Planet Nicu

This is an aggregator for my various feeds, my main website is http://nicubunu.ro and my main blog is http://nicubunu.blogspot.com.

June 28, 2010

Nicu's Photoblog

Dead man's switch activated

No worry, I am not deat yet, just testing my Dead man's switch which I just created.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 28, 2010 08:55 AM

June 27, 2010

Nicu

Fedora support

These days a big metal festival is taking place in the city (which unfortunately, for various reasons I didn't attend) so many people are visiting Bucharest, this was a good opportunity opportunity to get out with a couple of friends for some beers. At the pub we were joined by another guy, one of their friends, also visiting the city for the festival and when he saw me wearing the Fedora "splatter" T-shirt he was shocked and asked me why, was that the only T-shirt I had available, I grabbed something randomly or what?

I replied saying I am a Fedora contributor and inquired about his reaction: apparently he hates Fedora in particular and Linux in general (Fedora is his only Linux experience) for being forced to use it at work, for some VoIP software: he has troubles installing apps, wasn't able to install multimedia playback (MPEG codecs) and had read on some forum PulseAudio is crap. I tried to explain the part about users and program installation is good from a sysadmin point of view, explained PulseAudio may be troublesome if you use other crappy distros or playing with advanced stuff like Jack, which is not his case, and introduced Rpmfusion.

Conclusion? He now has my IM address (from the Fedora official business card) and hopefully will call me for precise answers (more than in front of beers). And I can't resist the coincidence with the festival: Rock it!

note: for those not aware, the Fedora 13 slogan is "Rock it!"

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 27, 2010 08:04 PM

Dissension

On one hand I am somewhat disappointed to see how little reaction is caused when a rockstar from our community like tatica get out and shout her frustration with politics in Fedora LATAM and not only but on the other I am not, knowing how she was driven out of Planet mostly by the same people and now is posting half-anonymously under the "Fedora Venezuela" label.

Back to the topic (yeah, is week-end and everything goes slower, including for me) I know communities are very complex: there are people who I consider the closest ting you call a friend and there are people I despise with all my guts, there are people I have deep respect for and there are people for whom I wont waste 10 seconds of my life learning more about, there are people from whom you can learn a lot and some not so much (and I am sure there are people including me in some of those categories). And just as people, there are happenings that make you feel your day is worthy and happenings that make you want to go away.

Frustration from people and happenings will build and from time to time you see people passing a threshold and reaction: some go in troll-mode and flame everyone and everything, some vent-off with a bang on a list or aggregator, some lose interest and scale back their contributions, some go away silently, some swallow-up and try to continue, some take a long pause, some do a combination of the above. I wonder, when I will pass the threshold (is not a question of "if" but one of "when"), what will be my reaction?

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 27, 2010 08:24 AM

June 22, 2010

Nicu's Photoblog

Have a cold one!

I know this brans is not that great but is affordable, cold and plenty of it. Just what you need in the summer.
beer


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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 22, 2010 10:01 AM

June 20, 2010

Nicu's Photoblog

I miss my lens

Yesterday I arrived home near the midnight, I was tired, with some beers in my system and not very optimistic, it was too much for a pretentious shoot: night, flashes, rain, water drops, improper lens so I postponed it until the morning.

The morning was not much better: it was still raining so the light was bad, the flowers in my garden still faded after a couple of torrid weeks, and most important, my preferred (zoom/macro) lens still missing - the lens is broken and I sent it to the repair shop, will miss it probably for a couple of weeks.

The first scenario I tried was the (prime) 50mm lens with a macro extension ring, the smallest ring in my set - I had to go a little closer than wanted:
rose

The second scenario was the wide lens, 19-35, at the maximum zoom and widest aperture and then a crop around the subject - the DOF was too large, the flower not separated enough from its leaves.
rose

As a conclusion, I was not happy with either, still selected the macro. I miss my lens!

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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 20, 2010 09:15 AM

June 18, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

Framed

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 18, 2010 10:28 AM

N›ºyò

Bunny ears, some pink and plenty of tattoos
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June 18, 2010 10:07 AM

·šš)à

What would be the dream about?
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June 18, 2010 09:16 AM

‹Þ®)à

Nothing to see here...
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June 18, 2010 08:06 AM

Red Lady

How about the glasses?
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June 18, 2010 08:05 AM

June 17, 2010

Nicu

FAIL

A couple of my friends:
fail

PS: if you are wondering, that's the wet T-shirt dried

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 17, 2010 01:13 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

Flyers

I know this is a stupid thing to to, but when previewing the series on the LCD of my camera I noticed the continuity, so I had to assemble it in an animated GIF:
flyers

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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 17, 2010 07:36 AM

June 16, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

Unwrapping the Gift

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 16, 2010 10:02 AM

F‹E¨§

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 16, 2010 10:00 AM

Mystic Pyramid

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 16, 2010 09:59 AM

June 14, 2010

Nicu

Will you take a picture with me?

This week-end I had another photo session with my wet Fedora T-shirt one of my models and after the shooting we were enjoying some nice cold drinks after one of the most torrid days so far in this summer (we had ~37°C in Bucharest). Me and her manager were wearing Fedora T-shirts (I got them sold in the community idea, not in the software yet) and much to our amusement a random guy approached us: "please, you you want to take a photo with me?". Intrigued, we accepted.
fedora

Then the story unfolded: he knows a woman named "Fedorca", which is an unusual name and everybody in their circle of friends makes fun of her name. So he got the idea to take a photo with us, wearing Fedora T-shirts, then edit the photos and add a "C", then have even more laughs.

Bizzare.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 14, 2010 12:42 PM

Nicu's Deviations

Sexy gipsy

Model: Her blogHer photography blogPS: actually the model is not a gipsy, she is just dressed like one.
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June 14, 2010 10:53 AM

Š$¶)ž

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 14, 2010 10:30 AM

J«¢Ç¬

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 14, 2010 10:29 AM

Strawberry time

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 14, 2010 09:59 AM

Nicu's Photoblog

Another summer in the city

I like to catch the summer impact on the city and Piața Unirii in the center of Bucharest is just good for that, with its huge but horrible (communist heritage) fountains. This year I had a bit of help, so the result is a bit more direct and personal:
summer


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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 14, 2010 07:52 AM

June 09, 2010

Nicu

Sad panda, happy panda

This wek-end, when shooting cars & stuff (there was a drift competition in the parking lot of a mall) I stumbled upon those toys and decided I must have a piece too, as Pandas are kind of a sacred animal in Fedora-land, so they are sitting now right next to my computer.
pandas

PS: no plastic toy was hurt during this shooting, all the possible perceived sadness is due to GIMP alterations.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 09, 2010 01:20 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

Sunglasses vote

Is summer out there, the sun is hot and bright, we search for protection by wearing sunglasses. This is why I propose today a fun exercise, look at those photos featuring sunglasses I took recently and try to vote which one you like the best. The sunglasses, not the models :D, in fact that's I find interesting, the people's ability to disconnect the models (and their cleavages!) from the things they wear.
sunglasses sunglasses sunglasses sunglasses

For now, I will abstain myself from the vote, don't want to influence my readers and their vote in any way.

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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 09, 2010 08:25 AM

Jeep

Yet another photo from Menfest, but this time is not about the hostesses but about the cars (cars are also supposed to me 'manly' things):
menfest


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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 09, 2010 08:13 AM

June 08, 2010

Nicu's Photoblog

Turning Blind

Looking at this photo from the Miss contest I feel like turning blind... no, not because of that, you dirty minds, but because of the strong sunlight. Do you? (yep, that's a test for mind dirtiness... or it should be).
blind


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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 08, 2010 09:41 PM

Miss Menfest 2010

The second topic I was owing my readers was the Sunday shooting, at Menfest, for which I will try a backwards approach. Because I am odd.

So the show ended with what probably was its most interesting part: a Miss contest, where the winner received a shooting session at the FHM magazine (here the winners are one step in front of the group):
miss menfest

A last trial before the jury selected the winner was a talent competition... al the contestants were too shy (???) to do something, except two (from eleven), who both danced:
miss menfest miss menfest

Prior to that, all the bunch was aligned for inspection (and our eyes were inspecting, as deeply as they could):
miss menfest

But of course, our eyes started doing this from before they climbed the stage ans were (probably) still friends with each other:
miss menfest

And, finally, to go backwards all the way, here's the winner back when winning was just a hope in her heart:
miss menfest


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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 08, 2010 01:32 PM

Help Mihaita fulfill his dream

This call for donations is made on behalf of my beautiful model Irina, she is the sister of this unfortunate boy in need of help. Here is an excerpt from the donations website:

Letter from Mihai

My name is Mihai Popescu, I am 15 years old and I am from Ramnicu-Valcea, Romania. I am diagnosed with cerebral palsy with brain trauma, a disease that has affected my walking since my first years of life. Although I had 8 surgical operations along with 13 anesthesia and physical recovery at different medical centers across the country (Oradea, Targoviste, Sibiu, Bucuresti, Techirghiol, Ramnicu-Valcea) throughout 14 years of my life, I have never been able to walk unsustained. However, I am a student in 8th grade at ‘Anton Pann’ School in Ramnicu-Valcea in a NORMAL class. I have always wanted to be like my classmates, to be able to run, to play together, not to depend on my mother nor on anybody else. I’ve fought so far even though the surgeries have been painful, as well as the recovery and I don’t want to give up now when I have another chance to hope that I will become a normal boy at last. Please help me fulfill my dream now that I have a chance!

So, it this was convincing enough, spare a couple of minutes and help with a donation, it will be appreciated.





Thank you.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 08, 2010 11:38 AM

Nicu's Deviations

ªä*åŠt®ž Z²Ç¬

The sun was extremely aggressive, so she was hiding her eyes. Really bad.
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June 08, 2010 09:55 AM

Blond Girl in Sunglasses

The sun was extremely aggressive, so she was hiding her eyes. Too bad.
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June 08, 2010 08:14 AM

June 07, 2010

Nicu's Photoblog

4tuning "All Stars" Drift Show

I promised details, so I really should move from my lazy ass, get some blogging about the 4tuning drift show I attended this Saturday and which was, to be honest, not as good as I hoped
4tuning

Like any self-respecting car event, it obviously had lots of cars, in this case self-modified or even self-made, usually by their enthusiastic drivers:
4tuning

Which drivers are a bunch of funny, bold, crazy men
4tuning

The show also has a lot of smoke, mostly from burned tires (I was practically black when I returned home)
4tuning

And plenty of damaged tyres - it was a drift show after all, and that's the purpose of a drift show, damage as many tyres as you can
4tuning

To entertain the audience, there were also some bike acrobatics (those are considered by some more spectacular than car chasing)
4tuning

Anf if there is something which can't be missing from a car event, is the final touch making all the males in the audience drool
4tuning

...of course I am talking about women posing as car ornaments... like or not (I know some that like this and some that hate it), is a vital ingredient of the recipe
4tuning

I considered attending the event also on Sunday, but something appeared on the horizon so I tried that too... watch this photography blog for the story :p

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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 07, 2010 08:59 PM

Nicu's Deviations

.'ޕë,

In the middle of a full day of work
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June 07, 2010 02:18 PM

June 06, 2010

Nicu

Distro wars

Another week-end spent out, shooting people... I liked the expression on the face of this arm wrester so much, that I couldn't resist messing with it in Inkscape. Enjoy a bit of Sunday fun:
distro wars

PS: of course, after the competition they shook hands and maybe had a beer together.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 06, 2010 08:08 PM

Nicu's Deviations

The Girl in Sunglasses

Just a beautiful girl, her sunglasses and the reflection of the world.
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June 06, 2010 07:29 PM

¹°­ë-•êì

I don't know about you, but me... I certainly would not want to stay in this guy's way (taken at the arm wrestling championship at Menfest, Bucharest, Romania)
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June 06, 2010 07:09 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

Me = tractor driver

This weekend I was on the field, shooting: Saturday at the "4tuning All Stars" drift show and Sunday at Menfest, "men only" fair, two excessively sunny summer days so now I have "tractor driver tan" (don't try to understand the expression if you aren't Romanian).

At this moment I am too tired, too sunburned and too depressed by happenings in my personal life so I don't have the energy for proper blog posts, consider this as a teaser for the photos which should arrive in the following days (quite a few pretty girls included :p)

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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 06, 2010 06:58 PM

June 05, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

©’+,

Yes, the kiss is fake, is simulated... an illusion, played for the photographer's sake. But everything around is also an illusion.
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June 05, 2010 11:08 PM

Are you talking with me?

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 05, 2010 07:05 PM

June 04, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

The Blue Flower

Model: Her blogHer photography blogAdditional editing help: This is promoting Fedora, Free Software and Free Culture.
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June 04, 2010 08:37 AM

Are you looking at me?

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 04, 2010 08:18 AM

June 03, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

The Pink Elephant

Is a stuffed toy (the Délirium Café) mascot, but the composition is made using the classic locat techniques.
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June 03, 2010 03:03 PM

'¬Á©e

This is an older project I forgot to post at the time: 7 models with different eye shapes and colors, countless cosmetic contact lenses and real, untouched, photos.
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June 03, 2010 02:27 PM

Close

Model: Her blogHer photography blog
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June 03, 2010 02:02 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

Pink Elephant

Having a bad day in a row of bad days from a row of bad weeks from a row of bad months, hoping this little fuzzy guy (the pink elephant is the mascot of what probably is the best pub in the world) will help a bit. No workee...
delirium pink elephant

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by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 03, 2010 08:31 AM

June 02, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

Fedora's bossom

The same geek goddess in a classic wallpaper-style image which should be the default in the upcoming Fedora 14 releaseAdditional editing help:
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June 02, 2010 07:52 PM

Nicu

Big LGM photo dump

I thought I spammed the Planet enough, but I see everybody started linking theirs LGM photos, so I had to dump mine too in a gallery somewhere, so there is the bulk of my LGM photos (the most important are already on the blog, albeit at a small resolution).

In other Fedora photography related news, I have some more of those, but they are not to be posted on Planet, so if you know what is about, you know where to look for.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 02, 2010 04:24 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

Sexy Fedora no-shirt

After in the first session I persuaded Andreea to do a good thing for the community and pose with a Fedora T-shirt (first dry and then wet) - and she rightfully was proclaimed a Geek Goddess for that, here is the continuation, where she takes her shirt off (warning: potentially NSFW!) and replaces it with some temporary Fedora tattoos:
sexy fedora

Sexy, right? If before that she was a goddess, now what? what title can top that? (or those :D - no, we don't want those topped, we like them as they are)
sexy fedora

And, of course, we had a lot of fun in the process, everyone was happy, not only the viewer, Linux is not a boring server thing, it can be playful too:
sexy fedora


I hope you liked this photo session (see the full gallery) just as much I did, now time for thanks: thanks to Andreea for being a beautiful and cooperative model, thanks to Alex for helping with the shooting and thanks to Tatica for being supportive and helping with the editing, it was the teamwork of 4 people from 3 cities and 2 continents.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 02, 2010 04:04 PM

Nicu's Deviations

Fedora rulz

She's the geek goddess
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June 02, 2010 12:31 PM

N­±©Àž¥

Not sure, angelic or diabolic or just a bit of both.Featuring
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June 02, 2010 12:24 PM

June 01, 2010

Nicu

Video: Fedora Design Team at LGM 2010

Until the official video is up, you can see a recording of our talk about the Fedora Design Team made with my pocket video camera (so low quality).
fedora design @ LGM


Slides are also available as PDF and if you want to reuse them under CC-BY-SA, just change the extension to .odp and will get the source.

PS: thanks to Martin for being the better half of the presenting duo and to Tatica for adding the final polish to the slides.

PPS: if you have problems playing hte video, you can change the format to Theora and download the original.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 01, 2010 10:04 AM

Preemptive

There are some rumours about Pierros preparing to blog a set of compromising photos made around LGM and supposedly featuring me in some embarrassing postures... I can only say bring it on!, I am a notorious troll and nothing posted in the interweb can make me feel ashamed further, not even the bunny years, let the Planets ROTFL on me. And he is having second thoughts, here is some ignition fire. Pay back and embarrass me, it's your turn:
pierros

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at June 01, 2010 05:03 AM

May 31, 2010

Nicu

LGM 2010, Postmortem

The Libre Graphics Meeting 2010 ended, today I returned home in the ugly but familiar city of Bucharest, grabbed myself a bag of nice strawberries and reserved some time to blog my conference conclusions. I'll do this using a few photos and useless ramblings.

First, I should acknowledge we officially proclaimed the secret Fedora lair in Brussels - no photos of it, since if I will tell you the location, I will have to kill you. All I can say, it is into walking distance (5 minutes) of the "Japanimantion" store and (10-15 minutes) of Delirium Cafe. Those wanting to know the exact location, have to perform the secret Fedora gangsta sign (hint: is not the "horns" sign, neither the "telephone" sign).

As I said, the place is awesome, it has a good price, good service, free Wi-Fi, a huge kitchen, breakfast included and so... it also has a shelf full of books... unfortunately most of them in French. I tried to use my bad French to read from one of them and my bad English to translate for the guys, but it was a massive FAIL, the got only the general idea.
lgm

As I said, I found nearby my new favorite place in Brussels, who dethroned Delirium Cafe from the top spot. And a few friends of mine are already craving for stuff from there and asking for my next trip:
lgm

It was also a perfect opportunity to reveal the homeless people of Fedora (how would you call other the guys eating fries from paper recipients on the stairs of a church?)
lgm

Speaking of Fedora, the truth is our talk was totally ruined by Hong Phuc Dang, who talked just after us and charmed the entire audience. Nothing could have surpassed her talk, probably not even Adobe opensourcing Photoshop and making it Linux-only:
lgm

LGM was also an opportunity to meet people, like the Argentinian Blender guy, with whom we discovered common friends:
lgm

Other interesting random encounters were with the guy from Morocco, who couldn't believe my blog is not written by a woman (!!!) and the Italian guy who talks almost perfectly Romanian:
lgm

From the backstage, I can show a "making of" photo of the group photo - yup, it was taken from the above;
lgm

My single complaint at LGM was the food: my stomach agreed with someone else I talked there, that green stuff was not food;
lgm

Surely, we were not perfect, I think our biggest failure was the inability to participate to the Fedora 13 release party in Belgium, which happened during the LGM, but in a different city, so we couldn't go there and back to Brussels, it was a missed opportunity (on the other hand, I was disappointed nobody from the local Fedora community attended LGM - I wrote on the Ambassadors list and blogged about it, hoping to raise interest).

In the end, I have to get serious and thank Red Hat. Fedora and Max for making the presence of the Desktop Team a reality, without this help it wouldn't happen.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 31, 2010 09:20 PM

Nicu's Deviations

Tux play

Playing with Tux, the Linux mascot
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May 31, 2010 03:24 PM

Nicu

Another one for the team

If the first one was about mere strawberries, the second dedication for the Fedora Design Team members absent from the Libre Graphics Meeting 2010 is more elaborate: Belgian gaufres, with strawberries, chocolate and whipped cream. And this time we definitely eat them for the team:
gaufres

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 31, 2010 06:11 AM

May 30, 2010

Nicu

LGM 2010, Last Day

The last day of any conference is lighter on content, so that was also the case with Libre Graphics Meeting, but it still had a couple of presentations (albeit, they were not very technical):
lgm

And a panel discussion:
lgm

And plenties of "thank you" for everybody: participants, speakers, sponsors, crew, etc. (now is my turn to say thanks to Femke and the rest of the team):
lgm

And we had a last lunch with the leftover from the previous days (real food, here I come!)
lgm

And the conference ended formally with a planning session for the next year:
lgm

But of course we said goodbyes, took photos, daid goodbies, shaked hands, said goodbyes, sometime hugged, said goodbyes:
lgm

and said goodbyes again for maybe the million time:
lgm

And if that was not enough, got in the city for the evening with a new round of goodbyes:
lgm

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 30, 2010 11:08 PM

Learning to shoot

The final lunch of LGM 2010, trying to eat the same green stuff that make my stomach so unhappy and letting Martin play with my camera and learn some tricks.
Of course he is using me as a model and my battle suit T-shirt as a subject:
nicu

nicu

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 30, 2010 12:02 PM

LGM 2010, Day 3

The third day of LGM was a tough one, I wasn't able to write about it at the end of the day (still, I managed well, some of us not only overslept, but AFAIK they are still sleeping now), so here I am, on the conference room, listening to Rejon' presentation and doing my blogging...

The day started with quite a cultural shock for me, didn't expected to see such a bazaar on the streets of the Western Europe:
bazaar

But back at the conference... the highlight of the day for me was the opportunity to listen to presentation from I people who I respect for a long time and learned a lot from, Jimmac talked (unfortunately a bit too general) about creating icons with Inkscape:
lgm

Alexandre Prokoudine presented a free solution for digital photography;
lgm

And AndyFitz making the audience enthusiastic with his Inkscape world domination talk:
lgm

It was also the day for the traditional group photo, where everyone was invited (it was a bit rainy outside, but we didn't really care):
lgm

Late in the night we went to the movies: the Blender team gave us a preview of their upcoming animation film, Sintel and the audience was charmed (I will deny any rumour about someone sneaking a pocket camera, recording [pirating?] everything [while the developers looked the other way and putting their fingers in the ears to not hear anything about pirating] and planning to release it on the net)
lgm

And of course, we partied late in the night with the Blender/Project Durian people, why else would be so hammered in the morning?

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 30, 2010 09:27 AM

May 29, 2010

Nicu

Anime

Sorry for spamming the planets and the universe, but I have to set the record straight, it was a slight exaggeration (the order of magnitude may be right) from Pierros about me checking the "japanimation" store for a 1535th, the bad part about that my new preferred place in Brussels (better than Delirium!) is that I don't have enough space in my backpack (and probably not enough $$$ on my card) to get everything I like from there :p

Now blame Pierros for making me post the following photo on Planets, I had to show the score abut his post: Nicu: 5, Martin: 1, Pierros 0. ...Anime figures, what else?
anime figures

PS: Pierros has none only because he's picky with the shows :p

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 29, 2010 01:11 PM

LGM 2010, Day 2

Is 01:49 in the morning and I am tired, still, tomorrow is going to be a full day so I don't know how much time available will get I'm going with a late-night post. As I don't plan to compete on blogging verbosity with Pierros and Martin started blogging too, i will resume myself at dumping a bunch of photos and leaving the audience to fill the 1000 words for each.
LGM LGM LGM LGM LGM LGM LGM LGM

The day ended with Rejon's birthday party, where, amongst other things, I had the opportunity for a chat with such great people like Garrett, AndyFitz or Jimmac, from who I learned a lot along the time. We left the party late, after the subway stopped running, and had to do a walk in the city from the conference location to the Fedora's Brussels secret lair... so here I am, half asleep and rushing a blog post...

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 29, 2010 12:26 AM

May 28, 2010

Nicu

Real Ubuntu bashing

Some people are unhappy with the supposed "Ubuntu bashing" happening on my comic but let me tell about some real Ubuntu bashing (I can't show right now, since the video is quite large - 20 minutes/420 MB in the h.264 format made by my camera, the netbook can convert it to Ogg Theora in ~4 hours and then have to upload it from a conference place): during the Fedora Design presentation the other day we never said words like "Ubuntu", "other distros", "competition" or such, were talking straight about what and how are we doing. Still, after the talk many people in the audience were enthusiastic: "thet's how the design for a distro should be done" ...the second part in their minds, "not like Ubuntu' was never said by me or Martin.

PS: yes, I will say now those words - when attending the 10.04 release party unhappy, I saw the people there unhappy with the design decisions and the way they are made - Cathedral style, behind closed doors.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 28, 2010 09:11 AM

One for the team

Waking-up in the second day of LGM 2010 was really hard, we arrived late and missed a good part of the first presentation of the day, "Diffusion Curves in Inkscape".

However, on the positive side, today seems to be a nice, warm and sunny day in Brussels and in the place next to the conference location we stumbled upon a colorful bazaar where I had the opportunity to take a photos with tasty strawberries for those members of the Fedora DEsign Team who are not here with us (we have some big strawberry fans in the team).
strawberry

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 28, 2010 07:49 AM

May 27, 2010

Nicu

LGM 2010, Day 1

So the previous episode ended with LGM just starting... here's what happened later for the point of view of our small gang: Pierros made himself useful by drawing info notes:
lgm

I joked he's doing t to impress the girls, but he was setted on work, repairing wireless router and such, until he became almost a member of the staff, complete with the uniform.
lgm

It should be mentioned the official lunch, good to bring together the people and make them talk easier.
lgm

Finally, late in the afternoon it came our time to bring Fedora in the spotlight - too see how insightful we where, check the slides - the talk was delivered by Martin while Pierros was doing photos and me and I hope e weren't entirely bad (hopefully, you will se it next week, after I get to edit the video).
lgm

And of course I was crazy enough to edit the slides 10 minutes before the presentation to ad a silly picture. We are all crazy.

After the conference day ended, it was natural for us to grab some fries:
lgm

And then end the night as it is supposed to be, with hard beers at Delirium.
lgm

Let'see what new adventures will be brought ahead us...

PS: don't blame me for the incoherence, grammar or bad stile... try you first to write a professional after that much beer and at this hour in the night :

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 27, 2010 10:29 PM

The Sign... 'nuff said

fedora horns


...still something to say: too late for F13, but maybe useful for F14 One Page Release Notes

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 27, 2010 04:10 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

The Model Life


Andreea, the star from my recent I <3 fedora pictorial has written (in Romanian, use Google Translate if you need another language) a kind of tutorial + testimony about how is to be a model, what you should do and don't... you know, the key to success. Go read it, is a sincere and insightful lecture, you will enjoy it - I did.

She is touching topic like how and why she started modelling, how to choose and work with the photographer, model releases, poses, equimpment and ethics. Got your attention already?

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 27, 2010 08:50 AM

Nicu

LGM, day 0.5

Continuing the story from where I left, we finally meet Pierros and inevitably went for the Delirium experience where we got Martin Delirium devirginated.
delirium

Then, after a night of profound sleep (not sure about the others, they choose softer beers but I gradually went from 8% to 9% anf 10.5%) we reached in the morning the LGM location, De Pianofabriek
lgm

Here Pierros got almost out of control with making customised buttons (more on that later, I hope):
delirium

And then the conference began:
delirium

Now I'm off to work, have to do some small tweaks to the Fedora presentation that will be delivered later today, around 17:00.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 27, 2010 08:23 AM

May 26, 2010

Nicu

Warming up for LGM or Boys will ever be boys

So I meet Martin and we had some time to spend in Brussels, first we went site sighting and, of course, eating a lot of Belgian chocolate:
brussels

Then we find some kind of paradise: a "japanimation" store! the perfect opportunity to go wild...
anime

And bought some cool stuff...
anime

Now we are at the hotel, playing with dols updating the blogs and waiting for Pierros, hopefully the day will end with some manly stuff like drinking beers and such...
anime

Tomorrow however, is a brave new day... we will swing in full force with the Libre Graphics Meeting.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 26, 2010 05:10 PM

F13 - the largest party ever

Still in a hurry, won't talk much, leave to Adrian the opportunity for a better story, just wanted to say the traditional beer party in Bucharest for the Fedora 13 release was the biggest and better yet.
f13 beer

not sure if people came because we grew as a community or just wanted to see first hand my naughty photography, but the reality is they came and in a record number (didn't count, but I estimate at over 20 participants).

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 26, 2010 12:53 PM

In Brusells for LGM

Just landed in Brussel for Libre Graphics Meting, where I hope the Fedora Design Team will have a nice presence, and still busy afer thhe late night party yesterday for the F13 release (more on that later).
sky

For the moment I got to a turistic info place with a free hotspot, checking the news while waiting (in the rain) for the other guys to arrive - Martin should be there in about one hour.
rain

...now gotta go!

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 26, 2010 10:49 AM

Hyperspace comic tutorial

This time I feel like doing a crazy and useless tutorial, based on the last episode of my webcomic and using a combination of Inkscape and GIMP I will create a space ship jumping into hyperspace (uswd in the last panel of the comic).

The ship
The first step is to make a panel for the comic. Following the style of my comic, I use for that a rectangle with rounded corners colored in a light blue gradient.
inkscape hyperspace

So let's do the ship! For the geeky feel I want to make it look like the Millennium Falcon,
so I start with a circle, made with the ellipses tool while keeping the Ctrl key pressed
inkscape hyperspace

And a second, slightly smaller, circle
inkscape hyperspace

Select both of them (with the Shift key) and using the Align and Distribute dialog align them at the center of the bigger circle.
inkscape hyperspace

With both of them still selected, substract the small circle from the big one to get a ring.
inkscape hyperspace

Duplicate the ring (Edit > Duplicate.
inkscape hyperspace

And resize the copy (keeping the Ctrl key pressed to preserve the aspect ratio) to make it smaller.
inkscape hyperspace


[read more]

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 26, 2010 08:36 AM

May 25, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

"š®×ÞvŠÚ

Beautiful girl + Linux (Fedora 13, just released today) = geek paradise.Credits to the model for being so cooperative.
thumbnail

May 25, 2010 02:38 PM

Nicu

Fedora Webcomic, F13 Special: Hyperspace

Does anyone around here remember I promised months ago the conclusion of a 3-part comic around Fedora? Remember Goddard, the first part? Or The Red Shirt, the second part? Now , minutes away from the official release, we'll jump into hyperspace and conclude the story.
[fedora webcomic: hyperspace]

Honestly, the real surprise is not on this blog, where I try to keep the prudes under control, but on my un-aggregated photography blog I can go wild and challenge everything. And hate groups can try to googlebomb me as much as they want, more traffic is a plus.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 25, 2010 01:55 PM

Nicu's Photoblog

Sexy Fedora T-shirt

In less of a couple of hours today is the release for Fedora 13 and specially for this event I am putting out a few sexy pics with a beautiful girl wearing the classic I <3 fedora T-shirt (stay tuned for the second part next week, when the shirt will come of!). Right from the bat, it should be noted Aneska is a professional model and I, the photographer, have the full rights to use the pictures.
sexy fedora shirt

And all is not about looks, she is quite a geek: doing photography and photo editing playing good computer games (Baldur's Gate, if you can believe!) and also having heard what Linux is... it was easy for me to explain what Fedora is, by telling it is something similar with Ubuntu. Her boyfriend (yes, she has a boyfriend, I can hear now millions of geek hearts being broken and suddenly silenced), also photographer, knew Fedora by name (well... he knew it as "Fedora Core", bad for me for not having a Live image with me) and have tried once Ubuntu on his desktop... he was unhappy with the software (troubles of installing proprietary nVidia drivers) but amazed by the helpful community (I owe now a beer to some unknown guy from the Romanian Ubuntu community).
sexy fedora shirt sexy fedora shirt

We touched just briefly in the talk the topic about women and technology, their lack of involvement... I feel this is something worth revisiting at a later date, as she can provide useful insight on it - I expect a point of view radically different to the extremist hate groups driven by the USian politically correctness, prudity and hypocrisy.

Anyway, she will read the comments, being genuinely interested in the people feedback about this photoshoot, so please leave feedback in the comments, it will be read.
sexy fedora shirt

I also have to make today and exception from my rule, I believe in Freedom and use the CC-BY-SA license as much as I can, but in this case the rule is the photos can't be used in a way that will damage the model image/reputation, so let's consider them also under a "Non Derivatives" (ND) clause. However, she wants to see them used, so if you make a wallpaper from them, feel free to post a screenshot for her.

...and don't forget to visit and pass forward the URL of the entire gallery. And wait for the second part, is hot.

Update: The second part is up.

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 25, 2010 01:22 PM

May 24, 2010

Nicu

Beer for F13

This is a tradition already, so the Romanian Fedora community will gather toghether, with some friends and everyone who feels like it, contributors, users "competitors", to celebrate the Fedora 13 release. We will meet at Curtea Berarilor, in the Bucharest old city, tommorow 25 May 2010 starting with 19:30 (more details on our site)

by noreply@blogger.com (nicu) at May 24, 2010 10:17 AM

May 22, 2010

Nicu's Deviations

Laying back

Vectorization of my The Rear View, made with Inkscape.
thumbnail

May 22, 2010 06:39 PM

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.