The Power of Gogh, and My Drawing Tablet

May 10th, 2010 Thomasso

I like simple, and sometimes there is such a thing as having too many bells and whistles when all you want is pure simple. Gogh does this for me. Gogh is a ridiculously simple, yet beautiful drawing/sketching program that just gives you the basics: pen, pencil, smudge, colour and an eraser. It works great with Ubuntu 10.04, and is quite stable.

There is a bit of a trick to starting after you uncompress it – you must either start it up in terminal (the Gogh executable file),e.g., “./gogh,” or simply right click on it and choose run, or create a short-cut, but the folder must stay somewhere in your home directory. You can download it from here: GOGH.

Both of these sketches took only seconds to make.  They are not perfect, but I like the feel of the program, so any mistake you can either erase yourself out of trouble, or hit the undo.

Posted in Art, Featured Software, General, Linux, Photographs | 4 Comments »

Everything is Upgraded – Now the Desktop

May 1st, 2010 Thomasso

Well, everything seems to be in order now. I have finished the major upgrade, and did some tinkering with the bios settings on this machine (my work station) and I think it working at optimal performance.

There were a few little surprises, like the download centre. That caught me off guard when I clicked on that. I saw that you can add both free and non-free software to this now. Open source is open for business now I guess? Also, this version now comes stock with the movie editor called PiTiVi. And they get rid of a ton of useless screen savers, which I think is a good thing because they had way to many to being with from the last four or five versions.

I’m sure I will be spending the next while tweaking everything up. Heck, this the fun part, finding all the cool stuff and working with it.  I’m happy – something new to look at. So far nothing froze or died on me, so the software looks good.  My DVD player/Burner is slowly on the road to death as it reads disks like they might as well be pieces of sandpaper.

Posted in General, Linux, Photographs, Software | Comments Off

Five minutes With the GIMP

April 22nd, 2010 Thomasso

I just thought I would spend some time with the GIMP and see what improvements I could get with some of the new add-ons I found for it. Basically I just added a whole bunch of brushes, gradients and tools to the stock collection that originally came with the GIMP. I search on Google (plug) and found a huge amount of stuff that I could add.

The results I found were quite interesting. I had tried some professional software that I used at my Collage, but they were way over priced if I wanted to buy them. I’m worse than cheap, some of my friends say. I was looking for anything that was free, and did close to the same job as the professional software does. The GIMP seems to be very close for me. I’m currently using Ubuntu 9.10, with the 6 x 9 inch drawing tablet and just the GIMP, version 2.6.

I sat down just a few minutes ago and started my timer which I set for five minutes and started to draw with the GIMP. This is the end result. I went with a volcano theme on this one, mainly becuase when I started the GIMP, it gave me a black background to stat with, and the images of the volcano currently erupting in Iceland started me moving my table pen into creating this. I can say that this is not bad for free and open source software.

Did I mention I like free? I do you know!

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So, Language 101, Oral Exams, Tomorrow – Gulp!

April 18th, 2010 Thomasso

OK, I know what you are thinking, “not another post on French…” Well, I will not promise you that I will never write another post on the topic, but the good news is that I may not talk about French for a while, a long while. Tomorrow I do my oral examination, the part where I pretend that I know the language, and I can carry on a conversation-yeah, right. The sad reality is that I have a horrible ascent, and I still do not have all the components of sentence structure learned well enough to pass in my opinion.

With the exam looming, I took a walk early this morning to attempted to clear my head. There were many wonderful signs of spring, but with all of this new life popping up around from nature, the thought of the exam just kept killing the moment. I took some photos, and then left it at that.

Tonight I have my CRIM-Group2 research project meeting, the big and final meeting to polish up our paper on youth violence. This was another huge undertaking, as the time to do the research and run the statistical analysis was brutal, and this was split up between five of us. Just a few moments ago I finished making the graphs and table look pretty, so at least they look if published in a journal. Oh the joy of beating deadlines-my, my.

Officially tomorrow is that last day of the semester and then with only one exam left, that is it. This was a screwed up semester becuase of the Olympics. I hate the Olympics. What a waste. The three weeks off in the middle made it worse than better for students. The university should have stayed out of it and focused on teaching rather than hosting-in my opinion.

Posted in Criminology, Diatribe, General, Photographs, University classes | 2 Comments »

HST – I’m Mad As Hell, and I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore!

April 17th, 2010 Thomasso

I feel better now that I took the time yesterday to sign the (anti) HST petition of British Columbia. In fact, I felt so good that I went and told as many of my friends as I could that they should show their support and sign too-and many of them did. I met a lot of angry people who are feed-up with all levels of governments, especially our provincial government for the implementation of this new tax structure called the Harmonizing Sales Tax, or HST.

What is the HST? In my own words, it is the consolidation of both the federal, GST (Goods and Services Tax), and the PST, (Provincial Sales Tax), and lump them into one tax, where everyone will pay the one lump tax, and the various governments then divvy up their take form the total sum left over. There are a number huge problems that I see with this new tax regime, and they cancel out any of the positive good that this tax does make. Net widening, and increases in the number of  items being taxes are my biggest gripes with this. The New tax will reach more people than ever before, and also, items that only had one tax applied to it, will have both wrapped up into the HST. This is more hardship for the consumer in what is already a very difficult time for most British Colombians  who are still struggling with the wrath of the recension, like those who are still unemployed.

So I got off my butt and did something about it. I saw the HST petition sign-up station along Glover Road, and I rushed right back to it after I changed at home. I live only a five minute walk from the sign-up station so I walk there to sign up.

I felt great after I singed it. Though, there were two things that I pondered while I was walking home afterwards. First, I never thought I would ever climb on board with anything that involves Bill Vander Zalm, the man who spearheaded the HST petition campaign. Second, what will our governments do if the people vote overwhelmingly in favour of having no HST? I shutter to think what these megalomaniacs will do to us? Medicare is one thing, but Corporate Welfare is another.

Some Good Links To Check Out:

http://fighthst.com/

The Straight.com/

Posted in Diatribe, General, Photographs, Social Justice, Video | 1 Comment »

The Knot is Now Too Tight: I Need More Rope.

April 11th, 2010 Thomasso

Exams are now within days, hours and seconds away from starting. Classes are going at a fever pitch, and it seems everyone else around me wants a piece of Thomasso’s time as I struggle to get the last few assignments off for marking.  perhaps the biggest mistake, if you can call it that, was my agreement to help out a old colleague of mine with his legal practice.  No, I am not getting into law, nor am I working as a lawyer – he needs a criminologist. I just happened to be one, and one who is well versed with criminal law. But I didn’t see the time aspects of his needs with his workload, and the amount of research he needs for his up coming cases, coming. Time is one thing that I do not have a lot of at the moment.

Now I have two jobs, and a semester that needs huge amounts of time to finish, so now my daily life is full of new stresses. Sure, there is plenty of money coming in, which is a lot more than I can say for many of my friends right now, but my time is being piecemealed right from underneath my feet, and this is a bad thing.

I took a long walk this morning, to clear my head, and then tried to put everything back into perspective. Work is going to be a tough challenge becuase the changing climate is forcing a whole lot of new dynamics that I never faced before to happen. there is even a power struggle taking place, or the person who wants seems to think so? But this is making for some interesting and weird results at my work. I actually held the pen that could have terminated that person’s job, but I took the moral high ground and push it off in a direction that offered salvation and time to that person. The funny thing is, know one will ever know, but was it the right thing for me to do? This could bite me back?

Money is the root of evil, according to my friend who is in the Bible business. For most people, I can say, is what drive them to do things that they otherwise would never do in their right mind. For these people, they expect me to follow that same edict- never say no to money-it is a rule. Yet I turn it down almost on a daily occurrence. Sure I need money, but if I get too much of it, this will throw my balance out of whack and I then will end up giving too much to the government. I will slowly start the cycle of being lifted into another tax bracket, knowing that in three months I will be at my regular income level again, and my taxes will have tripled. Yes, the money worshippers are blind to this notion, but they believe that no one should have to pay taxes anyway.

I’m on the spot, again. What to do? Ho, heck, I’ve dealt with before, and I’m sure this will not be the last time. I think this little image best sums up my mind right about now. Enjoy the art.

Posted in Art, Bitching about work, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Photographs, University classes | Comments Off

Moving Into Spring Fast Now

April 10th, 2010 Thomasso

Just a little note on spring here in the Fraser valley – it is definitely getting greener out. It was looking dismal there for a couple of days as cooler temperatures moved in, but in all, we seem to be bouncing back into a normal spring, just a few weeks ahead of schedule.

But who cares, just the fact that the brown days of winter are gone, (notice I didn’t say white) says a lot about what we could be in store for summer. Who knows, maybe a it will be a record cool summer, or new killer heat wave records will be made? Who can predict!

Posted in Bitching about weather, General, Photographs | Comments Off

Face to Face with Inkscape – Oh How I Love to Draw.

April 4th, 2010 Thomasso

When I get a few seconds, I like to spend some time playing with some of the software I have, and some of that time I spent being creative with Inskape. The stuff you can do with this program even amazes me from what I have done. This image took all but two hours to complete. This was all done free hand, but using a model from a photograph that was the size of 150 x 240 pixel image; so I just eyed it up the best I could and totally redid the colour scheme to what I think is the real world colours. Also, the model is laying down holding her head up with her arm while leaning on her elbow, so I sort of made her posing as if she was standing up, but she is looking at you while her head is facing downward.

I have a writing tablet, in case you are wondering. Using a mouse it totally possible, but I would save yourself the pain and get a good size tablet. What I did was sketch out the shape of the face and hair to the proper dimensions using the line tool, I drew it at about 900 x 1200 px, then I  started adding in the various shapes, and then layered them together, each element one by one. I have seen this technique from several other websites that teach drawing using method with scalable vector graphics, but this is my first shot at it. I sort of had a very good idea on how this was done beforehand, so it went together relatively smooth for me. Making everything to scale, and getting the proportions right was the tricky part.

What I thought was neat was how life like the face became. I think the best part of this image are the lips in proportion with the eyes. I really fluked out here in my opinion as this is sometimes the hardest thing for me to get right. Her hair is close to what it is in the photograph, but I extended it all the way to edges of the image. The major thing that I added, and an element that is not in the real world, is her blue turtle neck sweater – that I added to balance the image out. The background it also totally not real too.

I was going to upload the raw SVG file, but I thought, “Naw!” becuase I really like this image, and I may add to it later, I’m going to keep the edited file on my hard drive. I will use this technique again for sure becuase of the results I got here. This really impressed me.

ADDED: April 05, 2010. It looks likes someone from the Inkscape community enjoyed my art as I got a request to make a how-to on drawing faces. Now, if I can find the time to make one?

Posted in Art, General, Photographs | Comments Off

Time Travel through Old Catalogues – The 60s and 70s weren’t that Bad were They?

April 3rd, 2010 Thomasso

I was searching the web for some information on a old prehistoric computer, one called the Commodore 64, and its predecessor, the VIC-20. Many many years a go I had both of these bad boys, and I used them a lot. Anyway, while searching for pdf manuals, I hit upon this little website that threw me back even further into nostalgic mood of my humble past. Yes, somebody took the time to scan and copy as many of the old Sears catalogues as they could find and post them so that everyone could look back into this archive of an era gone by.

Sears – Wishbook Website Link

The first thing that hit me about looking at these old gems are the prices for everyday items such as a early microwave oven, television and basic clothing. I have being working one a problem that most people go through when they try to a “Adjusted for Inflation” algorithm into the research data. These old Sears catalogues made it that much more difficult.

The second thing were the styles. OMG, am I ever glad people didn’t embrace the cyclical styles of the 70s and 80s. Both men and women’s style, in my opinion, sucked compared to today. And the colours of the 70s? What up with that? The furniture was scary then.

With men’s skin tight disco pants, who needed a man’s purse to carry their wallets around, to women’s 2.3 kg of underwear and hairspray, I think this last decade is a whole lot better looking in comparison. However, I do have a soft spot for the 60s. I don’t know why, perhaps becuase I never live through all of it.

Posted in General, Humour, Photographs, Social economics | Comments Off

Happy Birthday Mom, and Valentine’s Day

February 14th, 2010 Thomasso

Yes, I know, this is a cheap way of doing it this year. But Mom, I have just being so busy to get out and send you off a proper birthday card. I know you sometimes feel that saying it public, like this, makes you uneasy, but at least this way I know will find it. So happy birthday Mom, and may this one be the best ever.

Also, today is Valentine’s Day, a day when you are supposed to give your “sweetheart” a gift of something that somehow conveys a romantic feeling to it. Because I have no “special” sweetheart in my life at the moment, I will dedicated part of this post to all those sweethearts who do not have that special someone in their life, and send out a blanket, virtual, Valentine’s day card to you all.

Maybe this will put a smile on someone’s face.  À bientôt!

[ADDED] I remember a long time ago when me and my father had a very deep discussion about the symbolism of the Valentine’s heart and the arrow through it, it left me wondering why we give cards to everyone when I was in grade school, and should it be a good idea if it is just a repetitious commercialised act we do today? He came up with some very interesting ideas of what could be alternative meanings to it, but when you start to add critical thinking to these ideas they start to loose their fun very quickly. Of course symbolism is the mainstay of why we use such things as cards and gifts on various days throughout the calendar like Valentine’s Day, but do we really know where they started from?

We know that the arrows come from the Greek myth Cupid, whose arrows strike those who have fallen in love. When the arrow hits you, you become transformed and fall love with whomever is near you, or the first person you see. I suspect that the kiss comes from this too, as the shape of the lips, in particular the top outer lip becuase it is shaped like a ancient bow from which you would draw an arrow from.

The heart shape we see today is where my Dad had came up with the weirdest part of this idea. We know that the human heart is not shaped like a Valentine’s heart, but rather like a potato or pear, and is not perfectly symmetrical like the drawings we see. Instead, what we draw today as the “heart” could very well be a symbolic representation of a woman’s buttock. Oh, it gets weirder yet: the arrow is like a pin, or mark that indicates that the buttock has being taken, or the sender wishes to take it. Tthe arrow could very well be a symbol of the penis, and putting it through the heart could be the romantic act in its purest form.

Although this conversation took place over twenty years ago, it still makes me wonder if it has any validity to it. I know that all societies have buried in their cultures dual meanings to their beliefs that we see today. All religions have their origins from older forms of cultural symbolisms that have evolved into what we see today. I never bothered to go out and research this, but perhaps I should? I would be interested in what other ideas there are that have laid claim to this symbol of love?

Posted in Birthday, Events, General, Photographs | Comments Off