April 2020

2012 - The time I painted a portrait of my daughter

Tracking through some old Facebook posts I stumbled across a 2012 series in which I described the painting a portrait of my daughter Rhiannon. At the time I whined about how my Keratoconus impacted my ability to see properly. I guess it was the year before I had to have an operation on left eye and my sight was pretty bad. But let’s forget that and look at how I

Review: LinkedInLearning short course "Machine Learning and AI Foundations: Decision Trees"

This is the second Machine Learning course that I have attempted, and the first through LinkedIn Learning. I must admit that I have yet to write a review on the first course because I am unsure as to whether I took away any deep understanding of what it was trying to teach. One day I will explore why. This course, however, proved a lot better. A little background rambling first.

How I redesigned my web page

Are you like me? Have yourself a WordPress web site, seen some fancy theme, got it and still your site looks a lot less beautiful and functional than the theme promo says it should. Why? Why? Why? Well, we all know the answer: some whiz designer has weaved their magic making the theme do just what they want. But we are not fancy designers ourselves and so… yeah… average. Or

#Writing the second draft of the first scene

This post is about editing a first draft. Anyway, about the way I do it. You can compare the product of the first edit (this post) with the unedited first draft (last post). Note: as with any of my other posts in this section of my blog, it may contain spoilers to my writing. So proceed at your own risk. In my last post I discussed my routine of reading

#Writing the draft of the first back story scene

I now tend to write scene by scene rather than chapter by chapter. I imagine each scene as something from a television show or film. What is cohesive? What sticks? What camera angles? Who do I focus upon? When do I shift focus? These thoughts tumble into a rough plan in my head. I play with this plan, not yet having started to type. When I do eventually type I

Old photographs, Machine Learning and DeOldify

In my day job I am a database programmer. I love data. The reason I love data is twofold. Firstly, within data there resides stories and I adore stories. Secondly, data offers a challenge in its presentation. How do you present data in a manner that is not only meaningful but also engages and inspires? For work I have been asked to find out more about using Machine Learning to