Update 2!

 Welcome back! 

Update #2:

Beluga Bits - 
The project has reached 94% complete for the year with just over 2000 of the 43,715 subjects left to identify. 

With my session this time, I tried to identify belugas themselves and not the jellies also captured by the project. The process was much the same, except there was more rounds of questions to identify specific body parts on the whales. I identified over 50 images in one session and found the process a little easier than for the jellies. There is little ambiguity when there is a beluga or not and I think I am better at IDing parts of belugas than choosing between different jelly or jellyfish.

Orcasound - 
I am still am enjoying having this in the background. My problem is that I almost find it too soothing and worry I will not notice a cool clip to flag! So far, I have been sticking to the North San Juan Channel feed and hoping to catch the pod of orcas mentioned by the description there, but I haven't heard them yet. I do think I heard a few animal sounds this time, but no orcas yet.


    Time Logged

    October 17 - 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

    October 19 - 12 am to 3:00 pm

    October 25 - 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm

FathomVerse - 
My train ride games continue! I finished training on jellies, pyrosomes, salps, octopus, squid, sea cucumbers, and shrimp. There are still more to train on, but I was finally able to try the expedition mode and ID the creatures I have trained on with pictures the community has not identified reliably yet. The process for the new pictures was basically the same, except there were several that had no animals or were unclear.

The game itself is simple but pretty fun. I poked around in the settings this week and discovered you can change the music from lofi tunes, to scientific outpost recordings similar to Orcasound. I didn't change the music because I have been loving the calming ambient music from the game in the background as I listen to an audiobook and ID animals on the train.

As I play I think there will be videos, images, and other neat things I can unlock after playing enough. I find the systems the designers use to make it feel like a game and less like a citizen science project interesting. If the game was more involved I think it would get in the way of the IDing, but as it is they struck a nice balance.