technonaturalist

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Stuff the kids have said recently

Sunday, 26 October 2014 @ 7:44pm

7yo (about one of 9yo’s friends): He always chases me when I don’t want to be chased and doesn’t chased me when I do want to be chased! Boys are just like that!
me: It doesn’t get any better as you get older.

9yo (watching the Speed Racer movie): It’s really bad.
me: Why are you watching it then?
9yo: I’m just watching it so I can go “WHAT?!” at it.

Drupal 7 notes - Apache config

Thursday, 23 October 2014 @ 11:11am

/etc/apache2/apache2.conf - find the directory bits and make sure the /var/www one looks like:

<Directory /var/www/> 
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks 
  AllowOverride All 
  Require all granted 
</Directory>

sudo a2enmod rewrite

sudo a2enmod headers

Make sure all the site configuration files in /etc/apache2/sites-available have .conf on the end (especially if upgrading from previous Apache and it doesn’t seem to be backwards compatible despite what the Linode library says).

Don’t forget to sudo a2ensite all-the-sites.conf

Blender Adventures Part 4

Monday, 13 October 2014 @ 9:26am

fyn can rig, though I’m sure I’m probably doing it horribly wrong. It’s a combination of rigging techniques learned in Lightwave and playing with the Armature modifier, with one tangent into using bendy bones (single bones with multiple segments) for the spine from the head down and then two bendy bones for neck and spine.

Scorpion handstand rig test

Had to put one more controller in to flex the spine in the right direction. The neck flexes one way (looking downward) fine but will not flex the other way (it’s jaggy in this pose, effects can be seen if you look carefully at the neck), adding another shape to control the flex like I did with the spine didn’t help and neither did my aforementioned tangent into bendy bones.

Home Ed Program and Booklist 2015

Saturday, 11 October 2014 @ 11:08am

It’s that time of year again and I’m doing it all in one post this time round.

10yo (Year 5) next year

9yo has been finding his yr5-6 maths book generally easy but some parts are challenging enough that I am going to keep one year ahead and see how he goes. He’s been pretty much on track with English, most of his challenge seems to be the tedium of writing full sentence answers and a continued reluctance to practise writing though his writing can be neat when he wants it to be. If he starts finding the 5-6 books too easy I’ll bump up to yr7 to see how he goes and back down again if that’s too hard.

More little things

Friday, 10 October 2014 @ 11:58pm

9yo displayed that he does have some organisational skills while we were playing Minecraft and he wandered off and said he had found some mines, then told me the coordinates so I could join him. He had made a book and quill to use as a journal (and would be less likely to misplace seeing as it’s in-game) in which he was writing down the coordinates of our bases and any mines he encountered (which would then be deleted once we’d finished exploring and digging them out).

Acrobat

Monday, 6 October 2014 @ 7:49pm

7yo: I’m an acrobat Mummy! I was born to acro!

Unexpected family history and a keyboard

Monday, 29 September 2014 @ 2:00pm

Recently we were at a nephew’s 3rd birthday party. Seeing as we were in the area we followed JJ’s parents back to their place as his dad had said he had a straight razor belonging to his grandfather that JJ might be interested in (seeing as he’s recently gotten into shaving with straight razors).

Examining the edge on a straight razor with a jeweller's glass

JJ showing 9yo how to examine razor’s edges. Or something.

Blinded by science

Sunday, 28 September 2014 @ 8:00am

[following a discussion about vampires and zombies and what times they’re active]

5yo: Mum pretend you’re a zombie!
me: I’m too smart to be a zombie.
5yo: Stop blinding me with science!

[not much later]

7yo: I can tell the future! I predict Daddy will be home soon!
me: Will he be wet?
7yo: Maybe a little bit…unless there’s an unexpected thunderstorm.
me: If you can tell the future then it shouldn’t be unexpected!
7yo: I can’t predict thunderstorms!
me: But you can tell the future!
7yo: …now you’re blinding me with science!
me: It’s not science it’s just logic.

Arachnidding

Wednesday, 24 September 2014 @ 12:04pm

9yo: Why is there a giant spiderweb there? It’s really bugging me. Or arachnidding. Or something.

Yet more retopo

Saturday, 20 September 2014 @ 9:00am
Head and torso retopology in Blender 2.71

Head and torso retopologising in Blender 2.71

Ended up poly modelling after all as Bsurfaces doesn’t work in Blender 2.71. Least it’s not too horrible with the magnet and the correct “snap to” thing on (it’s a picture of a magnet which is greyed out in the above screenies, next to the picture of the cube with one white face close to the bottom of the screen, don’t ask me the names of anything :). Though by “doesn’t work” it appears that it’s missing some buttons, I have no idea if it would continue working after those buttons were reinstated. I could probably read the code if I tried but otherwise don’t know enough python to hack it and apparently no one else that knows what they’re doing uses it enough to fix it. I guess I’ll look into it if I can find some of this mythological spare time stuff. The face loops are doing my head in. And the head is really dense compared to the torso (trying to console myself it’s because heads tend to be round, torsos just curvy and I have smoothing on so what I’ve got looks smooth enough). I’ll have to see if the face loops actually work when I get around to doing morphs (or shape keys, apparently). Hopefully I should be able to retopo sections if I need to as I really, really don’t want to do the inside of the mouth again (I thought last time would be the last time damnit!).