Category Archives: No category

A category for uncategorised posts. Or something.

Poodles- skinny

Posted on by
Reply
9°C, showers, heavy some of them
Poodles clipped: this morning they looked as if wearing a joke gorilla suit, now they look like greyhounds. They seem uncomfortable with their angular bony limbs- especially when finding somewhere to sit. Now they are  hyperactive.
Dishwasher taken away: after ten weeks of complaints & 34 phone calls, they have finaly taken the faulty machine. I haven’t relaxed about it yet, with a criminal organisation like Currys Online, it may take some time befor egetting the money back that they promised would be in our account on the 29th of January.
Virus : is still lingering with some after-effects. Sleep is always attractive and eyes prickly. Done very little painting over the last week or two.

Poser 6

Posted on by
Reply
5.4°C

Poser 6: experimenting with the new version today. It boasts OpenGL viewport, and various tweeks to make it easier to use. Firstly the bad news:
  • It still crashes- even with service pack 2
  • No improvements to the timeline, or keyframe editing
  • No feedback on rendering, the progress box locks up, and no time estimate.
  • Rendering is still v–e–r–y s..l..o..w
  • There are fewer body morphs for ther new figures ( though those present are easier to use)

But, on the other hand:

  • The interface is slightly better
  • hair simulations are quicker
  • the new figures are really rather good, and not too much of a resource hog.

remarkable

Posted on by
Reply
2°C, grey
Funny way to start a day: I forgot to set the alarm for this morning so didn’t wake up until 40 mins late. the rush wasn’t especially mad, and got to work ontime. Maybe I’m wasting much time in the mornings. It actually meant I wasn’t tired & achey liek Mondays normally find me.
Flash: to follow on from yesterday’s post, it is indeed possible to use templates in Flash, now I have one with my pre-loader and scene navigation buttons ready. Can you tell I’m getting to like this program, what a turn-around.

BBC are making natural history footage available online. You can download it to use in projects as long as you give them credit. The films are of remarkable quality- see here
Bush: more George W Bush tomfoolery. READ. they really should make a West-end musical on this guy.

thanks BBC for the picture.

CSA II

Posted on by
5
2.4°C & falling
The Child support Agency is due for a complete redesign. Here in the UK organisations normally get a new name when this happens, but if this is the USA would it just be called CSA 2?
 
Flash:During a free period today, I tried an animation with Flash 7. Here is the result:
the impressive thing is not so much the animation, but the tiny file size, this is only 4 kilobytes! If only I could figure out how to insert the swiff file here. At least the idea of the way Flash handles symbols and the libraries has sunk in. I’d really like to be able to get the flapper symbol to follow the curser around now.
Hmm…actionscript.
 
I’m trying some of these, it’s bothersome though, the first one hasn’t worked.

Umm, the second one did though. Try here

Bedging

Posted on by
Reply
4.0°C, same.
Bedging: Bessie is bedging. To bedge you must lean against the edge of a sofa, or bed and lean into it with all your weight. Then slide along while growling in an unagressive way. Let me know how it goes when you try it. It appears to be very satisfying. Or at least it does if you are a dog. But if you were, you’d probably not be reading this.

mo-bile

Posted on by
3
2°C

Is there something in a mobile phone contract that says it’s ok to be rude to people around you? Does it say
 "When you are  in the middle of a conversation, should your new XXXX_1234 ring, then end your conversation in mid-sentence to find start one with the person who has dialled up your XXXX-1234 for a more important dialogue. If you upgrade to the XXXX-1234plus model you don’t even have to say " do you mind if I answer the phone".
With our 3G technology it’s possible to continue the new conversation loudly for 20 mins without and conscience, and to ignore those around you."
 
It must be time to design a new set of buttons for my website- especially now that I have Fireworks v8.
 

Bleary-Eyes

The cold has got to them today. Five hours out in rather cold salty dry air has left them rather tired & prickly feeling. 60 miles felt good today, the ice was easy to avoid. Riding east meant riding on the north side of the road, that aide was sunny and so no ice. Shame the wind dropped for the ride home.

Corporate incompetance

Posted on by
Reply
4.9°C+

We have a growing list of complaints about retail corporations.
  • Curries online: One month on and 18 phone-calls in an attempt to return a faulty dishwasher. they give us other numbers to ring, usually to services or companies that no longer exist.
  • Sky TV: charging for premium football matches that we haven’t ordered or watched. Everyone here hates football. We are closing the account because of this.
  • British Gas: they want us to increase the monthly payment even though we already have overpayed them by £80. They agreed that the £80 is the correct figure, but say we still aren’t paying enough.
  • Inland Revenue: they want me to repay £1000 in tax underpayment based on caculations THEY made; it’s their mistake I tell you. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had the same problem with them. It’s their mistake- why should I suffer?

Daylight

Posted on by
Reply
1.9°C, same as yesterday.
We got some. We want more, it’s changing by 4 minutes more each day now.
 
Turpentine: trying a new brush given to me for "evaluation". It’s another Daler-Rowney, but intended for acrylics. The bristles are just right, fine hairs but generaly stiffer. The handle is all wrong though- it’s too thin and light. My hand ached after an hour’s painting.
The picture below is a tentative more towards deep water. I really am not sure about this at all.