ShowMeBlog

Playing Tropico 4 for free

  Steam has Tropico 4 for free this weekend.  I been playing it for a few minutes.  I did the Sandbox mode. 
  I picked Castro to be me.
  I feel right at home playing it.  I remember before Castro took power.  I remember when he took power.  I remember when he came to the United States and Ike and the Republicans refused to talk to him or even see him. 
  The Republicans told him he was a dirty Communist pig and to get the hell out of the United States.
  After a week or two here he went back to Cuba and Moscow told him he was a great hero and would give him anything he wanted.
  After a while Castro announced that he was a Communist and that the United States was the enemy and the USSR was Cuba’s friend.

  I remember the Bay of Pigs.  I remember Radio Havana Cuba.  I even remember Radio Free Dixie and Radio Swan.
 
  I remember it all.

  I will play some more of Tropico 4 tomorrow and see if I can change history. 

 

Not one of the YouTube “next creators”

  YouTube has been giving some of their partners lots of money and hardware and software.  They been doing that so that those partners will make better videos.

  In the past YouTube just decided who they wanted to pour the gold onto.  They recently set it up so that they asked people to apply.  Then they picked out some of them.

This last time I applied.  I just got an email from YouTube:

“Thank you for your application to YouTube Next Vlogger. We received a lot of great applications and it was extremely difficult to select just 16. Unfortunately we were not able to select your channel this time around. We do look forward to working with you in the future.

Please stay tuned for future programs and check out youtube.com/creators for the latest in education and programs.

All the best,

YouTube Next Vlogger Team”

 

  I have told you in the past and I tell you again… “I get no respect!” 
I did not think I would win.  My feeling is they are looking to build up people that will be around to turn out lots of videos over the years to come. 
  I did not think they would want to spend the money and the time for someone they think is going to kick the bucket next year.  (I am 71 years of age and you know how young people think.)

  They gave away this time $5K worth of video equipment and $10K worth of promotion.
I would have liked the $5K of video equipment.
  But what hurts is that this time they picked 15 “Vloggers” to be the winners.
Video bloggers… Video bloggers… That is what I been doing since June of 1982!  Man talk about a slap in the face. 

  Here are the winners…

 

 

I got my new Logitech C920 webcam today

  I got my new Logitech Pro C920 webcam today and here is some video about it and you can see video from the C910 and C920 and decide which you like best.

 

My Rainbow Race - Donovan

 

Uploaded by Gozo1919 on Aug 31, 2010

 

“MY RAINBOW RACE
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.
1. Some folks want to be like an ostrich,
Bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands.
[Some hope to take the easy way:
Poisons, bombs. They think we need 'em.
Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?
There's no shortcut to freedom.]
2. Go tell, go tell all the little children.
Tell all the mothers and fathers too.
Now's our last chance to learn to share
What's been given to me and you.”

I ordered the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920

  I just ordered the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 from Amazon.  My grandson has a Prime account so I would have got it on Friday with free shipping.
  But I went ahead and paid $3.99 and I will get it tomorrow.  Pretty neat.

  I have and been using the Logitech C910.  It also does HD 1080p videos and is an excellent camera.
  So why am I getting the C920?  Well the C920 has built in H.264 compression.
  With the C910 if I do a 1080p video of say 10 minutes after I am done it will have to compress the video and that takes about the same amount of time as your video.  So for 10 minutes it sucks all the life out of my computer CPU.  I sometimes take a nap when it is doing that.  But the C920 has built in hardware that compresses the video as you shoot it.
  The C920 also a 20-step autofocus that will work well for me.  The C910 autofocus is good but the C920 should be better.
  The C920 also has a tripod mount on it.  I like tripod mounts and it will let me move the camera around a little better.

  I will make a YouTube video with it and a little review of it when I get it tomorrow.

YouTube Unlocks Partnership starting today

  Here is a YouTube video that is reporting that as of today anyone can apply and get approved for a YouTube Partnership.  I am already a YouTube Partner so I can’t check it out.  If you are not a Partner and you want to be the person that made the video below says all you have to do is click and you are a Partner.

 

“Published on Apr 13, 2012 by SonicOrbStudios

YouTube now allows MOST people to become a partner. You get custom thumbs, ability to add ads to videos, and even a banner! But is it all that great or are you missing some features compared to becoming a partner though a studio such as Maker?”
Keep up to date by following me at http://www.sonicorbstudios.com/

 

 

A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square

“Published on Apr 11, 2012 by turnerbenelux

To launch the high quality TV channel TNT in Belgium we placed a big red push button on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town. A sign with the text "Push to add drama" invited people to use the button. And then we waited... Discover here what happened or visit http://www.tnt-tv.be for more info.”

Цекало и Puttin` отожгли на Воробьевых горах

 

 

"Puttin' on the Ritz" is a popular song written and published in 1929 by Irving Berlin and introduced by Harry Richman in the musical film Puttin' on the Ritz (1930). The title derives from the slang expression "putting on the Ritz," meaning to dress very fashionably. The expression was inspired by the swanky Ritz Hotel.

My Howard’s Notebook (YouTube) PlayList

Green screen

  I am getting a 9 foot by 15 foot green screen today. 

“Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a special effects / postproduction technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together, used heavily in many fields to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video - particularly the newscasting, motion picture and videogame industries. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as color keying, color-separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC^[2]), or by various terms for specific color-related variants such as green screen, and blue screen - chroma keying can be done with backgrounds of any color that are uniform and distinct, but green and blue backgrounds are more commonly used because they differ most distinctly in hue from most human skin colors and no part of the subject being filmed or photographed may duplicate a color used in the background.^[3] It is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasts, wherein the news presenter appears to be standing in front of a large map during live television newscasts, though in actuality it is a large blue or green background. When using a blue screen, different weather maps are added on the parts of the image where the color is blue. If the news presenter wears blue clothes, his clothes will also be replaced with the background video. A complementary system is used for green screens. Chroma keying is also used in the entertainment industry for special effects in movies and videogames. The advanced state of the technology and much commercially available computer software, such as Pinnacle Studio, Adobe Premiere, and dozens of other computer programs, makes it possible and relatively easy for the average home computer user to create videos using the "chromakey" function and easily affordable greenscreen or bluescreen kits…” 

 

 

 I am not sure that I have the lighting and software to make it work but I am going to give it a try.  So you can expect a YouTube video soon if it works.

  Green Screen Tips, Tricks and Materials – Chromakey Tutorial