Movie

Alfalfa Cam

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As Martine was sprouting some [wikipop]alfalfa[/wikipop] seeds I borrowed some to make a [wikipop]time-lapse[/wikipop] movie of their sprouting. You can watch the live updates on the Alfalfa Cam page as we capture individual images to build the time-lapse movie or just come back here:
Alfalfa Cam

Martine says “A watched alfalfa seed never sprouts”.

Painting patterns

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I watched a video by the late [wikipop]Benoit Mandelbrot[/wikipop] while the girls were busy painting…

[video:http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/paintlapsekaleido1.mov|http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/paintlapsekaleido.ogg|http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/paintlapsekaleido1_conv.flv http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/paintlapsemovie-poster.jpg 680 550]

Itching to programme?

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Someone asked yesterday how to make sprites move up and down when using Scratch. I have not done anything with Scratch for a while so I was inspired to download the latest version and give it a whirl.

Scratch logo
Scratch logo

Scratch was developed at the [W:MIT Media Lab] Lifelong Kindergarten (doesn’t that sound like a great place to work?) and it provides a simple drag & drop means of building a [W:Java applet]. These can uploaded to the Scratch website and shared with others.

If Scratch is too basic for your needs then I can commend Greenfoot which is a step closer to proper Java programming. Another option is the RunRev’s RevMedia which uses an English like language. All of these options are free.

Although there are a lot of examples with Scratch there still seems to be a need for an introduction to creating a simple game. So here it comes 🙂

My infallible guide to Scratch page will answer some if not all of your questions.

Time-lapse movies: One day in one minute /Sydney harbour

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Sometimes I remember to put the webcam on first thing and managed to catch the moon fading as the sun rose the other day. With the sun hanging so low at this time of year there are reflections – the sun is reflected in the lens which is reflected in the window – and flares aplenty. Note the wind change at the end of the day.

What is it about these [W:Tilt and shift] images that give them a toy like quality? Fascinating (but expensive) stuff…

Apples/Pears Windows/windows

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Yet another switcher whinges that Macs do not work the same as Windows PCs and that Microsoft’s software for the Mac is different to the Windows version. Ok it is the day before MacWorld Expo so the article is probably more click bait than serious journalism but you have to wonder what these people are thinking. If you do not like Microsoft’s software for Macs don’t use it. If you prefer Picasa to iPhoto then ask Google for a Mac version – oh look here it comes now! But Picasa’s insisting that my EyeTV stream was a picture became rather irritating. I am guessing that iPhoto’s new Facebook button will be the deal clincher in this house :-/

 

One commentator to the switcher article said:

It still boggles my mind the hoops I have to go through to do something simple like renaming a file on Mac. What’s the hotkey for that? Oh, there isn’t one. You need to click and hold the mouse button down on the file name for what feels like a random amount of time (and if you get it wrong and “miss”, the file opens instead… which means whatever app it’s associated with also opens).

What? How hard can it be? Select whatever you want to rename, hit Enter, Type a new name, hit Enter, done.
Look…
[local /wp-content/uploads/2009/01/renaming.mov nolink]
Another common theme is the Mac’s menu bar not being attached to individual windows. Just because Microsoft managed to get this, and much else, wrong when they tried to recreate a window based operating system like the Mac had is hardly a reason to condemn the Mac. What you are doing is opening a document in the window not running an application in the window. You can open lots of documents all using the same application. You do not want lots of windows with the same application running in each. Which is why when you close a window on the Mac the application does not Quit.

Hey ho!