Bee-ing Gromit Hunting and .... a video

More Gromit hunting happened ! Oh and I also reopened that video editing thing ...

This was from Friday last week and it completed the tour. Pics ?

That's from the app and the Light as a Feather was the last one to visit. This was a harder trail than the ones before, there is a lot more gradient involved on that side of town. (Or it was a factor of not feeling that great when starting off).

It started off at Clifton Downs, with George Wallace before heading back into the area by Park Street. There are lots of pretty buildings there (and a Forbidden Planet for peeking at the geeky stuff).

If you looks real close, there's a Gromit in the sightline to the door.

Gromit of the day. A very bright Thermogromit. More sights of the day involved the Clifton Suspension Bridge :

Bridge ... and Bristol Hound Gromit.

More Bridge. From a considerably higher up position than the other picture. The bridge took 33 years to actually build in all (with a pause) and was completed after the death of the original designer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Here's more info (click for bigger as per usual).

I wrote after posting the picture for the last one : "What a long strange trip it's been." It's taken me to parts of Bristol I'd never have considered going to but enjoyed visiting, some parts I'll never go to again (bit rough) and some bits I will definitely look to check out more thoroughly in the future. Worth it. Would I do it again ? Probably not. I still have unfinished business with a couple of them where the shop they were in was closed when I got there.

That's the big comment that I've said before about this turn of Gromit Unleashed, a few too many were locked up behind doors after certain times of the day. Previously, access by the public was pretty much guaranteed.

You want the big pic ... There is a big pic ! Here we go :

Click for bigger again. At thumbnail size, it's pretty much just a jumble of random colour. Apologies for the slightly odd resolution, I was aiming for 1080p but for some reason, couldn't remember the other dimension. Oops !

Talking of 1080p ...

I've been in the video game video game again. This time it was a Warcraft video about one of the achievements. I actually quite enjoyed making it and I've been having the thoughts of doing more. The issues with that are varied but first ... the video :

I hope that doesn't autoplay. The last thing I want is that someone visits a website I'm responsible for and suddenly something starts blaring out with the sound.

Hope you like it ! Not sure if I'll make many more videos and definitely won't be giving up the day job as would be required for making one or two daily videos. Why is that ?

Ideas - the one above is pretty much a one-off. I wouldn't want to subject people to levelling videos. I started watching a much better video person than I (Tradechat !) and I couldn't stick with it. Let's play type series are good though, where you talk around the gameplay of a series like Battletech or XCom 1/2. The creativity comes from how you play the game and how you react to what's going on.

Time - this is the big one. For each video, there is a necessary production and set up time. For the 11.5 minute video above, it needed :
10 minutes or so of time around the recording time to get the character in the right place and to manage the recording software.
Multiple bits of software working together. This isn't actually an issue. I use nVidia's Shadowplay to record gameplay video and audio and Audacity to capture audio from my headset mic. I then use Magix Vegas to stitch them all together. I do it this way because it allows me to mute the voice audio when I sniffle or sneeze (v important) and it allows me to tweak the levels for betterness.
(words are being hard tonight)
Editing time - this needs at least the run time of the video, preferably at least double.
Rendering time. This is where Vegas takes what you produced and turns it into something suitable for uploading to Youtube. The 11.5 minute above took 46 minutes to render on my desktop or would have taken 29 minutes on my laptop. So I'd be doing rendering for further videos on the laptop. It's a very heavy cpu activity, so you wouldn't be able to capture more video while a first is rendering.
Upload time. It felt like this took a couple of hours on my 5Mbit/s line. The actual video was 1.45GB for 11.5 minutes.

I hope you like the video ! One person watched it and the feedback was "You need to make more videos". And that came from the person who got me caught on watching Twitch streams. Coming from the lovely HeyChrissa (link on the right), that comment gave me a huge happy feel.

Maybe more videos again at some point. I quite enjoyed making a video again and was looking for excuses to make more.

I've been buried in Stellaris for the long bank holiday weekend though (outside of a couple of Photoshop/Gimp projects!) and Stellaris was objecting to the Shadowplay capture software ... just pics from that.

But that's for another post ... First :

Building with pointy roof !

Gromit Hunting Laptop Taming Lego Jetting

Back at work now !

And feeling like I could do with another holiday. Let's see :

Thursday - I'd given up on getting the laptop working with my old Airport Express so I went out Gromit Hunting, with an objective of acquiring a Bluetooth based widget after finishing up the Gromit Hunting.

Success !

Champion indeed.

I'm up to 55 out of 67 Gromits, Feathers and Wallaces now and I'm hoping for cool, clear skies on Friday to finish them off. I've enjoyed hunting them down, although some are in odd places this time. Definitely places I won't be interested in going anywhere near if this event happens for a 4th time. Bristol has some very rough places. Not so rough obviously ... but places that you suspect could turn very rough if you visited at the wrong time. (I live in a good area).

More Gromits !

Or Feathers even.

There we go. That's the Marshal, keeping an eye on an idyllic setting at Chew Magna lake.

Yep. Not many more Gromits to go before I see them all. That's Friday afternoon's plan. Did I mention music ?

I'd previously used an Apple Airport Express to stream music from laptop to hifi across the network. A good bit of kit, it worked pretty well although it needed the network gear resetting occasionally because it would lose the connection.

Things got a lot worse with it last week, where it would drop the connection and the audio stream after a few hours play. Efforts to fix it (updated firmware and moving it to a socket where it had more air for cooling - it runs warm) were in vain and I started looking for an alternate solution. I actually had that solution in mind already and acquired a Logitech Bluetooth audio adaptor. (Disclosure note - I paid for it, it was not a freebie). I'd thoroughly recommend it. Sounds good, so easy to set up that they barely give you a manual (if you've set up anything on Bluetooth, you don't need a manual for this) and it's been rock solid. Ok, there have been one or two minor glitches in the audio but these are very infrequent and last less than a fraction of a second.

Yep. Recommended. It is a standalone bit of kit that picks up the audio from Bluetooth and routes it to any sound device via headphones or RCA phono cables.

A while ago, I read a hifi mag report on wireless speakers and I was very disappointed at the time. It didn't have anything that could turn your existing hifi into a wireless receiver. It just covered stuff that was massively overpriced and was pretty much a second hifi. They didn't cover the Bluetooth adaptors ... and didn't cover that Apple Airport Express. Hifi mag very interested in having you buy the kit that comes from the people who advertise with them and Logitech and Apple don't advertise with them much.

Be wary of the motives of people who tell you to buy certain things ... have they given that proper disclosure note to show their motives. I add short ones because a disclosure note is an FCA required thing ... at least I think it's FCA. It's required in any case. I might even need to add "#ad" somewhere.

Anyway. Laptop is mostly tamed. I just need to :

Acquire a decent email client as the standard Microsoft one is utter garbage. I would rather pay for a new one than use that for much longer. The big issue with it is that I can't see where to set up a series of archive folders. I'd routinely pop invoice emails into a "Business" folder and new account set up things into a "Computing" folder. And similar. There doesn't seem to be a clean way of archiving stuff you want to actually keep.

More picture !

Gosh this build turned into a bit of a marathon. Can you tell what it's going to be from that ? The undercarriage set up may give it away.

Lots of moving parts in this one, including an undercarriage that goes up and down plus an F35-like lift fan with doors above and below that open up. The canopy also lifts up and the twin tails go left and right.

It took a while (maybe 10 hours) and here it is :

A comment : "Wow it's huge !". Yep. It's a big unit. Sadly back up to full price now too ! (I got it for £30 off).

And I now have the craving for more lego. Haha !

Laptop taming ....

Still taming the new laptop.

Before diving in, here is the disclosure note : I bought the laptop and the SSD that I added to it. I'll also be buying the Bluetooth adaptor that I'll mention later. I also bought the Canon camera I'll mention. But ... the Acronis software came free !

I have some early impressions, plus ... I need to buy even more stuff !

First thing is ... speed !

I kinda knew this was coming from what we get from the machines at work but ... do not buy a Windows PC/laptop without a Solid State Device disc drive in it (SSD).

What are they and why do you need them ?

They're a bundle of memory chips that act as very fast storage. Not so fast in terms of Mbytes/s transfer rates but extremely fast to find the information that's on them. So when Windows goes nuts swapping back and forward around its various storage places, an SSD makes an unbelievable difference in how smooth the experience is.

It's a pleasant laptop to operate now after a little surgery yesterday instead of a disappointing pain on Monday before the SSD arrived. The other type of hard disc involves magnetic chemicals spinning on glass platters, with an arm going back and forward across the disc. They're much faster than they used to be but that archaic technology takes its toll in the time needed to find the information that Windows is looking for.

I've spoken about this before a few times ... It makes a massive difference though. The laptop struggled to transfer half the iTunes library over on Monday, it transferred the lot yesterday over the course of about 6 hours. That's 16,000 tracks ... (I was being selective)

Oh - before I move on, it is a complicated affair

How about the rest ?

I haven't tried out the graphics part yet but it looks ok. Gotta be careful about your viewing angle though. That was the point of rushing into this laptop instead of holding off more, the 504 model has a TN screen instead of an IPS Panel. IPS is a display screen technology which is far superior to the older TN technology. It's that old chestnut again. If you're in the market for technology and two bits are the same price, buy the better one ! It seems obvious but ... how many people do you know who settle for second best ?

That 504 thing ... The laptop is an Asus 503VD modified to have an SSD complementing the normal hard disc. The key differences are the display and also that the 504 does not include an SD card reader slot. I kinda need that ...

I was expecting this one as well but while the desktop and laptop can see my camera over wifi, neither of them can connect to it. I believe there is a key bit of software missing from the Canon drivers. But I was happily using SD card transfer with the Macbook before.

Network is a bit tricky though. Could be that the laptop doesn't have the April update installed yet but it doesn't want to see the other computers. It can see their iTunes libraries ... but not their network shares. The other two can see it however. (Means it won't actually be an issue).

Bluetooth is nice. Bluetooth is shiny. I'm hoping it will solve an issue I'll get into in a sec but I was able to send a file from phone to laptop ok. Technology is progress ...

My Little White Box (Apple Airport Express running Airplay) seems to have died ! Or it's having an argument with Windows iTunes. It was pretty solid with MacOS iTunes. The interweb searching suggests that there is an issue with Windows iTunes 10.7 that isn't present on the MacOS version. My fix will be to acquire a Bluetooth adaptor to send music from laptop to hifi again.

A disappointing issue but not insurmountable.

Other stuff :

It's a big unit. A lot bigger than my Macbook Air. Heavier too ... but more capable. It should be properly capable of showing streamed video and sport. The Macbook Air had issues with its wifi and sport streaming would be too much for its cpu (a Haswell indeed) and it would get occasional blockiness. The problem there was that to aid cooling and battery life, the cpu was underclocked to about half its normal speed.

I'm sure there's more but it's struggling to escape my brain at the moment !

Oh and there's also Warcraft .... which I totally didn't play today as I thought "I'll open Stellaris up for an hour or two and then Warcraft". Oops. Stellaris tends to turn into 10 hour sessions. I think only 6 today.

Perhaps more Gromits tomorrow. I still have 20 to tick off.

Or Warcraft later. The new expansion has hit and while I've only gone through half a zone so far, it is very impressive. Nice stories, fantastic music. Great atmosphere. They're getting better at this stuff.

Epic things happen ...

And sometimes unusual old friends appear.

Statue hunting leads to statuesque feelings

Week off for me !

I suspect with what my legs feel like after Friday, I'm going to need it to recover. Lots of Gromit hunting ....

Many, many Gromits.

I started on 16 when knocking off work on Friday and was up to 47 by the time I was ready to drag my weary body home. Oh and the phone desperately wanted charge too, I doubt whether it would have lasted to do the ones at the top of Park Street !

I especially liked the Oh Bollards in the middle, the Lego Gromit and the Gromitronic with the lights.

There's the Oh Bollards,

Lego Gromit and ...

Gromitronic with lots of flashing lights. The Feathertron 3000 was good too but was behind a very reflective piece of glass which I was having trouble getting a good angle on.

Too sunny ! It was a good day for Gromit Hunting on Friday. Despite skies threatening early (and a heavy rain shower while I was in work), it was dry throughout and more than a little warm. Forgot my water bottle again ! Oops.

I don't want to know how many miles I walked though. My legs haven't forgotten yet. I started feeling the effects of a calf strain halfway round .... which is where you ask if you've passed the point of no return (i.e. it's less distance to go forward than go back) and keep on going if you've gone past it. Which I had !

Bristol was putting its good side forward on Friday.

I could be living on one of those at some point in the future. Not one of those, my own barge !

The harbourside was being especially shiny.

Some lovely looking big ships out there today too.

The river, swollen by the earlier rain, was looking like chocolate. Hmmmm chocolate. The wind up there was also wanting to eat my hat. I didn't let it although I did have one hat chasing incident earlier in the day.

By the ending stages though, I was starting to question :

STAIRS ! Why did it have to be stairs ! I might have had maybe 10 miles in my legs at this point with a diversion to an off-trail Feathers and a little more diverting around.

I'm looking forward to a quiet week now with lots of music listening. The new laptop is arriving tomorrow, although I'm definitely not thanking the credit card company who I won't be advertising. They put a caution on my card due to me buying laptop. I don't make a habit of buying laptops ... It's odd that they flagged that and not the washing machine. Silly people. They should really check the IP address that a transaction is coming from and use that as their check if they don't have anything better to go on. In the event, it delayed another laptop related purchase and the card was declined at a coffee shop on Friday. Makes you think about switching to another card.

But ... Gromits ! How many so far ? Here's the map :

The green ones are the ones I've ticked off so far. Not yet for the red ones. Oh and there's a couple off the map to the SW as well.

I've quite enjoyed the Gromit Hunting this time around. It's getting me to see some things I never realised were around. It seems a little more commercial though. Last time with the Shauns, I think they were all outside and accessible 24/7. Most of them. This time though, more than a few are behind doors that get locked in off hours and Bristol centre still tends to run 9 to 5 for the shops. With the 2 at M Shed, I was lucky to get there when I did because I took those with only 2 minutes to go before they closed up.

Others were tucked away deep in shops. It seems a bit more commercially affected this time around which is a shame. They're in different places too, which is great. Means we get to see more.

Anyway, that's it from me for tonight. As always for these pictures, click for bigger. Except for the map and the montage, they're all full resolution from the camera. Camera has lots of pixels.

Status check - still not recovered from it yet, my legs still haven't forgiven me but at least I escaped the potentially more serious damage that was threatening from the calf strain midway around.

More later in the week perhaps !

PS Techie note on the montage ... Gimp crashed with the first attempt where I tried stitching them all together at native resolution. I had a feeling it would have trouble because the image was starting out at 4608x3456 pixels ... times by 30. So to make it work and make it easy, the working file was at the native picture resolution (4608x3456) and each picture was imported into its own layer. Layers make things very easy with the picture editing. Then ... divide each layer by 10x10 to make them 1/100th the size and memory requirement and use the grid align tools to arrange them in a 6x5 grid. Job done in 30 minutes perhaps. Oh and when crop the arrangement down to remove the extra unused space around the outside.

Shenanigans .... and a Cunning Plan

More Gromits !

This one is a very endearing Dearest Gromit out by the UWE Bower Ashton campus. Friday saw me enjoying a day off work and hoping for less traffic than usual to head around some more of the outlying Gromits ... with an ulterior motive.

It's still pretty hot and dry too, as demonstrated by the condition of the fields overlooking the Bristol skyline. This was quite close to the last Gromit, just up the hill in fact.

Gromit number 13 was Wild At Heart with Ashton Court providing the venue for an iced tea lunch.

A quick hop over to Ashton Gate football stadium saw me finding Rockin' Robin. Traffic wasn't too bad up to this point, outside of the usual idiots on the roads. We have a lot of those ....

The motorway was clogged up by something unmentionable so I ventured into the backroads to get to the next Gromit over by Puxton Place. This one is the Merry Go Gromit, with the venue offering a charming farm shop and an activities park I'm curious about. Traffic was nasty though, was very happy that I had the air con, especially after emerging into a blast of heated air.

It wasn't quite so bad on the way to Weston Super Mare, which was where the ulterior motive was located ... I'm going to be buying another laptop very soon. It'll be an Asus (not-sponsored) and the PC World offering was the favourite, courtesy of another discount. But ....

Bristol - none available
Weston - wasn't honouring the discount.

If the shop isn't being cooperative, walk away. Don't be in a rush to spend more money than you need to ! (As it happens, the offering at Scan has got its discount back and is a superior laptop).

Oh I ended up parking at completely the wrong end of the sea front. I believed the signs ! They said "Grand Pier, park there". And there was a mile between car park and Grand Pier. They were asking for money at the Pier so I didn't check it out (most of the seafront prices were inflated) but waiting outside was :

I thought a slightly sad looking Giggles. Now up to Number 16 of 67 ! And starting to tick off some of the trails which are collections of Gromits.

The next set will happen on Friday, which is a possible Cunning Plan time. It's expected to get cooler as the week progresses, which means the conditions will be well suited to the 7.5 mile walk which is the Gromit circle in town.

But ... there is that possible Cunning Plan. It's also the Bristol Balloon Fiesta this next weekend and the timings could be convenient to do part of the circle and then head to Fiesta. Or even do the whole circle and head there. I'll have to see the timings and how things work out. (Nightglow is at 6pm so I would want to aim to be there around 5pm to sample what's at the Fiesta.)

Oh and then there's also laptop ordering ... And a week off coming very soon ! I've been at the counting down the days stage for a little while now. Definitely looking forward to it.

Last word for today - it looks like Microsoft have broken something again in an update. The antimalware service was taking up a whole cpu core's worth of processing. I.e. the cpu % load was continuously between 25 and 30%, even after letting it do its business overnight. That heats the room up and makes other stuff perform badly.

I've now disabled it and put Avast antivirus on. Things like this shouldn't happen. It's a shame we're locked into the slavery to Microsoft products, they really don't know what they're doing any more and just unleash bad software on us. I'd describe that antimalware service now as .... malware.