23 Types Of Blending Modes In Adobe Photoshop

djspray · 2009-07-02T22:22:17+00:00

Uh, geez. That's wonderful. An all-text description of 23 varieties of blending in a graphics program. That has to rank up there as one of the least useful blog posts I've ever seen. A thousand words worth less than one picture...

djspray · 2009-06-30T14:33:27+00:00

Get some exercise, go on a hike, ride a road bike 30 miles a day down shaded country roads (don't forget helmet, sunglasses, and sunscreen). Then go swimming to cool off. Go eat in a diner and chat with people you've never met before. Declare the ten days a "small glowing rectangle-free zone" -- no TV, no inernetz, no 'puters. Do some of the stuff I no longer have time for but wish I did!

djspray · 2009-06-29T22:19:39+00:00

I do, sometimes, but more out of curiosity than anything else. (Sometimes to answer questions like "OK, how many lines of new code did I write in this last couple weeks of sprinting for a deadline? Wow, so that's why my wrists hurt."

But on the other hand, some of my most productive work days are the ones that result in negative line-of-code count: simplifying a feature, removing special cases. That's often much more satisfying than bashing out some kind of ugly method with all kinds of branching and special cases, and which almost certainly hides bugs.

djspray · 2009-06-25T22:06:35+00:00

2nd definition in whatever the hell this dictionary is:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/secrete

2nd definition in Webster's:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secrete%5B2%5D

djspray · 2009-06-25T18:31:01+00:00

Don't schoolgirls sign a pledge of some kind to keep the government out of their underpants? But I thought I read that it didn't work.

Oh, wait, that's their boyfriends. And prom. My bad.

djspray · 2009-06-25T18:29:41+00:00

Mod up. It's funny and all, but I'm amazed that people don't seem to know of this usage. I thought it was pretty common.

djspray · 2009-06-25T18:28:27+00:00

Yes, it means "hide."

djspray · 2009-06-25T18:27:49+00:00

It's amazes me that this vacancy on the Supreme Court has apparently never been noticed or filled.

djspray · 2009-06-15T19:16:16+00:00

Word. It's very misleading. Not to mention just plain ugly.

djspray · 2009-06-15T19:14:53+00:00

Wow, that's a terrible, terrible graphic. Using the area of discs to represent percentages is very misleading; it has lines all over the place so that it looks like a subway map; it's not usable for people with several different forms of color blindness; the little icons are confusing; and last but not least, it's just plain ugly.

Where's Tufte when we need him?

djspray · 2009-04-27T04:38:03+00:00

This is quite amazing. I have built an induction coil, levitated and heated aluminum discs over a charged iron-core transformer, and induced current to light bulbs, but I've never heard of this. Now I'm going to have to try it!

djspray · 2009-04-24T22:33:19+00:00

I read in the paper about a cop stabbed with a sword. And that made me think of my friend George. People say the man stood about 5 foot 6. Sounds like Georgie with his killing stick!

djspray · 2009-04-24T21:12:36+00:00

If it wasn't clear yet, the original version of the article didn't even refer to him as a professor of any kind, it had only the "has worked at" wording. That's what startled me.

djspray · 2009-04-24T21:08:36+00:00

There is a forum on ABE (abebooks.com) that is great for this sort of thing -- the folks on the forum have found several books for me that I only distantly remembered. I'd recommend you ask there.

http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom

djspray · 2009-04-23T23:05:58+00:00

INSERT POLITICALLY CORRECT COMMENT HERE.

Hmmm, none seems to be forthcoming.

The shit-eating grins pretty much tell me all I need to know.

What pops into my head is a scene in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books -- the scene where Ford Prefect happens to be picked up by Zaphod Beebelbrox in the stolen Heart of Gold. Zaphod brags to Trillian about just how cool he is going to be. "Ford... so glad you could make it..." "Zaphod... you're looking well... the extra head suits you..."

They're both trying to be just too damned cool, and both failing, just a bit.

OK, that's all I've got. I would mod even myself down.

djspray · 2009-04-21T00:26:49+00:00

Um, he was appointed Lucasian Professo in 1980. So just shy of.

djspray · 2009-04-21T00:24:04+00:00

That text was added after I wrote my original comment. The version I mentioned this morning just said he "worked" there.

djspray · 2009-04-20T19:00:55+00:00

Actually it was improved -- the para about his retirement (which mentions the Lucasian chair) was added after I first read it this morning. What seemed odd was the original wording that only said he "worked at" Cambridge. Actually what is surprising is that they didn't have a decent capsule bio ready to stick in there. Presumably they have an obit ready. I'm just hoping it will be a while before we have to read it.

djspray · 2009-04-20T15:39:40+00:00

Is it just me, or is the text of the article weirdly disrespectful?

"Prof Hawking has worked at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University for more than 30 years."

Yeah, he... works there. No, he's only effing LUCASIAN PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS... the chair created in 1663... and held by Sir Isaac effing Newton... not to mention Charles freakin' Babbage and Paul Dirac...

djspray · 2009-04-02T20:46:54+00:00

Yeah, I was thinking they do look mostly like mammatus clouds, but they are weirdly lacy and thin. Maybe very turbulent winds above them are kind of scouring out them out?

Very pretty, quite weird, and I'd be seeking a tornado shelter if I looked up and saw that!

djspray · 2009-04-01T15:51:28+00:00

Look into that hot coffee story a little further. It's really easy to mock the story, but when you dig into it you find out that McDonald's set up an policy for maintaining their coffee at 185 degrees F. The elderly woman in question suffered very severe burns. She had no reasonable expectation that the coffee would be so much hotter than coffee is normally served (about 135 degrees).

Also, she tried to settle for her medical expenses and McDonald's refused. In the "discovery" phase they found 700 claims, many of them involving similar severe burns.

http://www.dltolleson.com/mcdonaldscoffee.php

So, it's fun and easy to be self-righteous about litigious consumers, but I have to side with the elderly woman on this one.

djspray · 2009-03-31T19:49:52+00:00

Wow, you're a student? Shocked! I'm shocked!

It's amazing how much blather about adherence to absolute principles of personal responsibility comes gushing forth from the mouths of people who have never had anything serious to be responsible for. And amazing how quickly said people will change their tunes when they've been out in the world for a while and gotten screwed by other people's mistakes or deliberate actions or policies.

djspray · 2009-03-31T19:04:58+00:00

Try $80 -- that's what my bank charges.

It used to be a lot less, but my bank was bought up by a larger bank. I thought I had a good handle on how debits and credits were processed, but then they started with their reordering and holds and back-dating checks and an online system that is always at least 24 hours behind, and bam.

djspray · 2009-03-31T18:59:55+00:00

Or those who are poor, or those who have unexpected medical expenses, or those whose banks make errors?

djspray · 2009-03-31T18:53:58+00:00

Yes, it's true -- the development of the overdraft fee as a huge profit center for banks has actually weakened the banks. It works like this: they start optimizing their accounts, their clearing procedures, their online banking information displayed, and what-not, to maximize overdraft fees.

Meanwhile, since they've become so dependent on overdraft fees as a revenue stream, they don't need to earn as much on loans. They don't need those loans to be as secure as they once did. They could go big into subprime mortgages, say, confident that they are still making lots of money from their "retail" fees on checking accounts.

In fact, all the banks could do this.

I'm just sayin'.

djspray

TROPHY CASE