A.C. Flory's Blog, page 16

Robbie’s art is truly…delicious!

I love how-to posts of all kinds, and as I’ve admired Robbie Cheadle’s fondant art for a long time, I was eager to see how she created a life-sized cake in the shape of a guitar. All I can say is…wow. This really is art, made with love and a whole heap of dedication!

Robbie’s Inspiration – How to make a life-sized guitar cake #baking #cakeart

The joy when you find the perfect image!

Thank you Pixabay! This is the image I found just a few minutes ago:

And this is where I needed it to go:

I still can’t believe how lucky I’ve been. The composite image above is part of the Vokhtan landscape I’ve been imagining for so long, and it’s made up of 22 objects which have been vectored, flipped, spliced, colour adjusted [Corel Photopaint], and woven together from the photos below:

And, of course, that glorious photo of the sky at sunset.

All of the photos are royalty free and come from either freeimages.com or pixabay.com. My heartfelt thanks to all the brilliant photographers who’ve made my creations possible. I have a folder of source material to ensure that nothing I create ever infringes upon someone else’s creativity and hard work. Unlike some AI I could name…

cheers,
Meeks

‘A Map is not a Blueprint: Why Fixing Nature Fails’

As an author, I know that words matter. That’s why I’ve been mulling over the idea that ‘a map is not a blueprint’ since I read the essay of the same name by Nat Eliason.

To explain the difference between maps and blueprints, Eliason points to this graphic of a map:

The map on the left is a crude outline. The map on the right is more accurate, but neither is a blueprint of the UK because neither can be used to re-create the UK.

The blueprint for a piece of machinery can be used to build that piece of machinery, right down to the last millimetre. I know, because my Dad was an engineer, and he often brought his blueprints home. Those blueprints specified exactly what went where. Maps, even the most detailed ones, can only provide an approximation of the object they represent.

But what does this have to do with nature? I can give you an Aussie answer: cane toads!

‘The cane toad is one of Australia’s best-known introduced pests.

Released in Queensland to help the cane industry deal with insect attacks on sugar cane roots, it has since spread all the way across to northern Western Australia.’

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/introduction-of-cane-toads

The cane toad is not native to Australia, but in 1932, some clever sod thought it would be a great idea to import some into Australia and see if they worked on cane beetles. Why? Because in their country of origin, cane toads ate the pests that attacked sugar cane. No brainer, right?

Wrong. In the cane toad’s country of origin, there were other beasties that kept the cane toad in check. Australia, being an island continent, has none of those beasties, so guess what? Yup. The cane toad population exploded.

But that’s not the worst of the cane toad problem. The worst part is that any native animal, or even introduced ones like dogs, that try to eat the cane toad end up dying because the toad is poisonous. Lovely. So now we have a massive cane toad problem that’s spread thousands of kilometres from the sugar cane fields of Queensland.

And that, my friends is why a map is not a blueprint. The idiot – Reginald Mungomery – who first brought the cane toad to Australia saw only a tiny part of the whole picture, but it was an even bigger idiot – Prime Minister Joseph Lyons – who threw the precautionary principle right out the window:

Walter Froggatt, a prominent entomologist, was rightly concerned that the toads would become a significant pest. He successfully prevailed on the federal Health Department to ban further releases of the toad.

However, in 1936 Prime Minister Joseph Lyons succumbed to pressure from the Queensland Government and the media to rescind the ban.

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/introduction-of-cane-toads

Note the words ‘succumbed to pressure’. There are all sorts of pressure: political pressure is one, the profit motive is another. Where science is concerned, both forms of pressure tend to lead to terrible outcomes.

In his essay, Eliason offers the example of trans fats:

Proctor and Gamble had a thriving candlemaking business in the 1800s, but as electricity started spreading, the demand for candles fell dramatically. They primarily used cottonseed oil to make their candles, but as the demand for candles fell, they looked for a new use for their cottonseed oil.

In 1901, a chemist developed a process called “hydrogenation,” which turned liquid oils into solids to help preserve them for longer. It also happened to give cottonseed oil a consistency very similar to lard, the dominant cooking fat of the time, so Procter and Gamble bought the rights to the hydrogenation process, started using it with their cottonseed oil to create a room-temperature stable fat, and then branded it as a cooking product called Crisco.

https://blog.nateliason.com/p/map-not-a-blueprint?publication_id=882098&post_id=141399725&isFreemail=true&r=1i4v12

For those who don’t know, trans fats have a terrible effect on human health.

Eliason puts this one hundred year old debacle down to hubris and ignorance:

They [Proctor and Gamble] thought they had a blueprint, but really they had a map scribbled in crayon.

https://blog.nateliason.com/p/map-not-a-blueprint?publication_id=882098&post_id=141399725&isFreemail=true&r=1i4v12

Personally, I think it was greed. Proctor and Gamble made the science fit their commercial need. That is always a recipe for disaster.

Eliason also points to lobotomies and fertilizer as ‘maps’ rather than ‘blueprints’. I’d like to add AI to the list. There are genuine, life saving uses for AI, but the commercial crap that’s hit us over the last couple of years is just a way for companies to save money and make profits.

Always follow the money.

I’ve provided tons of links to Eliason’s essay, and I implore you to follow them. This is a topic we have to make time for, or we may end up with cane toads all over the place.

Meeks

A midnight intruder…of the cute variety

I was woken the other night by a scrabbling sound coming from my window. It was a stinking hot night, and I’d wound the window open as far as it would go, so the only thing between me and whatever was outside, was a flimsy fly-wire screen. Luckily my ‘visitor’ was only a baby possum!

In case anyone is wondering, these awning windows have a metal chain thingie that you can wind in and out. The little possum was balancing on that chain.

I don’t know why the little guy was trying so hard to get in, but I had to bang on the screen a number of times to get him [her?] away from the window. And even then he didn’t want to leave!

This is the little guy on the fence near my window:

The Offspring and I think that maybe there was a fox lurking somewhere, and that perhaps the little guy figured a human was the lesser of two evils. When I finally crawled out of bed in the morning, the little guy was gone, and I could find no sign of a struggle so I’m pretty sure he made it back to the trees in one piece.

As always, apologies for the poor quality of the photos, but it was late.

cheers,
Meeks

Great Big Microsoft Cheat!!!!

Warning: MAJOR RANT AHEAD

I started using Microsoft products in the ’80’s. Back then, you bought your software and installed it. End of story. Over time, Microsoft introduced activation/product codes. Not a problem. Then, around about Office 2016, you had to go to the Microsoft store and download from there. Annoying, but still not a problem…

…until today.

As a long time reader of New Atlas, an online tech magazine, I jumped at the chance to upgrade my Office 2016 software to Office 2019…for $30!

I paid my money, downloaded the setup.exe file and then, more fool me, I decided to do a clean install of my new Office software. ‘Clean install’ means uninstalling the old version before installing the new version. It’s old school and most people don’t bother these days. I wish I hadn’t.

Long story short, I uninstalled Office 2016, tried to install Office 2019, and discovered to my horror that Office 2019 is not compatible with Windows 7.

Yes, I know. I should have checked the specifications first, but I didn’t, did I?

I was ticked off, mostly at myself, but I was not terribly concerned until I tried to re-install Office 2016. I had the folder with the activation code, but no setup files. What the…? Then I remembered that I had to go to the Microsoft store to download the files. Only…the Microsoft Store doesn’t support Office 2016 any more so there were no files. I’d bought and paid for a product that I could no longer use because it wasn’t on a DVD or USB stick or some other location that I could access.

Was I angry? You bet. Then things became even worse when I realised that the file in which I keep all my most important data needs Excel to open.

By this point I was really starting to panic. Could I still upgrade to Windows 10? Searching the net seemed to indicate that no, that was no longer possible. I was going through my very short list of techie friends, wondering if I could get one of them to print out the Excel spreadsheet when I remembered that I also had Office 2013. Could I re-install that?

Thank all the gods, yes, I managed to re-install Office 2013 because I had the necessary files ON MY COMPUTER. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t activate the friggin’ thing because Microsoft doesn’t support it either.

In desperation, I decided to at least try to open my spreadsheet with 2013…. Oh my god…it worked! I printed off that spreadsheet so fast it just about beat the speed of light. So now I have my most important data, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep using Office 2013 before the lack of activation shuts me out.

The only good thing about this whole comedy of errors is that I now have a little bit of time to find a solution to my bigger problem: how to upgrade to Windows 10 so I can install Office 2019. And before anyone asks, the reason I’ve hung onto Windows 7 for so long is because of the utter disregard for user privacy shown by Microsoft. Windows 10 is bad in terms of privacy, but it’s nowhere near as bad as Windows 11.

Microsoft doesn’t sell us products any more, it makes us the product by ensuring that it controls the software we use, and has access to all the personal/private data that we don’t even know we’re handing over. In other words, we’re paying for the privilege of being shafted by Microsoft.

I don’t know how any of this can be fixed. Yes, I know I could move to a MAC or Linux operating system, but most of the third party software I use is only available on Windows. Or I’d have to pay to buy a different version. Hah…

If anyone out there has any advice, I’d love to hear it. -sigh-

Meeks

p.s. My thanks to Jaye Marie for introducing me to Bitmoji.

Storyboarding when the words won’t come

Storyboarding is a process used by animators to sketch out the milestones of a story. It’s a way of:

‘… illustrating, structuring, and organizing a scene in a work of animation. Based on the script and voice acting, these storyboards evolve from sketches to fully-formed pictures, culminating in a final set of images which make up a scene. The idea is to present the most accurate and probable version of a scene. After which, they will be looked over, approved, and then sent out to be animated.’

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/animation-storyboard-template/

Sounds a bit like a plot, doesn’t it?

But just as some authors plot and others pants [create by the seat of their pants], storyboarding doesn’t have to start with the story. Miyazaki is one of my all-time favourite animators/storytellers, and his process is very different:

‘Hayao Miyazaki puts a heavy emphasis on detailed storyboarding as the starting point, rather than a conventional script, which allows his story to grow and change naturally. His storyboards become a living part of the creative journey, often tweaked as the film takes shape, resulting in narratives rich with detail and depth…’

https://xsmultimedia.com/2023/06/19/capturing-the-magical-frames-of-hayao-miyazakis-storyboards/

‘He [Miyazaki] usually had no idea how the film would end. He might have competing ideas about how it should end that he couldn’t resolve. Or he might have no idea at all.’

https://kotaku.com/the-way-hayao-miyazaki-works-sounds-stressful-1841035846

Despite having loved Miyazaki films for decades, I didn’t know any of this until I found myself unconsciously following his process. Not as an animator, and certainly not as a painter, but rather as a storyteller.

Of course I didn’t realise that I was storyboarding when I started; I just found graphics easier to do than struggling with words. A story is taking shape, but it’s happening one image at a time, in my own digital storyboard.

These are three images I could ‘see’ in my head. They’re from a part of the story where Mama Tukti realises her kits are in danger:

None of these images has a ‘background’ because that level of detail isn’t necessary, yet. For now, I’m just happy to be a pantster, a teensy tiny bit like Miyazaki.

cheers,
Meeks

Kindle Piracy – does Amazon care?

Matthew Wright is an author from New Zealand, and one of his books has been pirated on the Kindle.

Piracy and plagiarism are evils that affect us all.

Please read Matthew’s story and then re-blog it to spread the word to as many authors… AND READERS! …as possible. Together we can become that squeaky door that won’t be silenced! This is as much Amazon’s problem as it is ours.

Meeks

Kindle piracy and paraphrase-bots

Coles! Stop giving online customers second class service

Please be warned, this is going to be an angry rant.

So…I placed an online order with Coles supermarket last night. Coles is one of the two major supermarket chains here in Australia.

I’ve been unhappy with the Coles online service for quite a while, but today I finally had enough. I am sick to death of ordering items, having my money ‘held’ by Coles, and then not actually getting many of the items I order.

This is the email I received this morning, just before going to do a Click-and-Collect from Coles:

And just for the record, in reality, you can only change your order some ten hours or so before it’s ready to go:

So, by the time I learn that things are missing, it’s miles too late to do anything about it. And as Coles immediately places a ‘hold’ on the total invoice amount as soon as I place the order, I’m still out of pocket for some days after the order arrives, meaning that I don’t have access to the money spent on items I didn’t get.

This is a pic of the angry email I sent to Coles customer service. It’s followed by a transcript in larger type :

“Enough! I’ve been shopping with Coles Online for a long time now because of Covid and the need to stay in protective self-isolation. Yet almost EVERY shop there is something that is missing, and often it’s a sale item. Why?

Coles receives my order well in advance of delivery or pickup. Coles puts a hold on my bank account for the full amount ordered. Coles takes DAYS to return my money when items are missing. Why?

More importantly, why are online customers like myself being treated to second class service?

If I walked into a Coles store and chose my items myself, I would not pay for something I did not buy. Yet because Coles waits until the order is to be delivered/picked up, the items that were available when I ordered them are suddenly no longer available!!!

This is not fair by any definition of the word. Orders should be filled at the time of ordering. Or if that is not possible, the stocktake system should put a hold on items that have been ordered AND PAID FOR. Those items should not be placed out on the shelves for in-person shoppers because those items have already been SOLD.

And last but not least, the reason I have gradually stopped allowing substitutions is because I am on an age pension and I cannot afford to pay for items that often have nothing in common with what I ordered. For example, I once ordered radishes and allowed a substitute. What did I get? Beetroot. I hate beetroot. Another time I ordered natural almonds and received salted and roasted almonds. I have high blood pressure so the salted almonds went straight into the bin. That was about eight dollars of my pension totally wasted.

As a result of my bad experiences in the past, I no longer trust the people completing my online orders to substitute something that is actually comparable.

Last but not least, I am posting this response on my blog, Meeka’s Mind:
https://acflory.wordpress.com/

I have put up with being a second class consumer for too long.

Yours most sincerely,
A. Flory”

If you have had a bad experience with Coles Online, or Woolworths Online, or any online supermarket/merchant, please tell us about it in comments. So long as we put up with this nonsense, the big supermarkets will have no incentive to improve their service. One individual cannot do much, but many individuals can move mountains, or supermarkets, as the case may be.

cheers,
Meeks

Dance? Mime? Amazing? Oh yeah!

I stumbled across this guy on Youtube – where else? – and what astounds me is that he makes the impossible seem ‘real’. Keep watching until you see the ‘umbrella’ pull him up from the ground. I kid you not.

His handle is ‘Kazuho Monster‘. I think of him as Magic Man.

You’re welcome,
Meeks

For all those squillions out there who don’t play video games….

World War Three: Game of Cowards

My friend Chris James is sometimes so prophetic it scares me. This scares me.

Meeks