I am trying to better myself. Physically that is not going to happen I know. I will never be athletic again, if indeed I ever was but my mind could do with a great deal of improvement. This week I vowed to enhance some of the few skills that I have and decided to learn coding. I have some books on C and Perl and one or two other languages and chose to make an attempt at C. I read through chapter one quite happily and understood most of it. Chapter two made me realise that I need a compiler so that any code I choose to write can be made accessible to my computer. Chapter three made me realise that the book assumed that I had a PC and not a Mac. At this point, my helicopter of a brain lost interest and I moved on.
Whilst watching dinosaur movies with Oscar on Youtube, I noticed reference to a 3D animation program called Blender. This is free - a major consideration these days, and so I downloaded it and printed out a 36 page introductory tutorial. Thereby hangs a tale of woe. I sent the file to the printer and waited. The printer insisted that there was no paper and so refused to do the job. (Yes we have all been there!), so i spent a couple of hours trying to sort that problem. It turns out that the file was demanding premium paper and that goes in a different part of the printer and that was empty because I don't have any of that type. I tried converting the file into a PDF and sending that, but by this time the printer was constipated and sulking, and so i gave up and reverted to my old printer and at long last got the printout I required. I sat down for a session, opened the program and the tutorial page one. Of course there was very little relationship between the tutorial and reality. The screen looked totally different and I find that a numeric keypad is essential - I don't have one. Now I am spending hours looking for fixes so that I can make a start. It has since dawned on me that the tutorial that I printed out is for a PC - no wonder I can't make it work.
Maybe my mind is not meant to be improved or maybe it is just too late. Perhaps I should have listened to what my teachers said rather than go my own way and do my own thing. Maybe I should go for the physical improvement after all. Yes that's it - this week I'll have my hair cut.
Whilst watching dinosaur movies with Oscar on Youtube, I noticed reference to a 3D animation program called Blender. This is free - a major consideration these days, and so I downloaded it and printed out a 36 page introductory tutorial. Thereby hangs a tale of woe. I sent the file to the printer and waited. The printer insisted that there was no paper and so refused to do the job. (Yes we have all been there!), so i spent a couple of hours trying to sort that problem. It turns out that the file was demanding premium paper and that goes in a different part of the printer and that was empty because I don't have any of that type. I tried converting the file into a PDF and sending that, but by this time the printer was constipated and sulking, and so i gave up and reverted to my old printer and at long last got the printout I required. I sat down for a session, opened the program and the tutorial page one. Of course there was very little relationship between the tutorial and reality. The screen looked totally different and I find that a numeric keypad is essential - I don't have one. Now I am spending hours looking for fixes so that I can make a start. It has since dawned on me that the tutorial that I printed out is for a PC - no wonder I can't make it work.
Maybe my mind is not meant to be improved or maybe it is just too late. Perhaps I should have listened to what my teachers said rather than go my own way and do my own thing. Maybe I should go for the physical improvement after all. Yes that's it - this week I'll have my hair cut.
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