What August 2025 Means to Me

 In august 2025 I was drawn to a cosmic mystery that came with conspiracy theories. A very fast moving comet was discovered in deep space by the NASA Atlas telescope. They called it i3-Atlas; the name sounds like a new processor chip, but it's a comet. They think the object came from another solar system because it is travelling too fast to keep a place here. They don't know what star system it came from or what it is made of. They think it came from a star that is closer to the centre of the milky way galaxy than ours and it seems to be a comet. They think it went close to a large object like a planet and was flung out of its solar system by the sling shot effect; giant planets sometimes cause smaller objects like asteroids and comets to be flung away from the star system where they formed. 

Some people on the internet think that i3-atlas is actually a space ship from an alien civilisation heading for earth, and the government are trying to cover it up because they think it will cause a panic. I will go with NASA's verdict, a large comet was flung out of a star system and drifted in interstellar space and is now passing through our own solar system. It curved towards our solar system because of the sun's gravity but it is going too fast to stay put and will pass through our solar system and continue to head away from the centre of our galaxy for eternity. 

For me the big thing is getting to know the world of virtual reality. I purchased a meta quest vr headset shortly after my birthday in the middle of summer. It is a notch on the sci-Fi portion of my bucket list. 

Talking with machines, check.

Exploring virtual reality, check. 

Conversing in real time with artificial intelligence, check.

Wearing a flying coat, not yet. 

Flying cars, not yet.

 You get the idea. 

There are countless worlds out there to explore. countless stories and games to try. Playing golf in virtual reality or visiting a pinball arcade; there is something for every type of leisure out there in the meta cloud. The thing that is missing is something to let you walk with your legs. You can step around in a virtual reality boundary but you can't really walk naturally. You have to use your controller sticks to walk in virtual reality. Walking without moving or stepping can make you dizzy.  

Virtual Reality Club

I recently joined the virtual reality club. I asked everyone in my family to give me Argos gift cards for my birthday, then I waited a few weeks until my other work and customer perks had lined up and managed to get Meta Quest 3 of my own. It is set up as a fitness gadget for me. I get up at 6AM and  go to the back yard, get some fresh air and play virtual reality golf standing up for an hour and a half. The fresh morning breeze appears to be coming from the world I'm visiting. Then I'm set up for the day. I also noticed the golf plays very much like real golf, if my wrist shifts while I swing, the ball goes off course just like in real life.

The virtual reality app that left the biggest impression on me is the 'youtube' one. It is like having a floating 4k 350 inch Tv in your sitting room, you can resize it and reposition it  in your room and leave it floating anywhere you like. The meta quest 3 supports mixed reality so you can have a video feed of your sitting room mixed together with the software. You can also make the screen very big and remove the real world so you feel like you're in the cinema and if you sink with your 'youtube' account you can play google movies that you bought on there. Another thing you can do is use a desktop application while the youtube is running. There are many configurations that can change the way the screen appears. 

Playing golf is excellent in virtual reality, you can teleport to where the ball is with the press of a button and change your view of the course. You can also go to the course when you like, even at 3 in the morning. 

It's nice to finally use virtual reality without borrowing someone else's