I've been browsing a number of things recently - some of them are just awesome:-
i) http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=75436
No I'm not going to emulate it. No matter how much I want to.
ii) http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1185
Because these are conversations I actually have. Love my friends
iii) In Discussion, someone mentioned HAM (Hot Aging Man - ie Harrison Ford, sean Connary etc) and we were talking about the female equivalent. I liked SAG (Sexy Aging Girl) however the "girl" is a little derogatory - but the acronymn works well otherwise (The clash of intent between it and the the homonymn amuses me. In the same way that the HAM implies "pig" - which works as well)

And others which are a little wierd.

i) What started off with an attempt to confirm the legality of building model rockets in Perth ended in:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-403931/Captain-Kirk-reveals-wont-boldly-space.html
It's hard to point to a 75yr old man and call him a wuss - but I want to.

Okay - It's been a while - Updates from the world of Paul

Cute Video about Wow - http://www.viddler.com/explore/rooreynolds/videos/26/ - I think UI like it in concept better than I like the thing itself - I'm tempted to do the same sort of survey in Hyperboria - unfortunately that is a zoned world - so there are unspecified distances between maps - which throws everything out. (Aside - what would a 29th Level Warlock get attacked by in Elywyn Forest?)

I recently read a new Heinlein book - Yes I know that sounds silly, but hey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Star

I quite enjoyed it - Heinlein as he might have been if he started writing ni the 80s - it contains simpson references and everything. It doesn;t really fit as juevenile Heinlien, but has the plot from one of them (Sort of a mix between Time for the stars, Starman Jones and Door into Summer) but is more spider robinson in feel.

On the whole, I recommend it. I recommend it to fanatic Heinlieners - so that we can argue about it - cos it IS different. I recommend it to Spiderists, because it has a more subdued plot and clamer pace. I recommend it to people who do not read either of those - as a fairly good SF novel. It doesn't do anything ground breaking, but that was not the brief.

Compare it to "For us the Living" - a quintesential Heinlein novel - that he felt was not good enough to release (Once he was super-famous, he could have released it and it would have sold) - probably because it does suffer from being his first novel - it contains all the preaching we expect and the thin vapour of plot does not diguise it. Nevertheless I enjoyed it - but more as a "Look into the mind of" rather than a novel.

Aside - On the Wiki for Heinlien - it has "Podkayne of Mars" as a normal novel, not a juvenile? More research - 2 endings! - how did I miss that. Momentary thought - the other ending becomes clear - no wonder the audiences hated it - brave ending - and stands up better as origionally written.

DD4 - Terraconny goodness - I'll be taking it - should be able to arrange a game fairly easy. I'll also be taking some armour to construct - hopefully fairly quietly.

Craft update - I've done very little.
Finished the lampshade for Thatcher - still building the base
Final shaping for the Left Side Corset - Now to mirror it on the right - somethign to do at Terracon
The Mandril works - so produced a number of springs - and now the bottlenexk is knitting again - I callused up my hands last night and can feel them stiffening again. 2 more shift cycles and Ron's hauberk will get to his waist.
I'm also hoping to start work on a set of Lorica segmentata for the next bear - Fully Roman and very Sexy

Anyway Back to it

during conversation on friday with teh entity that is rickandace, copyright raised it's ugly head.

After much searching on the net, I have found confirmation that, for research, if a book is out of print, you can copy it.

I had hoped that this was a general statement about copyright. I had this whole plan where I would posit that windows NT was "out of print" - and thus could be copied - the plan got more complicated from there. There were mules involved and everything.

However it only appears to be for research.

The http://www.copyright.org.au/ mentions it in there research section but does NOT mention that it doesn;t apply in its FAQ. It does say that even if you can;t get hold of the copyrigth owners, they still have it. And that you may decide to ignore copyright as a risk analysis - often with notices that you tried to get in touch. They say that this is not legal, however is common practise.

While I was reading through the thign I came across the following:-
"It may be a criminal offence to  - make or possess a "device" that is to be used to make infringing copies of a copyright work"

Did I read that right - it is an offence to make something, if the user intends to use it to break copyright - ie is teh computer manufacturer criminal for selling you a computer that you intend to use to break copyright !@##$$ - after more reading - no - whether it is criminal is judged on the "state of mind" of the alleged offender. So it is legal for them to sell it, because they didn't know that you were a pirate. 

Initial thoughts comments/complaints about DD4

My plan was to have a game of DD4 on sunday arvo/night with Matthias, Davyd, Stephen etc - subject to Matt being well.

i) Small weapons - Why go back to the stupid way of doing things. A Shortsword is NOT a short longsword - just scale everything based on the user - If someone  is using an "out of scale" weapon give them an additional -2 to hit and scale the number of hands they need - otherwise scale the damage as appropriate - so a Halfling can use a "small" longsword as a versatile weapon doing a d6 damage. This idea that everyone uses the same weaponsis crazy. I can understand in emergencies sure - or if the small folk are peaceful so the only weapon  manufacturer is out of scale - but otherwise, just scale the weapons.

ii) Healing surges and action points. Not sure quite how it will play out, but it seems like these are mechanics for the same thing - and would have been better amalgamated.

iii) Monster Templates - rather than having five types of kobold (Minion, Slinger, skirmisher etc) why not have a kobold template that can be added to the standard types (ie foot soldier, archer, mage etc) and a sample - then add the special rules such as "Dragon shield" rules as a swathe of such (So you could reasonably have a kobold shaman - with sling. I suppose the supplied version is "easier" - but it is less flexible. It gives more variation of "Base" monsters than the old rules - refs had to "spice" the old monsters - however a little bit of spice gave them much more variation then the new rules.

iv) Love the change to the DMG - it used to supply a large amount of rules, but no "instructions for begining DMs" - The current one allows someone with no real idea to set up the game in a reasonable way and get the thing limping allong, so that they can learn on the fly - the old one was much less useful for this. Also, we used to ignore all the details anyway and just make stuff up, the new book accepts that as a premise going in 

v) Like the detail that the DMG goes into to let new DMs build a "whole" adventure that has a sensible challenge and reasonable reward. Not sure how the mindset of "xp budget" will translate for beginning DMs - I think in the long term they may end up with a mindset of "I'll add another 4 minions to bring the encounter up to strength" - which results in the encounters feeling about as hard as each other

vi) I think like the at will/ encounter/ daily mechanic for players - it lets the spell casters USE their spells rather than always saving them for an opportune moment.

vii) I dislike that two of the classes have "warlo" as a prefix - people will often be saying warlock when they mean warlord and vice versa. Tempted to rename Warlocks as Sorcerer's

viii) I like the Warlock mechanic of "Pact" - but it seems to be campeign specific -

ix) I like the Mythology of Primordials - it gives a large number of "Bad guys" that won't gang up - compared to a less powerful pantheon of good guys - who can gang up to overcome the problems individually. It also gives a fun backstory and a time Devils and Angels might gang up to help the races battle an attack from a primoridal - lots of story arc there

x) Alignment was due for a workover - not sure about what I think about it - having to change my mental map makes things interesting. There is an "American" feel to it that I'm a little concerned about - they are relabeling CG to be "Good" - implying that the opposite of Kindness is hatred (rather than greed). I also like that they have included a "Don't care - greedy but not thoughtless" alignment for the bulk of players (Yes even those that chose an alignment)

xi) In the way that the DMG has been improved for beginers, the PH has been made worse - it's hard to follow and doesn't give a reasonable "follow the steps" for new players - so players need a ref to walk them through character creation more closely.

Summary - With a couple of tweaks, I will probably be happy - but I'll have to "Suck it and see"

After much soul searching; I found one.

In an unrelated note, I'm a little bit sick (It's the same cold everyone else has) and might not go to work tomorrow.

If I go dancing tonight, I will definitely NOT go to work tomorrow and so I'm not going dancing tonight. (This is a virtuous act)

So there was a short consult with Kandace. The current plan is to start Salsa classes on Wednesday at claremont at 7pm ( ie after work).

If I'm still sick, I probably won't go through with it - but at least it's a plan.

In other news, If I were mopre enthusiastic with life at the moment (ie not sick) then I would arrange a party at my house on Sunday night. But it is just too much effort.

Re-reading before posting and I realise that I normally "use" Kandy as a "partner" - ie someone I can talk to about my day. It's one of the things I miss about being single. That "point out a funny picture" "bounce ideas off" etc is something that I think people need to keep them sane.

So I've decided I'm going to Blog instead for a little while - that way I will bug Kandy less.

I went to a wedding yesterday - It was wonderful to see. Mick finally being run down and captured. There is no escape for him now.

The Wedding is the second chinese/austrlian fusion Weddings I've been to ever (and also in the last couple of months) - they had a very different take on it compared to the penguins.

The venue was the Sheraton - Very flash, very pretty, very expensive - Although personally I prefered the Penguins venue - The Feast afterwards was very upmarket, and a little less relaxed than the penguins. Part of this is that My's family are a little older (well My is a little older) which makes them "stodgier" - they are also not australian based (They are predominantly Cantonese). As to which is better - that is a policy decision.

Thinks I enjoyed with Mick & My
i) The Vows were very English traditional - "Proper Wedding vows, like my parents swore"
ii) There was a translator during the ceremony - which slowed things down a little. I felt that worked well - the ceremony became much simpler, without feeling so short that it was over too quick. It also re-inforced the cross-cultural nature of things. I thought My should have had her vows in Cantonese and been translated back - but they didn't want to do it that way.
iii) The Wedding dress was white - I love the look of the red dress and thought that the white was a mistake (it also didn;t work very well for My's colouring - although it was a very pretty dress)
iv) Before the Wedding, the Grooms party had to walk Mick to the Brides family and bride them with feats of strength, mental challenges and Money Bribes (in Red envelopes) - I liked it in concept - it retains that dowery concept without being a "haggle"
v) During the feast, between each course there were speeches and games - I liked the "Roll the Egg through his trousers" - That's probably going to make an appearance at drunken parties in future. The "Chose my Brides hand while blindfolded" also worked very well - Mick is a wonderful showman and can play a crowd well. I liked how long he kept the borther's hands in the running for "Is this my wife?"
vi) The Bridal Party was led by the Bride's older brother - I like
vii) The Bride got sleepy at about 11:30- By which time we weer down to about 15% of the crowd - so she went to bed. The Groom stayed up with us till 1:30 - Personally I would prefer a "Bridal night" - but I accept that Mick wanted to be the "Head of the feast" so was teh last to leave - rather than the australian thing of the couple dissappearing fairly early.

So yes, a fusion wedding. I thought it could have taken more from My's background. But YMMV

But I didn't leave the hotel till 2am - I love catching up with Zig, Zony, Badge, Phil, Pam, Tan, Col, and chickens, Nic, etc etc et al - Jeez I miss them sometimes. "The People you knew when you were young" - It's strange to see how much you have all changed, and how much you haven't.

I got home and took offf my "2nd best man" hat (I realised when I got to work that it is still on the coffee table - I should tidy up more)

Alarm went off at 5:30 am for me to go to work - I've been awake all day (It's a business day shift so I shouldn't sleep) - But it has been hard.

So tonight I'm heading off to see Iron man - which will finish about midnight - Why do I hurt myself this way?

At one stage during the night in four people having the conversation, we had about 10 black belts, about 30 years of military service and more street fights than you can poke a commando knife at and we were dicussing gun laws. Every single on of us (though we enjoyed using firearms personally) would prefer if australians were not allowed to keep firearms in the home. I thought the departure from stereotype was nice to see.

My corsetry plans are running apace - I am about 4 hours from finishing the Gothic Bear - after that I'm pretty much ready to start the Corset. I've found a much cheaper source for metal plates in brass/copper/aluminium. So I might do version 1.0 in aluminium - it is less "sharp" on the poor model. (Brass is still too expensive for prototyping)

D&D 4th ed is now 3 weeks away - I'm tempted to go to tictacs and pre-order the books. And then the game is afoot - I believe Davyd and Matt are game.

Other fun things - a young lady drew a portrait of me last night - it is remarkably accurate (See me remark) - It's interesting to see yourself as others see you.

I think I'm in contact with Josh again - It has been a long LONG time since we caught up. All signs point to me having to do "more" things in my tmie off - so I can catch up with all the people I want to. Which is annoying as I feel like I need more time alone. But I'll be happier if I can catch up with people more

Anyhoo - people are starting to head home, so I might start to snooze shortly

Aaargh - I had a plan and everything.

I had planned on making a suit of full gothis plate for a small teddy bear - the brestplate is formed, fluted and just needs grinding smooth and polishing.

But then I came accross this http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=79663 http://www.aplaisance.co.uk/Other-Projects.php?currDir=.&pageType=image&image=Steel_Corset_Cover_123.jpg

Now I'm thinking of ways to finish the bear in a hurray so that I can work on some corsetry

I think I would do it in brass rather than steel. I like the single backpiece with 2 front pieces side hinged.

The brass becomes fairly expensive because I've been buying it from a hobby store - which was fine for the small pieces I've used for toy armour - but becomes a problem when making such a large piece.

I'm also concerned that with zero give in the piece, it needs to fit perfectly otherwise there is serious pinching, chaffing and breathing problems

There is also the question of who I know would want to wear a brass corset - and let me fit it regularly (Just ask Gilligan how often I've got her to try on different metalwork while trying to get them to fit "just right" )

I have just finished a project so thought I would post to say "woot"

There is a picture up on Deviantart http://themink17.deviantart.com/art/The-Bunnies-of-War-84390722 and I'm very happy with it.

Hmmm, wonder what I will do next. I need to learn more about dishing - so maybe more piecemeal plate

I have finished my current craft project (ie I need to get the model to try it on - but there is no point fiddling with it till I find out where it doesn;t fit. So as a result, I have spent the night in teh Interweb

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I have some wonderful friends. People I can ring in the middle of the night to tell them that I read a forum post where someone consistently uses "Pacific problem" instead of "Specific problem" - and the friend will laugh with me rather than scream about the time.
http://tar-vanimelde.deviantart.com/art/friends-79075044

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I was trying to find out the effect of wire thickness in maille - ie what is historical by period, how much the links are put "on edge" - and thus how much thicker the maille gets (and how the links/area changes) - but I got a little distracted.

Here is somethign I found
Bernard Rudofsky, in a speech reprinted in Interior Design:

"In the Middle Ages, an epoch generally dismissed as dark and dirty, men and women bathed together and took their time about it. They often remained in the water for a meal, served on floating tables, and in time the bath became the favorite place for banquets, accompanied by song and music, with the musicians seated in the water. Men kept their hats on, women were impeccably groomed for the occasion--from the navel upwards, wearing chokers and necklaces, turbans and towering headdresses. A veil marked the status of a married woman. "

Is it just me or does the addition of a veil do little to make it clear that a woman is chaste; if she is sharing a bath with you while naked from the navel down - wearing chokers, necklaces, towering headresses.

And who doesn't want to have a feast brought to you whilst sitting in a bath (think hot tub or public baths)
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Following on the search for maille maths - I found the following picture - which is done my weaving maille with different coloured links in a 4-1 mail weave
http://www.mailleartisans.org/gallery/pics/14988crdbunny.jpg

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Yes I found what I needed to - It will suprise nobody to know that the coif that I made is just over the edge of what is ragarded as the "practical" maximum. ie for rings that small, teh wire is so thick that the finished maille can "stand up". For those who case, if teh aspect ratio is 3.3, the finished maile is a conintuous sheet that does not flex at all, and 3.7 is considered the "practical limit". Mine is approximately 3.5 (well 3.6 once I've done working with it)

I'm still tempted to make myself a full suit (Hauberk, Byrnie whatever) to go over my Gambeson (Aketon etc) however I don;t think I can bring myself to use the 7mm inner diameter again
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More maille -
http://enchantress13.deviantart.com/art/Tidal-filigree-dance-top-49474865
Hmmmmm - It's well within my competence and something I can build while at work. If I go to slightly larger link and 4-1 maille (rather than this Persian one) - it would look better. I like the colour edging. I'll have to think about which of my aquaintance would pay for the link (I figure I'll approx a price and they can decide if they would pay - then I'll make it - that means they can choose colour/metal etc. Hmmmm - sounds like a craft project to add to my list - I'll have to clear my list a bit first

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Warcraft vs MDY Glider
http://brokentoys.org/2008/03/24/mdy-v-blizzard-place-your-bets/
I love that the Bliz arguement appears to be "Your product costs us money and so you shouldn't be allowed to produce it". also "Your product actively helps other people break EULA so you are criminally at fault"

If this actually gets to court it will be interesting.

If they succeed, then I think that the draught horse industry should sue the Holden - trucks reduce the income of people selling draught horses, they intefere with those users of draught horses on the road etc

It didn't help that the Blizzard lawyer said that it takes 480 hours (avg) to get to the top level (60) - despite the current stats being about 100 hours to get to 60 (and 60 not being the top any more)

The main point that the Blizz lawyers make is that glider "copies" the game because it can launch it. If that is true then windows is in the same judgement (because you can put wow in the "startup menu")

Their point above may strike you as a little strange - Blizzard contend that "Clearly Glider's users' loading WoW into RAM creates a copy for the purposes of the Copyright act"

If you accept this point - then the rest of their arguement is fine. I just can't see it - the idea that by using a seperate launcher you are breaking copyright seems crazy to me.

Warning - Squeamishness on the part of the reader may result in violence towards me as well as general unwellness. If you are squeamish, please don’t read.

Like that sort of warning will stop anyone - it just allows me to be righteous rather than defensive afterwards.

I have stories that wander round in my head, they will often find a crevice and hide in there so that they don’t get pushed out into the light of reality. Often they will mutate while they sit in the forgotten corners of mind. Do mean mutate or do I mean fester? Some of them change once I bring them out and share them with people.

Often this is where my various written stories and roleplaying games come from. Ditto some coffe table conversations.

One of these stories involves a gimmick (That came up while talking to Arkem) that I would like to push out of my mind and throw onto the table to see how it copes with the cold light of day.

Premises:

i) Moore's law stops at a certain point and we bump computers my fractions after a point (rather than the current exponential rate). though they continue to improve in power/memory, but at a decreasing rate as time goes on

ii) There are no easy algorithms that allow for computer vision/object recognition (I know that this is a very weak premise - but hold with it)

iii) Artificial Wetware never meets it's promise.

Anyhoo - the gimmick -

In an effort to understand how animals "see" objects, a group of experimentalists build a device that allows them to organically support portions (of various sizes) of animal brains which includes their eyes. After various adjustments they find the right spot so that they can build a "device" - which contains a rabbit eye plus various organic supports. The device outputs a "pattern map" of the image the eye sees. With this map, fairly thick computers can navigate the world, react to stimulus etc. All in real time (because the pattern matching in the optic nerve/ brain stub so all the hard work)

This allows a "mass market" device that has a "run flat" time of 3 years (the longest that the organic components live) - that gradually degrades, but in the mean time is fitted to cars (to allow them to drive themselves) - traffic computers - security checkpoints  etc etc -

Experimentation determines that the eyes are "trained" while alive - so the device can correctly identify the various plants that the "rabbit equipped" car is driving past, but only sees other cars as generic blurs. Because the rabbit trains their eye while alive to look for things that are important to rabbits rather than important to the car that they will become.

For a short period of time the "Rabbit farms" flourish.

Then from a lab in Argentina the obvious breakthrough comes. Human eyes are trained to identify at a glance "human significant" stuff - if you were a car geek in life, your eye would be able to identify model/make of the cars. So "Human eye" versions of the device are much MUCH safer than the rabbit ones.

Also humans can be deliberately trained while in life (ie you accept a job that involves you "training" your eyes - for a fee - and after your death your eyes will be able to recognise the assigned things better)

So the hotel security system involves lots of different cameras around the building being piped to a "Cop in a box" whose eyes belonged to a cop in a pervious life. When the "cops eyes" notice something funny about someone the computer brings it to the attention of a "live" security guard. The dead cop never gets bored, never gets sick (well hardly ever), never gets tired. Just degrades after 3 years into senescence and has to be replaced.

Once this world percolates for a while (with it's threat of baby farms and kidnapping for parts) the next breakthrough kicks in.

By training people in particular ways in life, much larger portions of their brain can be kept - able to cope with MUCH more significant processing.

These brains in a jar are very rare. they only last for a very small period of time. But for that time they are hugely powerful, pseudo sentient processing devices; able to find patterns in large arrays of seemingly unconnected data. The true heirs to the old mainframes.

In that world, you "put your brain in hock" - in high school you are offered the position for life of a "trained brain" - you get a good living and a life of constant education/training. All in the knowledge that after you die, you will be turned into a giant thinking machine. Certain hobbies/sports are precluded to you because they risk you dying too far from a hospital for your brain to be salvaged before it spoils; or that risk massive damage to the brain.

There is a temptation for the corporation who are "sponsoring" you to collect on their investment early - but the longer they leave it, the better the finished product.

There is a risk that someone might kidnap a training brain so that they can be converted to a computer - ie you steal someone else's almost developed product.

There is a risk that if you come down with certain sorts of degenerative mental problems, you will be obligated to "sacrifice" so that the finished product is not damaged.

For more fun - some of the "finished products" are military computers - and the number/type of which are equivalent to having more/less aircraft carriers. ie a small army with a couple of "well adapted" brains would woop arse when taking on a large badly brained foe.

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Anyway - that is the current state of play of the gimmick. It is a world were certain sorts of stories naturally tell themselves. It smells of cyberpunk. I am still thrashing about the actual stories I want to tell (because that will solidify the details into the right shape). I'm still not sure I want to bother actually telling any of the detailed stories at the moment.

But I like it - it's not "too dark" but it is still a little "grim". The grim is mostly under the covers so that normal people going about their lives living off the benefits of these mighty "brains in a jar" would live nice cruisey lives without the hard facts of the matter being forced down their throats (in the way that we don’t get to see the child labour factories)

I have been known to Whinge. Often Extensively. (I try not to, but it comes out occassionally)

But I like my life.

I enjoy the fact that I can decide to do an art project and potter arround with it in the secure knowledge that my friends will compliment it's good features (if it is ever finished) and offer constructive ways I could improve it if I do something similair.

I enjoy the fact that I was brilliant once (and could be again if I found a project that I could throw myself into)

I get lonely at night but I still feel that I am desireable; that if I was willing to settle for someone who wasn't "the one" I could have a partner to grow old with. (And I'm happy that I have made a decision to keep looking. And regularly remake the same decision)

I miss my daughter hugely. But she is growing up to be a wonderful person in a supportive environment and she is secure in the knowledge that I am always there for her if she needs me (No matter how little that is)

So I have things to gripe about, but nevertheless, I do like my life.

I don't celebrate how much I like my life as often as I should.

My bank account seems to go up fairly quickly. It might be time to start having more "Date for one" as a celebration of myself.

PS In other news I will probably be starting a D&D group again shortly. I miss it. I have been weighing it up for a while. Matt is back from his travels and Davy D is still here. With teh three of us, the world is our shellfish of choice. I was tempted to wait for D&D4.0 - but the Death of Gygax has galvanised me

Tuesday morning (at approximately 6:20am) I was walking allong Great Eastern highway (Just East of Burswood) when I young Fox tried to cross the highway.

He was trotting allong the East going lanes looking hopefully for a gap in the oncoming traffic.

He showed much restraint and awareness of the damage cars could do.

Eventually he found a gap and bolted accross, just before the East going traffic forced him back towards his verge.

Once across the road, he headed into the suburb at high speed.

The entire time he was being mobbed by Crows and Australian Magpie.

The writer in me wanted to tell the children's story (Where the brave young hero was trying to get the message through - the Birds were working for the forces of darkness and the cars/people are neutral to the conflict.

I also wanted to know where he lived, was he an escaped pet, did he spend most of his time by the river, did he normally cross the road earlier (to avoid the traffic), was the crossing of the busy 4 lane highway an unusual event in his life, etc etc But these things are not revealed to me.

Oh well. For a small glimpse into another world, I am very grateful.

A friend (you know who you are) pointed this out to me. It is wonderful

See the boat.

See the Guys with torches
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2008/01/30/1201369185778.html
See the boat in glory

Mmmm - this raises the bar  - time to look up a pattern to build a Knarr

Every year I take Maeve down to Esperance for a Week in Jan/Feb (For a "Christmas" equivalency holiday)

I'm back.

It was wonderful down there. relaxing, fun etc

However ever time I have to give her back I get sad. 

Now I expect to be sad and almost schedule for it. Which is sad all by itself. It has become self-fulfilling. 

So If I am a little grumpy with the world for the next week or two., I should apologise. I'm not sure I'm going to apologise because that implies a willingness to correct the behaviour. Instead I think I will revel in my misery - At lkeast for a little while.

I have just finished another lamp (and given it to my nephews - it was actually a lovely lamp - prettiest with the light through it - which makes it hard to photograph. My to-do list is now shorter