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... τσιε έφιες την ημέρα της γιορτής σου. 

My idea for Microsoft's "Share you idea" contest...idea.

Remember in the scifi movies from yesteryear that people would materialize as 3D holograms in-front of people instead of on huge screens? Well, i'd like to combine a newer Kinect with a Hololens for getting something like that.

https://microsoftstudios.com/hololens/shareyouridea/idea/3d-hologram-like-presence/

Vote for my idea or share it if you'd like :D.

Setting sun

I find it somewhat ironic that the hospital here (a place that you generally don't want to be in) has probably the best view.

Catnap

I know that it's a snap with bad perspective, but c'mon. Don't you envy cats and their ability to be able to sleep anywhere and everywhere?

Tron's audio equalizer

I just had the camera on top of the car's dashboard to take some long exposures and while it was taking one, we went over a speedbump.
Made it look as if we were looking at a neon audio spectrum effect thing.
(Clickity click for bigger  -Contrast and color tweaks added)

Stress release.

And I'm referring to the act of actually sketching this, not squeezing the stress ball.

Online distribution and touchy-feelies.

With everything going "up in the cloud" and everybody offering digital distribution of a lot of different entertainment kinds, you'd think that physical media should die already. There's a service for almost everything. Music, books, films, games... if you really wanted you'd be able to do virtual paintball as well. Yeah it's convenient to have everything in one place, just a click away. Physical media is not dead though, or at least it shouldn't be from my point of view. Or at least stay as an option.

Before you say anything; no. My reasoning is not the "you only rent the files" (like amazon taking ebooks out of kindle devices after they didn't want to carry them anymore) or "if the service closes you lose them".

Remember when you got that new CD and would open the included booklet?
Those things had pictures of your favorite artist, lyrics and were in a style that suited the tracks. You were engaging your sight and touch as well as your hearing. (Yeah, I'll acknowledge that there were some pretty awful ones...)

The whole making of the package is really an art. It has to shout at you loud enough to make you notice that book/game/album if you are not buying something specific. In Morrowind you'd get a nice thick paper box that had a poster of the game's world. Or take a look on the limited release of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories album. Some of those packages are small works of art that can't be appreciated when viewed on a thumbnail on a screen. There is also something more direct and satisfactory when you finish a chapter in your favorite book and see where the bookmark is at once you close it, instead of seeing a bar at the bottom. Not to mention the smell. (old paper and glue smell.. mmmmm....) I wouldn't shy away from making a cover for something that will only get a digital release, but having something that I could grab with my hands is more appealing.

I also noticed that there's a bigger chance of me listening/reading/playing something that I see infront of me from time to time. Stuff that are in my hard drive have less of a chance since if I don't actually go and look at what I have, I won't be reminded of them. While stuff that are on a shelf or a place I go past frequently have a bigger chance of me going "oh yeah! still need to finish that boss." If I remember correctly there was a post from Steam on the number of games people haven't even played after buying them is high.

I really do like the ease of digital media and I'm not evangelizing of staying on old media like DVDs (digital media could very well go on small flash cards like the ones from Nintendo's portables - just at the size of PS2 memory cards only for making it easy to grab them and not misplace them.) but I really miss sometimes stuff that I can actually hold. Like in Space Quest 6, there's a scene where you get captured and need to make a distress beacon out of some parts you find there. The way of beating that puzzle was in a magazine that came in the game, that was supposedly a magazine in print in the game's universe. Sure it was a form of pirate protection but it was still nice to get it in that way.

Don't tell me that physical media is done for, especially with the stuff like Lootcrate and other similar ones where people get stuff in the mail or better yet with stuff like Indiebox that gets you indie games that previously only had an online release and they come complete with manuals and goodies.

My first take-down notice

I was going to post something on physical media vs online distribution, but I guess I'll have to save it for later. Because Hard Rock Cafe (or at least a lawyer there) decided to send a copyright claim to a service a lot of people use for making t-shirts and other stuff for an image I did that seems to have offended their copyright. It was of a hard and sturdy rock, on a stage, with some speakers behind it.
Do notice that there was no use of the word cafe, nor anything imitating the style of the franchise like typefaces or colors.
It was just a dumb joke that had more to do with the music genre than the franchise... Seriously people need to calm down with all these "copyright infringement" notices. Especially when there's no copyright infringement.

Pray tell, how is this infringing on the copyright of hard rock cafe? Is it just the word combination? Which btw is a word combination used to describe the properties of an object. Does that mean I can copyright my name and sue everybody else that has the same name?

If this is the case, then it's dumb, you shouldn't be able to register and copyright just a word or two and claim it as yours. It should be the whole thing with the logo and style included. If the image did include the same typeface as the one the company uses and had a circle behind it then yeah, I would be at fault.

Jazz

Another old photo i dug up. We were supposed to go early to bed that night but then they started playing...

Sometimes it's good to be wrong.

I've been looking in some old photos and found this one, that I took with the wrong settings and while having the sun in-front of me. I like it...

Here's another color swatch.

Lovey paper airplane.

Looking for a new cute case for your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy phone?
The design shows a figure throwing a paper airplane that followed an interesting flight path...
Design available also as prints for your wall and as a pillow in case you want to throw it to someone that might not be getting your message...

*Linky for RedBubble store

Sunset at Aliki, Larnaka.

Took this one some days ago; when I had to be in Larnaka.

Nooby Unity tip - why you need prefabs.

Some people will tell you to use prefabs for safety and some will tell you for convenience when assembling scenes. Both reasons are true and more than enough, but I like prefabs for one more reason.

It makes it really easy to select complex elements in your scene that are made out of multiple gameObjects. Even if you have a label on your complex element, it will only select the whole thing if you click on that label. But if it's a prefab, it will select the whole thing anyway instead of the individual gameObject that is right under the mouse pointer. If your complex element doesn't have a prefab connection, it will select the individual gameObject that is directly under the mouse pointer. Want to select a single object in your prefabbed element? Just click again. (Or just directly double click on that object in the first place.) Handy for moving things around the scene.

Left object has a prefab connection, right one doesn't. I'm only clicking once on them, both have labels. Click on the GIF for a better look.
Adventures of a Rubber Ball thread.

Grumpy old cloud.

Doesn't it look like an old grump with a Flinstone nose? And a balding head with side hair and a beard.

The real butterfly effect...

It's when you see something nice and then you go up close and it grosses you out.

Like this friggin flutterby... "Oh hey don't mind me, i'm just fluttering here sitting on

flowers with my mesh covered eyes and slurping things with my built-in straw while

smelling with my feet." That's why I removed the colors, to cover details of the stuff 

I didn't really enjoy. If the lighting and general image contrast allows for it, one could 

go for black and white to either take away from something that draws the eyes

away from the main subject, or hide other stuff :P.

April's photo excursion

Πάρε με αγκαλιά και πάμε...

I just found it funny that the phrase in red basically says "Hug me and lets go" (Literal translation. I bet someone can convey the meaning better...) and right under it is a row of tires that keeps you away from bumping on it :P. 

Just another full moon close-up

Things sure lose their romanticism (is that the right word?) once you get up close and personal.
(click it for bigger version)

Free hugs (March 28th - Limassol's Castle area)

And i could seriously use one right now...

"Videogames for gurlz"...

I keep seeing all those that keep using equality as an excuse to actually perpetuate gender inequality. Or rather i don't even know if they are serious about it or that perhaps they are not even aware that they are going against the very issue they are trying to promote.
I saw a post somewhere titled "Games for girls" and it was basically all pink and a nail saloon simulator and had text like along the lines of "wanna be beautiful", "party up" and the like. You don't see "games for boys" explicitly even if they are marketed as such, because of course, gurlz don't play any games other than prettifying up an avatar or spending time in a virtual saloon or shops. I'm not saying that there aren't or that they should't, I'm just saying that it's not the rule. "But look at how many downloads the app has!" When compared to which leading downloaded "boy-app"?

Lets not forget about developers being harassed with the reason being that they are women. Just go over to any multi-player game with guns in it. There are more women in them than most realize, guess why they are not using their mics...

I'm no feminist, far from it, but sometimes "stupid is stupid" and don't realize the pain they are causing. The first person I played video games with is my mother, 25 years ago give or take a couple, can't remember exactly how old I was. But it was on an Atari 2600 clone and that didn't have "girl games" on it. It had planes with bombs, sharks eating divers and frogs hopping on logs.

I was given a new PC mouse. But it has nothing to do with the picture below.

   It really was this dusty on the 28th of February. As if "Yeah, have a nice month."
   (But it cleared up the next day.)
    Spot metering with exposure lock on the sun, then focused and recomposed with the buildings in mind.

Exploring Piero Manzoni - Qualities in a tin can.

The following are conceptual designs for tin cans (well... their labels at least), related to an international project on exploring Piero Manzoni's tin label art.

How would a tin can look like if it contained character qualities?

  Logic. I guess often compared with being a know-it-all?

  When not wanting to be called shallow. Layers and layers to peel off.

 I think this one is pretty self explanatory.


I wanted to give love a try, but the idea i came up with was beyond the scope of this. I wanted to make a custom tin can shaped cylinder, that was made out of semitranslucent plastic (yeah, not tin) that was bulging out at the top and bottom, with light and heating elements inside to both light and warm it up.

New phone case (iphones and samsungs) - shameless plug.

I remembered my grandfather's typewriter again and started playing with it, and then i thought i'd make a case based in its colours and buttons. (Hard case, snap one case and scratch-resistant vynil skin).

Redbubble link

Window and frames

I like how the window sort of divides the view in two, the bright part and ... the not so bright part. And the plant life that's covering a damn spray tag on the water tower.

Now the room wasn't dark of course; it was actually cozy with warm colors, wooden floor and a fireplace. A camera flash could be used to bounce light on the ceiling and brighten things up in the capture, but that could ruin the visual cues by removing the framing and making the brightness uniform.