Roger
-
Posts
2,068 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
46
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Roger
-
-
I thought this article was interesting, this guy has much better luck than I do.
Usually when I find stuff it is wrecked beyond repair or deliberately destroyed to prevent reuse.I can't imagine a major corporation destroying saleable goods, even if they had to mark them down. Why not donate them? Just seems so very wasteful.
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/high-end-dumpster-diving-matt-malone/
I did find a perfectly serviceable automotive parts washer which is doing duty as a workbench in my garage right now, although I may try and sell it since it is not sturdy enough to mount a vise to.
-
I have 2 myself and keep meaning to set up some sort of home security system but haven't managed to hack the protocols that the (now defunct) security system I bought several years ago uses. They used to charge $10 a month or something to provide a monitoring service that would send you a text message if a door was opened or motion was detected. That's more or less a yes/no condition so it seems like it would be a fairly simple thing to monitor a voltage drop or wireless signal and then have a script run that would send an SMS to your mobile device. In theory I have an idea of how to do it, in practice, not so much.
You might be able to run AM v5 on an emulated copy of Win 95, say in Virtual Box. I'm not sure how well that would work, though.
They really are nifty little things but definitely require you to have some extra bits laying around (wall warts to power them, SD cards for the OS, etc etc).
The Raspberry Pi 2 looks really promising with 4 cores and a full 1 GB of RAM. Who ever thought you'd be able to pick up that much computing power for less than $50? Strange times we live in. Shame nothing else goes down in cost that much.
-
As much as I'd like to be able to get my AM fix on the train, I don't see it happening. There's just too many things that would be too fiddly to do.
I've also never heard of lazy select. How exactly does that work?
-
I don't know how well AM would work on a tablet unless it had a 14" or 15" screen, and even then it would be difficult. I can't imagine being able to use it tolerably on anything less than a 10" device, even if it had larger buttons.
-
Can these be downloaded for later use, or are you out of luck once the 10 days is up?
-
I've seen this on other websites, it looks cool as heck. I'm surprised this came out of Microsoft.
I could see using this with AM so you end up with stop motion on steroids. Especially if you could combine it with haptics.
I'm curious what sort of power it has, if it is a self-contained PC and not a peripheral. I can't imagine it being more powerful than a Baytrail Atom without burning up a ton of juice or needing a ridiculous battery.So, more of a toy and not really a workstation device, unless they plan on pricing it around $1500-$2000 then it might have a Broadwell i5/i7. That's not going to fly for anyone but pro users, though, and seeing as how one of the killer apps looks to be Minecraft, I don't see how they can sell it for more than $300-$500 and hope to have adoption with your average middle class family, seeing as how you'd need several devices per family. So perhaps there will be subscription/service which subsidizes a $200-$300 device? That's the only way I see this selling.
-
My initial thought was... if your neighborhood is that violent why don't you move someplace else?
But it's right next to the bus stop!
Moving is hard for people at the low end because it's too expensive to go somewhere better. If they rent it will have to happen at the end of their current lease or they lose their deposit and get a bad mark on their credit rating. They have to somehow come up with another deposit before that to get a lease on a new place. If they own their home it may be unsaleable because of the neighborhood and they can't take that loss and afford a new one somewhere else.
If anyone in the family has a previous arrest, even a kid, that will be a deal-breaker for a new apartment in many cases. Likewise with a bad credit rating.
And if the current home is near an otherwise adequate or difficult to replace job, moving away just doesn't make economic sense.
This is very true. I'm not sure how people making minimum wage do it, except for working multiple jobs.
Back to police stories: I was once pulled over on a 3 lane highway near an interchange, where there was no safe place to pull over (no shoulder, on and off ramps, etc) so I put my flashers on and continued at a slower pace until I could pull over safely (maybe not even a 1/4 mile? It was just enough to get past the ramps). The cop got out of his squad car and was visibly agitated: "Son, don't you know when a cop puts his lights on you need to pull over?" I replied yes, I was very aware and was concerned for his safety if I stopped in the middle of a busy expressway with no shoulder to pull onto. I was then told I should pull over immediately, regardless. <_>
I felt like it was one of those situations where if I had stopped immediately I would have instead gotten "Son, you got any brains in that head, stopping in the middle of the damn expressway?".
Sometimes you just can't win.
-
Geez, who'd have thought the government would deny your request after telling them you've renounced citizenship?
-
I've been fortunate in my encounters with the police, never had anything like that happen. Thay have, in general, been courteous and professional and I'm sure I've avoided a few tickets by being polite rather than showing them attitude.
However I do think if the above happened to me it would scare the living crap out of me and seriously color future interactions.
-
I wasn't attempting to troll. I posted this in the heat of the moment after watching this video last night. If you prefer to lock/delete this thread that's fine.
However, there is a definite trend towards a more aggressive stance from the law enforcement community. I can't remember the last time I saw a cop in the older style blue uniform and not those black swat BDUs (which they all seem to be wearing these days). I still see state troopers wearing the khaki pants/brown shirt and smokey the bear hat, though. Some might think this is a minor point but it sends a message to the community when you show up looking like military or riot police.
Back to the video, quite a lot could have gone down before the footage we saw. Apparently the man had some history with local law enforcement of being aggressive. I guess without knowing all the details, I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt.
-
Cops gunning down a homeless guy. While armed, he may have been putting the weapons down when they started shooting. He certainly wasn't lunging at them.
This just seems beyond excessive.
I'm not sure if he was killed by a regular round or the non-lethal rounds, but it seems like one or two officers could have handled this without violence, or if absolutely necessary taken him down with tasers or a baton.
-
Seems like that would be more than a bit expensive.
-
Yeah I figured they used something to stir/push the paint out of the way and then just spliced 2 copies of the footage together, only the one running in reverse, so that it would appear the clouds open and then close perfectly. As you said, running the film at high speed and then playing back normally would give the appearance of massive clouds.
-
A PS4 might work a bit better, since it uses an AMD cpu with built in Radeon gpu. I don't see the PS3 working due to the low memory and also the Linux factor. If AM ran on Linux the only drawback then with the PS3 is the low memory.
I don't know if you could run Windows on a PS4, though, so that probably wouldn't work either unless a Linux version of AM was in the pipes.
I don't think it is impossible given that OSX is based on BSD unix but I don't think the resources are there to support AM on Linux.
-
So I was watching the tail end of Raiders tonight and I know they used all old-school effects for everything, some stuff I knew already or had a rough idea how they did it, other stuff I had to get my Google-fu going and see what I could find.
Techniques I knew they used were matte paintings, miniatures, and time lapse photography.
I had always wondered how they did the clouds at the end where the fire shoots up into the sky.
It turns out they used a cloud tank to get the clouds but I can't for the life of me figure out how they got the clouds to iris like that. Anyone have any ideas? My first thought was maybe it was something disturbing the cloud material (usually milk or paint injected into freshwater layer of water on top of a denser saltwater layer) like maybe a fan, but that seems unlikely. Maybe instead they injected something into the tank to push the cloud layer away in a perfect circle like that?
I've done several additional searches so far and found some interesting info but not anything on that specific aspect. -
I will freely admit that the few issues I have with AM are a result of not getting enough consistent practice in with it. I need to step up my game. I am in the difficult position of trying to "serve two masters", among other things.
I'm not sure I'm crazy about the idea of selling content packages, that sounds too much like Daz 3D but if the choice is that or AM going away completely, then I'd rather see it stick around.
I don't know that I could do a 7 day production cycle, but I do think any follow up film to my current film will progress much more quickly.
I guess we will need to see where things go.
-
Other side of that coin: My folks worked their tailbones off, never spending much always investing for that day they wouldn't have to work anymore. Planned on buying that great big motorhome and tour the grand ol USA. Classic middle class dream of the '70s. One year before my father retired they bought that motorhome, made one trip to Alaska in it, then he was diagnosed with cancer and passed away 1 year later. Lesson there, which I remind myself of often, but heed only rarely, is that you never know what the future holds, and if you live your life only planning for the future, you really aren't living much of a life.
That's sort of the same thing that happened to my uncle, I gather he and my aunt had several trips they were putting off until he was officially retired and then it was too late. I guess the lesson there is it doesn't hurt to be mindful of the future, but remember that tomorrow isn't promised to us. Sometimes you just have to live in the moment.
-
Marketing on Steam could be a dual-edged proposition. There would be a massive influx of users, but if the support is not there they would drop out and spread negative word of mouth. I don't know exactly what the current state of Hash is but I gather it's essentially a skeleton crew at this point?
I do think the interface in AM is easier than most 3D apps, once you get used to it. I know that when I come back from a gap of working with it I pick things up fairly quickly.
The only real problem with AM as the "kitchen table animator" program is that no matter how good the software is, you're limited by the amount that one person can do. A feature film at Pixar quality would take a single person a lifetime or more.
The main stumbling blocks (as I see them) is even once you get a handle on modelling, there is a lot more that goes into a short film to get it made: rigging, lighting, texturing, actual animation. Each area is something that takes a significant time to master.
When I saw Mixamo I thought that was the answer to my prayers but it just will not work with AM. The only thing that is going to work there is slogging through the pain of rigging.
I just don't see a hybrid modeller with polygons being an option. I don't think it would be possible to integrate it with spline-based models. Import of static props is probably as good as it is going to get with respect to that.
I've seen so much change since I started mucking around with 3D software, I never thought you'd be able to walk around with the equivalent of a workstation in your pocket (although you can't really use a smartphone for doing 3D, in terms or raw horsepower it is equivalent to a mid to late 90s PC). I would very much like to see AM around for another 20-30 years, but
I'm not sure exactly what form that's going to be. While I don't think Martin would abandon it (and by extension, us) he may reach a point where he's interested in doing other things (which you could argue he's at now, with medical school and all).
I guess things can continue on as they are, but there will come a point in the future where that may not be the case, since nothing lasts forever.
And I'm not being critical here, I can definitely identify with getting a bit of wanderlust after doing one thing for a long time.
-
I've decided to steer clear of these digital currencies and stick to index funds and tangible assets. Maybe I'll never be super wealthy, but I should at least have something.
-
This sounds pretty horrific.
-
It sounds like an interesting idea.
I actually think it is more difficult to go back and fix something you screwed up, so a mode that didn't allow non-optimal splines might not be a bad idea. I'm better than I was but I still make mistakes when modeling, and it can be hard to find where I've made the error or sort out how to fix it.
-
So a 16 hour credit load would only be $64 per semester? Wow. What about room and board? $4 per credit hour seems awfully low. Like, unbelievably low. I think even the community college near me charges something like $3k per year for a 2 year degree (no clue what that works out to in per credit hour rates...$100 per credit hour maybe?).
-
I feel bad for parents.
Wanna hear crazy? Wanna hear insane? Wanna hear totally batsh*t nuts?
My dad put my brother and sister through college completely but after the my first two years at college he takes me down to the Savings & Loan and has me sign the papers to borrow the remainder for the last two years.
OK, so maybe he was out of money?
No! Years later I find out he's donated several times more to that college than my entire tuition cost and always had enough money to pay it.
If he could comfortably afford it, that does seem odd. Maybe he wanted you to have "skin" in the game, as they say? But that doesn't explain why he would foot the full bill for your two siblings. Parents do strange things sometimes.
If/when I have kids, based on my current income level, I can swing 2 years at the community college, after that they are on their own. I would probably still help out with books/care packages, though. Just not tuition. Current tuition at my local state schools is up around $25k-$30k a year now, for tuition and room & board. Tuition just by itself is I think $10-$12k, but you still have to pay rent and eat, you can't just hang out on campus and couch surf (well maybe you could, if you were motivated enough).
-
Well said, Matt. I know that I'm looking forward to 2015 with AM and Hash Inc.
That said, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Dumpster Diving
in Off Topic
Posted
And I'm incredibly skeptical on the quoted numbers regarding this guy's dumpster diving income. Something seems a bit off about this article, and I can't put my finger on it.