A BEAUTIFUL BIRD.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been enjoying watching a fit bird chasing other fit birds. She catches the occasional Tit. I must have fired off fifty shots trying to catch her in the act, that's over two rolls of film in old money. I've always been a hopeless birder but have managed a snap of it sitting on a power pole.

This is the culprit, a female Kestrel, males have a grey head. I wish I could get a picture of her doing something interesting.

That's all for today.

VOLCANOES.

 This is Cumbre Vieja, depending where in Spain you are it's pronounced Kumbrey Veeayha or Beeayha, if you happen to be in a Spanish speaking country and have trouble try speaking slower and louder. In English it means old summit and I assume it's much the same in American.

 It's not in Spain but on La Palma an island in the Islas Canarias archipelago, nor is it the old summit but the new one but that's the Spaniards or Canarians for you. I'll drop them an email suggesting Cumbre Nuevo would be more appropriate and not what they are no doubt calling it locally.....El Volcán Bastardo, or worse ese jodido colina. The Spanish are foul mouthed fuckers.

I have always been fascinated by volcanoes and have detoured to have a look at a couple. The best was Reunion but Stromboli was well worth seeing as it was firing great big fireballs into the sky, superb it was but a bit dusty and smelly. I didn't have a mask handy whilst there, still not to worry I survived.

I dread to think how much more we are going to have to pay for windmill electric to compensate for all the shit this is pumping out, I think there are a few more going off, one in Iceland and another in Guatamala but who cares about Iceland and Guatamala is miles away.

If you look on YouTube there are several live feeds, they are better at night but it's going like billy-o this morning.

Have fun.

A better video. 

Screen grabbed at 0815h on 29/09/21.

BLENDER-----CYCLES X

Late on last night I was looking at the newish Blender 3.00  Alpha release and came across the CyclesX render engine. It is not in Blender 3.00 yet. It is available to play with if you follow

these steps.

Go to Blender.org/download and you will find this screen, scroll down until you get here.

Click on the highlighted bit....Blender experimental; don't worry it won't bite.

This bit is a cunning plot, Blender 3 is there but if you download it you won't get the Cycles X render engine. You have to click on Branch (American, Big Twig) I've poked an arrow in it's general direction. Then you get dozens of todays builds.

Just now I was lucky and Blender 3.00-cyclesx is only one down. Click on it and after a few minutes you will have a Zip file. All for free and far better than many software applications costing mega bucks. Pop it somewhere sensible. I selected an empty desk top folder I'd named Tree. Next right click, select unzip to here and the job is about done, no compiling and no guessing which file will load it. The computer world is becoming idiot proof but I find it less entertaining and fulfilling.

Just click blender launch and after telling Microsoft to sod off it will load and be ready to play with. How things have changed, only a few years ago it took me a day to compile stuff but there again I rarely listened in school so consequently suffer.

What is CyclesX it is a high quality render engine that is twice as fast, possibly up to ten times as fast as the current Cycles render engine and it's a ray trace job unlike EEVEE.

 Be aware that if things go tits up using this it is a 50/50 chance it's Blender and not you. Try again, if it happens again let them know. They rely on folk playing with their things and telling them. 

Harvest is finished here and went middling well. The new campsite is doing steady business and they have started tidying up it's surrounds.

This is an old New Holland tractor pushing an old cultivator/roller over a ploughed and rolled bit of field. Behind it has a PTO driven cultivator, a spikey roller and seed drill. It's sowing posh grass. The drill isn't in the first flush of youth but we have a Ransome's seeder thirty years older, both work fine but this one is quicker. It's done a grand job and should shut the townie visitors up. (What are you doing for the planet, insects, etc?) It could be cut for hay next August but will probably be topped and have sheep on for a year. It may have to be sprayed for Thistles cos as far as I know Vegans have yet to find a way to eat them.

Have fun.

I SUSPECT I'LL SIGN OUT WITH THIS.

 There must be people on Blogger that aren't snowflakey but I have only found three and one of those died. I have enjoyed interaction with two more but they rarely post these days. I used to like winding the PIE man up but he doesn't allow comments from me. Don't know why as he considers himself an intellectual. In my school days the geography and art folk were considered special needs as were the staff that taught such stuff. 

I am doing fine, for seventy two I'm coping. This morning we were lifting some strainer posts.

 Now I know how to do this job. You get a tractor, back it up and wrap a chain a few times down the post and pop a couple of turns on the three point hitch, hang on for dear life and press the button on the rear mudguard to tell the tractor to raise the hitch.....Bollocks to fetching a machine. I thought this post is loose, I'm not one of those vegan soy boys I'll waggle it about and pull......I did. It snapped off at ground level and dumped me on my arse in a clump of Sow Thistles and Nettles (American: prickly things). Before you ask of course I was prickled and stung. Thrice over I was stinged and spiked, it's a real bastard getting up when one is old, I was not helped by one of the bloody Scots pissing themselves laughing. Bastards are the Scots, well most of them, the ones that aren't; the female ones who are tall and thin with masses of curly red hair and freckles are great but way beyond an old man's capability. Still one can dream of being young again.

I was doing a birthday card last weekend, as usual the arty bit, sound etc. left a bit to be desired. I love playing in 3D. I can do it fine for CAD but the arty bit is really difikult. Here is the card.

I wasn't happy with the bomb lettering so have found a different way of doing it.

Anyone who fancies playing with Alpha channels, mesh modifiers and other such malarkey can see it working in the following video. Somehow I doubt there will be many takers.

 Blender is coming on by leaps and bounds. I can now do quick titles in any font I like. It's also about to get really hard for folk who rely on a one click solution to image posting. I rarely see good images on Blogger. The odd one creeps in by accident.