Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-04-24 01:15 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-04-24 01:15 am
The phrase "gimp mask problems" may be slightly misleading.
Despite how bad it actually is, the cherry-lime syrup was gone in the morning. I arrived well-armed with a set of gummy candies for the "hummingbird feeder".
It's possible that the departmental move may be delayed. I say this on account of my manager saying that we should have been notified by today at the outside if we're going this Friday. There are no emails, no letters, nowhite flag above my door numbered pieces of paper stuck to cubes or offices. Purple, who was also going to have been in this batch, is similarly without notification. He told a harrowing tale of a move where they told them on Monday, got other pending moves done, and then went "Hey, so can we move you folks like RIGHT NOW?" Except there were still some people with machines up running things that shouldn't be interrupted...
I got sushi and had lunch with the very sparsely attended indoor team table. Coop de grace showed up with the new juniormost researcher, who is sitting over there with those folks. It was good to meet her, if briefly -- I had a 1pm up in the westernmost wing of campus, looking at the building there with an eye to party layout. The planner never showed (and emailed the leader of our cell saying she'd been caught up in a crisis) but we walked around and I showed them where the bathrooms are.
Our Fearless Leader tried to reschedule; we all regrouped to our building.
We ran into The Turtle Guy on the way back. My cell had been joking about sleepovers and sleeping bags as swag; I'd advised that we'd need to check with The Turtle Guy if we weren't joking. So when I saw him, I asked him how bad an idea a slumber party on campus would be. He lit up, of course, and told us that unofficially, to let him know, and the east corner was best, and that there was a team who had had a campout, and he'd just need to let security know so they wouldn't freak out, and to turn off the sprinklers for that sector that night so we wouldn't be unnecessarily dampened.
Then I showed him the thing that I had to show him, which is that in a certain mail room, there is in fact a sign saying GULLIBLE dangling from the ceiling, if you look up in the corner there. Legitimately. It was hilarious.
I printed out some floor plans so my cell could take better notes. Then it was nearly time for the rescheduled meeting. By this time, of course, I was within 600 steps of goal for the day, and I had another trip there and back. Since I walk slower than everybody else, I started out early. (Purple is extra busy this week; even so, he might have made time for a milkshake, but his meeting said otherwise.) I started mapping the locations of the plugins (there will be equipment which needs power). Again, the planner didn't show, so our Fearless Leader rescheduled again.
I am learning all sorts of things that I can do with the GIMP while in pursuit of work projects. I love that my manager can just say "If Paint can't handle it, you should go download that free one. You know..." and I can say "OH RIGHT THAT ONE YES" and while neither of us can remember what it's called without Google, I can install it and it solves many of my problems.
In this case, my problem was: Google's satellite images are not up to date with the new construction. I have two floorplans and no map of how they relate to each other, because the geometry of the space in between is a thing that we have to deal with. So I find somewhere that has allegedly high-quality recent images, but all I need is the recent, which shows the external shapes of the buildings. So I screengrab that (if it were anything that's going to be shown, I'd buy the thing, but this can get by on low-res with watermarks, all I need is the placement), make a note of it for later because knowing these things can be useful, and fire up the GIMP.
I paste in the satellite as a new layer.
I paste in building 1 from our internal map software installation as a second layer.
I paste in building 2 from ditto as a third.
There is a digression where I manage to screw up the satellite layer. I fix this by blowing that layer away, and re-adding it from source. It might have been possible to repair, but I didn't have to, so I wasn't interested in that.
Some fucking around later, I rotate building 2 so it's sitting next to building 1 in the right orientation. Then I hide it because I don't need that right now. I concentrate on getting building 1 and the satellite aligned. I rotate the satellite picture until the lines align with a known straight edge of building 1. I start fucking around with the size of building 1 (having cut it free of its background fairly crudely), resizing it until it's just about right, then moving it, then resizing it again, until the edges line up. Then I pop building 2 back into view and do the same for it. (And of course the googling for how the fuck do I do this thing; the documentation and its searchability seems to have improved sometime in the last 5 years or so.) So then I have the two buildings against the satellite background, so they're the right proportions and orientation.
New layer, on top. I compare the image on my screen to the sheaf of papers on my clipboard, and pull up a nice bright glowy brush. I pop in little dots for each power outlet. This is so very not ideal. It is so far from ideal. Ideal and this thing are two hummingbirds who will also never meet. But it is an answer to the question that we have been asking, which is, how much fiddle-fucking around is it going to take with our layout to get power to the things that need it, and that answer is, a lot. So.
I noticed a couple typos in our internal maps, plus a mis-categorized room that had tripped up someone else, and filed a ticket. Go, us.
I had thought that I'd been fairly direct about Big-Ticket Trauma Item #2 when previously comparing notes with Purple, but apparently not. So I rehashed that for his information and at his request, complete with the backstory on why one of the subtle tells about something being very, very wrong is a thing. From there we launched into pre-history. Turns out there are certain similarities in our birth stories. We're starting to find some of the various coincidental similarities slightly spooky. (Happily, we're easy to tell apart by our hair, despite us both having long dark brown hair of about the same waviness. Mine is in a braid and glows blue when illuminated. His is not in a braid and is rather more a lighter brown. Plus, comparatively, I am short, and we are different builds.)
I sorted stuff, into being-stuffed-into-a-box-now, and into a stack on my desk to run through, ideally before we go. After a while, Purple showed up, and we made our escape. I'd had the good fortune to get a close parking spot. Purple looked out over the parking lot as we said our goodnights, and exclaimed in triumph: he'd also scored a nearby parking spot. Go, team us. By this point I had exceeded 10k on the fitbit, for which it was somewhat mis-aimedly praising me.
Eventually, I am sure, there will be new shiny people in Purple's life, and in mine, and we will no longer be claiming such a large slice of each other's break time. I am determined to enjoy the time there is, because it is good times.
I should be mindful of breakfast tomorrow, for I have breakfast-shaped items.
It's possible that the departmental move may be delayed. I say this on account of my manager saying that we should have been notified by today at the outside if we're going this Friday. There are no emails, no letters, no
I got sushi and had lunch with the very sparsely attended indoor team table. Coop de grace showed up with the new juniormost researcher, who is sitting over there with those folks. It was good to meet her, if briefly -- I had a 1pm up in the westernmost wing of campus, looking at the building there with an eye to party layout. The planner never showed (and emailed the leader of our cell saying she'd been caught up in a crisis) but we walked around and I showed them where the bathrooms are.
Our Fearless Leader tried to reschedule; we all regrouped to our building.
We ran into The Turtle Guy on the way back. My cell had been joking about sleepovers and sleeping bags as swag; I'd advised that we'd need to check with The Turtle Guy if we weren't joking. So when I saw him, I asked him how bad an idea a slumber party on campus would be. He lit up, of course, and told us that unofficially, to let him know, and the east corner was best, and that there was a team who had had a campout, and he'd just need to let security know so they wouldn't freak out, and to turn off the sprinklers for that sector that night so we wouldn't be unnecessarily dampened.
Then I showed him the thing that I had to show him, which is that in a certain mail room, there is in fact a sign saying GULLIBLE dangling from the ceiling, if you look up in the corner there. Legitimately. It was hilarious.
I printed out some floor plans so my cell could take better notes. Then it was nearly time for the rescheduled meeting. By this time, of course, I was within 600 steps of goal for the day, and I had another trip there and back. Since I walk slower than everybody else, I started out early. (Purple is extra busy this week; even so, he might have made time for a milkshake, but his meeting said otherwise.) I started mapping the locations of the plugins (there will be equipment which needs power). Again, the planner didn't show, so our Fearless Leader rescheduled again.
I am learning all sorts of things that I can do with the GIMP while in pursuit of work projects. I love that my manager can just say "If Paint can't handle it, you should go download that free one. You know..." and I can say "OH RIGHT THAT ONE YES" and while neither of us can remember what it's called without Google, I can install it and it solves many of my problems.
In this case, my problem was: Google's satellite images are not up to date with the new construction. I have two floorplans and no map of how they relate to each other, because the geometry of the space in between is a thing that we have to deal with. So I find somewhere that has allegedly high-quality recent images, but all I need is the recent, which shows the external shapes of the buildings. So I screengrab that (if it were anything that's going to be shown, I'd buy the thing, but this can get by on low-res with watermarks, all I need is the placement), make a note of it for later because knowing these things can be useful, and fire up the GIMP.
I paste in the satellite as a new layer.
I paste in building 1 from our internal map software installation as a second layer.
I paste in building 2 from ditto as a third.
There is a digression where I manage to screw up the satellite layer. I fix this by blowing that layer away, and re-adding it from source. It might have been possible to repair, but I didn't have to, so I wasn't interested in that.
Some fucking around later, I rotate building 2 so it's sitting next to building 1 in the right orientation. Then I hide it because I don't need that right now. I concentrate on getting building 1 and the satellite aligned. I rotate the satellite picture until the lines align with a known straight edge of building 1. I start fucking around with the size of building 1 (having cut it free of its background fairly crudely), resizing it until it's just about right, then moving it, then resizing it again, until the edges line up. Then I pop building 2 back into view and do the same for it. (And of course the googling for how the fuck do I do this thing; the documentation and its searchability seems to have improved sometime in the last 5 years or so.) So then I have the two buildings against the satellite background, so they're the right proportions and orientation.
New layer, on top. I compare the image on my screen to the sheaf of papers on my clipboard, and pull up a nice bright glowy brush. I pop in little dots for each power outlet. This is so very not ideal. It is so far from ideal. Ideal and this thing are two hummingbirds who will also never meet. But it is an answer to the question that we have been asking, which is, how much fiddle-fucking around is it going to take with our layout to get power to the things that need it, and that answer is, a lot. So.
I noticed a couple typos in our internal maps, plus a mis-categorized room that had tripped up someone else, and filed a ticket. Go, us.
I had thought that I'd been fairly direct about Big-Ticket Trauma Item #2 when previously comparing notes with Purple, but apparently not. So I rehashed that for his information and at his request, complete with the backstory on why one of the subtle tells about something being very, very wrong is a thing. From there we launched into pre-history. Turns out there are certain similarities in our birth stories. We're starting to find some of the various coincidental similarities slightly spooky. (Happily, we're easy to tell apart by our hair, despite us both having long dark brown hair of about the same waviness. Mine is in a braid and glows blue when illuminated. His is not in a braid and is rather more a lighter brown. Plus, comparatively, I am short, and we are different builds.)
I sorted stuff, into being-stuffed-into-a-box-now, and into a stack on my desk to run through, ideally before we go. After a while, Purple showed up, and we made our escape. I'd had the good fortune to get a close parking spot. Purple looked out over the parking lot as we said our goodnights, and exclaimed in triumph: he'd also scored a nearby parking spot. Go, team us. By this point I had exceeded 10k on the fitbit, for which it was somewhat mis-aimedly praising me.
Eventually, I am sure, there will be new shiny people in Purple's life, and in mine, and we will no longer be claiming such a large slice of each other's break time. I am determined to enjoy the time there is, because it is good times.
I should be mindful of breakfast tomorrow, for I have breakfast-shaped items.