THIS is the third of the Topaz Simplify 4 posts. The photos probably blend together into a hard to distinguish mess . . . especially if you scan them quickly.
As I said before, Topaz Labs continues to impress me both with their adherence to their free upgrades policy and for the fact they build on existing tools — and improving them in the process — as opposed to crapping all over what used to work and coming up with stuff that (while somewhat useful) takes away as much as it gives.
I’m looking at you onOne. Plus, not even four months after their last “upgrade offer” they now have the 2019 version . . . if you want to pay for another upgrade. I get that you want to be a replacement for Lightroom and Photoshop, but, now, you’re just pissing me off. Plus, you still haven’t replaced the export/batch functionality of previous versions.
Still, in fairness, it’s a good tool for anyone looking to get into photo editing and doesn’t like Adobe’s subscription model. It’s only us long-term users they want to crap on and thoroughly piss off.
I figure, counting all the upgrades, I’ve got more than $700 into a tool that I now use only sporadically because it doesn’t let me work the way I like to work. The $700 is a conservative number because I’ve been using their software since 2009.
And now, the photo:
I thought I would take a break from the Classic Cars details photos and switch to photos I used for selling our collection of tea stuff (cups, saucers, and teapots).
The above is almost to my liking but I couldn’t quite get the frame to coordinate with the picture. There’s a bit too much orange but because of the shading, I couldn’t quickly adjust the frame without changing the picture as well. I could have masked the frame to isolate it but that’s more effort than I wanted so I accepted it as-is . . . what I’m trying to say is: I like the frame; I think it complements the photo.
It is astounding to me how so many religions make dire predictions and then — when nothing happens — they pay no penalty for being spectacularly wrong.
Really, religions are only good for making statements after the fact, like telling you why something happened. Some criticize the practice by calling it “hindsight” but I prefer “bullshit”.
So, I think this will be the last spinner for a while, so enjoy the . . . Spinning Escher, Rose Petals, and Life Savers Spinner at Night.
And . . . that’s it
Some of these posts will likely be longer as the mood hits me, but most will be thus; short, uninteresting, bland, and relentless.
You can read about Project 313 HERE.
That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.
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Note: if you are not reading this blog post at DisperserTracks.com, know that it has been copied without permission, and likely is being used by someone with nefarious intention, like attracting you to a malware-infested website. Could be they also torture small mammals.
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Disperser Tracks 
World end and whirled end — you become repetitive when in your cups?
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Once again, something escapes me as I don’t get the reference. Could be I’m preoccupied or my mind has deteriorated to the point that I cannot connect things.
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The way my mind works on punning needs to be explained. First your cup, and ‘in your cups’ meaning inebriated. Secondly, the pun on what you ‘whirled’ at the end and the cartoon on ‘world’ end near the end.
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Ah . . . an all-encompassing pun.
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Does the spinner spin clockwise and the centre anticlockwise for everyone, or do some see it differently?
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The brain is amazing . . . when it comes to fooling itself. The rotation is accomplished by sequencing 11 consecutive 30° clockwise rotations. In theory (and actuality) everything is spinning clockwise.
However, this is where your brain can fool you and it has to do with what’s spinning. By that, I mean the geometry. If you go back to a few animations ago, it looks like everything on the outside is spinning counter-clockwise and that’s because of the number of segments and how much they move.
So, even though segment 1 might have moved through a 30° arc, segment 2 ends up just to the left of the original position of segment 1. Because they are identical, it looks like segment 1 didn’t move clockwise; it looks like it moved slightly counterclockwise.
The middle has different symmetry so it can look like it’s spinning the opposite way.
This is probably more confusing than helping, but suffice it to say that like a spoked wheel of a bicycle, something spinning can appear to backwards even though you know it’s impossible.
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The thing I find intriguing here is that the perception remains constant. In many of these sorts of things, the direction seems to reverse with a second or third look, but not here. To me, it is not so much a question of CAN look like, but DOES look like.
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The only reason the apparent direction of spin reverses as you look at something spinning is not that your brain reverses it, but rather than the rotation speed changes.
Certain static display can be flipped by your brain and that’s because they can be interpreted one of two ways and your brain can pick either way. Some can “will” their brains to see one or the other at will, but most are involuntary.
If interested, there is a lot of information on the Internet about Frames-Per-Second (FPS) and how the brain interprets repeating motion as well as optical illusions and colors interpretations.
What further complicates matters is that screens have FPS rates of their own, as do motion picture cameras and (of course) consumer cameras.
This effect:
is due to the camera and blade rotation being in synch.
So, for the rotation above, if you wanted to change directions, you could (in theory) blink at a slightly different rate than the rotation (currently, that animation is at 0.2 seconds interval) and you could reverse, speed up, or even stop the rotation. Meaning, it would appear to reverse, change speed, or stop. In actuality, its spinning is independent of you looking at it.
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So how did WP wipe out your links?
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Are you referring to a post you visited or to my notice on the sidebar?
Either way, WP has gone through various coding changes. While they appear visually the same, many of the older posts lost the links I had painstakingly inserted.
For instance, I used to link each photo on the blog to the corresponding full-size photo in SmugMug. When WP updates the way links are rendered, it wipes out links that don’t match the current format of specifying links.
Many a time I would go back and edit old posts reconnecting photos to their SmugMug counterparts as well as re-linking references.
Eventually, changes were being made too fast and the effort became too much.
Even so, the current (and the new) editor won’t automatically link a picture to its original so I have to do that by hand.
Their new editor might not let me even do that, so it may eventually force me to look elsewhere. Even more so because the $99 plan (US) will go up in price next year. Actually, the price will remain the same but won’t include the domain name mapping that’s currently included. That will then cost an additional $26. (at least one Australian will lose what few marbles he has left over it, I’m sure)
All in all, every “improvement” becomes one more reason for me to go solo.
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I spotted it in the side bar. The manual linking of pictures is a real pain and I haven’t dared to try the new editor yet, it keeps saying that it is going to level up the layout which sounds like a threat to me. I don’t pay so I can’t really complain.
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Typically, what has happened in the past is this:
They make a change to the function of the blog (like, let’s say, a new editor). All of the posts get migrated to the new format and that’s the likely cause of previous posts losing their links.
That’s conjecture on my part, but we’ll when the changeover happens. If everything goes smoothly, I might die of shock.
I’ve played with the new editor but I need to use it to take a post from conception to publishing so that I can discover the bugs. My first impression wasn’t a great one since something got stuck and it created a bunch of content I didn’t want. Luckily, it wasn’t on an active blog; It’s a blog I keep on the side so that I can practice ideas before implementing them.
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Melisa’s tea collections are (were?) beautiful and a good choice for future photos for this project.
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However . . . these lovely items placed on a hairy man’s chest (or back) . . . well, let’s just say it evoked an unsettling feeling.
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That’s the Topaz DaVinci sketch treatment which has been favorably received in previous incarnations.
Those are from this post:
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PHOTO: Melisa has some beautiful tea cups! 🙂 Love the vintage look in the photo.
CARTOON: Well, the dude on the bench has a bit of a brain, for sure! 😀
DOODLE: I have enjoyed the spinning spinners greatly!
HUGS!!!
🙂
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Yes, there were a lot of striking cups . . . which I’ll document for a while.
Emphasis on “bit” . . .
Thanks, Carolyn. I might do them again, but I want to look at different doodles for a bit.
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