2007/12/24

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It's Christmas Eve right now, and I'm in a great mood. It's such a fun time of year. I actually got the theme up about a week ago, for anyone who's been paying attention. I like making these Christmas-y pictures. I even went so far as to render out a video in Blender of some stick figures getting ready for Christmas. It's a bit fast, I'm still not all that great at working out timings of things. I'm going to upload it here. I'm not sure how well that will work for Facebook readers, so if you want to see it, go to my blog's page at www.cyborg572.blogspot.com and watch it there, unless it works on Facebook. I learned a lesson from this though. My computer is not cut out for rendering. All the hissing and spitting sounds it makes are not encouraging. Anyway, I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas, and a wonderful New Year. (though I should post again before than) Until next time, here's the video (yeah... there's no sound):



Yes, that's the same tree from the picture. Why model 2? Same presents too actually...

2007/12/14

Graphics Card + 100 visitors

I just got a new graphics card today. I can't wait to install it. I'm debating whether to install it tonight, or wait until tomorrow. I can't really do anything at the moment, because I'm waiting for the window's drivers for the card to finish downloading. My old card was an ATI Radeon 9200se, which is a real pain to get to do anything useful on Linux. I'm hoping this Nvidia GeForce Xfx 5600 will work better. I got an awesome deal on it from a classmate of mine. It's not a new card really, but looking at it's specs, it's about twice as powerful as what I have now, and with much better Linux support. So I'm going to save this as a draft now, and I'll get back to it after it downloads and I have it installed.

2007/12/17
Well, I installed the card on both windows and Linux, and was so pleased that I have to admit I completely forgot about this post. I now have fully working Compiz Fusion effects, and am just trying to work out a couple bugs involving running Blender. So all-in-all, I'm very happy.

I just noticed, as well, that my visitor counter hit the 100 visitor mark on Wednesday. This also makes me very happy. So thanks to everyone who reads this blog. Until next time... I'll be working on some Christmas graphics to put up.


I think part of the reason I'm getting visitors is because Google has started sending them my way. XD

2007/12/09

It's About Time

Anyone who reads this blog regularly (yes, I know, there aren't any, but still...) may remember a post I made last April, called "Don't We Get a Say In All This?". The post was about wanting to take a survey. I went on and on about not getting any say in the school system that makes up a major part of our life for 14 years or so. On Friday, and I know this had nothing whatsoever to do with my post, but that's not the point, everyone at our school received a newsletter informing us about an online survey from the school board. This pretty much made my day.

I'm taking the survey right now as I write this. It's modular, just so you know. It's a nice survey. Completely anonymous, with a user name and password given by the school. It lets you skip answers you're not sure about (unless you accidentally answer it...), and leave and resume at any time. It's nice to see the school board finally taking an interest in the opinions of students. There are a lot of questions, which is a good thing. Some stuff could be worded a bit clearer though. Apparently, "School to College" programs are not things like presentations from the colleges ans universities about things like financial management... I think I may have messed up there. Oh well. So far it seems to be mainly about things like Co-Op and Apprenticeship programs and the like. Maybe as it goes on there will be some questions about "Mainland School" if you catch my drift. Now it's onto dual-credit courses... I know very little about any of these, cause I've never done one. I'm leaving lots of answers blank. And judging by the progress bar, I am now on the last module, which is: Server Error !?!? darn, that's not good.... Alright, so I hit back, and then clicked the link again and it worked, but that could be a problem... This last module is on learning about post-secondary options.

Oh, I was wrong, there is another module, "Experiences at School" This is the one I've been waiting for. Good, relevant questions about the school experience in general. I like that I can sign up for results.

Well, the survey is done. I'm sorry if most of the blog up until this point was a bit incoherent, I was just jotting down my thoughts as I took it. The survey probably could have been better, but it's a nice gesture either way. I really hope this kind of thing continues and improves as the years go on.


Server errors are not good things to have in surveys. No siree Bob.