Sick of Ninjas

Written on August 18, 2011 – 11:59 am by Ding

For a while now, as you might be able to tell from some of the comments I made about online broadcast technology a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been dying to make a video series of some sort, because I can’t quite work out why I haven’t already.

Today, I have taken a short break from clattering away at my keyboard to try and learn a few video editing skills, using the first few things that I could find near to my desk.  Two of those such things happened to be some LEGO figures, so that goes to explain this stupid little stop motion clip that I’ve created to try and teach myself the basics of video editing.

I found the music on a creative commons royalty free site called incompetech.  Creative commons licenses seem to be a wondrous thing that I’m going to have to learn more about, because it strikes me as the most incredible thing the internet is able to provide right now.

Things I have learnt today:  Stop motion is hard and time consuming and a real art form that I would love to dive a bit further in to and Creative Commons is the future.

 

 

Categories: Film, Learning New Things, Projects | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 Responses

Pavlov’s Keyboard

Written on July 22, 2010 – 7:46 pm by Ding

Today I added a new page to the site:  Games!

This is in fact for games that I myself have created.  My current project has been to try and get a game finished, and I have achieved this!  As with anyone attempting anything vaguely creative, getting projects finished is a big deal for me and even though this is a small project, I shall instead be celebrating ever so slightly this evening.

The game is called Pavlov’s Keyboard and is available to download for free.

The game is about memory and conditioning.  As an experiment it doesn’t completely work, but as a learning exercise it’s been fantastic.  Regardless, I now have the tinkering bug, so maybe I’ll get some more projects on the go and finished off.

I’ve really taken inspiration lately from the Indie Games movement and hope to join their lower-hobbiest-ranks with a bit more practise and dare I say it effort.

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Patronizing at Work Day

Written on May 20, 2010 – 9:29 am by Ding

Apparently today is “Learning at Work Day” organised by the campaign for Learning, as part of Adult Learners’ week. 

On our desks this morning, we found little “quiz sheets” to test our mathematical skills.  These involved such complicated mathematical problems as a join the connected statements question including “Breaks at work in one day = Lunch time plus tea breaks” and “Hours at work in a week = Hours worked per day times days worked per week” and many more questions I would be insulted by if I was taking my year-six SATs again.

This looks to be part of the same sort of government scheme / scam as the woeful business NVQ system whereby instead of teaching you better skills, they work out which skills you already have and give you a certificate accordingly.

Also included on this patronizing piece of bumpf are a few little whistful quotes that have absolutely no bearing on mathematics.  This one in particular stood out:

 ”Today, be aware of how you are spending your 1,440 beautiful moments, and spend them wisely.”   -Anon

Is it really that advisable to put something like that on a piece of literature that is being disseminated among office workers? 

Additional Notes:

Adult learning always sounds much more fun than it is.

 

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Computer Programming at Hing University

Written on October 5, 2009 – 11:30 am by Ding

HU-logoAs mentioned in a previous post a few days ago, I am not a student and I am not starting a course this academic year, but I do have several friends who are students and are starting courses this year and it appears to have triggered off some sort of jealousy and bitterness about the fact that I’m not starting anything new (not even an NVQ in going-to-work).  Although I’m sure that this longing, jealous, self pitying feeling will rapidly evaporate around December or at the latest around Easter once the exams and deadlines start to fall from the sky, I’ve decided to take a different approach and write my own course outline to try and finally get to grips with my programming that I talk so much about learning.

Starting tomorrow is my module in fundamental C++, using the made-available-online “Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days” which I hope will do roughly what it says on the tin, and in a few weeks time I will also be starting to grapple a little more with Action Script 2.0, although I haven’t found a decent course text for this yet.  I’m also taking some secondary modules in Photoshop, something that I’ve been neglecting for far too long, and Game Design Mechanics and Theory (which will be a nice excuse to play some old games whilst playing very close attention to how exactly they work).  Also, even though it has no real connection to programming, I might even throw in a little Dutch vocabulary, depending on how ambitious I feel.  I always feel guilty when I meet my girlfriend’s family and my Dutch has not improved since the last time I’ve seen them.

I intend to keep a running record on how well this works out for me.  I’m fascinated by how I will put time aside to learn something, such as the majority of my law course, but seemingly only if I’ve paid an inordinate amount of money and I have someone with some sort of vague authority suggesting that it might be a good idea to hand something in.  If I can manage to motivate myself to learn this under my own steam, then the world is my oyster, or study-appropriate-metaphor-that’s-not-an-oyster.

The first update on this venture should land at some point on Friday, so if you see nothing around about that time, feel free to assume that the experiment has failed or been otherwise postponed.

Additional Notes:

Sadly enough, I actually intended to start this course at “Hing University” last week, but the lecturer was indisposed because he had forgotten his keys, thus locking himself out of the lecture theatre.

Categories: Learning New Things, Programming | Tags: , , , , | No Responses

When Training is Not Training

Written on October 4, 2009 – 6:04 pm by Ding
FishVQ

This fish has been recently upskilled.

Last week I turned down an opportunity to do a government funded NVQ Business Administration training programme.  My reasons for this stretch beyond laziness and arrogance.

First of all, weighing in rather close to the arrogance side of things, I would feel sorry for the NVQ level 2 when it had to hang around with some of my other qualifications that are bigger and meaner and would pick on the poor thing.  However, this was not my only reason.  Any qualification is at least a qualification, it could look ok on a CV, and free training is after all free training.  Of course, in this case, it wasn’t really training.

I did sign up for the programme after seeing the list of modules that were available.  Some of them were ridiculous affairs like a module in “complying with health and safety” or “Being punctual:  Getting up that five minutes earlier”, but some of them looked quite useful, such as modules on the more advanced features of Microsoft Word or Excel, with which I sometimes find I have gaps in my knowledge.  However, the main reason for me deciding to abandon the venture was that I’d misunderstood what was meant by “optional units”.  What happens is that an assessor comes and follows you for a few days whilst you’re doing your job, works out what you do, and then signs you up for the modules most relevant for your work, or rather, signs you up for modules that you can not learn anything from as you do the content on a daily basis.  This to me sounds like a reversal of the basic premise of education.

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