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Saturday, 11:25 pm, 21 February 2004 Welcome to the first log instalment from the new laptop. Actually the new old laptop. Retro return to the Powerbook 1400 is like the return of an old friend. I have set up my programming environment and have been working on Noble Warfare on my lap today. What a luxury. Although it is 166Mhz, it isn't quite as fast as my 133 Mhz desktop machine with a slightly more robust processor. But it does the business. I am writing Mac OS X code on a machine that came out in 1997. In other news, the IEEE article has been taking quite a bit of my actual and emotional time. I received a substantial rework with a number of sense changes. I was able to put back about a third of what I wanted. I am feel resolute about the IEEE article. I got a couple of nice emails from Chris Blair with some shots of his work in progress figures. The skin tones are stunning. I will put the final shots online when they become available. As with the prior narrative, I am a little concerned by the slow pace that seems to be come through with the non-Fred Reed figures. But then again, these other painters appear not to be 100% full-time painters like Fred. There is an increasing backlog with Fred anyway. I fear I am advertising him too much! I took Thursday and Friday off my 9-5. My wife and I watched a number of videos. The best I saw was Buffalo Soldiers. A take on the American college movies with a twist. The chief instigator is in a supply regiment of the army stationed in West Germany in 1989. Some classic moments. A quite bleak comedy. A number of bad films not worth mentioning. We went to see Big Fish in the cinema too. I really liked it. My wife did too. It reminded me a lot of my life before marriage. A strange adventure seen through the eyes of a child-like man. Noble Warfare has been taking quite a bit of my time currently. Mainly reworking Ocelot. The engine now supports different buffers for height and colour and now interpolated and non-interpolated colour together. It produces some smooth effects. I am looking forward to the first screen shots. Soon. The only downside of the new laptop is the maximum resolution is 800 x 600. This is seriously confined by today's standards. Good night. Wednesday, 09:34 pm, 18 February 2004 Tonight some images. Some have been online before, but all come from photos. My wife's new computer has a scanner, and I wanted to put the images online in a more Log friendly format. The first set come from the Shed where Noble Ape went through an initial phase of development maturity. The years were early-1997 to mid-1999. This is a set of late winter shots in mid/late 1997. The PC came from a consultancy job I was doing at the time. This was the Noble Ape brain development heyday.    I was curious with the cover of the CD. So I zoomed the scan a little.   This is the original ape's brain running on an XT outside the shed. It ran for a number of days straight. I don't know why I didn't bring it inside? I think there were spiders living in it. Congratulations, you have found a clue - advance to the next level. Good night. Monday, 07:19 pm, 16 February 2004 The Beatles and hip-hop go together like strawberries and cream. It is an anomaly that there hasn't been a greater fusing. Aside from some brief Beastie Boys sampling, there really hasn't been a lot of commercial work for linking the two. When I DJed, I liked nothing more than spinning in a bit of Beatles or some later John Lennon. Although you won't find this work online or on my CDs! In the news today (link not included) I heard that EMI has requested DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album to be pulled.  I'm not a huge fan of JayZ's work. But the Beatles made it listen-able. DJ Danger Mouse has pulled the release of the Grey Album but has promoted its underground distribution. EMI doesn't seem to be complaining. Or perhaps it is the silence before the storm. Fred Reed Rules! So, regular readers of the log may remember a project I ran last month whilst Fred Reed was in the US. Basically I found three other figure painters to do commission work whilst Fred was away. A month and a bit later. Nothing. I've paid one. Two I haven't paid yet (under their request). Comms has been low. Is figure painting a profession, or are you fundamentally dealing with artistes? I shall keep my artistic temperament down. Seriously, Fred is now flooded with work. It will only get worse when the White Dwarf article comes out. But I think he is the best of the best. Brief emails from him today. A good figure painter is valuable. I have a large backlog of work to get to him and there is no one who can fill his niche. Good night. Sunday, 08:51 pm, 15 February 2004 Lots to write about this evening. Two documents online today. Pretty good actually. The first is the long awaited Noble Warfare Manual was put online this morning. I caught and fixed one typo already. I am sure there are many more. Later this afternoon, I speed typed a Development Plan for the Noble Ape Simulation. This is an update to the mildly comic version from May 2003. These kind of predictive documents are something which is really more applicable to commercial software. Investor speak rather than actual development. Something I have been pondering recently is what my memories, what the people from my memories in Australia look like now. Time has passed more than four years in many cases, and my peers at University and my friends in Australia are aging like I am. I am just under three years from thirty. And I feel it. I took a pause from Noble Warfare after dinner and switched on Channel Four for Scrapheap Challenge. When who do I see on the set by one of my Physics comrades from ANU, Karen Bultitude.  Karen is on the far right When last tracked, Karen was doing a PhD at Oxford. I dropped her an email when I arrived in the UK. But heard nothing from her. I have universally lost contact with all the people I once knew in Australia, bar Alex 'Gurap' Brooks. My wife pointed out to me last night that I could appear to be quite stand-offish. I didn't think that was applicable. Although I try to remain a professional distance from reality. Good night. [ Previous Log ]
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