Posted by Johnnie
Mon, 19 May 2008 16:20:00 GMT
I use Moviestorm on a daily basis, but I have to switch fairly regularly between Moviestorm version 1.0.4 (our current public release) and the cutting-edge (read: broken) development version, which is only accessible by compiling and running our current source code. If I’m running a demonstration, or answering posts on the Moviestorm forums, I’ll boot up 1.0.4. I’m also currently writing a whole bucket load of documentation, though, and that’s being written against the latest development version.
The problem with the dev build is that it changes daily. In fact, often it changes hourly. And, every so often, you’ll find a little bit of functionality that hasn’t quite been raised to the usual high standards of absolute perfection that we’ve come to expect from Moviestorm. Little bits like this genuine example from the current dev build:
Posted in Comedy, Ego, Geek, Machinima, Rants | Tags error, lazy programmer, moviestorm, pls implement | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:57:00 GMT
Cambridge, my current humble abode, must be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. First of all, it is resolutely, uncompromisingly flat. There are no hills in Cambridge. When it rains, the water just mills about in little puddles looking confused. There are also bicycle lanes everywhere, and bike stands on every street. There are a phenomenal number of cyclists, and the city is full of motorists who have been trained to be aware of bikes.
And yet, still, despite all of this … people still cycle on the pavements. Why? Why do they do this? That’s where I’m trying to walk. The little bit of road that’s specially dedicated to them – you know, the one with the little picture of a bike on it – is where they should really be. If I started walking down the street in the bike lane I’d soon get comments.
Also, why is it that so many motorists seem to have trouble understanding the phrase “only if your exit is clear”? Do the crosshatching boxes actually have the words “Free Parking” painted across them but only visible from behind the wheel of a BMW? Get out of my way! I’m trying to cross the road! The lights have changed for the first time in fifteen minutes, and I have about three and a half seconds to cross before they change back. Your penisreplacementmobile is blocking my path.
I don’t drive, and never have, but I swear I’d be a better driver than most of the tossers on the road.
Right. Rant over. Back to work.
Posted in Ego, Rants, Local Things For Local People | Tags bicycle, cambridge, cycle lane, cyclist, driver, highway code, idiots, motorist | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:10:00 GMT
Now, look. I’m on your side. You know that. I’m all for encouraging creativity and new talent. But, please, I’m begging you …
Stop making machinima movies with Carmina Burana as the soundtrack!
O Fortuna is a great piece of music. I’m not saying it’s not. Very evocative, very dramatic. I can see why, when you dragged that mp3 into your video editor, it seemed like a good idea. It’s bound to make your halfass movie feel like proper Dramatic Stuff.
Don’t make that mistake, please. O Fortuna is so over-used, it’s not even funny. It was already a cliche after The Omen. By this stage, it’s even a cliche as a machinima soundtrack. There are plenty of other great pieces of classical music. Why not look at Wagner, or Elgar, or one of the really great choral composers like Bach or Handel?
Come on, people. Put some effort in, please.
Posted in Machinima, Music, Rants | Tags Carl Orff, carmina burana, cliche, machinima, originality | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:37:00 GMT
Yes, you read the title correctly. Brace yourself.
Religeous-types try to convert me from my staunch atheism on a fairly regular basis, and the conversation always seems to follow the same basic lines. This example features A Christian Telling Me About Jesus, but it works the same for whatever mass-delusion the person concerned is trying to get me to buy into.
CHRISTIAN-TYPE: You should worship God and Jesus! It’s great!
ME: Well, I’m afraid I don’t believe in God, and I certainly don’t believe in Jesus in the way you’re meaning it.
CT: You should believe! It’s great! Why don’t you believe?
ME: Because there’s absolutely no evidence to incline me towards belief.
CT: Yes there is. What about the Bible?
ME: The Bible isn’t evidence, sorry. Just because I write “God exists” on a bit of paper, it doesn’t make it true.
CT: But the Bible comes to us directly from God, so it must be true.
ME: First of all, that’s circular logic of the most staggering design. Secondly, the existence of and content of the Bible is scientific fact. The accuracy or fallacy of the Bible is speculation. Therefore, the Bible is not evidence for the existence of God.
CT: Well, I believe in God. I know He’s there – I’ve felt his presence.
ME: That’s not evidence, either. It’s evidence for you (although I’d still be sceptical were I in your shoes), but it’s meaningless to me. You can’t admit that as evidence – it’s unscientific.
CT: Well, you’re obviously determined not to believe. Any evidence I give you, you just dismiss out of hand. There’s no point talking to you about this anymore.
ME: Oi! Come back here and argue properly!
I’m sick of this crap. The trump card that’s always pulled is “Well, you might not think of that as evidence, but I do.” As if evidence were somehow subjective, and open to interpretation. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Something is either valid as scientific evidence or it isn’t. 2 + 2 is either 4, or it isn’t. You don’t get to decide whether or not you’re going to treat it as 5.
Now, piss off and stop trying to convert me until you can come up with something better than that.
P.S. Yes, it’s categorised as People I Hate. This is really starting to get on my nerves.
Posted in Ego, People I Hate, Rants | Tags atheism, belief, bible, christian, converting the heathens, evidence, God, jesus, religion, scientific evidence | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:18:00 GMT
Much as love Linux – and god knows I do love ‘er, fickle and high-maintenance mistress that she is – there are a few things that irritate and annoy me. Some of them are big things and some of them are small things. The thing that annoys me most of all, though, more than anything else in the Free & Open Source software world, is the noise that K3B plays when it’s finished burning a disk. It’s a little fanfare of smugness. It’s a sound that all but demands a round of applause and a short speech to commemorate the fact that K3B has managed to accomplish the sole task for which it was designed, without – for example – setting my house on fire or pissing on my cat. It’s as bad as using Windows, where if I don’t want to sit through the ten-minute masturbation session that is the Windows XP New Features Tour, the operating system gets mildly indignant and goes off into the system tray for a sulk.
I know it’s open source, so I can just hack it myself and solve my own problem, but it shouldn’t be there in the first place. It’s stupid, and most un-FOSS-like.
Posted in Geek, Rants | Tags annoying noises, disc writers, foss, irritations, k3b, kde, linux, sounds, STFU | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:23:00 GMT
Money that comes from an ATM on the day you get paid is always so much sweeter, isn’t it? If I get money out on pay day, it always seems to be crisp new notes, unfolded and smelling of success. The machine seems pleased for me. It’s almost as if it’s saying “Yeah, you’re the man. You’re the man! There’s plenty more where that came from, baby!”
Ask the machine for money towards the end of the month, though, when you’re scratting around to find enough change to buy a pint of milk, and it’s a different story. The machine whirs and beeps and grumbles, seeming to take an inordinate amount of time to check my card, and eventually spits it back out at me along with a grubby old tenner, ripped in two and held together with sellotape. The machine is disgusted with me. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” it mutters as I slink away.
I know, of course, that I should try to save some of the money from month to month. That way the machine will always be my friend. Unfortunately, I now live in Cambridge, so that pretty much buggers that idea.
Posted in Ego, Rants, Local Things For Local People | Tags ATMs, cambridge, cash machines, payday | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:05:00 GMT
Honestly. I ask you.
Posted in Geek, People I Hate, Rants | Tags error, idiocy, microsoft, vista, windows | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:51:00 GMT
I was in a pub last night (which, apropos of nothing, served the most piss-poor watery excuse for beer that I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter), and they were playing Christmas carols. Loudly, consistently. The Most Annoying Christmas Tunes In The World Ever 3 on constant loop.
Now, check the timestamp on this post. It’s almost exactly two months till Christmas. If it’s now acceptable to start the relentless Christmas cheer at the end of September, that means I’m going to be forced to listen to Slade for a sixth of my life. That’s too much to ask of any man.
Posted in Annecdotes, Music, Rants | Tags beer, christmas, marketing, slade | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:41:00 GMT
As a pretty proficient Photoshop user, I’m often called on to touch up or alter an image, sometimes in a minor way and sometimes in a major way (for one of the shots in BloodSpell I had to animate a character’s mouth movement frame by frame, because we forgot to puppeteer it when we took the shot).
I know that image manipulations tools such as Photoshop can have a profound effect on a final image, and I also know just how much work has been done to the images that grace the covers of fashion and celebrity magazines. I sometimes find it difficult to get this across to people, though – if you don’t have years of regular Photoshop use under your belt it’s difficult to comprehend just how much influence you can bring to bear on an image. Finally, I’ve found a perfect example. iWANEX Studio have put several example images online (Flash-based site. Click Portfolio to see the images). Mouse-over the final image and you can see the original shot. Pay attention: this is what celebrities really look like. Greasy, fat and spotty; rather like you and me. The reason Kylie Minogue’s butt is so impossibly pert is because it is, quite literally, impossible. Those buttock cheeks do not exist. They’re no more real than Lara Croft’s funbags.
Posted in Geek, Rants | Tags bloodspell, celebrity, image manipulation, iwanex studio, kylie minogue, photoshop | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Johnnie
Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:38:00 GMT
It was very satisfying, in a twisted way, to be ranting about Microsoft again the other day. It’s been too long. It was even more satisfying, though, to discover that we won. Stick that in your proprietary codec and smoke it.
The title of the post, by the way, comes from the Q&A session with Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith.
Posted in Geek, People I Hate, Rants | Tags brad smith, court case, drm, fine, microsoft, open rights group, people i hate, proprietary codec, rants, windows media player | no comments | no trackbacks
