Marcus D. Hanwell's Blog - Comments

christine s: Jessops Are Truly Terrible - Worst Service Ever

nospam@example.com (christine s) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:17:33 -0500

found an address I think for head office and am writing crossly - placed an order on 24th november 09 which has still not been processed. each time you ring customer services they promise to ring back and don't. even when I demanded my credit card recredited they said oh yes, we will do that - we have to ring you back in 15 mins. guess what - no ring back. I have written such a damning letter to HO but I doubt I will get a reply. Just writing this to let off steam and warn everyone else about shoddy don't care service and after service - what's that. shame - good company up to now and never had to complain before.

cutomer Nov 09: Jessops Are Truly Terrible - Worst Service Ever

nospam@example.com (cutomer Nov 09) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:57:22 -0500

I have to add a big negative. I ordered a camera on the 29th Nov on Jessops website. The next day they confirmed my order as on 'back order' i.e. they didn't actually have it in stock to give me. After 2 weeks I emailed them to ask if it would come before Christmas and if not how did I change the order. An email response said they expected delivery in 7 days. In never arrived, no contact from Jessops and no change to the tracking site details. In January (no good as a christmas present now) I phoned them to be told 'I'm sorry the manufactures aren't supplying them with this any more. So why didn't anyone contact me? Doesn't their system track unfullfilled orders? They promised to deliver in 2 working days a camera of a different colour, it never arrived. A week later I ring them to ask what is happening, thet tell me they couldn't process the order as their system has wiped off my card details as it is over 28 days since the original order..they knew this when they agreed to change the order and deliver! They agree to deliver it on thursday (as specifically requested). I take the day off, in the morning it is still undispatched, I ring them to be told that it is to be dispatched today for delivery tomorrow, when I am not in. The girl agrees to talk to her supervisor when she comes in to agree a saturday delivery. Suprise, no phone call back. 3hours later I ring to find out it has been dispatched for Friday. Having been through the same speech about how I have been let down the guy agreees to authorise that when it cannot be delivered Friday (as I am not here) that they will pay for delivery saturday but the process as to how Jessop pay for this service is unclear. Will I get payment? They tell me that they cannot spek to the delivery company about the day of delivery (funny I thought it was their contract) and what did I expect him to do about it? So many promises have been broken.

The laugh is that after the debarcle this morning I went online to find I can get the camera ?10 cheaper from a reputable supermarket and that the camera is now available through Jessops for collection in store. If they had rung as planned before despatching I would have opted for either of these options rather than the mess I now find myself in.

Would I use them again. A definite NO. Jessops take head, how can you afford to lose customers?

Edward F. McKee: Google Tech Talk on CMake

nospam@example.com (Edward F. McKee) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:28:57 -0500

In 1984 I conceived the name, "Tech Talk" as the name for the member newsbulletin of the Atlanta Section of the Instrument Society of America.

Soon after, CNN picked up the name and used it.

Since that time other organizations have adopted it.

At this point I doubt that anyone can claim copyright to the name.

Ed McKee

nightmorph: Kitware at Camp KDE, Software Process Talk and CMake Tutorial

nospam@example.com (nightmorph) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:13:48 -0500

Hey, I actually WILL see you there, old man!

(I ain't much younger, so I know I have no room to talk.)

Since I live in San Diego and all, I'll be there Sunday! I'm going more as a new KDE4 user (which I've documented on Planet). I plan to hear the Plasma talks, maybe take in the keynote or a few other things. I'll at least drop by before/after your talk to say "HI from the token non-programmer."

Who knows, I may even see what's going on Monday or Tuesday . . . Tuesday's schedule is rather vague on what's actually happening.

See ya there!

Marcus D. Hanwell: The End of the Noughties

nospam@example.com (Marcus D. Hanwell) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:14:23 -0500

Hi Neil, my email addresses seem to be spread all over, but looking around you are right - I don't have anything on here. You can always use marcus [at] cryos dot org and it will find me.

What you mention is programatically easy, and should be possible using the Python bindings. I always intended to add a user interface to the navigation tool to accomplish this. I will try to make time to add this, but it will be in the 1.1/1.2 line.

Marcus D. Hanwell: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (Marcus D. Hanwell) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:10:41 -0500

I saw the Pocahontas in 3D link, I thought it was really funny. I kinda found it funny that they could poke fun with the unobtanium name, but would have preferred 'reallytoughtofindonium'... I am no movie critic, but I certainly enjoyed it.

It would look very fake if everything was sharply in focus. I did wonder if the effect was amplified by the clever use of motion in many parts of the movie.

Neil Moore: The End of the Noughties

nospam@example.com (Neil Moore) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:41:35 -0500

Dear Marcus,

I wasn't able to find an explicit email to contact you, so I hope this finds you. I've been recently turned on to Avogadro; naturally, your name and work have popped up several times. I have a question about rotation.

Suppose I have some molecule in the viewing window. In the bottom left hand corner is a set of axes. I wish to rotate the molecule in a specific way. For instance, a rotation of exactly 90 degrees about the x-axis. I can't seem to figure this out; all I can do is try my best with the navigation tool.

Do you have any suggestions?

Neil

jospoortvliet: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (jospoortvliet) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:09:41 -0500

He, I liked the movie too. And the 'Unobtanium' thing - I found it funny. If you make the most expensive movie ever, yet have the guts to make fun of such a rather important element (phun intended) I think it's neath

Anonymous: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com () — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:29:21 -0500

Well, if you want everything sharp then it won't look natural. The eye focusses on some object too, not everything is sharp

Jos: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (Jos) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:26:38 -0500

I disliked that there was still the concept of focus. If not everything is in focus then not everything is clearly visible. I can understand this problem in recorded images. but do not see why the out of focus images are rendered. When rendering, everything should be sharp.

Milian Wolff: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (Milian Wolff) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:49:19 -0500

Hehe well in regard to the lame story:

http://web.me.com/pascalboogaert/Site/foto3.html

It's just pocahontas in 3d with a few sed 's///g' runs

Anonymous: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:42:27 -0500

Well, I was interested in the 3D-Techniques as well after I had seen Avatar (with the circular polar system). It's pretty amazing. It looks like Sony, Apple, LP and maybe even Samsung are planning to bring out circular polarized screen (First TV-screen and then computer screens for games). The thing is that it needs a dual graphics card with a dual input, because there are 2 images. The only other systems would be with shutter glasses (way too expensive and complex) or with anaglyphs (no true colours). It would be great to see KDE in 3D though, but usability might then be an issue.
Anyway, the technology is almost there, but the big problem is free software for it. Even in blender (except the game engine), you need to coordinate 2 cameras because it's not laid out to do stereoscopy natively, which is pretty much a pain. The algorithms for the focal distance and that kind of stuff would be easy to implement. Really, the biggest issue is showing the 3D contents...

Andy Goossens: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (Andy Goossens) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:54:33 -0500

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

Alejandro Nova: Avatar and 3D

nospam@example.com (Alejandro Nova) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:28:41 -0500

Is that the material I(nob)tanium is made of?

Marcus D. Hanwell: Avogadro 1.0.0 Released!

nospam@example.com (Marcus D. Hanwell) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:41:55 -0500

QuteMol is certainly a visualization application we have looked at, and I would love to see the ambient occlusion features added to Avogadro. In truth Avogadro is focused on editing, and is mostly written in our spare time without funding. There are so many things I would love to add to Avogadro, and it is often hard to decide what to spend the little free time I have on.

It is great to hear about what people are doing with it, and I hope to continue development. There are quite a few other developers too, and we always welcome new contributors.