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The Corroboree

ballzac

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Posts posted by ballzac

  1. Posted · Edited by ballzac

    He disappeared off the radar at around the time of that post. It's possible he hasn't actually seen that post, as I don't think he's logged in since a few days before. I personally think there's a good chance that he's just going through some shit at the moment and will reappear and make good on the trades. I just wish he would get in contact with me, or the members he owes, and explain the situation. They've been very patient for a long time, so I'm sure they'd be understanding if PS needs some time to get his shit sorted. But he needs to be upfront about the delay.

    If anyone knows him in person, it would be great if you could have a word with him and convince him to get in contact.

    ETA: Or if there's a reason he can't get in contact, let us know (even if you can't provide details).

  3. Posted

    Salvia is currently an unapproved psychoactive substance under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 which means that it is illegal to import, manufacture, or sell this substance without a license.

    The penalties for importation without a license can lead to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years or in the case of a company a fine up to $500,000.

    The penalties for manufacturing without a license can lead to term of imprisonment no exceeding 2 year or in the case of a company a fine up to $500,000.

    The penalty for selling is a conviction and imprisonment for up to three months or a fine not exceeding more than $40,000.

    It is not a criminal offence to buy salvia, but you can be subject to a fine of up to $500 if caught with the substance.

    source: http://www.drugfoundation.org.nz/salvia/law

    It's a very important question, given that the laws have changed. Does anyone know if these laws include live plants?

  5. Posted

    We got a new kitten recently. He's very cute, but he harasses our other cat non-stop. She is elderly, and just wants to spend her retirement chilling out and being left alone. She is extremely patient 99% of the time, but sometimes she gets fed up and puts him in his place. Here she is demonstrating her ninja skills with a one-handed takedown. :lol:

    SecretLegalAlbacoretuna.gif

    • Like 8

  9. Posted

    I left high school in year 11 because I just wasn't interested, and was too stoned most of the time to pay attention in class. I spent a few months lying on the couch watching TV until I realised I needed to get a job, at which point I ended up starting an apprenticeship. I ended up skipping trade school after a few because it was just totally boring and the other apprentices were mostly morons and assholes, so I didn't actually end up getting my apprenticeship, but I had enough experience to grab jobs in that field anyway.

    I hated my work, but the main reason I went back to school was that my back was always causing me grief, and I realised I needed work that wasn't so physical if I didn't want to be on disability by the time I was forty. It was a pretty difficult decision, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

    I was about 23 when I enrolled in yr 12, and I had about a 6 month wait before the school year started. My back gave out again at some point, and rather than take lots of time off work and have the stress of all that, I decided to just quit my job and start preparing for studying. I quit smoking weed because I was planning on styding maths and science and knew my brain needed to 'detoxify' if I wanted to have any hope of concentrating on these subjects. I was living with my Mum, so my other expenses were non-existent.

    Year 12 was somewhat difficult because I was doing things like specialist maths and hadn't done the yr 11 subjects that precede them, but I worked my ass off and managed to get a final score well above what I needed to get into my course. First year of uni, I had the same experience as a lot of people here, that everyone else seemed to be getting drunk and socialising while I was actually studying. I managed to breeze through 1st year, but then things started getting tougher. 3rd and 4th year were particularly hard for me, but I managed to push myself hard enough to graduate with first class honours, and that's what I needed in order to get into a PhD.

    The rest is history, as they say. Going back to study is probably the best decision I've ever made, and I don't regret having a gap of 6 or 7 years, because I think it was just where I was in my life at the time, and I don't think it would have worked for me if I pushed myself through school the first time and went straight to uni.

    The fact is that if you want to make a lot of money, there are way smarter choices than going to uni. But if you love learning, and you want to improve your mind and be around other people with similar interests (you probably won't find these people until about 3rd year after all the try-hards have dropped out) it's definitly worth it.

    • Like 4

  10. Posted · Edited by ballzac

    dchiw you knock a full cup of coffee all over your somewhat pricey keyboard first thing in the morning, and then spend a significant amount of time pulling keys out, and moving everything from your desk so you can mop coffee off the desk, wall, and floor...all while your still half asleep and in need of a coffee. :BANGHEAD2:

    ETA: After draining the coffee out of the keyboard and then drying it, it is working fine, and I now how sparklingly clean keycaps again :lol:

    • Like 4

  11. Posted

    a cop looking for drugs isn't going to leave a cigarette pack unopened.

    If you are actually searched, they will most likely find it, unless...

     

    best to use your prison pocket like we practiced ;)

    and even then, you'd hope the cops aren't too zealous :wink:

    The idea of the advice to hide it in your cigarettes is to hopefully mask the scent so the dogs don't indicate you and you don't get searched. No idea if it works, but the advice has nothing to do with hiding it where the cops won't look :lol:

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    Who are you drawing next?

    I'm not sure. At the moment I want to really improve my technical skills, and this means I might do more isolated features before doing another full portrait, but that's not set in stone. I'd like to do more female faces, but haven't narrowed down candidates.

  15. Posted

    Have you tried any still lifes or charcoal?

    Post #19 and #20 are charcoal. It's got some great properties, like the ability to do strong blacks, and the ability to get very soft shading, but at the moment I'm trying to work on my realism, and pencils are better for doing the level of detail required. Also, I'm sticking with portraits at the moment. I've always found them difficult compared to other subject matter, and I'm finding it really rewarding to improve these. :)

  17. Posted

    +1

    I don't see the point in these kind of films at all. The dark and horrid side of humanity makes for lousy and very questionable entertainment IMO. The world is disturbing enough as it is.

    I agree for the most part. I can enjoy bad sequel to a bad college movie more than I enjoy a reasonably well made horror movie. Or to put it another way, I get more enjoyment from seeing bras coming off than heads coming off :lol:. That said, some horror/thriller movies are so well made or conceived that they win my respect, even if I don't actually enjoy the process of watching them.

    • Like 2

  19. Posted · Edited by ballzac

    "Guinea Pig" - Probably the most effective gore special effects I've ever seen. (ETA: actually I think it was Guinea Pig 2. Haven't seen the others.)

    "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls" - Not as realistic as Guinea Pig, but worth mentioning for the title alone.

    ETA: Oh, and while not horror, "Pink Flamingos" is pretty disturbing.

  21. Posted · Edited by ballzac
    higher resolution of first image

    So, I posted a digital portrait in my sketches thread, but I though it might be good to have a separate thread for digital artworks. I don't know if there are a lot of people here who do this sort of stuff, but I am unlikely to be very prolific with these, so I invite others to post their own works in this thread as well. Even if they're already posted in another thread, it might be nice to have digital works in one place :)

    I intend this thread to be for works that are created in 2D image editing software, such as photoshop, paintshop pro, windows paint, and GIMP, using mostly ground up techniques, like painting with a mouse or tablet, though don't hesitate to post something that includes other techniques, like compositing of photographed elements, if it fits in with the general theme.

    I'll start:

     

    Edit: Images are gone from original upload location. PM me if you want to see them

    • Like 4

  24. Posted

    Time and again, when a young person dies like this, we see the same reactionary response from their parents. It's attitudes like hers that set up this whole system that is indirectly responsible for the deaths of many drug users. Why not do something more productive, like calling for the legalisation of relatively harmless drugs like MDMA? Or at least spread a message about the importance of drug testing kits?

    Besides, unless I missed something, there is no mention of what her son actually died from. While the specific circumstances of this case do not change whether or not bitcoin should be regulated, it seems odd that this important detail has been left out of an emotional appeal to get a law implemented. Was he sold a substance that was not what he paid for? Did he get what he paid for but took too much? Was he driving drunk and happened to have other drugs in his system? Like I said, it wouldn't change an objective analysis of whether bitcoin should be regulated, but considering that her appeal is far from objective, it would make sense to provide details of what occurred, and to explain how she believes bitcoin is responsible.

    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    I haven't actually done any tapestries yet, but because I have plans to do some, I've been preparing patters for it. What I do is look at the dimensions of the aida cloth, canvas, mesh, or whatever, and divide the dimensions of the cloth by the thread count to get the total number of 'pixels' along each dimension. Then I take the image I wan't to use and resample it to the resolution of the mesh. Then I work out how many colours I want to work with, and reduce the colour depth of the image to match roughly the number of colours I want to work with. I use paint shop pro for these tasks, and after reducing the colour depth to, say, 16 colour, there is a palette that shows all the colours that have been used in the resampling. Some may not occur in your image, but it provides a guide for colour matching with threads.

    It's also worth considering the different resampling algorithms. Nearest neighbour colour mapping will produce large areas of each colour, and is probably best for tapestry. More sophisticated interpolation methods produce a grainy effect that may require a tedious number of single stitches of each colour.

    Good luck, and be sure to let us know how you go and show us your results. :)

    • Like 1
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