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Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

thesoloist-vr.com

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Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#81
post #51
post #45

A colleague recommended "Free Solo" to me a few years back. There was this part where the doctors claim (paraphrasing) his brain is unique in that he is much less afraid of danger than us. The part towards the end, where he does the actual climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, is also worth watching.

There is a 4+ minute Youtube clip that includes the central climbing scenes from "Free Solo" [0]. Amazing guy. The National Geographic documentary had Hollywood-esque layers that slightly annoyed me (ominous music etc), though. A documentary by Werner Herzog about Alex Honnold would be fascinating; something in the vein of his 1974 "The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner" [1,2]. I would have loved to see more of the…

Herzog doc about honnold would be dope. Honnold actually reminds me of Grizzly Man in alot of ways- in that you root for him but don't totally understand him. Interesting to think about whether Grizzly Man was more or less naive than Honnold- I think that's what makes them different. Honnold knows the risk he's taking, Grizzly Man didn't.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#83
post #45

A colleague recommended "Free Solo" to me a few years back. There was this part where the doctors claim (paraphrasing) his brain is unique in that he is much less afraid of danger than us. The part towards the end, where he does the actual climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, is also worth watching.

Try watching "The Alpinist". Just as good, just as insane.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#84
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like something that makes you _weirder_ I recommend this: https://www.netflix.com/title/81500204 This film opens with a testimonial from Alex Honnold for Marc-André Leclerc - whom the film is about.

What is the title of the film? Your netflix link 404's in my country.

Yes, "The Alpinist" — on Netflix in the U.S.: https://www.netflix.com/watch/81500204?trackId=13752289&tctx...

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#85
post #39

> available exclusively on Meta Quest VR headsets I'm afraid this is going to be our future. There's web standards and VR browsers that allows us to enter any VR experience using your preferred device, but like Podcasts, there's a lot of effort to create silos that companies can act as a monopolist in.

Sad but true. Still, there have been hacks to get Oculus SW to work on Vive and even Windows Mixed Reality hardware. I hope that is the case with this title as well.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#87
post #45

A colleague recommended "Free Solo" to me a few years back. There was this part where the doctors claim (paraphrasing) his brain is unique in that he is much less afraid of danger than us. The part towards the end, where he does the actual climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, is also worth watching.

> There was this part where the doctors claim (paraphrasing) his brain is unique in that he is much less afraid of danger than us. I'm very skeptical of that claim. It seems just as reasonable that he has a perfectly normal brain that is exactly as afraid of things as the rest of ours, but he's spent a lot of time doing terrifying things and has learned to suppress how his body reacts to it.

>I'm very skeptical of that claim.

you can find his brain scans and see that his visual to amygdala connecting path is activated significantly less than for normal people (which in other words is "much less afraid of danger"). It is a question though whether it is a result of training or an original anatomy.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#88

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

It's unfortunate that most people are first exposed to rock climbing by watching videos of free soloing. It really distorts your perception of the sport. It's no surprise, of course. Free soloing is pretty much the most riveting thing you could watch on a screen, whereas every other form of climbing is frankly quite boring to watch if you don't know the sport intimately. Mostly, it's people pushing their own personal…

That's a really cool video.

What was your success rate after the first time you completed it? Was it one of those things that after you've done it you can pretty much do it every time?

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#89
post #45

A colleague recommended "Free Solo" to me a few years back. There was this part where the doctors claim (paraphrasing) his brain is unique in that he is much less afraid of danger than us. The part towards the end, where he does the actual climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, is also worth watching.

Try watching "The Alpinist". Just as good, just as insane.

15 minutes in I was thinking "this guy can't still be alive"

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#90

Stupid question, but is that really full VR in the sense that you can move your head around in a limited volume and see everything with real depth perception? Or is it a 360 degree video projected to a sphere and you virtually sit in the center? Is the former even possible to produce somehow?

> Is the former even possible to produce somehow? Google has done some research into it though it's not very practical https://augmentedperception.github.io/deepviewvideo/

Their lightfield demo app has been one of the most mind blowing VR things I have ever seen. Truly excited for the world where streaming video content in that way will be possible (and I'm truly hopeful it isn't too far away!)
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