The completely gratuitous complaint thread
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Definite Complaint: Ughhh... Having reached the station of ancient age, my skin is no longer the supple thing of beauty and durability it once was. Skin oil production is down, and my skin dries out and flakes significantly.
I've started using skin lotions and they help, actually help quite a bit to keep things like my elbows & knees from turning into jagged moonscapes and combats the flakiness on my arms, legs & face. But then while reading a skin health article on the web targeted for people of the ancient persuasion, I realized that perhaps I was using the wrong soap. My mother always used "Ivory" bar soap for bath and sink and I just kept up the practice. It's cheap, it floats, and it works. Perhaps too well, it probably sucks the oil right out of the skin. So, just for jollies I decided to try a moisturizing soap. Not wanting use a fancy feminine, perfumey product I searched on Amazon and found an enticing ad for "Dove - Men+Care". Well, it's targeted to men, so it won't be non-masculine, will it? I couldn't pass up the deal 14 bars for $14. And it's "Dove" a well known moisturizing brand. It's gotta be good, right? And the price is a lot better than $3 per bar in the catalog for similar products. So, I ordered it.
Yesterday it arrived and before I opened the cardboard shipping box I could smell the soap inside.
Then when the box was opened the room filled with the odor of gardenias or something equally flowery.
Then when I broke open the plastic wrap around the assemblege of 14 individual unwrapped cardboard boxes my eyes started watering.
I quickly shifted two bars into the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink, which did little to obstruct the odor. My bathroom now greets me with spring flowers every time I have to piss, which at my age is quite often. The other dozen bars were carefully re-wrapped in kitchen plastic wrap and hidden deep in two layers of cardboard boxes in my storage area. I've been considering putting them in my attic to kill the spiders. I have pulled one bar from under the sink and opened it and replaced the Ivory on the sink's soaptray.
To it's credit though, I've found that every time I use the open bar of "Dove - Men+Care" in the bathroom sink my hands feel smooth and youthful, but stink like the parlor of a bordello.
I'm almost afraid to walk in public for fear of attracting bees, but it's winter and we're all quarantining so it's not a problem for now. That soap damn well better resolve my skin problem or $14 or not, it's going to be used as gifts for people I'm not particularly fond of.
Edited to add: Note: the box claims that the odor is "Classic Scent". Yeah, classic bordello.
We're only missing three?
LeatherGryphon - PTGui is excellent and worth the money. I'm using it for the panos I make with my Nikon FX and the 16 mm fisheye lens, the 8 - 15 mm fisheye and the 18 - 35 mm rectangular lens (at 22.5 mm for around 22,000 x 11,000 pixels; and had used it already with my Nikon DX 10.5 mm fisheye). Because I'm making HDRI panos (6 to 8 shots at different shutter speeds), I have the Pro version. The Pro version can handle true 96 bit HDRIs (though I stitch the pano first with the best exposure, check the result for flaws, save the settings then replace the LDRIs by the HDRIs I assembled with the free Picturenaut. This is much faster). Last week I just added the Bryce FLO camera settings (11.64 mm Circular) and for 6 cube faces (15.3 mm) though for rendered spherical panos with the 6 cube faces Pano2VR is better and also handles HDRIs but it can only stitch cube faces. The free HDRShop does it also, but it isn't available anymore, though the old version 1.03 still works on Win10).
@ Horo Thanks for the reply, I thought you might have some good suggesions.
I believe if I look deep enough in my archives, that I have a copy of HDRShop. I have used it but not much.
My workflow at the end of my photography career 12 years ago, was to use Photoshop for assembling HDRI flat images. Then like you I stitched the sphere using LDR images but using Stitcher and retaining the stitch coordinates to apply to each of the separately assembled HDRI images for assembling the final HDRI image in Stitcher.
I'm looking harder at PTGui-Pro. It's a lot of money for me now, particularly since I've spent the last 18 months dumping money into new computer hardware. The hardware phase is almost done so, now it's time to think about upgrading my software. Either that or making my funeral arrangements. It's a toss up. I don't know which I like better.
(yes I do)
Edited for accuracy: No, the more I think of it, my workflow was to Stitch the LDR into a sphere, then use the coordinates to separately stitch each of the HDR layers into a sphere, then using the unrolled sphere flat format images (I forgot what the format was called, but it was in a 2:1 ratio) I would use Photoshop to assemble the flat layers together into a finished HDRI and publish that as a flat print on paper or as a Quicktime "*.mov" image for scanning around inside the image on a website. Unfortunately, Quicktime is now obsolete (on PCs) for that purpose and I really don't yet know what has replaced it. Something else I have to research.
LeatherGryphon - sounds complicated to stitch onto a sphere and then covert to equirectangular. I started to photograph a mirror ball from 2 sides (like Paul Debevec started), stitch them in HDRShop and converted to an angular map (Bryce 6 needed angular maps, 7 can also use equirectangular i.e. spherical maps, which are more common). If you're interested, I have a 23 page PDF on my website: HDRI & Panoramas > PDF Document.
I believe my reasoning was that it was less work to manually stitch one sphere, then use the recorded coordinates to automatically stitch all the HDR layers into multiple identical spheres and use each one's resulting equirectangular image (3 or 5 or 7 of them depending on how much contrast I'd photographed for) to then use Photoshop to assemble into an equirectangular HDRI that could be saved as HDR or tonemapped down for paper or web use as source for a print or for a Quicktime spherical web image. I've forgotten how many bits of HDR depth that PhotoshopCS5 could produce for the finished full-depth HDRI. I do know it would input multiple layers of 32bit images, which was, I believe, a new feature in PS-CS5 and the justification for me springing for the CS5 update from CS3.
Also, now that my brain has been in recall mode for an hour or so, I think I tried creating the HDRIs of each individual photo first then stitching them into a sphere and had trouble with the Stitcher stitching algorithm not being as helpful or accurate as when using nice crisp LDR images from the best exposure set.
I also remember having to deal with the registration problem of individual exposures of a particular image set until I refined my tripod and tripod head to be rock steady and used a remote shutter release and gingerly changed the exposure setting before turning to the next image position. Most of the time after that I had no problem with registration either with the original flats or with the stitched equirectangulars. But oh how I wished I had an automatic camera and motorized tripod head that would take a series of 96 exposures automatically while I sat and had a cigarette instead of standing on my feet for an hour hovering over the camera dreading accidentally kicking a tripod leg.
LeatherGryphon - cool idea to manual stitch the shots, I don't think I'm clever enough to do such. I use Photoshop CS5 to eliminate shadows from the tripod at the nadir (and it can handle 96 bit TIF, which stores each color as a single precision float; OpenEXR, by the way, uses half precision floats), HDRShop to white balance and scale down, Pano2VR to create XML and JavaScript to get movable panos. I still have a QTVR version but it is as usable as Flash. I spent months to convert my panos on the website from QTVR to Flash 3 years ago and had to start again last month converting from Flash to HTML5. Pano2VR v4 and v5 still convert to QuickTime and Flash (never uninstall a working version), Pano2VR v6 only makes HTML5 and animations, JavaScript is automatically created and can be used to display from the browser. Funnily enough, PTGui v11.3 (newest) can still create QTVR, thought I've never tried it.
The only thing I understood was "javascript".
..yeah those Icons are pretty small.
From what I can tell the top one (12 o'clock) is the top element (broil) the one at 3 o'clock is the bottom element (bake) and the one at the bottom (6 o'clock) is both elements (toast) and of course the one at 9 o'clock is "off".
LG, I have some of the same Dove Men+Care soap (dumbest name on the planet, by the way), which here comes in boxes not shrinkwrapped (I don't think). It has never had an overpowering scent in my bathrooms and certainly not throughout my house, and most definitely not flowery at all. So maybe you bought the one where the soapmakers had just come back from a local "bottomless martinis" happy hour?
If my suspicion is right, then that might not even be soap in your box!
Thanks
the magnifier with the led isnt helping.
Complaint: My mother and mother-in-law are both in their 80's, so we've been trying to get them vaccinated. I've got a browser plugin monitoring about 17 sites for any availability. Last week a site near my m-i-l gave 24-hour advanced notice of slots to be opening, so the next day I was perched to jump on them. Unfortunately, my laptop froze and by the time I got back in they were full. This week they made another announcement for openings starting at noon today (Wednesday), so I had both my laptop and my wife's ready to go. At 9:30am a site near my mom posted openings, so I got her an appointment at 4:30 this afternoon. At noon my wife and I tried to get an appointment for my m-i-l, each picked a time slot but by the time we clicked on them they were filled, and in less than 2 minutes there was nothing left. When my daughter's virtual school ended at 2pm, I went to check our cars. The guys who shovel for us hadn't really done a good enough job digging them out after the blizzard, and none of us are able-bodied enough to do it. My mom had someone coming by to get her car inspected and a flat tire fixed (we'd put on the doughnut spare but hadn't gotten the flat fixed before the storm), who kindly dug her car out and discovered it had a second flat and was undriveable, and our car was still too snowbound for us to use. I called my sister, but both her car and my nephew's car were likewise buried. The site kindly tried to switch our appointment, but none of their locations had any openings. At this point my neuropathy had flared up from overexertion and stress and I was a basket case myself.
the upstairs people shovelled e out, or i'd be stuck til the melt
is it thors day already
I appreciate the 2nd opinion about that brand. The bars did come in proper looking and official looking individual cardboard boxes but the batch of 14 boxes were wrapped in an official looking printed cellophane wrapper. However, the fact that you say yours doesn't have an overpowering smell makes me wonder if I haven't gotten a cheap foreign knock-off. Or possibly a batch that was "cheap" because as you suggested, someone goofed.
Or perhaps I'm just sensitive to that particular odor. My mother couldn't walk down the store isle where the detergents were displayed or she'd break out in hives. That's why she'd use unscented Ivory brand soap for everything whether in bar, box, or bottle form. Regardless I need to find a place to store the other 12 bars farther away from my nose.
Look out spiders in the attic, here it comes.
However, on the bright side, my hands are now feel smooth and silky. Still wrinkled but not sandpapery.
Years ago when I played piano I'd look carefully at my hands and admire their smooth, gracefully elegant , perfect beauty. Then I broke one during a motorcycle incident and now have screws and metal bars in one, and age has changed the skin on them from looking like form fitting tight silk gloves to tired, oversized hosiery on a desiccated cadaver.
But at least they're not sandpapery now.
If all the spiders die then I would avoid that soap.
I got "cool idea" and a couple of "its", "ands", "thes" and that number that looks like the letter "s"...
Also, if the spiders grow to dangerous proportions, I'd avoid the soap too... and the spiders... unless you are looking for an unusual pet the size of a cat that requires little attention and may eat you in your sleep.
Spherical Image -- An image that covers a complete sphere of visibility. Up, down, and all around. Everything within view. Can be assembled from two hemispherical fisheye lens images. Or when higher resolution is required, from multiple lesser wide angle images. These images can be viewed from within the sphere by using computers. But can also be "flattened" into one of several "maps". "Equirectangular mapping" is like a Mercator projection of a map of the earth but produces extreme distortion at the top and bottom. Another way is to project six portions of the sphere onto the square flat sides of a cube surrounding the sphere and then "unfold" the cube onto flat paper. This method has less distortion but causes topological disconnects at the edges of some of the squares. Mathematically, there are other ways to map the sphere for viewing on flat or curved surfaces but these are the most prominent.
HDR -- High Dynamic Range -- ability to record an image with range of brightness beyond what is normally representable by ink on paper
HDRI -- HIgh Dynamic Range Image (or imaging) -- an image or process that uses HDR technology.
Tonemapped -- The information in a stored HDR image cannot be represented faithfully on paper or on a computer screen (ink is only so dark, paper is only so bright) without reducing the range of information. A tonemapped HDR image squeezes the range of brightness (ex: 10 or 12 "zones" or "octaves") into the range representable on the display medium. 7 for paper or 9 for computer displays. But simple linear mapping is often not satisfactory. Not all images tonemap easily. There is some artistry in desiging the compression curve for various levels of brightness to achieve a pleasing final image for a particular image.
PS-CS5 -- PhotoShop Creative Suite version 5 -- a professional level image processing application that is a member of the 5th version of Adobe's "Creative Suite" package of applications.
OpenEXR -- OpenEXR -- A file with the EXR file extension is an OpenEXR Bitmap file. It's an open-source high-dynamic-range image file format created by the Industrial Light & Magic visual effects company.
Pano2VR -- Panorama to Virtual Reality -- A software application that assembles multiple images into panorama or 360 degree images and provides the ability to publish them on a website, and create virtual tours in the image by changing the viewpoint and linking to other such images.
XML -- eXtensible Markup Language -- Extensible Markup Language is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. The World Wide Web Consortium's XML 1.0 Specification of 1998 and several other related specifications—all of them free open standards. Many professional and high quality document processors can use XML format documents.
QTVR -- QuickTime Virtual Reality -- A technology developed by Apple and used in their QuickTime image viewer application that permitted website viewing of panorama or spherical images stored in "*.mov" format. QTVR is no longer supported by Quicktime and Quicktime itself is no longer supported on Windows PCs.
Flash -- A web browser extension that permitted viewing images, movies, panoramas and spherical images, among other things. Flash is now being phased out and is no longer recommended. Some of the features of both Flash and Quicktime are now supported in web design language HTML5.
HTML5 -- HyperText Markup Language version 5 -- A language for designing websites.
PTGui -- PTGui is image stitching software for stitching photographs into a seamless 360-degree spherical or gigapixel panoramic image.
I'm a little bit concerned that if the box of soaps is locked in the unvented attic, that the fumes might reach an explosive level.
Does gardenia oil burn?
I can see it now:
House in NY state explodes. Residents miles away can smell a flowery aroma!
Dana
Thats a very insightful thought... I've seen people store ridiculously flammable substances in the most inappropriate places without a care in the world.
According to several MSDS that I looked up, the flash point for the oil itself is 180°F... and you need a carbon dioxide or dry foam extinguisher to put out the blaze...
Classification according to GHS Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008:
Acute Toxicity Oral, Category 5
Acute Toxicity Dermal, Category 5
Skin Corrosion/Irritation, Category 3 Sensitization, Skin, Category 1B
Eye Damage/Eye Irritation, Category 2A Acute Toxicity Inhalation, Category 5
Target Organ Systemic Toxicity - Single Exposure, Category 2
Aquatic Acute Toxicity, Category 1 Aquatic Chronic Toxicity, Category 2
H303: May be harmful if swallowed
H313: May be harmful in contact with skin
H316: Causes mild skin irritation
H317: May cause an allergic skin reaction
H319: Causes serious eye irritation
H333: May be harmful if inhaled
H371: May cause damage to organs
H400: Very Toxic to aquatic life
H411: Toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects
H8891: May cause ordinary spiders to grow to enormous proportions and crave human flesh
But I'm sure in soap form, it isn't as flammable...
The skin irritation part, that I suppose would be relevant to the concentration and or sensitivity of the individual slathered in it.
I'm also assuming the gist of the toxicity warning for organs and such is if you eat or drink it... same with the eyeballs, don't scrub them with it or immerse them in it... I guess?
Toxicity to aquatic life, I'm guessing that's a bad one for Nemo if you frequently bathe in your 400 gallon reef aquarium, or your bathtub drains into the local lake or watery ecosystem.
The spider warning is probably nothing to worry about.
But I doubt most of these things ever contain more than a few drop of essential oils anyway.
@McGyver: Wonderful, useful information. I'll keep it in mind next time I want to create a stealthy gardinia bomb. However, regarding the soap. I'm not sure it is actually gardinias that I smell, it's just flowery, yet somehow chemical, almost sickening.
But the only other time I actually felt sickened by a flowery smell was back in the early '80s before the big freeze in central Florida in '82 or 3. We would drive through the area north of Orlando through the thousands of acres of orange groves. When you hit them at the right season, all the blossoms are in bloom and the smell of billions of oranges goes from being mouthwatering and memory invoking to being stomach turning.
That area is now almost entirely devoid of oranges because of the freeze in '82.
i think molasses explosion levelled Boston at one time, so, you never know
Considering how explosive flour is, I don't know that it's worth worrying about a tiny amount of flower.
Non-complaint: Wheee... I just saved $99 I was about ready to buy another 2TB of disk storage (probably HD) but I had a brain flash and rummaged through my boxes of used parts and found a WesternDigital Black 750GB hard drive that I had carefully stored in its anti-static bag and marked "formatted, tested, OK". So, I decided that I don't really need another 2TB for $99 at this time and I now have an excuse to tear open my computer again to insert another part to fill that empty spot visible through the side window of the computer. Wheee...
Also, ordered a new 120mm fan with blue LED lights to replace the dull unexciting unlit one that currently sits in a dark spot at the back of the case. Yay, more lights.
no one is coming to my birthday, they dont wat to risk make me sick.
even tho at my age, birthdays are more like milestones and the next one isnt a given. catholic guilt trip.
i have a theory the medicare gap is designed to cull the herd going on to social security.
i've invited 4 cakes. carrot cake, butter cream, coconut cake. mousse.
Sometimes I think birthdays are like millstones.
Felicitous birthday greetings.
Yet another millstone attained.
Food stuffs should think carefully when being invited for dinner.
Woop forgot about the forums again.
Saw Poser 12 was released a little back, went over to their store today and saw that as a result Poser 11 was heavily discounted. I picked that up and installed it, Mr Dregon wyvern is there and so is the old old old Poser 4 raptor wow! That lil one always looked cute to me. Found out that InterPoser Pro doesn't 'read' Dregon very well when I loaded it up in C4D R13, body deforms horribly when I try posing it. Not sure if there's some setting making that happen or not though. D|S doesn't fare much better, but maybe it's from the dialogue box that pops up when loading it, asking if I want to enable or disable limits or something. It of course, works perfectly without issue in Poser itself.
There's a pair of books I really reaaally love ("Halo: Smoke and Shadow" and its sequel "Halo: Renegades") that's getting a third entry ("Point of Light") next month. Super excite.