HAPPY NEW YEAR.

 The oft used phrase "It's the thought that counts." applies to this years greeting. I was trying to produce a video but bit off far more than I could chew so here is the fall back card wishing you all the very best or 2021.

All the very best.

A QUANDARY.

 Monday was bin day, blue bin day and round here that means landfill. I rarely pop things in the blue bin and it didn't need wheeling down the hill to be emptied or at least I hope it didn't, the lid was frozen shut and despite belting it with a fence post it remained solid. I have an old ice cream tub for compostable stuff which I chuck on the midden from time to time. I decided to empty the tub on our morning walk and noticed the heap and been turned exposing many tea bags which appeared to be as good as new. I must get round to investigating the matter. To compost tea bags or to landfill them. I'm sure there must be a government diktat on tea bag disposal and if not I suspect there soon will be.

It was a cold morning with lots of icy patches on the glen road, the main roads had been salted after a fashion. On my way to the horses I called at Kinesswood to pick up the injector throttle body but there was nobody about. 

This was the view from the machinery dealers yard. Loch Leven and the Ochils. The horses are on the snowline just right of the centre.

A new tractor, some yolk as they say round here. McCormick X8 a giant machine. Despite the name it isn't Scottish but Italian.

Tuesday dawned to a sprinkling of snow, the glen road was easily passable but little if any gritting had been done, like a skating rink it was even in town.

I do enjoy this crisp clear weather.

The new boots doing their job. No slippy over for me.

Alf wandering along, he's always the last.

It's another cool start and more snow is forecast. I'm going to Kinross later for a bit of horseing.

 The New Year card is not going well but I may get it done tomorrow. I saw the haircutter in the forest yesterday afternoon as they have shut her salon again. She told me that when recalibrating the TPS on Suzuki injectors you don't need the diagnostic software or a laptop. The port for the laptop is under the seat and if I short the two end terminals and switch the ignition on then a little bar will appear in front of some letters and numbers on the dash, the throttle position sensor is just nudged a bit till the bar is in the middle. Whether or not the new throttle body has arrived I'll try this and see if it works. If it does I'll give her a Polo mint. A rare thing is a haircutter who is also a petrol head.

Have fun.

In other news.

 
 

NEW BOOTS.

 I had a grand Christmas. In exchange for a bit of animal feeding and veg peeling/turkey carving I got a wonderful meal and a new pair of boots. These are the second pair of Muck Boots I've had and they are good. I used to buy Hogg's wellies but they got a bit narrow and hard to remove. I did have a pair of Dubarry leather ones from Ireland but they got to be really stupid money, over three hundred pounds last time I looked and the soles wore out very fast. You did get two for that and you could send them back for a re-sole but Timpsons couldn't do the job, they are the king and queen of wellies. Five years ago I switched to Muck wellingtons and have enjoyed wearing them. They have leaked for the last two years but as long as I didn't walk in deep things I was fine. Some of the holes were due to a design fault and some were down to welding and angle grinding. I won't do welding in the new ones as they cost a fortune and obviously aren't designed to cope with the rigours of the welder and cutting torch. 

The lass at the feed shop explained all this in terms even I could understand when I tried to swap them for a new pair last summer. She had the spiel off pat so I guess I was far from the first to try. I did try, really tried, told her that I always pulled my jeans or overalls outside my wellies when doing hot things as I'd once had a blob of molten metal fall inside a wellie and It's not something one forgets. Cheeky Sarah told me we all forget things and it gets much worse at your age. She wouldn't let me try on a new pair as I'd stopped off with a wet foot and she said it stank of cow shit. Mistaken she was it smelled mildly of pigs.

You can see the big hole in the wetsuit material and it's not caused by sparks. Some of the others are but the big hole is clearly faulty design. Normal folk round here live in wellies, they might risk a wander out without on the four fine days a year or if attending a wedding or funeral but even then one is risking having wet feet. The soles have worn well except for the heel and Sarah put that down to my walking stupid. Bloody Scots; pound to a penny had I been a black lesbian vegan in a burka I'd have got a new pair free. 

These are the new ones, notice that despite their denying a fault in the conception of the boot they have extended the rubber bit upwards.

They have also popped bigger grippy bits on the heel. I bet folk were slip sliding all over the place in the old design causing unnecessary work for our NHS. Probably down to Matt Handoncock sending them a letter to protect our NHS by popping bigger cleats on the heel so either way not down to me walking funny at all.

Have a good week. Looks like we are leaving the EU Ponzi scheme but it will take a year or two to tell whether we have been shafted. Looks good so far and I never believed it would happen.

IT'S NEARLY HERE.

 I have nothing to do today as the injector throttle body hasn't arrived for the quad. I am thankful for small mercies as it's freezing out and not much if any warmer in the shed. Its also a wander into the unknown.

 Last night I started thinking about a New Year video. I have the tree and big moon thingy as a backup but thought filling a glass with a toast then having it spill over as the glass got smaller would about sum up our lives as we are being brainwashed to accept what is being dictated to us is normal... It isn't. There are no excess deaths. The near useless NHS is there for them and not for you, Start thinking. Freedom is being eroded and fast. The science is bollucks. I can see it coming to fisticuffs if they piss us about much longer.

I found a YouTube post by this barking mad chap at CG MATTER. It explains nothing useful, not really true. It's just a matter of sorting the CG from the Matter or visa versa. I find him educational and amusing. I looked, looked again and after a half dozen looks, away I went on another voyage of discovery. 

I have got so far and thought I'd share how far as I've precious little else to do. Wish I hadn't as it always takes me a couple of goes to add audio. The dogs decide to chomp food, then I make it worse by shouting special words at them. Today was a belter, just got into take three after having threatened the dogs with rusty, red hot barbed wire on a pointed stick and the sodding battery died in my Zoom microphone. It's a bit of Hi-tech plastic with chips, stereo mics and stuff. Nothing to do with the Zoom everyone seems to be using to ameliorate and enjoy their enforced incarceration. 

Yesterday a young lass at the stables offered me a bite of her Christmas cake, it was in her piece along with a sandwich and a Mars Bar. I hope she doesn't contract premature old age. I hope I don't get worms from the horses she was seeing to or start having periods. Both are unlikely occurrences unless you have guaranteed income by working for the State. Normal folk have immunity from regular sensible things.

This video has draft/cheapo materials and can be visually improved no end. I hope. 

I used to hate manipulating Bezier curves but am slowly getting quicker and more accurate, the more I read about their foibles the better I get. I can on a good day with a following wind run them to dimensions. I can't think of an easier way to create a morphing glass or anything nicely curvy. 

Here it is.

Once again have a good time. See you soon.

I DECIDED.

 I decided enough was enough with messing. Here is your Christmas greeting. First there is a Gif. file which I hope works even though it's massive at 7MB and will take time to load. I could have cut it down a bit but I like the way the purple is limited to the vertices with a bit of glow. This was Drop box size not that long ago but gmail seems to accept it. For your edification there is a video as it can carry audio or a tune for the non-technical folk.

Have a great day six days from now. Meet who you want if they want to meet you and only get tested if you feel ill. That way is the responsible way. PCR is not a good test if one uses high multipliers. It can pick up whatever the globalists want it to....I know they want hanging from piano wire. 

 We all have to die but not prematurely to protect the bloody NHS bureaucracy and their profligate spending. Useless the NHS is. Deaths are average or a bit above since May when there was a spike so all or most since May must have been popped down to Covid. The lack of spikes since is possibly due to GPs refusing to see folk and they have cured themselves through natural bodily going on things. You can tell I'm not a medic but I can tell when I'm being fed nonsense.

Happy Christmas.

MORE PLAYTIME.

 I have got the tree lights working well enough but more of that later. This morning I wandered over to the horses only to be greeted by a quad that was dilatory shutting it's throttle. I thought this is going to be fun. Half the body work to remove just to access the throttle cable. I naively assumed that in the absence of broken return springs a sticky cable was to blame. I ordered a new one and drove the ten miles to collect it. Drove the ten miles back, looked at the Suzuki and was horrified to see that though it had a throttle body it was also equipped with fuel injection. I removed the cable and turned the butterfly in the throttle body and it just crept back closed. Shit, I muttered. They should snap back quick sticks. I did think it could be salvaged but after a few minutes on the phone to the Quad man realised that re-bushing the body, reaming it out and messing was going to cost twice as much as a new body. This system is pretty standard motorbike stuff but of course everything is governed by a throttle position sensor, as spark timing is ruled by a crank sensor. I don't know whether it has exhaust oxygen sensors or LAMDAs as we engine specialists call them, I suspect it does. Bloody sensors drive me mad. The bastard things are everywhere.

 I have looked on t'internet and can't find anything regarding setting the throttle sensor. Usually they are just a bit of a bar with a wider end thingy. They live on the opposite side of the throttle body to the cable cam. It adjusts a bit like one adjusted points when engines had them. You fiddle about with a multi-meter to give the recommended resistance or voltage at full open or full closed, can't recall which, some work on voltage and some on the other. It's quite normal to clock engines this way by fooling the ECU but don't tell Greta. Since exhaust sensors you also have to remove them and the catalytic converter, the engine warning light will stop on but a bit of tape makes it's glow bearable and in any case it's not using much electric. This is the way to fast cheap tuning. Of course it all has to be back to normal before the test.

 I can remember when it was easier to have two bikes, Identical but for the VIN numbers, make a new VIN plate for the naughty one and run the nice Greta version through the test. All that required was an odometer swap or a cruise out on it now and again with the lady in your life. One had a mint low mileage bike to sell at the end of it. Now it's hardly worth the effort as the electronics and stuff are far too sensitive to meddling by me, I should have kept up. 

I blame the Germans for doing it on an industrial scale. They took the piss in a big way and got caught having sensible mode and pass emissions mode. This was not an accident. Germans spoiled it for us all just because being a bit thick they have to. Bloody pain in the arse as a nation, always will be. They ought to be nuked cheeky buggers. Taking advantage of bureaucrats is easy, I doubt one in ten in the department of transport has seen under a car bonnet let alone inside an engine or a had to make an ECU think it is getting regular and normal information. Happen we should have bombed their car plants again for being lying devious twats. It wasn't brain science even we thick British folk could work out how to fool an ECU. It's those bloody LAMDAs that don't lie now. There is one measuring oxygen before the CAT and one after, always has been. All they really do is assess the CAT. Pain in the arse they are. 

Not to worry, up here folk are quite happy to let me have a quick look at a Suzuki manual and scribble the relevant numbers on my hand. Be a different story if I wanted to use their paper and Biro.

I have a new lights video rendering but will post that tomorrow with instructions for those interested.

Have Fun.

ANOTHER BIT.

 I didn't get much done yesterday but had an hour or two trying to work out what to pop into a fifteen second video for Christmas. I have decided the hoarding is going on it's own and the skeletal trees likewise. There is no way the two can be made to look sensible together. I then thought of having a minimal tree with the hoarding and started playing.

Blender is getting better all the time. It also causes some head scratching. The input node in the tree above has been around for sometime as has the output node but watch what it's set to. Make sure if you are rendering in EEVEE it knows otherwise you will lose hair discovering what went wrong, it never gave a choice before. You don't need both noise nodes, any noise generator will do will do but 'Wave Noise' seems to work best to give the random effect to the coloured lights ; right click in any of the boxes and keyframe, scale suited me but distort is a little more subtle. I'll probably pop twice as many points on the star and bang that through a similar tree as it looks a bit crap turning on the 'Z' axis.....Not a bit, it looks awful. I'll try keyframing emission strenght and popping noise into the graph editor. (There are far too many ways of skinning the cat). The big shader that does almost everything quickly now has Emission Strength. The old shader nodes are still available for weird things but for video the Principled shader does the job. I'll make the tree taller and thinner but I am pleased with the concept. I'll have to draw it better or find a 3D artist fast. Difficult in an area where skills are limited to mending machinery, digging holes or trimming sheep feet.* I have set Friday aside for sticking two different videos together and Sunday for minor tweaks. Monday at the earliest you will have your Christmas video from me.

Now I know I was drawing the outline of a Christmas tree so that's all I see. I only drew half of it and mirrored the other half but that is normal workflow for we posh 3D folk or perhaps that ought to be lazy 3D folk. I hope you recognise a tree. If not learn to appreciate art. Took me ages to suss Rachel's Ladies stuck arse up under a roller shutter door. Rachel you have something awry I can't link to your post and I never get comment notifications via email. 

Playing is all good fun but I do realise that after this build up I have to come up with something tidy. I'll try I'll be really trying.

Have fun.

* Ages ago I did some work on a tensegrity work station for an artist. She wanted cast iron but it would cost a fortune so I did her a design in wood and suggested she learnt to draw properly, she was not very happy. I bumped into her last week and she is now on a CAD course in Glasgow so she is on the right track. I congratulated her, told her to follow it up with material science and then she could use her art. No good having ideas if you can't work a pencil. She is working part time helping with G-Code that runs a massive laser cutter in a fabrication shop. I suspect she thinks her table will come out of solid plate. I suspect if she plays her cards right it could.

MY BITS ARE WORKING.

 The bits are working but the scene isn't.

This is the scene. The snow falls, the moon glows, the hoarding has one image on out of three and indexes perfect. The trees could do with some leaves but that is an easy job. 

The problem is the hoarding looks daft stuck in a bit of snowy ground. It doesn't matter where I pop the camera it still don't look right.

I did pop a wooden frame round it but it looked worse. I tried separating the panels, it looked worse. I think I'm going to get rid of it make the ground mesh much denser and use a displacement brush to write a message in the snow, take me back to my childhood, one thing we boys could do that girls couldn't. I quite like the dead tree look. I still have over a week so no reason to panic yet. 

Moll seems to be on the mend, Alf and I are fine. Nothing else to report other than I couldn't find a fairy for the Christmas tree, I suspect vegans are few and far between round here. I hope this will suffice.

I think I am developing a bit of a thing for my haircutter. I met her out walking yesterday and she looked a bit lame. (I am encouraged to look out for lame and then I have to trot them up and down, whilst an expert equestrian checks). She says she's wricked her back but the walking was doing it good. Just as well as the vet costs a fortune.

Have a good week or what's left of it.

OFF ON TRACKS.

 It's been another of those weeks. I have been doing a bit of work on the Christmas card video and all is back on track or trackish. My problem is I get easily side tracked. I really like the posh Cycles render but sixteen hours for ten seconds of video is not worth it. I investigated and found that I could render every fourth frame and then then pop the video into this software which is supposed to interpolate to get the missing frames.

This is free and looks to do the job, I've seen a demo where it works perfectly but I still haven't got it to work. I have it running on CUDA, my NVIDIA GPU, and have a sneaking suspicion that my GPU may be too old. It looks interesting as I can imagine shooting an insect at 60fps and multiplying by two or four to get some slow motion fly flapping. I'll have another look at it then if all else fails send them a begging email for help.

I then got distracted by Render Layers, this is a very complex way of carrying on. It's like big school render processing and not big school thick class either. It's big school arse licking class, the one where folk did their homework and got made prefects and not the one I was in where we had more interesting things to do upon release and counted down in seconds from incarceration at nine fifteen to release at three forty five. We had streaming at school. (A) was for the future school teachers ,bank employees and I suppose the rare genius. (B) was for normal folk and (C) was for binmen and others headed for Matlock and the council office. 

A teacher thought to threaten me with a future as a binman. I was more than happy with that, the C's didn't have to think of endless excuses not to do homework as no one could give a shit. I suspect that is where the inspiration for Comprehensive Education originated.

Rendering in layers produces large files but means you can adjust individual render channels in the compositor,  a not dissimilar workflow to Photoshop. It is fast when you suss it but I really need to learn Davinci Resolve as it is designed for such malarkey and Blender isn't. I'm also thinking that PNG files don't really carry enough information. There is no industry standard but I have a horrible feeling that saving as .EXR is the way things are heading. I'll have to run them to an external hard drive as they are massive files. It's all procrastination as few folk will view the video on anything larger than a tablet and most will be squinting at a phone. What the other one is viewing on I don't know.

I have had another go at the hoarding and the movie to pop onto one face of it. This is one frame.

This looks as if it will do. I find it difficult to impossible to be objective about my arty farty stuff. I keep looking and finding fault then messing and before I know it the jobs gone to rats. There is still a bit of a dark line. I am thinking that adding another yellow spot light and having them move corner to corner but diametrically opposed would sort it. I could just call it my art and leave it. Time will decide.

I can make swivelling hoardings in minutes now but I can't get animation nodes to instance from the primary one and then get the others to index through 120° at say half second intervals. Again this is an example of big school Blendering.

Perfect. The little orange dots are the origins which in this case aren't important. I just like stuff in the middle, symetrical, neat and tidy, unless I need an origin somewhere else. The colours are purely for my reference, when I was playing with the girls on these faces I got the same girl on two of them and had to go back and rub her out, a distressing occurrence as it was the wee red haired lassie. Fortunately after stealing the totty images from Pixabay I had run them through Photoshop and made them all 1:1.6 so the UV unwrapping would go perfect.

It's only fourteen days till Christmas. This, as is usual for me, will go right to the wire. I'll leave you with a story which is quite funny.

My haircutter needed a horseshoe as one of her little boys had two but wanted to make a present for his aunt and needed three. One would think that seeing eight horses several times a week I would have access to horseshoes by the dozen but the farrier takes them away with him and not all the horses are always shod. I managed to find a couple and popped them in one of those crap green Co-Op carrier bags. I called at the shop, sorry Salon*, on my way home last Saturday. I noticed it seemed busy. One lady in a chair with bits of oven foil all over her head, the young lass that sweeps hairs up on a Saturday and the aunty, the hair cutters sister-in-law in for a gossip. Stuck my head in the door and handed the bag to the haircutter. The aunt and hair sweeper said, almost in unison. What you got?  She said mind your own business, if you ever manage by some outside chance to get as fit and sexy as me you too will possibly get a present like this. The haircutter then started to quiz me on a local lads new BMW. The sweeper taking advantage of her distraction grabbed the bag for a peek but it being far heavier than she expected she dropped it, the bag split and aunt's Christmas present was unveiled. The hair cutter was not amused. Your family have always been nosey sods, you are bad, your mum worse and as for your gran there is nothing she won't poke her nose into. The little girl said. "Pots and Kettles, if you hadn't been poking your nose into Ken's transport arrangements I wouldn't have been tempted..... The little minx turned to me. What car has Kenny bought and who did he buy it from? I left them to it and as I wandered away heard. Kenny is Mr. Stuart to you young lady.

*The Salon is a grand place, last time I was in I'd taken my horsey stuff off in the car and was a minute into my five minute haircut when Andy walked in and sat down. He said Hi. She said You stink of cow shit. Eee lassie you have led a sheltered life, it's sheep shit, terrible stuff it is, it gets through everything. I've known days even a shower won't shift it. It's not so much their shit mind, it's more the langoliny stuff, they have it natural in their fleece. I guess it does go off a bit on warm days but not to worry it keeps the rain out. She, never to not have the last word, said. How in the name of heaven is it I can go into Cupar, walk in my friends Salon and it smells of nice lady things. I am ten miles away and all mine ever smells of is diesel, that tyre soap stuff, pigs, bloody hydraulic oil, cows and fucking horses. Andy says don't forget sheep and that stuff you rub on ladies hair that smells of cow foot spray.

Have fun and a good weekend.
 

GOING IN CIRCLES.

 In the words of Meatloaf or possibly Todd Rundgren I'm going to have to "Sleep on it." I have but that's another problem.

 I have about 10% of the Christmas video sorted, possibly more as I have abandoned things that don't work. I have done the first and last images that go on the hoarding thingy in Photoshop at stupid resolution. Don't know why as it's only video and most folk I send it to will glance at it on a phone and go, fine or crap or Ta or What! 

This short bit of video will go on a hoarding that changes the images on triangular section panels like the one with girls from last week. This is the video, It is just a piece of plate with stuff cut into it, spot lights behind with one of the lights animated and volumetrics added to hopefully give crepuscular rays It's far from as exciting as I imagined but I still have time to refine it. The hoarding I will then pop into a scene, a snowy one with a Christmas tree, I think. Happen pop other moving stuff on the tree or get fed up and move the camera instead.

I don't like the black band across the middle, I'll maybe pop another couple of stars in to get more light through. I don't like the lettering shadowing but suspect I'm going to have to live with it. It's a limitation of EEVEE. The animated light needs popping on a linear graph. At the moment it starts and finishes slow as by default Blender uses a Bezier curve for animation which is not a good look in this application. It looks dark but not to worry it is going into a brighter scene at an angle and will be an emission material in composite. Better to start off a bit dark as all photographers know.

This is a still rendered in EEVEE it took fifty two seconds or as I'll write it in future 52". It does look a bit funereal, I'll try swapping the blue lights for a pale green. And maybe tilt the stencil a  tiny bit. to get reflection from the holes.

It looks a lot better in Cycles which is a Ray Tracing render engine.

Much much better but at 3' 59" including denoise it should be. Sixteen hours of rendering for ten seconds of video. I don't think so. I could double the render time or up the denoise passes as it's still a tad noisy. I have tried playing with the fog bit but I think it's about right. I suspect one could get good at this stuff but one would have to sit for hours doing the same old thing whilst being beaten with a stick by way of encouragement from the artist in charge. I think Leonardo must have had a red hot stick covered in rusty barbed wire to create that chapel ceiling. If I go on the Forums some bright spark will have worked out how to do it in EEVEE, it will probably take a dozen or more material nodes a few drivers and half a screen to see it all. Not to worry I have learnt how to get separate screens across a couple of monitors now. I'll be able to use dozens and dozens of shader nodes......Pound to a penny the end result is little better on an I-Phone screen.

 Fonts are important as is kerning.

Have fun and don't forget we have a vaccine. Possibly lethal or incapacitating but as long as those most in favour of it get it what the hell. I'd rather take my chance with a virus that has a > 99% survival rate than some junk that is lining politicians pockets. I've as much chance of being run over by a bus than dying of Batflu. A far greater chance of being terminated by an angry husband almost half my age but that is just another cross I have to bear.

Such is life.

IT'S A BIT SUNNY.

 I had a bit of a job to do over the hill this morning. It's a beautiful day and I had the camera, for once with a sparkling bright sensor as I gave it a polish last week.

Winter Barley, the river Tay and I think Glenshee and the Cairngorms on the horizon. This could stand brightening half a stop or so but I always find it difficult to tell.

Here is a panorama of roughly the same view. Perth is just off to the left but hidden behind the hill.

It is a grand place when one can see. It's usually either foggy or raining, sometimes both.

Thank the lord we have left the EU. Well someone should be thanked as it appears we have got the vaccine long before the rest of the world. I just hope that the remedy does more good than harm or at the very least proves to be an innocuous inoculation.

Have a great week.

PS. I usually get the Saturday Telegraph on my way to the horses. Don't buy it in the week as it's got too woke and expensive these days.

I do enjoy their crossword. I always get stuck on four letter words, which is odd as they comprise twenty percent of my daily vocabulary. Here is yesterday's.

This is a bit blurry as I cut it out and stuff it in my pocket whilst horsing. Eleven across is four letters (-E-S) Clue: Deity revealed by canal backing up.

25 Across is (-E-L-D) six letters. Clue: Well now, that's better. It's annoying being at a loss to finish one but were it easy then who would bother. It's a bit thick to have two left.

SOMETHINGS NEW.

 Today I had a new haircut. Took all of five minutes but she did a good job considering I was piss wet through, smelly and ten minutes early, I spent the minutes productively; admiring her bum and legs and trying to recall the conversation. I really like seeing the thick tights and miniskirt on tasty legs. Sets her off a treat it does.

 I called at the Co-Op for the kitchen roll I forgot yesterday and got a tin of Quality Street for the little girl on the farm. One for five pounds or two for eight pounds. I got two and gave one to the haircutter to pass on to her young lads.

Last night was spectacular, steady snow, wind and thunder. It didn't make for a good sleep but it was quite a show. By dawn it was scything down again, I am sick of rain and heartily fed up with cold rain. 

I've been looking at new things in Blender 2.91. This curve modifier is brilliant, works like a dream. I can't think of any use for it myself but it is quick non destructive and effective.

As you can see bottom right you can model a quarter of this profile on a curve and get something decorative in seconds. If you don't want it to mirror then there is a box somewhere to limit the modifier. If you click the little round dot at the top right of the curve then you can construct an asymmetric profile. Very posh, very fast and easy on the computer.

I hear some NHS employees are not too happy with being first in line for the vaccine. Not surprised as it will stop the self isolation nonsense and could well sterilise them. They are happy enough to give it to old folk but I can see they have a point as looking after folk seems to take second place. Think on to HIV infected blood. They are dirty buggers not to check for anything that basic. Wages and pensions first anything state run is suspect.

Have a great weekend. 

BRRRRR!

 I woke around three thirty this morning and thought things a bit chilly. Minus 3°C it said on the thermometer but that was outside, It felt little warmer in. 

I went across to Cupar and the roads were a bit slip slidey, children waiting for the school bus all sliding up and down on the icy road, phones forgotten in the excitement of the first cold day this season. Got most of the messages but forgot kitchen roll, not to worry I have a haircut booked for tomorrow so will sort it then. The wind is picking up a bit now which is probably just as well as more ice and snow is forecast overnight and tomorrow. I really ought to get the genset sorted but the Grid is coping so far.

I'll have to see if I can find out how much power could be generated when push comes to shove.

The lambs are now enjoying the Neeps or Swedes.

I'm not sure how many there are but I guess about forty.

These are the last half dozen, I hope they manage to settle in alright as it's a bit dark. I'll have a wander round at first light if the weather permits. Who am I kidding, weather has no bearing on the matter. Probably be pissing down as usual.

On my way into town this morning the radio presenters were all very excited about the Batflu vaccine. Apparently folks in care homes were to get it first but they hadn't taken into account it has to be stored at -70°C and care homes don't have posh freezers, thick buggers, even I know that frozen carbon dioxide is considered to be at -78°C at 1Bar. Just pop it in a box of dry ice, take it out, warm it up a bit and stick the guinea pigs with it. Perhaps it's using CO² that's the problem, global warming and such crap. I can see this turning into yet another god almighty snafu, it's rare for government to get anything right. Still not to worry, we'll have paid Pfizer and the Sage idiots will have all had their brown envelopes plus share options no doubt. I don't blame them, it doesn't worry me as nothing much does and what other chance do they have of earning an honest crust. Still I look forward to the day that I don't have to step over cadavers in the feed store and supermarket. I hope someone thinks of using dry ice. They did miss a trick here they could have said store at - 180°C and used liquid nitrogen. That would have been fun.

Keep smiling. 

A DAY IN MY LIFE.

 Molly isn't a well dog, she seems to want cuddles and though she has always appreciated a quick hug before bed time she now wants attention at all times. She is thirteen and still lively but having her climb on my chest for attention every hour during the night is getting a bit wearisome. If I am imprudent enough to explain, using special words, that now is not a good time she sits and shivers and I then have to hug and kiss her. I guess it is old age, a minor stroke or stagnation of the lungs. Something to worry about but not worth doing anything about but accepting life is finite. Alf is fine though he made a tactical error a couple of days ago. We had erected one of those portable three reel electric fences to keep the lambs in the neeps and before I could shout NO Alf had pissed on it. What a yelp. It saved me testing it so a good dog. I don't mind electric shocks but those fences are vicious.

Blender 2.91 was released sometime last week and seems fine, I ran it in Alpha and Beta versions and it was usable back then. There are changes galore but the interface has also changed a bit. I really don't like UI changes as I get used to using shortcut keystrokes (Tippy Tapping) and it's a pain re-educating my fingers, like a qwerty keyboard being buggered up. Not to worry It's far easier than switching between software.

I quite like the new splash screen, looks a little bit low poly for me but it's bright and cheerful.

I am still building videos in Blender but know deep down it would be quicker in the long term to switch and learn to do it in DaVinci Resolve. I sometimes wish I were younger, everything is a struggle but there again my life always has been. If I master something then I tend to look for the next set of goals. I hate predictability.

This morning I popped over to see the horses, the police were stopping cars coming off the motorway. I don't know what for as they waved me through. I was tempted to stop and enquire why but thought discretion the better part of valour. I have a head light missing and my number plates are obscured by filth. I thought a megga bucks fine not worth the fun of taking the piss out of the Stasi.

On the way back I called at the Co-Op to post a parcel for one of the grooms. There were a couple of old folk standing outside gossiping and another lady came up and said are folk queuing again. I said I doubt it these two are just catching up with each other. The bloke then turned on me and said something really weird.

 

"DISTANCE."

I said well shift then as I've a job to do made harder with folk chatting in shop doorways.

"DISTANCE and where is your mask?"

I replied that as he was wearing one so what was his problem. I refrained from special words. Though you can't educate turds was on the tip of my tongue. I waved the other lady in and she said you first if they kick you out then we'll wait. I walking in, asked the checkout lassie if it was fine and she said. "Course." Went back to the door and told the lady it was fine and the checkout girl said. "Employed by the Co-Op now are we or should it be is one." Told her to fuck off and for her education it's are. Cheeky little minx taking the piss out of the English. Far too familiar are the Scots at times.

 It's great living here. This was the first time I've seen anyone frightened for months. Since I stopped shopping for folk who really expected to find freezer trucks collecting the dead in Muchty. Not that those folk thought two seconds about the poor bugger prepared to shop, those popping stuff on shelves or those loading pestilence suppurating cadavers to protect our NHS.

  

 Its about time the media and politicians were lined up and shot.

I see we have gone back to the protecting the NHS narrative. Up here it is worse they are getting a half grand bonus for doing sweet bugger all. The NHS is like the coal mines were, not fit for purpose. Looking at our generation capacity, we are close to running gensets or candles but Hey Ho that is socialism. Nothing can work if it's nationalised and why globalists think expanding a flawed concept requires more grey matter than I was endowed with. It's Marxism and will take some defeating. So many snowflakes and far too few ice crystals,

I'll be okay as I know some useful things and get by with selling them. I have a 5KVA genset which will keep me toasty warm and a big tank of cheap diesel. I will be alright Jack.

 I have even got to appreciate the lack of the old coil and distributor on engines and embraced coil over plug, crank sensor set up. Likewise fuel injection. ECUs are easily calibrated with a computer. I'm not as happy with common rail diesels injectors that are impossible for me to rebuild and cost fifteen hundred quid but like a new iteration of Blender I'll sort it when I have to.

Have fun.

   

SUCCESS.

 I have got the hoarding thingy working perfectly. It took me some time but with a re-think of the workflow I have got there.

I notice sunspot activity is increasing, Not before time as I could do with some global warming, I noticed this GIF on, I think, Space weather yesterday. It's a solar flare and very impressive.

 It looks a bit too warm there.

Here is the new video with a bit of basic geometry thrown in for your edification and education.

Have a good week and I recommend pleasing yourselves what you do. If folk on BLM and revolting extinction gatherings are immune from the flu then I suspect we all are.

I'VE BEEN HAVING TRIBULATIONS.

 I have spent over thirty six hours in the last twenty four messing about with this and it still only works a bit. I must have been a state employee in a previous life. I've never met one that doesn't do a sixty hour week and I've never met one who doesn't regard sick days as holiday entitlement and to cap it all most of what they do is like this.....Crap to mediocre.

This is all part and parcel of my Christmas video development programme, it isn't going well. The following video is all new for me. The last bit, which apart from the usual foul ups, could be rendered with an Alpha channel and popped into any other video, it shows promise. I do enjoy this malarkey but it does test ones patience. I saw a tutorial by SARDIPAX . It works but wasn't what I was looking for. Then I remembered the old hoardings that had vertical strips rotating and showing different stuff like Embassy Cigarettes one minute, some lass in her underwear the next and Castrol GTX as a finale before it started again. I thought an equilateral triangle would do the job. Lots of sticks of them with a different image on each face. They all have to rotate together and register precisely and herein lies the problem.

Here is the demonstration.

It has possibilities. I am beginning to suspect that were I to use images of brickwork and not totty the job would go faster.

This is the bit I didn't like it is made out of lots of cubes with one face scaled to a point to make an isosceles triangle, an image on one set of faces and another on the other. It's an interesting exercise and works as one would predict. 

I then made a stick with an equilateral cross section. arrayed it, separated it by loose parts and used independent origins so as they are rotated through 120° you get a new face to unwrap and pop an image on. I don't know what I got wrong but much like the experts at UCL I guess I popped rubbish into the machine and was rewarded with crap out. Unlike experts I recognise the process needs further consideration.

Have a good weekend and try and remember the rules.

FFFFeathers.

 I have been playing again. I started out messing with a Pine tree and it looked awful. I decided a feather would look better.....Not sure it does but as it didn't look any worse I persevered with it. 

Here is a video of stuttering or echoing feathers.

I was quite pleased with the feather bit but I forgot to curve it. Silly me after all the hard work I neglected to do a ten second job. I know it's a scruffy feather, I made it distressed looking on purpose, after all anyone can make a perfect feather, even birds can do that.

That's about all for today, I'm away to see the horses then I've got a load to take to the tip. I have if the tip is open, I've lost track of the level I'm in and what it means if one is in one level or another. I'll be well poked off if the tip is shut, may get depressed and have to visit the health centre.....Wait a minute, that will definitely be closed.

ODE TO THE FLU.

I'm normally a social girl

I love to meet my mates

But lately with the virus here

We can't go out the gates

You see, we are the 'oldies' now

We need to stay inside

If they haven't seen us for a while

They'll think we've upped and died

They'll never know the things we did

Before we got this old

There wasn't any Facebook

So not everything was told

We may seem sweet old ladies

Who would never be uncouth

But we grew up in the 60s -

If you only knew the truth!

There was sex and drugs and rock 'n roll

The pill and miniskirts

We smoked, we drank, we partied

And were quite outrageous flirts

Then we settled down, got married,

And turned into someone's mum,

Somebody's wife, then nana,

Who on earth did we become?

We didn't mind the change of pace

Because our lives were full

But to bury us before we're dead

Is like a red rag to a bull!

So here you find me stuck inside

For four weeks, maybe more

I finally found myself again

Then I had to close the door!

It didn’t really bother me

I'd while away the hour

I'd bake for all the family

But I've got no flaming flour!

Now Netflix is just wonderful

I like a gutsy thriller

I'm swooning over Idris

Or some random sexy killer

At least I've got a stash of booze

For when I'm being idle

There's wine and whiskey, even gin

If I'm feeling suicidal!

So let's all drink to lockdown

To recovery and health

And hope this awful virus

Doesn't decimate our wealth

We'll all get through the crisis

And be back to join our mates

Just hoping I'm not far too wide

To fit through the flaming gates.

                                     Pam Ayres.

I'VE BEEN BIZZY.

 I have had quite a lot on this week, I have a few interesting ideas for the Christmas video and keep playing with them early doors and the computer keeps saying don't be silly. 

"I am old and dirty." It says.

I do use it hard and must get round to a proper clean up, It's half a year since the last clean. I dread to think what is lurking in tmp. files and as I rarely think to name stuff it will probably be quicker to delete the lot along with all Windows update files. I find most are crap and if any are really important then they pop them back on. I used to play Freecell but now I have to pay to ditch adverts. I bet a pound to a penny that Linux have Freecell for free. Never ever trust Gates or Apple. We have the hardware now. Look after it.

 A few weeks ago a friend asked for advice on something Blenderish....He must have been desperate to ask me but it made me look up and load the version he was running. It's years old but I have Blender programmes going back to 2012. It didn't work out well as I use a projection along a curve to achieve the end result. I can see his point. It's hard to work. Took me hours and hours to construct curves for a four cylinder engine with equal length exhaust pipes but they are on and work. I used FreeCAD.

 I dread to think what SSD space I could free up. I also have experimental stuff from Blender that is a good year and a half away from being useful as anything but entertainment. Such is life and the fluorescent tube that illuminates my laptop has died. I'm touch typing. I can recall switching to fluorescent when I thought they were energy efficient...Bollocks....LEDs made all the silly curly tubes redundant in a few years. Can anyone even recall Halogen?  Does anyone know anyone who thinks a battery car is a good idea?
I went out this morning to get rat poison from Collessie took the camera to get some shots of the Howe of Fife. I shot half a dozen, three a stop under and three on the meter, none are worth shite. The drains I am sure could be photogenic. Not when I'm working the camera they aren't. Straight drains are posh. Posher still as the French dug them, I suspect it was better than being killed at Waterloo.

Anyway here are a few screen grabs.

Here is my fourth effort at a Christmas tree. Well maybe it could be improved. I hope someone is artistic enough to help.

I have just started on the modelling of a barrel to sit it in.

As you can see it is a barrel in progress.

As are the back drop lights.

This animates for video. It does get complicated when one knows bugger all about it. It's a trade off to render time.

I'll leave you with this.

Who but a pervert would vote for him? Dirty nasty paedo, crooked bugger to boot. Never vote for lefties or Libdems. The right wingers are bad enough but it appears we don't have any here to vote for. Good job I don't vote.

Have fun.

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER BALLS UP.

 Looking on the bright side today has been wet but not quite as wet as forecast. I got a good soaking first thing and again midmorning. The van is sitting in liquid mud despite my shifting it on Friday. Never known anything so wet. Must be Global Wetting.

 Years ago I spliced up a posh tow rope with a thimble and a shackle, it was one inch nylon and a tidy job. I can vaguely remember posting about it. It was made to shift the van when the inevitable happened. I lent it to a Muppet in the summer to get his van out of a ditch and he used some stupid knot in the tail end. It took me an hour to free it working at it a bit at a time. It's now perfect again. Nylon is funny stuff, it stretches a good fifty percent before breaking. This is good for shock absorption but a bugger if you stretch it with silly knots tied in. I find only two work. The bowline tied correctly with the tail outside the loop and the Tugmans hitch which is the only knot I know that can be released under load. Best to use wire rope or chain if ones a numpty. Chain necks and becomes solid before snapping and wire goes a horrific square shape. I know more about pulling stuff and the mediums employed than I do about VFX or Blundering, as I call my pastime. 

Today didn't go well but I did get lights to follow a cloud of stuff in three dimensions. I then got ambitious and added an extra light. This is far harder than the cryptic crossword and very entertaining for an old man.

 I gave a lassie a lift home in the rain the other day and she summed things up perfectly. " Were we twenty years younger we would be heading for the forestry rather than home and you wouldn't be thinking computers and I wouldn't be thinking about the bairns tea." 

Here you can see how far I've got. 

I usually use HOBO as my font but Blender wouldn't  have it. Not to worry.

 I hear the Danes have rejected the Covid nonsense, it's a start. I have never been frightened of a bug that the experts can't cure or diagnose and as far as I can see is designed to bring totalitarian government another step closer. Fair enough some of the old are really frit. I did my best for them by getting their messages. Most ventured out after a couple of months when I reported that I hadn't noticed any corpses or ranks of freezer vans storing the dead in Glenrothes.

Out of empathy I do spend time with a really old lady. She is worried about the TV licence. Told her to save their letters and I'll sort it and not to let strangers in. She must watch the telly nonstop, I never watch it. She did ask in all innocence. "Why are two women dancing together?".  I told her it was just some nonsense the BBC like to promote, it's like being a vegan or a poof.... "Ah they is queers. We had some round here once but they didn't go on the television. Kept themselves to themselves and even the priest never said but we all knew he was one."

Have a great week.

 

A BIT OF THIS AND A BIT OF THAT.

 The weather is slowly improving, the fog has gone and the rain comes less frequently.

I called at the war memorial on Wednesday but it was bucketing down, it didn't look very good at all. Yesterday I got a snap in the sunshine.

It looks good and hasn't been desecrated by the twats from the religion of Greta.

Wednesday was also fish van day.

I got a couple of dead fish, I do enjoy these. It's an Arbroath Smokie, hot smoked Haddock and they can be eaten hot or cold. I had one warm with bread and butter, the other I will flake into rice and peas. Like a Kedgeree without the curry bit.

I have been playing with the Geometry Nodes in Blender 2.92a. I have got it to do something but it is very unstable. I'll have another look in a couple of weeks.

Not much on today, I have to shift the van to a bit of slightly drier ground. It looks like the Somme here, the Somme as it was not as it is today. I'll need a tractor to extricate it, I'd better get my skates on before they all disappear.

Have a great weekend.