Jawas … Never around when you need them.

This was a line by character Kyle Katarn in Star Wars .

BBC News reported today that "Space Junk is at a tipping point". article

Floating space garbage has been accumulating with every mission since the Mercury, Soyuz, Gemini & Apollo days. You would think that scientists and engineers would be bright enough to know you can't do good work in a messy lab or shop and you wouldn't want to drive on a highway covered with random junk cars and old parts strewn about.

But every bit of junk they've left lying around up there has finally accumulated to the point that they have to track and inventory all the debris -- over 500,000 bits of it -- and the problem gets amplified when the garbage collides. A recent collision with a Russian satellite created ANOTHER 2000 bits!

Which brings us to solutions - Where are the Jawas when you need them? "The
Jawas have a tendency to pick up anything that's not tied down, Luke" Owen Lars to Luke Skywalker

So some really bright individuals would do well to come up with the bright idea that makes space trash collection into a commercially viable enterprise. Design a self-feeding garbage collection/recyling unit that runs like a giant orbital Space-Roomba. Call it the "Junk Acquiring Waste Assembly" or JAWA.

Another Day in the Studio | Life as a freelance artist

Another Day in the Studio | Life as a freelance artist

Working with Ambient Design's ArtRage Studio Pro

I discovered ArtRage a few years ago when I tried out the free 2.5 version and was immediately impressed that such a light installation code-wise could produce such a fantastically real feel for the mediums it produces.

I bought myself a WACOM Bamboo graphics tablet a short time later and discovered its controls worked perfectly with the ArtRage interface.

A short time later I picked up a commission that required the nuances of airbrush and watercolors so I went ahead and bought the Studio 3.0 version so I could use all of the tools.


A couple of weeks ago I again found myself needing some features available in their newer StudioPro version 3.5 so got the inexpensive upgrade and again was super pleased with the quality of the tools. One of the things I find valuable in collaborating with designers and other artists is the ability to work on projects using ArtRage and Paint.Net.





Both applications have the capability of importing and exporting files in the .PSD Photoshop format, making it possible to use a wider variety of tools and to work with web designers more easily.






Whether painting in oil on rough canvas or inking with colors on an animation cel the feel is just like working with that medium itself.

Needless to say I find myself glued to my studio, excited with my projects and having so much fun that Celeste sort of interposes food between me and my drawing to coerce me to eat.

How to Control Your Privacy when Posting Photos online

Sharing photos via Facebook, Twitter and a host of other social media is popular, fun and probably one of the greatest things for people to enjoy.

There IS, however, a privacy issue that you should know about so you don't share personal information you might prefer to keep to yourself.

Before I go any further let's have a definition: "EXIF data" - "EXIF" stands for:EXchangeable Image File - Data that is stored in digital photos, such as camera shutter speed, date & time, focal length, exposure; AND NOW, IN NEWER CAMERAS - GPS location.

The video below covers the issues of unknowingly revealing your GPS location and how that can be dangerous - but doesn't explain HOW to handle the problem.

Which is the point of this article.

I'll show you how to easily edit or remove these detail from shots before posting them.



So there you go.

When posting an image online just decide whether publicizing the image's location carries any security or privacy concerns.

If it does, you can edit or remove that data in several ways.

Writer(and founder)Amit Agarwal at digital inspiration posted an excellent article giving all the different methods and tools for managing EXIF data.

While you'll want to see the full article, I find the simplest handling is as follows:

"Sometimes the Exif data of your photographs may reveal more than what you would expect. It may therefore sometimes sense to strip your images of all the meta information before uploading them to the web.

To remove all the metadata from a photograph, just right-click the files inside Windows Explorer and choose Properties. Now click the Details tab and select the option that says “Remove Properties and Personal Information.”

Choose “Remove the follow properties from this file” followed by “Select All” and click OK. All the private metadata tags are now erased from the photograph. Simple!"

For most of us this isn't too big an issue but help your friends out and make them aware and feel free to share this data.

Raoul