phew just a cold

Had a tiny scare,  for the last .....how long has it been? We've been in rigid lockdown, not seeing anyone, mixing with people or going out without mask..

So when I start to get symptoms of a cold, it was panic stations, there's just no way I can pick up a cold virus, and if I can get a cold, I can get... athletes foot...or worse

Anyway the rules here say if you have any cold like symptoms to get a covid test asap which I duly booked last night, and attended this morning to get the results this afternoon.

clear...no covid.

Its just a cold........but of course, its a bad horrible man flu kinda cold and I need my feet rubbing and stuff.....

good job I'm married now.

Ahthankyew

Curfews and snow

The Dutch introduced a curfew at the end of Jan which we all hoped would be lifted tomorrow, but no its going to extend to the beginning of March.... at least

That and the fact we've finally hit winter with the most snow NL has had in a decade means going anywhere is now impractical AND illegal after 9pm

sigh... If I am honest we're not too bad, J gets to go to work part time 4 nights a week, so that keeps her in touch with her thai friends and sane, I come upstairs and work on my projects. That keeps me....hmmmm

But we do want to get out and about a bit, there's just nowhere to go and nothing to do, my drinking is...well its undercontrol...kinda, a bit, but I am having a few more snifters of an evening. Our sleeping is all over the place, though I have to be up at my puter at 9 so I manage that but often doze on the couch after work.

We just want normality to come back to our lives, like everyone else...our resistance is strong, but it is getting thinner.

Ahthankyew

at last...oh its only February

It really is moving very very slowly this year... but at least its moving.

Grading time at work, so nothing much going to happen for a week or so.....

in other news, J, finally got her refund for her flight to Thailand that was cancelled last year at the start of the pandemic/1st lockdown... almost a year... and they took a charge...but meh...

nothing much else to report, its been such a long sllllllloooooowwww month.  We really want to go out, on holiday to a beach somewhere with sun...  sigh

Ahthankyew

January isn't going to end is it?

Its dragging on and on, not helped by the fact our lockdown has now added a curfew to the mix, which means we're locked in from 9pm, and can't do our late night walks any more...

Still crazy times here, ,NL has been painfully slow to get traction going on the vaccination program, so it looks like its certainly going to be summer before we get a jab and can start thinking about any kind of normnal.

Life as a newlywed is still wonderful, but not being able to go out for meals, entertainment or travel togher is really a pain. But at least we have each other to make us laugh every day and keep the moods at bay.

oh well...just have to keep focused, at least we're not sick.

Ahthankyew

Gawd its still January....

Lockdown continues.... we're coping pretty well generally but I must admit I do miss being able to go to the movies, or out for a meal, or just drinks.

Its a crazy time for all.. NL isn't rolling out the vaccine as fast as we'd like, for a small country with amazing government systems for keeping tabs on you, they should be doing better, but it slow so far.

Hoping we can get the jab before summer and maybe then see about a holiday to get well away from this crazy..

In the meantime I am worried about mum back in the UK, she's locked in a cage basically and going very stir crazy, Jirawan and I are hoping we can ship her over here sometime this year to chillax and recover...dunno how easy that will be, it will depend on jabs, mad dogs and new brexit visitor rules... all a bit argghh

Speaking of Brexit,....thats going really well isn't it..... muppets.

Oh well, back to work, my home office chairs arse indent isn't going to fill itself.

Ahthankyew

The world is truely mad

Watching the events in the USA.....madness

Im not a great fan of America, I have lovely american friends, even a few that still live there, but the place is insane, the politics are beyond crazy, the sense of undeserved moral superiority and ignorance of the world, as well as the social injustice they deny so hard is based entierly on the concepts of greed and power.

Its not a place I want to move to, though I do, or did, enjoy visits there.

But whats going on now is madness.. Trump himself is appalling, and there's more than enough evidence to prove that, what is scary though is that he has the support of so many who refuse to see just how appalling he is. He's literally, and its easy to check, literally has done nothing good as a president. Spent most of his time unravelling Obama and even Bush's legacy, while contributing nothing of his own, but claimed he's saved the US, by making it a paraiah state and a lauging stock on the world stage.

Populism without any accountablity.

Decades of corruption and abuse of power from both sides (and sides is so relative in this case because they are both right wing parties) has now produced a popualtion so ignorant of fact and concepts of responsibility that it has devolved into simple tribalism.

And tribalism forces you to back your tribe no matter what it does, without question or concern.

I am sure this is going to get worse, much worse, and Trump will stand proud as the country burns around him.

Ahthankyew

new 'puter in place

Well not that new really, I decided to make use of the upstairs games system, its still an older model system, but newer than the beast, and significantly quieter making for a nicer working situation, the old beast was churning out fan noise at an alarming rate and I'm sure its responsible for my Tinitus..

I don't like switching machines though, there's an inherrent loss of content you have to deal with, and at some point you find you need an app or a file that is just not there any more..its a pain..

But the old machine is still usable and I will set it up to be a back up, upstairs, then transfer all its many gig of files going back years and years....and years... and then see what I can do to recycle some of its good bits. Its still a nice machine despite its age, it has a good graphics card in place. But the noise is too much now, I might try to put its guts into an old silent case I have in the shed, if the PSU is compatable. But for now, its new pc in place. Which is sooooo much quieter.

Ahthankyew

Oops, Merry Christmas

sorry I forgot...

Merry Christmas

we had a nice quiet Christmas, though Jirawan did a bit of work in the evening which distrupted our dinner plans, we instead have an awesome roast beef and veg dinner on Boxing day

We never managed to get out shopping for presies before the lockdown shut everything down, so we'll be putting what we saved into a holiday pot. First chance we get we're going somewhere hot... dunno when that will be mind you. I suspect we'll be a little back of the queue for vaccinations, but as soon as we can we're having a holiday to remember, combined honeymoon, holidat, christmas pressy.

Even though it wasn't a traditional Christmas, it was still a wonderful 1st Chrismas together... the 2nd will however be a much bigger affair if I get even half a chance.

2020 was a pretty crap year for a lot of reasons, but it had its good points :D

Ahthankyew

Lighting done

So this is basically what I've been messing with, its not by any means new or revolutionary, in fact its pretty standard in most games and a little outdated. But I'm planning something on the Raspberry... which is capable of things like this quite easily, but not quickly.

The intenton now is to develop a few performance concepts that will let me use this lighitng model but at a much increased performance.. So that I can fill a Rasp3/4 with models and when appropriate, light them and make them look decent..
this particular model is probably not going to make it in a game, its too complex, but it does put the Raspberry at  its limit using a standard system. meaning I can measure improvements in terms of FPS, which lets me exeriment with a few ideas I have.

You can't really do this kind of researh with a PC, unless you draw 100's of these on screen, which also causes other things to come into play, so this is a really good use of a Raspberry's lack of power.

Oh and its damn pretty :D

Ahthankyew

Small Steps

The Difference with and without emission textures

though I must admit my light calculations are a bit off so having to use an ambiant light to make this pop

and on a bigger model the results can be subtle

Ahthankyew

New Pi Project underway

Every year I give my Y1 block C students a project to do on the Pi, its always an eye opener for them. this year I plan to make it a little more technical to help them transtition to the new Pi4's so more OpenGLES3.x than 2.0

They will get a basic render system like the 1st image below then have to load in the space station and different ships to create a basic space trading game viewed from an observers view point..

It'll be fun... promise :D

Ahthankyew

7 weeks married

Not a single cross word and every single day I've been reducd to tears from laughing and feeling an overwhelming sense of love and support.

wonderful.. just wonderful, no fear of saying the wrong thing, no eggshells to walk on, just a wonderful caring loving woman and a happy happy content loving man.... this is what I've waited 57 years for.

dammit Brian... why didn't you find this woman before, you muppet.

Ahthankyew

and I was looking forward to this.

bugger

Oh well, am sure they'll send me a new one soon...very soon... I hope... yeah course they will

Ahthankyew

Getting my Coding mojo back a bit

Trying to get things going again after a bit of burn out, I've only been working on the very slow progressing Coleco project and fixing students bugs which has given me no time to work on a personal project I want to start.

But I have to prep a new project for my block C students and been tinkering about with the Rpi4 and Jetson... 2 very interesting machines for different reasons

I've got a startup project running on both, just ready to start adding some proper content..Its not much to look at but it shows my implimetation of DearImGui in place, some basic OpenGLES2.0 set up, and though not clear here,  both RakNet and Screen Res changes in place, all operating at 60fps. Also Bullet physics and OpenAL so this is a good starting framework I can build on.

Not too bad.... but lots more content to add

Really want to get the Coleco out the way though, only been able to spend an odd hour or so on it, with occasional bursts during holidays. Its damn close now, such a shame to take so long on such a small project but its so much harder than it looks..

This silly thing looks like a lot of work but its only a few minutes to get things set up,which is why I really don't see me getting into retro gaming, weeks of work for little reward, compared to minutes for a lot.

ah well

Ahthankyew

New Block, new skills.

Block B started with a bang, my old friend Jacco Bikker, one of the worlds leading experts on ray tracing is giving classes on.....ray tracing.

Its not especially hard to code, but it does need a fairly solid grasp of maths, and an understanding of the basics of coding.

So I get 1 out of 2... 

It was so funny watching my students online, faces going from happy, to, wow, to oops, then oh, and finally oh shit..

haha, they'll manage it.

I guess I'll have to try it too..

Ahthankyew

Feeling fresh and clean

for the 1st time in months I was able to have my morning shower. Finally I finished the job, we have a new, non leaking, shower

Its not the greatest example of DIY ever, that back wall still has a lot of horrible water damage going up its length,that needs to be resolved eventually, but we can start putting a few quid away every month for the next couple of years then get a proper builder in to rip everything out and put in a brand new bathroom

In the meantime my patched up white tiles on the bottom (we found some spare tiles in the shed after IO'd done this...) and my masking tape applied silicone sealant are all working fine... we have a shower... its good to be clean and refreshed in the mornings, and not snoozing in a hot bath for an hour.

Ahthankyew

Married life is fattening

My wife is a feeder... its clearly all her fault, she's forcing me to eat delcious calorie loaded foods at an ever increasing rate.

I must....resist.

Ahthankyew

A new record

17 days and I've still not argued with my wife.......amazing

Loving it...

Can't think why I didn't do this be...oh wait.... yeah, well, lets not get into that.

Ahthankyew

this is nice....

Ahthankyew

Great day...

no words needed

Ahthankyew