inkscape is cool

I thought I had blogged about this, but I can't find a post mentioning inkscape, so I guess I didn't.

LA at VITTA/2008Some time last year Donna and I wanted to see if we could create posters for a Linux Australia stand at a tradeshow. We wanted to use the Dot Tux image by Daniel Patterson that won the t-shirt competition. Unfortunately there is only a fairly low quality jpeg available, which isn't very helpful for making say an A1 sized poster. For that an SVG would be ideal.

Enter inkscape!

I created a document with the original JPEG sitting in the background and over the course of a few days both Donna and I spent a few lost half-hours putting about 9,000 dots into a layer above the JPEG, resulting in a perfectly scalable Dotty Tux.

We used the cloning facility to create the dots, which means we have ten master dots sitting off-page. All the rest are clones, so by changing any attibute on the master - say colour or size - you will automatically also change the dots in the Tux. This way you could easily create a psycho coloured Dot Tux if you wanted!

Dot Tux (in originalish colours)

The SVG is attached to this blog post (or click the tux above to grab it) so you can play with it.The master dots are sitting on a purple square background above the top of the page.

If you want to use it for promotional acivities, please contact Linux Australia for permission.

clean feed nonsense

Dear Minister Conroy,

I'm an IT professional living in Melbourne and I have been following discussions about the proposal to filter all internet traffic coming into Australia. This proposal has me both worried and somewhat bemused.

The worry stems from a lack of any clear information on what "illegal content" is and no way of determining what sites would be blocked. Support group websites? Politically inconvenient sites? Overseas news papers? Proposing such broad censorship laws in the name of protecting children is wrong. The state is not a parent.

camera play time

A few weeks back, when Donna had just gotten her new camera (Nikon D80) I was playing around at night in the suburbs, trying to do some star field shots.

I put the camera on a tripod and set it to the longest possible exposure (30 seconds) and found I needed the self-timer as well, so the vibrations from my pushing the shutter button would have time to die out. With the wide angle lens and this exposure time limitation, I think I did a relatively decent job on the southern cross.