Started a new blog today, for my story of Kreet the Kobold over at https://kreetthekobold.tumblr.com/tagged/kreetthekobold/chrono
That URL is preferred as it sorts the story properly in chronological order. If you like my fanfiction, you might give it a read since it’s where I’m focusing all my creativity these days. Well, mostly anyway.
A layman’s thoughts on Net Neutrality.
I am no expert in this, and I’m probably wrong on many points here, if so – consider this a chance to set the record straight. But here’s why I am fundamentally against Net Neutrality laws.
First, what is it? As I understand it the argument boils down to this – it’s a law that tells internet access providers that they must treat all data equally. Sounds good. I’ve also heard the term “dumb pipes”, which I really like because it’s intuitive.
But here’s my problem. I’m inherently libertarian. Why do we need laws around this? The most common answer I’ve heard is, “because Comcast and AT&T and others will abuse it to promote their own data services and throttle or limit access to sites/technologies they don’t like.”
Let’s get this straight right now – yes. They definitely will. I can’t argue with that. They have before, and they will again.
1. Monopoly practices.
So you pay Comcast or AT&T to connect you to the internet, but they start messing with your data. So what’s to stop them?
Solution: Competition.
“But I can only get reliable internet from one of them. I have no other alternative.”
Why do you think that is? Why don’t you have an alternative?
“Because there isn’t any.”
Why isn’t there any?
“There just isn’t.”
Wrong. There is, but they are too slow or otherwise can’t compete. However, if AT&T or Comcast starts their shenanigans (and they will anyway, Net Neutrality or not), then suddenly the ‘others’ become more competitive.
The problem here is not Net Neutrality, it’s Monopoly. The answer is Competition. It’s as pure as that. If you legislate this, you give more Monopoly power to the existing large providers. There is no incentive to switch off of them. It’s like gasoline. Want to reduce use of gasoline? Make it so expensive that other alternatives become attractive. There needs to be a pain point to get people to look for alternatives. Sure it hurts you in the short run. But in the long run, if that’s your goal, that’s your solution. Net Neutrality is a short term solution to a long term problem of lack of competition.
2. How ‘dumb’ is that pipe anyway?
How’s this for an analogy… Traffic signals. IMHO a ‘dumb pipe’ analogy isn’t the best. I see it more like a traffic system. We don’t want our traffic system to be ‘dumb’. Coordinated traffic signals allow smoother traffic flow than non-coordinated or non-existant traffic signals. This is already being done I’m quite sure. Take Netflix or any other streaming service. That’s a TON of data. Then compare it to your Overwatch game. Though I’ve no direct evidence, I’m quite sure your Overwatch data pales in comparison to a single Netflix movie over the same time period. What your Overwatch data needs is raw turnaround speed.
If every ma and pa is watching Netflix (and I’m completely sure that in a few short years they effectively will be) and Dumb Pipes were in place, your Overwatch data is going to be toast. It’s going to be a trickle in the ocean of video data. If true Net Neutrality was in place even now, you’d never manage to get a playable ping rate on any interactive game like that. So give up the concept of Dumb Pipes – the pipes are already smart, and we’re damned glad they are even if we don’t know it.
3. Lexus Lanes?
Currently it appears that Internet providers base their pricing solely on total throughput. How many gigs of data can you get over X period of time. Upload speed is not even part of the equation, but that’s okay for most people. But what would make more sense IMHO is that people who watch a lot of Netflix (and other video sources) should take a different path. To go back to the traffic analogy, get the damn 14 wheelers off the highway and put them onto their own highway. So if you want Netflix high-volume data, you pay a different price than if you want low-volume, low-latency. And that’s not possible with Net Neutrality. ISPs are specifically PROHIBITED from treating different data differently.
Now I grant you immediately that this sort of innovation is NOT what large ISPs will try to do. They’ll do exactly what you fear they’ll do. And it will sort itself out as more and more people come to hate the Comcasts and AT&Ts and switch to alternatives. A government-sponsored monopoly is what got us here in the first place. Net Neutrality enforces that monopoly by not giving consumers any incentive to investigate alternate providers.
At least, that’s my opinion at the moment. Change it for me.
I posted that Fitia image that I colored yesterday on my personal ‘bluedraggy’ tumblr blog instead of bdprequel blog. I just reblogged when I realized it so no sweat there. (pun not intended).
But I noticed I suddenly began getting a lot of new followers! (Why not? Who doesn’t like a goofy anthropomorphic cat with big boobs in workout clothes right?)
But then I started noticing a trend. A lot of the new followers had names that indicated particular interest in exercise and fitness. Then I realized… I’d put ‘fitness’ in for a tag!
So sorry all you exercise fans! I’m afraid this blog is most certainly NOT the blog you’re looking for. You can go about your business. Move along.
But for your time and effort, here, have another anthropomorphic cat doing deep knee bends. (Sorry, no exercise outfit here. This should scare them off!)
Cider drew it as a commission for Shoka. Shoka asked me if I would color it. In fact, I already had! I had been looking to find him to give me permission! Well today we connected, I did some little cleanup and can finally post this.
Original sketch:
With flat colors:
Shading. Which of course includes a little bit of chest enhancement. Sorry, it’s just what I do…
I went a bit farther on the next step. Rather than just draw eyelights, I added another layer of shading (that’s actually pretty normal) but also a bit of leg muscle enhancement.
I knew I had something good when I put those eyes in. No, her eyes aren’t red normally. But she’s pissed off. At what? Well, being trapped in a cage by Sigrid in an underground cave for one. OH! So guess what the background needs to be?
So this is Katia Managan – UNCAGED! (in her dreams at least).
Just thought I’d share a little something that I worked on for the prequel infiltrate update. It’s been a little while since the update came out and Makkon’s been showing of some of his contributions, so I think I’ll do the same.
Along with the fire and smoke particles on the burning torches, the 3 different rain tiles, the clouds/mist texture, the floating dust motes (wherever it’s dusty and there’s dust dancing in beams of light) and the ‘poof’ of dust when Katia lands in the cavern, Kazerad asked me if I could turn 3 static, painted frames into a smooth animation.
To begin with, I honestly thought he was joking as I thought that it was a ridiculous thing to ask. A smooth(ish) animated video out of 3 frames? How the hell was I going to do that? Well, it turns out that adobe after effects (the program that I use for this kind of thing) has this nifty feature where you can tell it to try to draw in new additional frames between the existing frames of any video you give it (essentially increasing the total number of frames, resulting in a smoother/longer animation). To begin with, I tried seeing how it fared adding in frames to video made of just the 3 original frames. It didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all.
The way it tries to generate these new frames is by analyzing the pixel data of the two frames either side of what it’s trying to fill in and then drawing a sort of ‘middle ground’ between the two images. Having only frames of ‘eye’s completely open, eye’s closed and glowing, open eyes, the program made a bit of a garbled mess of the in-between frames, so I had to try something else.
Going back to photoshop (where I cut the original image up into the original 3 frame animation), I duplicated some of the layers, merged them together and used the liguify tool to roughly ‘smudge’ together some believable frames of blink animation between her eyes being fully open and fully closed.
I can’t remember exactly how many new frames I created this way, but I suspect it was 4 in total. 2 additional ‘eyes closing’ frames and 2 for opening.
Assuming those numbers are somewhat accurate, that left me with 7 frames of animation for after effects to try to extrapolate a smooth animation from as opposed to only 3. Thankfully, while not an absolutely perfect result, it worked well enough.
From there, I just had to tinker with the timing of the frames to make the motion feel like it had some weight to it, add in a little bit of additional movement (that slight head dip and raise) and create a subtle blue ‘flash’ effect to help mask the transition of the ‘normal coloured’ scene to the ‘night vision coloured’ scene (also to try to give a bit of additional ‘punch’ to the eyes opening).
There were actually numerous versions of this animation with some being flashier than others with more overt visual effects. At the end of the day though, Kazerad wanted something not too over the top, so we settled with the version you see before you.
Just bare in mind that this video version doesn’t show the pauses before the animation and between the blink and disappearing as that was added by Kazerad by simply displaying specific frames in game for longer than the others to save file space.
So there you go. that’s how a small part of the introduction to the flash that took nearly two years to complete was made.
Oh, and one final, important thing. All the things Kaz asked me to help with were generally finished and delivered within a day or so of him asking, so I’m in no way responsible for the hiatus, ok? Glad we clarified that.
Somehow I’m not surprised you did this. It is, of course, quite awesome.
Something occurred to me yesterday and I wanted to sort of jot it down somewhere before I forgot it. It seems at once trivial and somehow significant. It’s totally not what you’d expect of me but I want to get it down anyway.
Ever sit in an old, abandoned car? I lived in very rural S. Illinois and spent hours wandering around farmland woods there as a young man, and I’ve done this before. This thought struck me yesterday:
“When you sit in an old abandoned car, there’s a feeling of melancholy and sadness. Abandoned cars are haunted, but you bring the ghosts in with you.”
No idea why that thought struck me or why it seemed so important, but it did.
Another Halloween is upon us, and I thought this might be a good opportunity to reminisce about Halloween from my childhood – essentially the 1970s. Why? Because there’s a lot of kids who don’t really get the Trick-or-Treat experience that I did as a kid, and it seems like it would be a good idea to at least familiarize them with the holiday in a bygone era.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those “Your Halloween is awful, it was great back in my day” rants. In many ways, it sucked compared to today. But we’re talking about a ‘holiday’ wherein as a child you get free candy from neighbors. That’s not ever going to suck too bad. But things were a little different back then.
Also, geography may play a role in my experiences and those of others. I’m sure the treats (and tricks) of those in the Northeast are going to vary quite a bit from mine in the Midwest. My childhood is from a smallish farmer town in Southern Illinois, so your mileage may vary.
(picture worth it just for the car. Is that a Chevy Vega? Jeeze, I think it is!)
First – The Treats
Compared to today’s offerings, I seem to recall we had a lot less variety back then. But I do clearly recall that one of the very BEST treats you could get was the Caramel Popcorn Ball. If you got one of these wrapped, even better! But I’m quite sure that they were sometimes dropped ‘naked’ into my bag (usually a pillowcase and we didn’t mind a bit).
The worst, (and this is definitely subjective but…) was the Bit O’ Honey. Now maybe there’s some real Bit O’ Honey aficionados out there, but as subjective as this is, it at least covers all of my siblings. By the week after Halloween, this was about all that was left in any of our bags.
Well, there is one thing worse, but our neighbors knew better than to includ this monstrosity. Black licorice is the worst. The ultimate worst that can still be called candy at all. It is known.
Oddly enough, apples were NOT the worst thing ever. Caramel apples were actually pretty good, even if we just ate the caramel. I seem to recall giving out a lot of apples (not caramel) at Halloween too as a kid. I feel kinda bad because I’m fairly sure that by the end of the night the ones with the nasty bruises and worm holes were all that were left. I never said WE gave out the good stuff.
In the middle were the standard chocolate Hersheys, the hard-as-a-rock Sweet Tarts (Smartees were just a gleam in some candy executives eyes), and maybe Pixie Straws. If it sounds like I’m complaining about Sweet Tarts, believe me, I’m NOT. Possibly the best candy ever was those huge giant Sweet Tarts that were hard as a rock but you’d eventually suck them down to reasonable size. I think all Sweet Tarts have now been softened to the point that they don’t break your teeth, but alas there’s something missing when there’s no dental threat in them any more. Spree was an alternative, and they were okay, but Sweet Tarts ruled the roost. Sorry youngsters, but these are not it. I couldn’t even find an image for the Real Thing.
In between there was the Tootsie Rolls of course, or the more maddening Tootsie Pops that you’d have to work your way down to the Tootsie Roll in the center, that was the only real reason you’d put one of them in your mouth anyway. M&Ms were ubiquitous, but I don’t think they made Peanut M&Ms for years yet when I was a kid.
SECOND – The Tricks
Really, unless you were a really evil child, there were only 2 tricks ever played. And even then it had absolutely nothing to do with what you got at the door. Either you threw toilet paper over trees or the really brave would soap the windows.
If you REALLY REALLY didn’t like someone you would use paraffin (because its harder to get off the windows). ‘Egging’ someone’s car really wasn’t a traditional Trick or Treat thing. That was just malicious and could happen anytime. There were tales of the Dog Shit in a Bag trick, but I think that was more an urban myth than reality. It goes something like this. First, put a lot of dog poop in a brown paper bag. Next, set it on a neighbor’s porch and light it on fire. Third, ring the doorbell. Fourth, run like hell.
In theory, said homeowner will come out, see the small fire, and stomp on it to put it out, getting liberally coated in dog poo in the meantime.
Again, that’s a little mean for the kids in our neighborhood though. It sounds fun, but in reality I don’t know that it ever happened.
THIRD – The Costumes
I would say on the order of 50% of all costumes were home-made. And usually with dad’s throwaways. Being a ‘bum’ was very very common. The really well-to-do might have some ‘vampire blood’ and fangs they could put on and in their mouths. If you had an actual store-bought costume it was just a mask. A mask over your face. Fastened with an elastic band not much more than a rubberband. Hard plastic. An over-the-head mask would be the height of extravagance. More likely if you have full over-the-head mask, you made it yourself with papier-mache, it was hot as hell and weighed a ton, not to mention losing the eyeholes all the time. Odds were you took it off after the first two houses.
‘It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown’ is pretty accurate as to the number of kids in sheets with eye-holes cut out too. (though only 1 pair typically). Actually that show is pretty accurate in a lot of ways, though I never got a rock. I’m sure Halloween parties actually HAPPENED, but I never went to one as I recall. But that’s okay – there’s more free candy to be had, who wants to waste their time bobbing for apples?
TIME TO GO HOME – On Halloween?!
I don’t remember how late I stayed out on Halloween. But pretty damn late. Going home before EVERY SINGLE HOUSE was tried was practically mandatory in my particular subdivision. There were a few that didn’t give out candy, but very very few. I don’t recall having any animosity towards them though. There were so many more houses to go to, I think we appreciated that they left their house dark so we wouldn’t waste time with them. But I’m quite certain we often didn’t get back home till after midnight – and I think I was no more than 11 or 12 even then. Parent’s didn’t mind – since everyone else was out too, it wasn’t that big of a deal. (But we DID have to go back to school the next day.)
Even then though, there were the rumors of Razors in the Apples. Never saw or heard credible evidence of any tampering with any candy, but then we weren’t Internet Connected so it was all just rumor. Didn’t matter to me – I just peeled the caramel off the apples and threw the rest away anyway. 🙂
That’s it. Happy Halloween! Have a fun time. And good luck if you get some…
I think I’m finished with this, though for some reason I’m not terribly happy with the result. But I can’t spend forever trying to figure out what I screwed up. Again by DrawPanther and colored by me.
I don’t know exactly what it is, but something’s just not right here it feels like. But I’m done I think. Sometimes you just can’t see the problem and you gotta let other people see. Maybe there isn’t one!
Cartoony commission for https://www.furaffinity.net/user/twofox/ of their dragon/fox hybrid named
Aoiki!
Thanks for commissioning me
What’s the phrase? “I didn’t know I needed this in my life…”
My favorite of this set by far. How can I help it with that expression? Anyway, another Satasha comission by DrawPanther. Then colored by me.
ORIGINAL:
And then after adding flat colors…
A bit of major shading and a background thrown in…
Highlighting doesn’t do quite a much here since the eye-lights were really already in the original (though I added some more anyway!)
That’s it. BTW, at some point I obviously accidentally pulled the shade layer down a few pixels – note the outline at the top of her head. However, I liked the result so I left it.
But one more change. Both Sashimi and the artist had teeth in mind behind Rajirra’s fangs instead of a tongue. I dunno, I kinda like the tongue but…
Oh! I posted this on the wrong blog too! Well, no problem there. A quick Reblog from the other site and PRESTO! Good as new.
bluedraggy 