Myself and Lucien.
Myself and Tehanu.
DERP: I had that titled as SLCC 2010?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Steam Con 2010
Maybe a pipe wrench next year.
Myself and Lucien.
Myself and Tehanu.
DERP: I had that titled as SLCC 2010?
Myself and Lucien.Myself and Tehanu.DERP: I had that titled as SLCC 2010?
Friday, November 5, 2010
On Masks
Since I obviously have a fascination:
http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/11/05/wearing-a-mask-being-more-confident/
http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/11/05/wearing-a-mask-being-more-confident/
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Random Travel
- When ordering a steak in Texas, you say medium, you get beef sushi.
- Wuss level sudoku only available in the Dallas Fort Worth Airport book store. All levels of crossword available.
- That was not Ghost Rider on the in-flight movie. It was The Ghost Writer. No wonder I didn't see the guy's head burst into flames.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Random Boston
- You know a hotel is swank when you can actually remove the hangars from the clothing rack.
- Fire alarms and tenth floor != fun.
- South Bay is painfully suburban but sports a Target for those essentials you just forgot to bring. O_O
- Otenth knows all the good restaurants in town.
- Legal Seafood is merely 'good'. Want yah chowdah, theyah ya go. But ask Otenth first. West coaster bias for really strong Pacific salmon applies. YMMV.
- Maggiano's is 'quite pleasing'.
- Duck Tours are fun.
- Massachusetts has a weird lack of laws on some things. No seat belt law. Requirement to buy and operate a yacht: A chequebook.
- Lotsa great history.
- Lotsa lovely old and new architecture.
- The city feels 'smallish' despite its population. Maybe it's just the neighbourly feel to it.
Friday, August 13, 2010
I Like Boston
Nerd friendly the way San Fran is freak friendly. :) I'll add this to the list of places I could live.
Architecture is near orgasmic. I believe I'll be spending more time exploring the city than in SLCC events.
That, and the non-rhotic accent is fascinating to listen to.
Architecture is near orgasmic. I believe I'll be spending more time exploring the city than in SLCC events.
That, and the non-rhotic accent is fascinating to listen to.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
More Civilised Travel by Rail in the Americas
A reply to: http://redroseofcaledon.blogspot.com/2010/07/regarding-civilised-rail-travel-in.html
Dearest Eva,
Civilised my left foot. A three hour trip includes not a glass of wine nor a proper dining menu? Alas, what one must do when roughing it in the colonies. Otherwise, scheduling travel seems little trouble, although I'm a bit unclear as to which station is which. Amtrak offers four stations under the name Boston and two in New York. After some guesswork I tested Boston South Station and New York Penn. I would deeply appreciate some guidance there so as not to step into a neighbourhood resembling a shantytown or war zone.
Presuming I found the correct terminals we'd depart desperately early to arrive before noon, and leave around seven in the evening, or earlier, depending on your schedule. As to the date, I examined the 17th, as we depart for home by aero-ship on the 18th. The 16th is also very possible, as the convention will be largely wound up by then, and it is indeed the Monday, if that is of any assistance to you at all.
I do indeed look forward to seeing the missing sister from Paris, as I am told, in true American fashion, she is the largest of the set. After all, when one does visit the colonial York, the first question one hears upon return is 'did you see the Statue?' Really, for all the city's purported majesty, it is known for so few things, a dusty statue, robbery, and a mixture of cheese, tomato paste and meats baked on a round bread.
So then, 16th or 17th, which works best for you, and what time you wish to arrive and depart our mid-point between and I will do my best to avail myself to your hospitality in timely fashion.
Best regards,
PS: Tell you whut, I'll post first, wait for your post, then edit my post, link to yours, then post again and backlink to the prior. Perhaps we shall forge a new fashion statement. :)
Dearest Eva,
Civilised my left foot. A three hour trip includes not a glass of wine nor a proper dining menu? Alas, what one must do when roughing it in the colonies. Otherwise, scheduling travel seems little trouble, although I'm a bit unclear as to which station is which. Amtrak offers four stations under the name Boston and two in New York. After some guesswork I tested Boston South Station and New York Penn. I would deeply appreciate some guidance there so as not to step into a neighbourhood resembling a shantytown or war zone.
Presuming I found the correct terminals we'd depart desperately early to arrive before noon, and leave around seven in the evening, or earlier, depending on your schedule. As to the date, I examined the 17th, as we depart for home by aero-ship on the 18th. The 16th is also very possible, as the convention will be largely wound up by then, and it is indeed the Monday, if that is of any assistance to you at all.
I do indeed look forward to seeing the missing sister from Paris, as I am told, in true American fashion, she is the largest of the set. After all, when one does visit the colonial York, the first question one hears upon return is 'did you see the Statue?' Really, for all the city's purported majesty, it is known for so few things, a dusty statue, robbery, and a mixture of cheese, tomato paste and meats baked on a round bread.
So then, 16th or 17th, which works best for you, and what time you wish to arrive and depart our mid-point between and I will do my best to avail myself to your hospitality in timely fashion.
Best regards,
~Kamilah
PS: Tell you whut, I'll post first, wait for your post, then edit my post, link to yours, then post again and backlink to the prior. Perhaps we shall forge a new fashion statement. :)
Civilised Rail Travel in the Americas
Oxymoron? I hope not.
Dearest Grace, Eva,
As to booking, I'll first inquire with the aetheric visual wicket to see about firm arrangements for a day trip. I do hope there is a division between the monied and the proletariat.
That said, rail from Boston will likely land us at a terminal, once we make it past the mobs wielding assault rifles as though they were Jihadis in Tehran, what next?
Would you come by motor carriage? By rail as well? Would you arrive at a different terminal? Is the subway in New York truly the land ventured only by hoodlums, daredevils and vigilantes?
But of most importance, where shall we lunch? Some place with an 'essential New York' experience, if possible, a sight of that French monument in the harbour, perhaps? Times Square from all views I've seen before appears to be a Piccadilly redeux, and after Shanghai, the urban-ness of New York strikes me as quaint and small town, sadly. Therefore, the harbour statue is a must, unless you've a brilliant secret little known outside your region. Restaurant atop the Chrysler or Empire State buildings? Art deco museum? Tea house along Central Park?
And in the event of the inevitable muggers, will you be 'packing heat' as you say down there in the deep south? And in such cases, we have excellent concoctions of bear spray here in the wilds, but pray tell, is such personal defense within the bounds of decency? We wouldn't wish to appear too provincial if it should come to it that an assailant need be spritzed in the visage and thusly trounced with logger boot and hockey stick.
Your friend,
Kamilah
PS do let me know if you just sprayed your coffee though your nose and if I'm welcome to blog this.
Dearest Grace, Eva,
As to booking, I'll first inquire with the aetheric visual wicket to see about firm arrangements for a day trip. I do hope there is a division between the monied and the proletariat.
That said, rail from Boston will likely land us at a terminal, once we make it past the mobs wielding assault rifles as though they were Jihadis in Tehran, what next?
Would you come by motor carriage? By rail as well? Would you arrive at a different terminal? Is the subway in New York truly the land ventured only by hoodlums, daredevils and vigilantes?
But of most importance, where shall we lunch? Some place with an 'essential New York' experience, if possible, a sight of that French monument in the harbour, perhaps? Times Square from all views I've seen before appears to be a Piccadilly redeux, and after Shanghai, the urban-ness of New York strikes me as quaint and small town, sadly. Therefore, the harbour statue is a must, unless you've a brilliant secret little known outside your region. Restaurant atop the Chrysler or Empire State buildings? Art deco museum? Tea house along Central Park?
And in the event of the inevitable muggers, will you be 'packing heat' as you say down there in the deep south? And in such cases, we have excellent concoctions of bear spray here in the wilds, but pray tell, is such personal defense within the bounds of decency? We wouldn't wish to appear too provincial if it should come to it that an assailant need be spritzed in the visage and thusly trounced with logger boot and hockey stick.
Your friend,
Kamilah
PS do let me know if you just sprayed your coffee though your nose and if I'm welcome to blog this.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Brief comments on Maya and Blender
Maya:
Subdivides edges more intelligently. When you're working in squares, it gives you squares.
The vertex selection tools are weaker, lack of occlusion ability ends up selecting right through the object, more orbits needed to check yourself. (Learned there is such a thing as back face occlusion, never learned where it is.)
Nifty sculpt options, but still prefer a lattice.
Nice extruding along a curve. The extrusion can be manipulated neatly after it's extruded.
Animation graph editing is the_bomb.
Blender:
Prefer the phonetic hot keys to Maya's keyboard placement hotkeys.
Prefer the extrusion in Blender, more hotkey, less pretty graphics.
Less overall crap in your way. Less camera battles selecting things.
Could have to do with 30" monitor at home running 2500 lines vs school 24 at 1900. But them Deluxe Handles in Maya were pretty big.
Googling help generally resulted in more and better examples. Blender nerds tend to prefix every explanation by declaring how easy X is, which I'm less convinced has to do with ease and more to do with presenting their massive E-nis for praise and adulation. But that's how the open source community works, where there isn't a financial incentive there's a posturing incentive. Net result, lots of help in varying shades of pedantic.
Both:
So full of options, good luck finding anything. Taking this class showed me lots of things I didn't know even existed and technique I hadn't thought of. Not bad for a weekend class.
Other observation on financial vs social incentives:
A large firm will want pro-paid for dev tools same reason it will want certified staff. Efficiency in standardisation and contracts signed in eloquent legalese for more effective lawsuits should it come to that.
Yes, a significant part of that 4 grand price tag is the cost of lawsuits. (And later learned Mental Ray rendering, which is irrelevant to Blue Mars.)
Smalltime operators may be less worried about suing and more about just getting the job done efficiently and cheaply. Blender will do just fine for a lone gun contractor or developer with no intention of hopping into standardised employment or expanding operations into the realm of Large. For the lone gun, things like Maya or Illustrator or Max or Photoshop are merely marketing points and might as well be classified as an advertising expense for all the difference I can see between the capabilities between them and open source alternatives.
I will probably be buying Flash Pro, though, so brace yourself, as soon as I jump on a wagon it means there's a strong chance it's headed off a cliff over shark infested seas, on waterskis.
Subdivides edges more intelligently. When you're working in squares, it gives you squares.
The vertex selection tools are weaker, lack of occlusion ability ends up selecting right through the object, more orbits needed to check yourself. (Learned there is such a thing as back face occlusion, never learned where it is.)
Nifty sculpt options, but still prefer a lattice.
Nice extruding along a curve. The extrusion can be manipulated neatly after it's extruded.
Animation graph editing is the_bomb.
Blender:
Prefer the phonetic hot keys to Maya's keyboard placement hotkeys.
Prefer the extrusion in Blender, more hotkey, less pretty graphics.
Less overall crap in your way. Less camera battles selecting things.
Could have to do with 30" monitor at home running 2500 lines vs school 24 at 1900. But them Deluxe Handles in Maya were pretty big.
Googling help generally resulted in more and better examples. Blender nerds tend to prefix every explanation by declaring how easy X is, which I'm less convinced has to do with ease and more to do with presenting their massive E-nis for praise and adulation. But that's how the open source community works, where there isn't a financial incentive there's a posturing incentive. Net result, lots of help in varying shades of pedantic.
Both:
So full of options, good luck finding anything. Taking this class showed me lots of things I didn't know even existed and technique I hadn't thought of. Not bad for a weekend class.
Other observation on financial vs social incentives:
A large firm will want pro-paid for dev tools same reason it will want certified staff. Efficiency in standardisation and contracts signed in eloquent legalese for more effective lawsuits should it come to that.
Yes, a significant part of that 4 grand price tag is the cost of lawsuits. (And later learned Mental Ray rendering, which is irrelevant to Blue Mars.)
Smalltime operators may be less worried about suing and more about just getting the job done efficiently and cheaply. Blender will do just fine for a lone gun contractor or developer with no intention of hopping into standardised employment or expanding operations into the realm of Large. For the lone gun, things like Maya or Illustrator or Max or Photoshop are merely marketing points and might as well be classified as an advertising expense for all the difference I can see between the capabilities between them and open source alternatives.
I will probably be buying Flash Pro, though, so brace yourself, as soon as I jump on a wagon it means there's a strong chance it's headed off a cliff over shark infested seas, on waterskis.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Love Them or Hate Them
These guys just might be the future of the music biz.
Not only download it, but a contest involving uploading it to Facebook? Can you say magic formulas for viral? These guys are the Kings of Viral.
Not only download it, but a contest involving uploading it to Facebook? Can you say magic formulas for viral? These guys are the Kings of Viral.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Life On Mars
So, yes, I've been fussing with Blue Mars for over a year now, a slow start having rarefied skills to begin with. Still, I'm on the vanguard for this sort of thing when compared to Joe Average Computer User.So there's a dress and hair by... me. :) Added bonus, one of my little party dress and boots combos in the back there in blue.
A brief chronology in pictures:
May 15, 2009:
Exploring beach City, and the hills surrounding.
Big Crater.May 16, 2009:
Finally made the summit of the highest peak in Beach City.
And, going the other way...
That other peak I was talking about? Way over there. And can still see Beach City way over here, if not the trees and rocks I had to climb over to get this far. You can also see the Big Crater.
Other side of Beach City.
And you can still see Beach City.I need to make more stuffs here. I still feel weird seeing people using stuffs I made.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Ikea is my Friend
My new studio space.
This is a standing office.
When I was in the office trenches I rearranged my workspace into a hybrid standing/sitting arrangement. PC work was done standing and other was done spun around in the cubicle sitting. I was constantly standing up sitting down standing up. I came home to a $2,000 Ekornes Stressless chair. That thing turns your body into a marshmallow and when we sat in them in the show room both of us nearly fell asleep on the spot in minutes. Pity the keyboard arm was nearly useless.
Fast forward to present. Two years of home studio in that chair exercising no muscles in perfect ergonomics. Gained 10 pounds, and have noticed considerable weakening of those miscellaneous torso muscles. Plus with the keyboard in the lap, my typing was miserable. :) As I type this I noticed I wasn't even looking at the keyboard as I put in my password. Yay!
So what we have here now is an Ikea 74cm stool, wood so it's comfortable but not too comfortable, and a 103cm high table surface, about belt high for me when standing. The art photo, also from Ikea, is lined up with my standing eye level on the horizon to give the illusion of a window. Room paint job preexisted my arrival, and may be painted in the future, although the neutral gray helps other colours pop off the screen or other work surfaces.
This is a standing office.
When I was in the office trenches I rearranged my workspace into a hybrid standing/sitting arrangement. PC work was done standing and other was done spun around in the cubicle sitting. I was constantly standing up sitting down standing up. I came home to a $2,000 Ekornes Stressless chair. That thing turns your body into a marshmallow and when we sat in them in the show room both of us nearly fell asleep on the spot in minutes. Pity the keyboard arm was nearly useless.
Fast forward to present. Two years of home studio in that chair exercising no muscles in perfect ergonomics. Gained 10 pounds, and have noticed considerable weakening of those miscellaneous torso muscles. Plus with the keyboard in the lap, my typing was miserable. :) As I type this I noticed I wasn't even looking at the keyboard as I put in my password. Yay!
So what we have here now is an Ikea 74cm stool, wood so it's comfortable but not too comfortable, and a 103cm high table surface, about belt high for me when standing. The art photo, also from Ikea, is lined up with my standing eye level on the horizon to give the illusion of a window. Room paint job preexisted my arrival, and may be painted in the future, although the neutral gray helps other colours pop off the screen or other work surfaces.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
North
Some of my 120 new best friends.
Orcas do the dolphin too.
Looks painted, don't it?
The mountain view available from the ship.
The mountain view from a $295 a night before taxes room at the Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage, from the exclusive concierge level.
Did you know that in Skagway, they keep an unofficial ship's registry painted on the rocks next to the docks?
And in the same place, something we all already knew.
Orcas do the dolphin too.
Looks painted, don't it?
The mountain view available from the ship.
The mountain view from a $295 a night before taxes room at the Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage, from the exclusive concierge level.
Did you know that in Skagway, they keep an unofficial ship's registry painted on the rocks next to the docks?
And in the same place, something we all already knew.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Exploit A Friend on a Product Box? Me?
Definitely inspired by the White Queen in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.
Model: Her Grace the Duchess Loch Avie, Eva Bellambi
Wardrober: Nicky Ree
Jeweller: Alienbear Gupte
I went to a whole new level animating stands with this, it's over the top, princessy, comes with a voice/typing animation override and a very funky flight AO I've not before grafted as part of an actual full featured AO. Let us just say it will take your aerobatics to new heights.
*rimshot*
And you too can look like an ingenue, or a drag queen, for L$1,000.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Talking to Grandma
Even before Grandma's health started declining, trying to explain technologies was... interesting. Now that most of my activities revolve around digital art it's even more odd. Apparently, moving abstractions around as an accountant is less bewildering than manipulating nothings for artistic purpose. :)
But once in a while I manage to explain things in ways she understands. I showed her a flash key and said, "This is a modern filing cabinet. A whole filing cabinet's worth of paper can fit in here."
And today she asked again what it is I do, and I said, "I'm making puppets dance."
And so I'm a puppeteer and finally respectable again.
But once in a while I manage to explain things in ways she understands. I showed her a flash key and said, "This is a modern filing cabinet. A whole filing cabinet's worth of paper can fit in here."
And today she asked again what it is I do, and I said, "I'm making puppets dance."
And so I'm a puppeteer and finally respectable again.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
I would get the one cited multiple times for racist comments
You Are Brigitte Bardot |
 Naturally sensual and beautiful You're an exotic beauty who turns heads everywhere You've got a look that's one of a kind |
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Jesus Harold Christ
All the way to infinity.
I was surprised by my contacts list getting tossed wide open by Google Buzz, but I think I shut it down correctly. I hope. I don't have anything particularly horrorsome in there to hide, but maybe I'm just old school about privacy and the privacy of others.
THIS, however, takes the cake.
I was surprised by my contacts list getting tossed wide open by Google Buzz, but I think I shut it down correctly. I hope. I don't have anything particularly horrorsome in there to hide, but maybe I'm just old school about privacy and the privacy of others.
THIS, however, takes the cake.
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