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Last week I implemented support for generating very simple (grid only) collages from photos/images in my image processing infrastructure. I had wanted to create some simple grid-based collages of some photos, and I was somewhat surprised to discover that neither Krita nor GIMP (free/open source image manipulation software) seem to provide any built-in functionality to generate this type of output, without manually setting up grids/guides and resizing and positioning each …

Our first release of 2024 is here! This one features many small improvements and fixes, plus a big new feature many people have asked for: newsletters / email subscriptions! Download v0.15.0 now, or read on to see what’s new in this version. Major Features Newsletters / subscribe by email (#478) Now readers can subscribe to receive blog posts via email! Connect an email service to enable email subscriptions and automated …

An update to this blog is severely overdue, it appears. I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had last posted.There's been no big leap forward since the autumn but there have been developments in a number of directions.Rolling stock acquisition continues steadily.The most recent arrivals are a suitably ragbag selection of carriages to represent the final few years of steam haulage on the Cambrian, made up of …

There’s very little we can say about Apple’s App Store policies that we didn’t say when it launched in 2008, in 2011 when it first tightened the rules, or in 2020, when Epic tried to stunt its way out of them. Meanwhile, the world has moved on: generative AI is the centre of tech innovation, excitement and company creation now, not smartphone apps. The Vision Pro might swing the pendulum …

Caltrain recently published a strategic financial plan update, where we learn that maintaining each EMU in the new electric fleet in good working order is expected to cost $1.2 - 1.5 million per year, a significant increase from last year's estimate. This post seeks to answer the question: is that crazy?This analysis revisits and updates an older post here.Historical vehicle maintenance costs Note these figures are in constant 2023 dollarsThe …

As i have indicated in my pre-AGM comment end of last year i intend to look at developments in the OpenStreetMap Foundation less on an acute level and regarding current events and more focus on long term developments, trying to help people better understanding those. This is the first post i am writing under that paradigm. In 2019 i last looked at the membership structure of the OSMF and how …

– The other day, an MMM reader stopped by and left the following comment on one of my older posts about the principles of FIRE: “While I still find some of MMM’s advice relevant, it seems like every FI blogger out there worked in tech 20 years ago, pulled down a 6 figure salary and bought a house for a bag of potatoes before 2019. I wasn’t smart enough to …

I spent a lot of time in TV studios in my yoof. My dad was a sound engineer, and I took any opportunity I could to bunk off school or use the holidays to go and hang out on whatever he was working on. I’d generally be left alone, because my dad had an actual job to do, so I’d raid the vending machines, chat to bored camera operators, or …

Last weekend I went to Cambridge to see the Kettle's Yard exhibition Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia and Friends. Laura Cumming wrote in her review last November 'I can hardly think of a more uplifting show for the dying days of autumn' and I felt the same way on a cold day in January. 'Everything about it,' she goes on to say, is bright, beautiful, hopeful and as amiable as …

Late last year I started looking at a microtonal pitch quantiser for my modular synth setup, and then I remembered that I had an Arduino Nano and an Adafruit MCP4728 Quad DAC sitting in a drawer, waiting for me to overcome my fear of soldering, and thought that fiddling with these would be better than spending several hundred Euro. So I soldered some headers onto the DAC and got it …

Happy new year everyone! It’s summer here in Australia, where we take a long break. I want to talk about Tidying in this post, but first – some news: ‘How to fix your academic writing trouble’ continues to be a strong seller after 5 years, but Large Language Models (LLM) like Chattie G (Chat GPT) are now part of our lives. We want to do a second edition which shows …

Rhys Frake-Waterfield's Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, with Dean Buckley and Ciara Moloney. At time of recording, the film was ranked 56th on the list of worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database. Show notes, including links: https://them0vieblog.com/2022/07/09/290-network-219/ Follow us on twitter at @thetwofifty.

I’ve come to trust Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen—his good taste in movie roles is seasoned with a sense of daring, as we’ve seen in such outstanding imports as The Hunt and Another Round. I’m also an admirer of screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen, whose many credits include Brothers and After the Wedding, in which Mikkelsen appeared. (Jensen also won an Oscar for his short subject Election Night, which he wrote and …

The challenge of working a muggle job while trying to balance a career in theatre is at the heart of Nanny, an ‘enthusiastically silly play’ with music from Folio Theatre Company. Some pour their souls into making macchiatos while practicing the Clooney smile, some ask their clients for just one more push-up as they compare their biceps to Hemsworth. Here, seven-year-old charges are asked to provide line readings for self-tapes …