Selfie

 

Treat

 

Retrowave

The microwave quit, so I got one that (sort of) matches the oven.

Crows

 

Back

 

While Harlan is busy with a toy I can sneak up and take a photo of her back. 

Dead Mall

 

Ownership

 

Dead Mall

 

Patio seating at Migration Brewing's Lloyd Center location...

Parrot Toy Tip

Here's a idea for entertaining a bird... Plastic aquarium plants!

Artificial plants made for being in with tropical fish are made of a soft plastic with non-toxic colors. Parrots (so long as you know your bird won't swallow plastic)  can chew these things really easily. They love them and will destroy them in no time!

One word of caution though; many of these things come with a base section that has a thin metal wire inside the plastic. It is critical to cut that part off completely and throw it away before giving your bird one of these. I have read about birds being killed from injecting tiny fragments of wire.

All our birds love these plants!

Closeup

 

Pancakes

 

Feet

Birds you see outdoors, around here anyway, have 3 toes forward and 1 back. parrots have 2 toes forward and 2 back. They literally have 2 opposable thumbs on each foot.

Audrey

 

Harlan

 

Cage Setup

 

Up

 

Selfie?

 

Harlan

 

Sleepy Olive

 

Who's a Good Bird?

 

Google+

I began using Google+ a few months after it launched in 2011. I was eager to get started with it because, 1) it was a Google product, and 2) it was said to be different. I have always been a heavy user of the Google infrastructure from simple things like gmail to more obscure things like APIs and Google App Engine. I use Blogger, Photos, various Android applications, adsense, Sites and much more. I have also used a long list of now defunct Google tools like Wave, Buzz and Reader and products I can't even recall.

When Google announced it was shutting down Google+ many, including myself, were deeply disappointed and even angry. It is easy to dismiss this.

"It's free, what do you expect?"
"No one was using it anyway, it'll never beat Facebook."
"It's just another Google failure, they dump stuff all the time."

Sure... But Google+ is actually a different case, from say Wave or Google Pages, or Picasa, for one critical reason:

Google lied about it.

Google said Google+ was strategic. Google said Google+ was Google. Google said Google+ was an identity engine. Google said Google+ was a central hub for controlling all your personal content within the Google ecosystem, and beyond.

If Google+ was these things, then Google+ was never really a Facebook competitor. It was... Something else. Something new. The Google+ website itself was just a bonus, something this new strategy lead to, but did not require.

Now of course this was the initial vision, but it is what Googe told us, so I went with it. I used Google+ the way they said it should be used. And it worked. It solved so many problems, while making so many things easy... It was near a perfect solution to several awkward problems of online presence and content. It had so much promise...

As we know, that vision did not last long, not more than a year. Apparently Google+ was pulled in different directions internally, we'll likely never know the story, but problems surfaced. Those problems, mistakes in how Google presented the tool (as a new login for example), and rough interface elements, are not my complaint though. My complaint is simply this:

Google continued to lie about Google+.

Eventually the big clues to what was really happening started to come during a series of "upgrades" that removed key Google+ features. It would be one thing if these were simply the dropping of the various "discovery" mechanisms Google tried, that didn't really prove useful. But the changes we saw were more. They cut at the core of what Google+ was about, or what they said it was about.

Just one example; the removal of a way to create posts, with a photo, that also acted as a link to an album of related photos. On the surface this seems to be just an artifact of separating out Google Photos as a new stand alone system. Now I really don't care if Google Photos is stand alone. This is really just a matter of branding and Google's internal management tree, to me.  But this change was different. With this change, Google actually, willfully, did damage to the quality of Google+ content. Why would they do this? In hindsight we can think of few reasons, none of them good.

And all the while Google continued to lie about Google+.

Things went downhill from there. Further deliberate functionality reduction, malfunctioning search, inconsistent interface changes, unchecked spam, wildly incorrect statistics and more. All the while Google was telling us that everything was fine. Eventually it was clear that there were no significant development teams behind the curtain. Google+ was in maintenance mode.

For myself, I still didn't care. If I was the only user, Google+ would still meet my personal needs for tracking my watch projects. Google+ can be viewed without a login, and the interface remained simple - if a user could scroll down, they could use that single link to my watch service content. But the writing was on the wall, even as Google persisted in saying there was a path into the future.

The reality is that Google began lying about Google+ and never stopped, right up to the end.

A bug was found in the authentication code, so Google will shut down Google+ months, almost a year, into the future.

In what strange world does that story even remotely make any sense? I hardly know where to start. So let's just call it another fiction and move on.

Over many, many years I have been a big boaster of Google tools both professionally and personally. I am personally responsible for bringing dozens, maybe even 100s of new users to Google+. Today I no longer encourage or recommend the Google platform. Enterprise users should be especially concerned and tread carefully. Shuttering Google+ is different from terminating other products in a troubling way.

In Google+ Google has proved itself to be an unreliable long term partner. Because Google lied to us.

Google also made a liar out of me. I told watch owners they would be able to find their photos and comments on Google+ with a search, indefinitely. I said this because Google specifically said this would be possible - that's what Google+ was for.

I am not one of those people that now delete all their Google accounts and switch to an iPhone. Many of Google's offerings, although they are becoming more fragmented, still work together and are useful to me. So far. But simply put, I can not believe what Google says. So for example, although my main website is hosted at Google Sites, I have for a while now had a complete copy - the same site - hosted at another free service. And I maintain them. Should Google pull that rug out from under me again, I'll just make the necessary DNS changes. And by the way:

Google doesn't care about any of this.

There is no point in any sort of protest or complaining, and that's not the point of this post. If there is any doubt, consider that Google Take Out, which is supposed to allow us to get "our content" and, maybe, somehow, get it online someplace else, is hopelessly half-baked and under-featured for Google+. This problem is receiving no attention. And this just furthers my point, Google is not dependable in the long run. Especially if you are using Google services as part of a business, proceed, but proceed with caution. Do not put in stock in what Google says. Always have a plan B at the ready.

You can find my watch projects and other content here:
https://pluspora.com/people/982fc890ad7301364692005056268def

Free House

 

Open

 

Wingnut Wings DFW C.V, Part 1

Next project up we have Wingnuts Wings DFW C.V, Mid Production.

The instructions for a Wingnuts Wings kit are wonderful. They are more like a short magazine with very high quality printing and loads of historic information and period photos.

It is important with these to really carefully review the whole instructions before starting, and to decide what version you will be building. Sometimes, you have to do some later step earlier or else something will be in the way. This is especially true regarding decals. Decals are not a last step with Wingnuts, you have to do them, and seal them, all along.

As seems to be typical with these, construction starts with the interior as a separate module. The detail is fantastic.

Here, I am showing the multiple steps I have been using to create wood effects. These parts were all primered white to begin.

The first two layers are two types of liquid water color, first a light color then a darker one. Both layers are light and uneven. In my limited experience with this, I have found that the quality of the brush makes a huge difference. I tried several.

I sealed the parts at this point with a light layer of matte clear.

Next are hand done details using a fine brush and a few different shades of brown like colors from water color pencils. I did grain, knots, etc.

This step also gets a light seal.

I then washed over the parts with another watercolor, from a tube (with water or course). At this point, a brown, yellow, red and/or orange layer will alter the tone of the wood, depending on what you are going for.

I tried a few things, but at this step it seems like a higher quality pigment helps.

I went over the parts again and again, sometimes repeating some of the steps above for certain parts and details.

Lastly, when it all looks ok, a gloss (in this case) clear coat and a light yellow wash.

Some parts of the wood look better than others, but I am pretty happy with it. A few dark (black and brown wash) areas in cracks and corners and it all looks pretty nice.

Throughout this, I continued to go back and touch up more and more detail. There is so much in the sharp, crisp moldings of Wingnuts parts that it is hard to know when to stop.

I am pretty happy with the look of the leather seat and seat belt.

Here is the interior with the side framing. These framing parts all received the same wood effect treatment. This took days and days and weeks to do.

Following this I also did the various interior rigging and control lines. It's hard to say if there's any point to this as it's really hard to see later, but I figured it's good practice.

The engine does not include many parts, but again the detail is there. It's hard to know when you're done. It's all about the paint.

I did not add ignition cables, etc, but the places to attach them are provided.

Here's the wood effect on the inside of the body. This turned out particularly well. Again, I think beyond the basic procedure, the brush was critical.

All that work is almost impossible to see through the cockpit. Then again, it's sort of cool how the completed model rewards looking closer and closer.

On the wings, I tried a new technique of using putty on small holes as a paint mask.

This worked extremely well! Caution though, I found out on later uses of this trick that on very small holes the reaction of the blue putty with the paint caused it to become a gooey mess. It was hard to get fully out of it holes.

The putty sticks best to itself though, so dabing it with a clean piece helped.

The compass on the wing turned out quite well.

Here the wings are just stuck on, no glue. And actually that is enough. The parts of a Wingnuts kit are so good that sometimes you don't even need glue (I used no glue on some of the engine parts).

With the wings this is nice because they are completely solid and secure, yet I can still remove them as needed as work goes on, at least until the upper wing is put in place.

For example, this plane had gloss on the top flight surfaces. So I did that while making the rest matte/satin.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this project.

Or join the complete album here.

This post is part one of this project. Find part two here.