From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V7 #40 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Monday, February 25 2002 Volume 07 : Number 040 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? ["jamac" ] Re: Alloy: Any Flash animators on the list? ["Crackers" ] Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? [Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? > The only episode I've absolutely hated so far is the one that dealt with > evolution. Indeed! In particular the episode that has always stood out starkly in my mind is on Voyager where Tom breaks Warp 10, leading to the discovery that doing so fast-forwards the evolutionary process. He then begins rapidly turning into a land-fish of sorts, kidnaps the captain and takes her to a suitable planet for them to live. I always thought the idea of Evolution taught, advancement, not regression - That it was the environment that affected which directions the evolutionary process took organisms, not the other way around! I had to laugh at the writer's stupidity on the subject! To be fair, I am neither an Evolutionist, nor a Creationist (a literal, non-thinking taking of Genesis creation account by God), but I do believe in Creation (direct, non-evolutionary creation by God that is perfectly harmonious with science). Indeed, I used to be an Evolutionist. But if you're going to write a story, especially one that is going to have an audience whose intelligence level is a little higher than average, who have traditionally been a little picky about scientific accuracy, then you should do your research, consult professionals on the subject and write it right for crying out loud! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 13:23:46 -0800 From: "Crackers" Subject: Re: Alloy: Any Flash animators on the list? - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Krzysko" > In Flash you > have to make something called a Tween. If you need to change an animation, > you pretty much have to start over from the begining. You'll see what I mean > when you try it. It's not really hard once you learn it, but it seems very > counter-intuitive, to me, at least. Having said that, you can make some > really cool stuff with it. Yeah I've been discovering things like that. I've also found that if you really want to keep yourself from being buggered sensless then keep everything that moves independently on it's own layer. In some ways it reminds me of some old animation programes I used to use way back in college and on my ST. But never enough that things just seem to intuitively click. You're the third person to recomend that Flashkit site to me so I'll definetly check it out. What I really hate is the vector graphics paint program built into it. Wow... so that's what a paint program would be like if it sucked more than MS Paint. (Okay, it doesn't quite suck that bad). What really ticked me off was there wasn't even a mirror function to reverse a graphic, or if there is I'm damned if I can find it. I wanted to have a shopping cart moving left and right so I drew one vector shopping cart and moved it to the right, then tried to mirror the graphic so I could use it to go to the left but it was no dice. Fricken, fricken, fricken.... I can tell you too, if I didn't have a graphics tablet that paint program would really suck.. I think I may end up just importing GIFs I create on another program to use. I know it makes the file size bigger but I love working with Painter and Paintshop Pro more than I do with the vector painter in Flash. Now if I make GIFs with a transpearent background, will that background still be transpearant in Flash? I'm quite keen on getting the hang of this Flash stuff because I'm not allowed to archive MP3s on my website (which is why each MP3 only appears for a week) but I am allowed to archive Flash animations. So if I make videos for all my songs then I'll be able to keep them all archived on the page. Of course I don't want them to suck too much in the video department. Next I'm going to learn how to add "start" and "replay" buttons to the animation. I think that would be a good thing to have. Heheheh... just wait until I create my Flash animation for 99 bottles of beer. Heheheheheh. Should take a year to create. Crackers (animated from hell!!!!) Ghastly's Ghastly Comic http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 13:38:18 -0500 From: Merujo Subject: Alloy: Dolby gets a line in today's Washington Post The Arts Section of today's Washington Post has a goofy article about 1982, the height of synthpop, and congratulating the "class of 1982" on its 20th anniversary. TMDR is mentioned as having (of course) blinded them with science in '82. I can't find the story link yet on the Post's website, but I'll post it when I find it. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 13:42:56 -0800 From: "Crackers" Subject: Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? - ----- Original Message ----- From: "jamac" > I always thought the idea of Evolution > taught, advancement, not regression - That it was the environment that > affected which directions the evolutionary process took organisms, not the > other way around! I had to laugh at the writer's stupidity on the subject! Yes, although evolution doesn't neccessary mean advancement in terms of bigger brains, superior strength, etc. Evolution is simply the result of change in environment. There's a change to the environment causing a change to the species econiche and those who have something in their genes (perhaps ones who are thicker, or thinner, or bigger, or smaller, it all depends) that makes them better able to exploit their econiche will be the ones who breed more and in time the less suited of the species will be outbred and extinct. When Tom turned into a bizarre methane breathing lizard creature and the doctor said "Why he's fallowing the natural evolutionary progression for human beings." I just freaked. There is no natural evolutionary progression for any species. It's all dictated by environment. Now, let's suppose that Voyager were to crashland on a planet that was heavy in methane and light in oxygene. Those members of the crew who were better suited to survive in that environment would breed more than those who were not (particularily if those who were not perished before they were able to breed). Of the generation that was spawned by the crash victims those who were better suited to the environment would outbreed those who were not and then we'd have a new generation better suited to life on the planet. Continue this for only a couple of thousand of years (a mere blink of the eye as far as evolution goes) and you'll end up with a homo species that is quite well adapted to life in a high methane, low oxygene planet. That's the way evolution works, but if the crew were to never be stranded on a low oxygene, high methane planet then there would be nothing to make them evolve into methane breathers. It's not pre-written in our genes that we're going to become methane breathing lizards. Everytime one of the producers goes on about how they have a scientist on staff whose job it is to check their science for accuracy I just roll my eyes and go "Sure you do! Sure you do!" Sheeesh! They'd be much better off hiring Professor Thinky to check their facts! Crackers (Making my brain hurt from hell!!!!) Ghastly's Ghastly Comic http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 12:53:06 -0600 From: "Bill Krzysko" Subject: Alloy: OT RE: Any Flash animators on the list? You can do transparent backgrounds, but, I think you need Flash 5. 5 has support for PNG files, which have an alpha channel, so you can do transparent and opacity with images. Take a look here.. http://www.codephobia.com/tutorials/view.php3?idnum=2 for an example. You may be able to use GIF's in Flash 4 to do transparency inside the stage, but I can't remember at this point. Most of the time I draw things in Illustrator and copy and paste things into Flash. This works fairly well, but sometimes the size of these files would grow very large for some unknown reason. The big advantage of vector graphics (IMHO) is that you can scale the stage to any size and it looks good. Bitmap files get jaggie if you blow them up. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-alloy@smoe.org [mailto:owner-alloy@smoe.org]On Behalf Of Crackers Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 3:24 PM To: alloy@smoe.org Subject: Re: Alloy: Any Flash animators on the list? - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Krzysko" > In Flash you > have to make something called a Tween. If you need to change an animation, > you pretty much have to start over from the begining. You'll see what I mean > when you try it. It's not really hard once you learn it, but it seems very > counter-intuitive, to me, at least. Having said that, you can make some > really cool stuff with it. Yeah I've been discovering things like that. I've also found that if you really want to keep yourself from being buggered sensless then keep everything that moves independently on it's own layer. In some ways it reminds me of some old animation programes I used to use way back in college and on my ST. But never enough that things just seem to intuitively click. You're the third person to recomend that Flashkit site to me so I'll definetly check it out. What I really hate is the vector graphics paint program built into it. Wow... so that's what a paint program would be like if it sucked more than MS Paint. (Okay, it doesn't quite suck that bad). What really ticked me off was there wasn't even a mirror function to reverse a graphic, or if there is I'm damned if I can find it. I wanted to have a shopping cart moving left and right so I drew one vector shopping cart and moved it to the right, then tried to mirror the graphic so I could use it to go to the left but it was no dice. Fricken, fricken, fricken.... I can tell you too, if I didn't have a graphics tablet that paint program would really suck.. I think I may end up just importing GIFs I create on another program to use. I know it makes the file size bigger but I love working with Painter and Paintshop Pro more than I do with the vector painter in Flash. Now if I make GIFs with a transpearent background, will that background still be transpearant in Flash? I'm quite keen on getting the hang of this Flash stuff because I'm not allowed to archive MP3s on my website (which is why each MP3 only appears for a week) but I am allowed to archive Flash animations. So if I make videos for all my songs then I'll be able to keep them all archived on the page. Of course I don't want them to suck too much in the video department. Next I'm going to learn how to add "start" and "replay" buttons to the animation. I think that would be a good thing to have. Heheheh... just wait until I create my Flash animation for 99 bottles of beer. Heheheheheh. Should take a year to create. Crackers (animated from hell!!!!) Ghastly's Ghastly Comic http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 12:13:48 -0800 (PST) From: Brian Clayton Subject: Re: Alloy: Dolby gets a line in today's Washington Post On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, Merujo wrote: > The Arts Section of today's Washington Post has a goofy article about > 1982, the height of synthpop, and congratulating the "class of 1982" on > its 20th anniversary. TMDR is mentioned as having (of course) blinded > them with science in '82. I seem to recall SBMWS being more of a 1983 hit. According to the liner notes of TGAoW, it was recored in August of 1982, along with OOoS. Then add the time to get the single released, plus time to remix TGAoW yet *again*, etc... so that anniversary is at least six months away. Going off the same liner notes from the CD, it appears that it was 20 years ago last month that "Radio Silence (synth version) was recorded and mixed, which seems to mark the end of the original production of the album. (I don't have the dates for 'Wreck of the Fairchild' here.) Most of the album was recorded from Septempter through December of 1981. Still, 2002 is a major Dolby milestone. Hey, maybe we should hold our first Alloy convention this year! I seem to recall a certain musician saying that he'd play for us... :) BC - -- begin This .signature is unreadable in Microsoft Outlook. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:21:06 +0000 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? ::Slarv sticks head slightly above the parapet:: Guys, guys, it's science FICTION. A writer can write any damn think he/she wants to, and they often do .... errrrr, see http://ghastly.keenspace.com for example. ::Ducks Cracker's carefully aimed karate chop:: or The Emeritus Professor (TM). Don't take it so seriousy. Thug 2 : 'Yeah ..... but the theme song still sucks, right?' Slarv : 'Right.' :: Ducks back down to safet and runs like hell:: Slarv Crackers wrote: > > Yes, although evolution doesn't neccessary mean advancement in terms of > bigger brains, superior strength, etc. > [snipped] > > Sheeesh! They'd be much better off hiring Professor Thinky to check their > facts! > > Crackers > (Making my brain hurt from hell!!!!) > > Ghastly's Ghastly Comic > http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 13:34:17 -0800 From: "jamac" Subject: Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? Slarv wrote... > Guys, guys, it's science FICTION. A writer can write any damn think he/she > wants to, and they often do .... errrrr, see http://ghastly.keenspace.com for > example. ::Ducks Cracker's carefully aimed karate chop:: or The Emeritus > Professor (TM). > > Don't take it so seriousy. Well, you're right that its science FICTION but when you consider that the shows *attempt* to be scientifically accurate, even claiming to have a scientist on staff as CRACKERS commented you would expect some level of accuracy especially on something so fundamentally rooted in the theme of Star Trek. And when they seem to get it wrong over and over... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:57:16 +0000 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: [OT] ST:E theme - what the!? jamac wrote: > > Well, you're right that its science FICTION but when you consider that the > shows *attempt* to be scientifically accurate, even claiming to have a > scientist on staff as CRACKERS commented you would expect some level of > accuracy especially on something so fundamentally rooted in the theme of > Star Trek. And when they seem to get it wrong over and over... I stopped thinking about it as anything other than just entertainment a long time ago. Scientifically you could arguably drive a coach and horses through a lot of sci-fi which is supposedly based on real science .... then again, real science is pretty weird too. I watched a programme about superstring theory and the opposing (or is it complimentary) membrane theory this week. Space seems to be more warped than I'd previously imagined. Slarv. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 16:41:51 -0500 From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: Alloy: Dr. Fiorella Terrenzi in DC Feb 26th Dr. Fiorella Terrenzi, who performed with Mr. Dolby on "Gate to the Minds Eye" is giving a talk in Washington DC on the 26th. Check out http://www.residentassociates.org/com/universe2.asp http://www.fiorella.com/ for details.... - -j ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 22:19:08 -0000 From: "Philip P Woodcock" Subject: RE: Alloy: Dolby gets a line in today's Washington Post ...SBMWS was released in the UK in 1982 - -----Original Message----- From: owner-alloy@smoe.org [mailto:owner-alloy@smoe.org]On Behalf Of Brian Clayton Sent: 24 February 2002 20:14 To: alloy@smoe.org Subject: Re: Alloy: Dolby gets a line in today's Washington Post On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, Merujo wrote: > The Arts Section of today's Washington Post has a goofy article about > 1982, the height of synthpop, and congratulating the "class of 1982" on > its 20th anniversary. TMDR is mentioned as having (of course) blinded > them with science in '82. I seem to recall SBMWS being more of a 1983 hit. According to the liner notes of TGAoW, it was recored in August of 1982, along with OOoS. Then add the time to get the single released, plus time to remix TGAoW yet *again*, etc... so that anniversary is at least six months away. Going off the same liner notes from the CD, it appears that it was 20 years ago last month that "Radio Silence (synth version) was recorded and mixed, which seems to mark the end of the original production of the album. (I don't have the dates for 'Wreck of the Fairchild' here.) Most of the album was recorded from Septempter through December of 1981. Still, 2002 is a major Dolby milestone. Hey, maybe we should hold our first Alloy convention this year! I seem to recall a certain musician saying that he'd play for us... :) BC - -- begin This .signature is unreadable in Microsoft Outlook. - --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.325 / Virus Database: 182 - Release Date: 19/02/2002 - --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.325 / Virus Database: 182 - Release Date: 19/02/2002 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 18:18:15 -0500 From: Merujo Subject: Re: Alloy: Dr. Fiorella Terrenzi in DC Feb 26th All sold out. The Resident Associates Programs at the Smithsonian are mega-popular. Jeff Wasilko wrote: > Dr. Fiorella Terrenzi, who performed with Mr. Dolby on "Gate to > the Minds Eye" is giving a talk in Washington DC on the 26th. > > Check out > > http://www.residentassociates.org/com/universe2.asp > http://www.fiorella.com/ > > for details.... > > -j ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V7 #40 **************************