Comments for robohara.com

Comment on The Morning After by Earl Green

Earl Green — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:33:56 +0000

I lived barely a block away from ground zero of the 1996 Fort Smith tornado, which was a much smaller storm, but when you’re talking about a part of town filled with 100+ year old brick buildings which don’t really have a building code to live up to because they’re “historic”… it was bad enough. So I don’t take people’s suffering for granted – all it has to be is “bad enough.” To this day I can’t go to sleep knowing there are storms inbound. And like someone whose home has been broken into and invests in a really expensive security system, I spend quite a bit of money on storm tracking software that you could probably run a TV station’s weathercast with.

But yeah, when it comes down to it, I’m still going to be crammed into a closet with my kid and five cats and a couple of dogs and all the fleas they’ve brought in from the yard, hoping that this isn’t where the story ends with me in a hole in the ground.

The gulf between “knowing what’s going on” and “being able to do more about it than my distant simian ancestors were able to do” is still a pretty wide one.

Comment on The Morning After by Matthew Jackson

Matthew Jackson — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:35:42 +0000

Geez. I know that neighborhood. That’s S. Silverleaf Drive. The image is turned funny, but those little culdesacs are SE5th and SE7th Court and SE 6th St running between them. There is an Oil and Lube shop there just off Eastern and a Church of God across the street with a Walmart Neighborhood Market and a CVS there close. I know, because I lived on Silverleaf for a year when there in Moore. Rented a house right smack dab in the middle of that debris path.

Comment on The Morning After by Ben Lid

Ben Lid — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:28:09 +0000

Really good article Flack. It helps to bring the reality a little closer to home.

Comment on RIP Brad Prillwitz by Rob Brown

Rob Brown — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:30:15 +0000

I sadly learned of Brad’s passing on your site,deeply sorry to hear about this.I first met Brad at one of the early Classic Gaming Expos in Las Vegas.I was on a shuttle to go back to the airport,along with Lee Krueger,and we were chatting together about our time at the expo,and Brad was sitting behind us.We talked until the shuttle arrived at the airport,I gave Brad my business card I made up for my videogaming/vintage audio collecting,and we struck up a long distance friendship that included meeting up several time at CGE,and he even came out to Seattle and attended a meet we had close to the airport.We kept in touch for many years,and he was planning to come out and attend the Portland Gaming Expo this October,and then come up to my place north of Seattle and check out my gaming room and the Pacific Northwest.Sadly,I wish we could have had him here early,he will be deeply missed and was truly a wonderful person,and had a generous heart and smile to go with the most friendliest guy I’ve met in my travels with videogames.

Comment on Goodbye, Milk Crate! by Commodore Computer Club

Commodore Computer Club — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:43:40 +0000

Nicely done Rob. That’s a lot more functional and gives you more usable space. All you need now is a lava lamp on the shelf :)

Comment on Goodbye, Milk Crate! by Ben L

Ben L — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:57:27 +0000

Sweet!

Comment on Goodbye, Milk Crate! by Kurt

Kurt — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:32:45 +0000

Looks great!

Comment on Goodbye, Milk Crate! by Earl Green

Earl Green — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:22:05 +0000

That may actually be more Pitfall than is allowed by law.

Comment on Bingo aka Beango by Ubikuberalles

Ubikuberalles — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:45:25 +0000

Unlucky at Bingo, lucky at…parking?

Comment on RIP Ray Harryhausen by ubikuberalles

ubikuberalles — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:36:00 +0000

Harryhausen isn’t just about stop motion photography: it’s about stop motion blending in with live action. Ray would be the first one to tell you that. He considered stop motion films like Wallace and Gromit as mere animation or puppet shows. That’s a big reason why he retired. When ILM used computers for modern stop motion work, it made Harryhausen’s work obsolete and that’s why the studio never funded a sequel to the popular “Clash of the Titans”. Ray could have continued his career by simply doing just stop motion (no live action involved) but, like I said, he thought that was beneath him and mere “puppetry”.

I can see Harryhausen’s point of view once I appreciated how difficult it was to combine live action with stop motion work. First of all the actors line of sight have to match what they are looking at. Ray did a really good job of that (I’ve seen many animation/live action scenes where they did a poor job) and the only real improvement I’ve seen since Ray left the business is they use ping pong balls on sticks for the actors to look at (like they did in Dragonheart) and then cover the balls in post-production with CGI or animation.

Another, much more difficult, technique you have to perfect in matching live action and animation is getting the color and lighting to match. Ray was an expert in that field and most of his scenes are seamless: no discernible difference in the lighting of the live action actors and the clay models. Nowadays it’s difficult to see any differences but in the early days of CGI you could easily see the differences.

I’m sure stop motion with live action still has a place in the modern movie industry, it’s just sad to see that Ray Harryhausen will not play a part in it.