HKTrip12 - The Full Series

So, some 6 months (due to various delays and things which got in the way) after I first started writing a series of posts about my trip to Hong Kong in November 2012, I've finally completed this writeup project!

HKTrip12: Day 6.2 - Flying Home

This thirteenth and last episode covers the flight back home to Christchurch.

HKTrip12: Day 6.1 - Walkabout in Sydney

This twelfth episode covers a daytrip walkabout in Sydney on a stopover between an overnight flight from Hong Kong early in the morning, to a flight home in the evening.

HKTrip12: Day 6 - Arrival in Sydney

It's been a while since the last installment (with various hiccups along the way), but I just wanted to finish this series before starting the next one. So hopefully, this time we'll get all the way to the end at last :)

This eleventh episode covers the second part of the overnight flight from Hong Kong to Sydney and a spot of aerial photography.

Risk Scores - Alternative Blender Security Approach

Over on the blender-developers mailing list these past few days, there has been a lively discussion about the state of security in Blender. Of particular concern is the potential for malevolently-minded individals to create malware laden .blend files which then get distributed far and wide to unsuspecting users who were none the wiser about these problems. Particularly troubling too is that many virus scanners would probably not be able to detect these problems as they currently stand.

Perhaps I'm taking a much too simplistic view of these issues, but it seems that while we may never be able to achieve full bulletproof fortress status, there are a number of feasible steps which can certainly help to identify a large number of these types of attacks to allow users to make more informed decisions about their own safety and security. The following proposal is a just a random idea I had yesterday afternoon of an alternative solution that (at least given the facts I'm aware of now) sounds entirely feasible.

The Widgetmakers' Frankenwidgets

Partly out of necessity, partly out of interest and habit, and partly in the name of science, I've spent a considerable part of the past two or so years building widgets. Examples of applications containing a plethora of such widgets are shown below:

FileShell - An experimental, (attempted) cross-platform file browser, built as a test bed for a number of things I've been developing for my research work (and also to host a few features I've personally wanted to see in a file browser). Nearly every single widget shown here has had some amount of bashing applied to it. Toolkit: Qt / PyQt.

G6 Feedback - There are number of widgets on display here, notably the "EditableLabel" (when you hover over a textual label that is currently acting as a placeholder, a box will be drawn around it while you hover, and it will be replaced with a textbox where you can actually change the text when you click on it - e.g. "Click to set question"), and time-selector combobox (for either selecting a preset time, or manually specifying in terms of the units you care about). Plus, the fact that all of this was done in an antiquated toolkit meant that everything needed an extra level of polish on it.  Toolkit: Java Swing (Nimbus theme)

Bret Victor's Work

I've been a huge fan of Bret Victor ever since I came across his work in the middle of last year. It's always quite inspiring watching his talks or reading the essays he puts up on his site. In case you haven't done so already, go check out his stuff over on http://worrydream.com/, and also some of the videos below:

Inventing on Principle from Bret Victor on Vimeo.

Stop Drawing Dead Fish from Bret Victor on Vimeo.

Getting Git + SSH to play nice with the COSC Servers...

This post is more of a little reminder-to-self should I forget how to get this working again in future. The intro below gives a bit of background info about the situation of how I came to be using Git, but also the troubles trying to get it to work with the SSH/Remote access to my department's Linux servers.

Bedtime Sketches - 6/7 May

Over the past few nights, I've been having a bit of fun doodling some characters before heading off to bed. Looking back over the years, it seems this is becoming a bit of a yearly tradition - that April/May tend to be quite productive months for creating some late-night doodles...

Here are two of my favourites from these past few nights. Feel free to model these in Blender!

Blender 2.67 Released

You've probably heard by now that Blender 2.67 was released yesterday. If not, you now know :)

As usual, I'll be giving a quick overview of some main features in this release, but also highlighting some of the animation-related features and goodies that you'll find.

Nostalgia - A visit to my Primary School

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Regardless of how you may have felt about something - whether it be a place, person or people, event, or period - from earlier in your life "back in the day", looking back, you'll often find yourself having a strong sense of fondness for how things were. Accompanying this, there is also often a kind of curiosity about how things are now. Is everything still the way that it was back then (or as you seem to remember it)? Has the passage of time been kind on those aspects which you hold most dear? And what is there now that wasn't before, that those following in your footsteps now get to enjoy and cherish?

Starting PhD Studies

As of yesterday, I have officially started on my next big adventure. For the next few years, I will be an official member of the HCI Lab at the University of Canterbury working towards a PhD in Computer Science!

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/research/RG/HCI/HCIlab/