And it's floating away.
In. Yeah, because it's it justfloats and it will keep
floating. According to the rulesthat have been established,
there's a big bundle in front ofme, I'm going to punch it. And
it's Yeah, so it's like a hugesquare pillow that I just
punched into the next room andit's going to just float there
(21:03):
until it until something stopsit. Okay, so now I've come to a
part of the station where theyhave the spacewalk suits are
available. And so I'm going togo in... Want to go on a
spacewalk?
Christine Malec (21:23):
Squeal! Oh my gosh!
JJ Hunt (21:24):
Proceed to go on a spacewalk. Yes. Hmm. Okay, so
right now I am floating besidekind of underneath part like I'm
floating underneath the hatch,the exit hatch of the space
station. So I do have littlethrusters. Oh, there's the
(21:47):
Canada Arm right there.
Christine Malec (21:49):
Yay!
JJ Hunt (21:49):
Okay, so I'm holding on to the side of the, the space
station, but I don't have to, Ican just push away. And I can
float under. So the sun is inthe sky above. Or there's a
there's a Japanese module there.
Okay, I'm getting a little faraway. And I'm gonna have to say
I use my thrusters, I'm going totry and get myself there. Okay,
(22:11):
I've just grabbed on to the endof the Canada Arm. Oh, and the
solar panels are to my left. Andto my right, the main station is
behind and above me. And if I ifI push off of the Canada Arm, I
think I can get all the way toone of the solar panels. Because
(22:36):
they just float I don't stopuntil I hit something. So if I
aim myself correctly, I'mgripping with one hand the arm.
And I'm going to pull it backtoward me and then let go. And
that will thrust me forward.
Yeah. Towards so now I'm justfloating through space. And to
(22:58):
me, this is the exciting momentbecause I have to grab on as I
pass. Otherwise, I'm going tojust keep going into space.
That's a fun little game toplay. So now I'm underneath one
of the solar panels. And I canpull back and peek up. So I'm
looking straight up the solarpanels to the stars beyond. And
(23:20):
I can turn around and see theentire space station. And then
the thing I haven't evenmentioned yet is of course, the
space station isn't justfloating in space. It's above
Earth. So as I look down,instead of seeing the floor, or
instead of seeing space beneathme, I'm, I'm seeing the surface
(23:44):
of the earth.
Christine Malec (23:46):
Gasp! Is it rotating, like what are you
seeing on the earth?
JJ Hunt (23:49):
It's very... it's probably rotating at something
that is akin to what I'm stillliterally by the way, I've got
my arm in the air as if I needto be hanging on. I'm gonna let
go now because my arm wasgetting sore. That's ridiculous.
But the earth is rotatingslowly, ever so slowly, and
(24:12):
you're above the clouds. So wecan see down over through the
clouds as a green is that Italy?
That might be Italy. There's arecognizable kind of strip of
land. That could be the boot ofItaly, but I don't know. I can't
I can't tell exactly where I am.
(24:34):
And you can see the edge of thecurvature of the earth. Oh,
okay, so now I've got myself tothe other side. This is
fascinating. So I'm floating infront of the space station here.
And the to the left is theJapanese module. And it's clean
and neat and and it looks new.
And to my right is the old asthe Russian it's Russian. It's
(24:57):
got Russian flag in Cyrillicwriting, and it's older and
looks, it looks dirtier andaged, it looks worn. And you can
that's clear. Okay, I'm justgoing to stop my grabbed on and
I can stop myself. So Chris, youhave any questions you want me
to do? Is there anything youwant me to do while I'm here or
turn to Or try to?
Christine Malec (25:22):
Like, oh, gosh, I have so many questions. When
you look at the Earth, is itexplicitly clear that you can
distinguish land from water?
JJ Hunt (25:32):
Yeah, yes, definitely.
So the land is, I mean,everything's like a got this
mist of cloud over it. So it'snot 100% bright, like it's not
bright blue and bright green orbright brown or anything like
that. It's a little bit dull.
Because you're looking throughcloud and mist, but the waters
(25:53):
are definitely a bluish color.
And the, in the landforms. Fromhere are our greens. I'm sure if
we were over different parts ofthe world, the landforms, the
land masses would be browns, buthere they are. Greens Clear,
clear delineation of land and
Christine Malec (26:12):
In our episode on the about the moon, which I
water, though.
think was 44. Um, we talkedabout Earth rise from the moon,
if you can remember thoseimages? Is is it reminiscent? Is
there anything similar? Is thislike orders of magnitude better?
(26:32):
How do those compare?
JJ Hunt (26:34):
There are some definite similarities here, and one is
that you're seeing the edge ofthe earth. So the This one's got
a slight curve to it really,from this point of view, it
looks like I'm floating over agiant dish. Because it looks
like the Earth is a flat discbeneath me from this point of
(26:57):
view. But if I'm looking just inone direction, then the, what I
would call the horizon, which isthe edge of the Earth is
slightly curved. And that slightcurve of the earth I remember
when in that describing from thethe earth rise from satellite
(27:21):
cameras, you could I think Imentioned you could see the
curvature of the moon whenlooking at the Earth beyond. And
that is an experience here thatI've got looking at the curve of
the of the of the edge of theearth. And beyond that is just
space is just stars in the sky.
Christine Malec (27:43):
Is there any way you can rotate your head or
your body so that you're notseeing the space station or
earth where you're just lookingout into space?
JJ Hunt (27:53):
Yeah, totally. So I've got thrusters, and I'm going to
thrust above the space station.
So that it's beneath me. Soyeah, now, the space station is
kind of behind and beneath me,and the sun is really, really,
really bright. And they've donea beautiful job. So as I move my
(28:16):
head there are like, SunShadows. Sorry, I just got a
note from Mission Control that Iwas too far from the space
station. So I have to back up alittle bit.
Christine Malec (28:31):
Naughty, naughty. Heh heh heh.
JJ Hunt (28:32):
I know. It's hilarious.
Yeah, so the sun is sobrilliantly rendered that there
are kind of the I don't knowwhat they're called. But they're
like optical echoes, littlerainbows that the like traces of
the bright sun as you move awayfrom it. So the sun is bright
(28:55):
and yellow. And I would never becomfortable looking at the
actual sun that's this brightfor this long, like that would
be too much. It would reallyhurt or even damage the eyes.
Christine Malec (29:10):
Can you turn away from the sun as well, so
that you're just looking into astar escape?
JJ Hunt (29:15):
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I'm doing so right now.
Christine Malec (29:18):
And how does that compare? Obviously, you've
seen images from satellites andspacecraft that show you that
view, how does this compare tothose images?
JJ Hunt (29:30):
So that's interesting.
So one of the things that makesthis a less convincing is that
there are so many stars if I'min a in a in a dark, you know,
remote place, and I've gotaccess to a beautiful starry
sky. I get this The sky islittered with stars. From here,
you're there's no lightpollution at all, you're above
(29:54):
the earth. And so the number ofstars it's extraordinary. It's
it's, it's, I would never everever get to see this. So it
doesn't look like my personalexperience from Earth. It's too.
It's just too much. It'sridiculous.
Christine Malec (30:13):
Yeah, yeah.
JJ Hunt (30:13):
But it does look kind of like use, like you said, like
photographs from space of, ofspace, it looks pretty real.
It's just not as crisp. It's not100% crisp. But again, that
might be just be about theimperfections in my eyes. Right?
Not the imperfections of thetechnology.
Christine Malec (30:36):
Right.
JJ Hunt (30:37):
Wow.
Owen (30:39):
That lighting is called back scatter.
JJ Hunt (30:41):
Back scatter. Cool. So it's like a little rainbow. If
you look at the sun, and thenturn away from the sun, there's
like this little trace thisrainbow trace, like an like an
echo, and it's called abackscatter I'd never heard of
that.
Owen (30:59):
It's refracting through, like circular or spherical
glass, it's curved glass. And sothat's why you see it in a lot
of photographs. And in thiscase, it's simulating that
because he's having an astronauthelmet around him.
Christine Malec (31:12):
Wow!
JJ Hunt (31:13):
So I'm looking at the sun. And when I turn away, I can
see these like rainbow lightechoes, because they are
replicating the designers havereplicated the experience of
looking through a rounded glassor, you know, temporary Yes, or
whatever it is. face shield on aon a spacesuit that's
(31:38):
incredible. Like, that's thekind of attention to detail that
makes these experiences even ifit's not as 100% crisp. Even if
the space station itself looks alittle bit digitized, like you
know, if I saw pure photographof this, like if I saw still
image of this space station, Iwould know that it wasn't real,
(31:58):
I could see that it wasdigitally rendered. But none of
that really matters. Because theattention to detail, even if
it's look slightly digital orslightly perfect, or the lines
are just too straight, whatever.
It's still, it's so close. Andthe experience is so accurate
that I believe that I buy it.
Christine Malec (32:21):
I'm curious about the fact that you are
supposed to be in zero G andwhatever I wonder about what
attempts are made to simulatethat.
JJ Hunt (32:31):
So I think the reason zero G is simulated by the speed
with which you move like itfeels like you're moving through
through syrup, like everythingis just a little bit slow. And,
and then comes in bursts. So ifyou push yourself off of
(32:51):
something, you get that momentof energy. And then you just
glide like I'm right on the endof the solar panel right now.
And I am going to grab on andliterally just fly up the solar
panel, right to the spacestation. And when I do that, the
(33:13):
smoothness of my Glide is itdoes, it does. This isn't the
way my body moves. When I walk,my point of view when I'm
walking is... there are steps.
Christine Malec (33:29):
Oh!
JJ Hunt (33:30):
But here it's just smooth. You're just floating.
It's absolutely smooth in thosemoments. But then when I push
there's a jerkiness. When I pushoff of something, before I get
into that super smooth movement,so I think that's the speed and
(33:51):
the and the smoothness ofeverything of movement of
floating. It does give the itdoes give the physical
impression of zero. Geez.
Christine Malec (34:04):
Is it reminiscent of the simulated
movement underwater?
JJ Hunt (34:09):
Yeah, quite a bit. But what's different there is that
there's a there is a there's apattern to that movement that's
different. So that there it is,there's a smoothness to it. But
then you kick and right you havethat first thrust of of energy
and movement, and then thatdissipates because the water has
resistance. Whereas here,there's no resistance. You just
(34:32):
keep floating. And you just keepgoing in whatever direction
until you hit an object untilyou bump into something. And
that's super. Whoa. Yeah, I justdid it to describe my way
through it and then when Ibumped I missed the thing I was
(34:52):
grabbing and I ended up bumpingmy head so to speak.
Christine Malec (34:56):
Yeah. I don't know if you feel up to this But
I wonder about going right fromthat reality that you're in now
the virtual and don't do any ofthe shutdown procedures or don't
go back into the space station?
How would you feel about takingoff the headset right now and
just slamming back into yourliving room? Is that something
you would do?
JJ Hunt (35:18):
Totally, I'll do that right now. So here's what I'm
gonna do. I'm gonna move myselfaway from the space station. And
then I'm going to with mythrusters, and then I'm going to
thrust myself toward the spacestation. And while I'm doing
that, I'll take my my VR headsetoff.
Christine Malec (35:35):
Oh, my God, you're brave. Okay.
JJ Hunt (35:39):
Okay, I'm going to thrust myself toward it, so that
I have some movement. And thenwhile I'm moving, I'm going to
let the controllers drop. AndI'm going to take my headset
off. Yeah, that's a littledisorienting.
Christine Malec (35:54):
Are you nauseous or just disoriented,
JJ Hunt (35:57):
Just disoriented, just disoriented. And it's in this
case, it feels like what wasreally hard was to go from the
vastness of that world, to mytiny living room. Eating Yeah, I
was interrogating the movement,giving me concern like that was
(36:20):
what was going to bother mysystem and I was going to feel
ill. But in fact, it was goingfrom the massive, like I was in
space to my living room.
Christine Malec (36:37):
We love making this podcast. If you love
hearing it, perhaps you'llconsider supporting its creation
and development by becoming apatron. We've set up a Patreon
page to help cover the costs ofputting the show together. You
can contribute as a listener oras a sponsor to help ensure that
accessible and entertainingjournalism continues to reach
our community. Visitpatreon.com/talk description to
(37:00):
me, that's pa t ar e on.com/talk description to me
have feedback or suggestions ofwhat you'd like to hear about
here's how to get in touch withus. Our email address is talk
description to me@gmail.com. OurFacebook page is called Talk
description to me. Our websiteis talk description to me.com
(37:22):
and you can follow us on Twitterat talk Description.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.