Monthly Archives: Jul 2005

Arvo Pärt

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 30°C once more.

Very busy day, the Y9 video project was very successful, they worked hard despite the heat. Windows Movie maker is more useful with the win sp2 service pack in place.

Cycle home was good today. Average 18.4 mph which is something above the 16mph average for both ways. Doubly curious because it’s thursday. Normally not my best day of the week.

 

Arvo Pärt concert tonight at Lichfield arts festival. Should be good, nice and cool in the cathederal too.

Prod.

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28°C;;no wind,no clouds worth speaking of…

 
Something remarkable happened today. I opened msn messenger and it logged in successfully without needing to click the "Log in" button. Blimey!
 
HOT, now 31°C
 
It’s so hot now that everything is done is slow-motion.
Below is an old picture from when I first got Poser 5. It has an excellent hair module. Trouble is it takes forever to render even on reasonably fast machines, it is particulalry greedy with RAM.
 
Now for something to read…EXISTENTIALISM

Dragonflies

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28°C; ; no coudcover, light NE winds. Sunblock factor 20.

60.0 miles

 
 
Too hot to ride much faster, so I went to the cafe with the free sunblock. Spent longer rubbing it in and it felt less slimey than previously. That sounds sleazy, but doing vigorous exercise on a very hot day can make the cream float on perspiration, it’s a real hazard if it runs down your forehead into your eyes.
 
Dragonflies are out! Mainly black and indogo coloured ones.
 
Birmingham had a false alarm last night. Some interesting stories came out though, apparently people were stealing cars to get home in, I assume public transport was not running then.
 
Excellent article in yesterday’s The Times with observations on behaviour as a result of last week’s bombings in london. It seems that many are gleefuly claiming some connections with events, " my brother’s mate was in the next train" kind of thing. Many pages have been written about the role of some notorious religions, conversely, Muslin victims get a lot of airtime- a kind of modern propaganda almost. The word "evil" comes up a few times which is very interesting. Good/evil is a philosophy much loved by the religious. You may know of my discomfort with the very concept, there is no good verses evil in the world, there never has been. there is instead only people. I will go into this more some other time.
 
Another article covers the history of suicide attacks. It describes the first at some point in the mid 1990s. This startled me, especially after recently reading a book on naval warfare in 1945 in the pacific. How odd, it’s inspired by a TV documentory so perhaps I should find out when it’s on.
I don’t have the paper here.
 
My camera probably needs a clean that smudge is still there, I bet it’s a hair.
 

What difference does it make?

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What difference will it make?
 
News is still unfurling, the picture patchy and thoughts are trying to collect into some whole.
Consider…
In 1940-43, the Luftwaffe dropped thousands of tons of explosives on London. That made no difference to the British "will to fight". If anything it made the civilians hate the assailants more than before. The RAF & USAAF dropped millions of tones of explosives on Germany and occupied countries up to ’45. Even in the last month of the war, there was no relaxation in determination amongst German peoples to stick it out.
  What do modern terrorist bombers think our reaction will be when they use a few dozen kilos of explosives?
 
Perhaps it’s like the second world war where I believe it’s fair to say that there was no winner- all sides lost.
 
Some may well have causes that we could sympathise in, some not, but in your quest to publicise your campaigns, you have made us hate you. There is no point in finding reasoning amongst the unreasonable, but all I want to do is rationalise it. After decades of atrocities from the IRA, and now from eastern perpetrators, I still remain thoroughly baffled.
 
thought and sympathies to all in london.
 
 
…sigh

Olympics

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20°C; impertinant wind; intermittent sun; interludes of rain

 

The olympics are coming! 

Since the blogs (well…spaces anyway) are full of reference to chavs– here’s a definition.

It’s getting very windy outside, I’ve always wanted to animate a tree in wind; maybe one day when I have some time.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oil, wind, linseed- about 45% done

 

Trying to revive that pavement picture, it’s getting going now that the warm/cold balance is changed. That previous picture used ridiculous colours, they were just like symbols for colours rather than the way we see things. I suspect that there are 2 sessions done since the past time I posted a picture of this little canvas. Maybe the paving slabs should be much warmer in colour nearby; fading to cold further off. The puddles need some reflections too.

 
 

Premier 6.5

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16°C, rain.

 
Why can’t we have some clues in software about the error messages that it generates? Why does Premier say "must include an audio track" when converting to windows wmv format. The damned project DOES include an audio track. This is nearly as annoying as the error messages in Microsoft Access.
 
 
 

Water

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16°C;Rain falling through low stratus

 
Lots of lovely rain today, it washes everything free of dust, deepens colours and glosses over. None of the chill or dull leaden malaise that gives rain a bad name. Ranks as a good day.
+++++++++++++++++++’:
 
Adobe Premier
How annoying is it when software generates an error message and has not a clue in the help files. The problem obviously lies in the addition of a sound track to a slide sequence
"audio upmixing not allowed"
What the hell does that mean?

74.4 miles

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17-22°C, + clouds light SW winds.

Breedon on the hill

Cycled to Breedon on the hill, vast views from there of Peak District in the North, Castle Donnington nearby etc..
the Graveyard was interesting, lots of stones from the 1830s, a few young women died in 1855 whilst still intheir teens. Most stones were slate, dated from teh 19th Century, and were in unweathered- almost new condition.
 
Cycling was good, 74 miles with none of the strength loss of last week. Could have done the century but for work tomorrow. Missed some bits with the sunblock- so am mildly burnt on arms. Oops!
 
The pavement painting is proving to be a problem, I keep getting it down to look at and thinking it through – while cycling as well. At work, I look at this blog just to puzzle over the picture- "what todo next?" echos around my head. Doing li’l sketches too to think on paper.
 
I’ve got a new idea for a picture, an unwrapping. Imagine skin unrolled, and painted in oils, a study of each vein, freckle, hair and suntan. Hard to see thisworking on any medium apart from paint. The challenge is to make sure it doesn’t look gruesome.

Trim the blue bush

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  Cloudy & warm 

 
Mr Domestic today. Trim the blue bush, fix work-out bits on the bike, cut weeds and other mundanity.
 
The plan for that painting is growing on me now, the puddles are really going to help, the reflections open another world. There could be anything inthere.
Maybe like the one in the picture below?
 
 More EditPoly fun!
It just needs a head to get that illusion of progress. this Nvidia pseudo-raytrace shader is flashy, though ultimately it hides all sorts of blemishes. The mesh is androgenous now, but it could easily be developed either male or female. Adding the head is a greater priority right now.
 
Only 1 week until Flying Legends at Duxford.