So there was this gun.

[Dick Hosmer]

It's your choice - I ALSO remember your saying that you might get pissed and just print ONE copy and put it on your bookshelf. I think - on more than one level - you'd probably be OK with that.

I was NOT humping for two volumes, or color, or a professional button-pusher, you are expelling chaff against a non-existant missile launch. All I suggested was better lighting and a featureless background, without shadows.

You have saved so much time on the writing you could afford to do more than lay things on a (rumpled) sheet, apparently lit from one direction only.

At least smooth out the sheet!!!!!!!!!!!

[5MadFarmers]

It's your choice - I ALSO remember your saying that you might get pissed and just print ONE copy and put it on your bookshelf. I think - on more than one level - you'd probably be OK with that.

It'd save paper and bookshelf space just to render it as a PDF and leave it at that. Which, handily, I already have a copy of as PH was reading it as I revised it. I generated PDFs for her use. Not all the pictures were embedded but the rest was done. I don't need the pictures embedded as I have memory pictures on demand. I don't think this is for me. I don't need it.

I was NOT humping for two volumes, or color, or a professional button-pusher, you are expelling chaff against a non-existant missile launch. All I suggested was better lighting and a featureless background, without shadows.

You have saved so much time on the writing you could afford to do more than lay things on a (rumpled) sheet, apparently lit from one direction only.

At least smooth out the sheet!!!!!!!!!!!

It's plastic. The carpet is new. While none of the guns have cartridges in them they're still dangerous. The carpet is pretty new. I already spilled some oil on it in one location doing what I shouldn't in that room. I'd rather not be known as "the last known person killed with a Krag." Beaten to death with my own unloaded gun.

The cave was set up for pictures and has the correct lighting. It's no longer usable for that as it's full of stacks and safes. I could pawn the lighting from there but I've broken my toe twice in the last year in walking into door frames with no lights on. I'd rather not go for three times.

Dick, I can come up with all kinds of silly reasons to keep doing what I'm doing. The real reason is I don't really care about that. I'll include a picture of Bogart in the front and call it "Krag noir."

Granted those are the darkest of the lot. It was raining. The ones from the weekend before were done on the driveway. When I spill onto the driveway with a bunch of guns I wonder what the neighbors think. Best to go with noir.

If you're going to get hung up on the pictures I'll do a book with drawings instead.





Put it to a vote. Only two candidates. One has a nice clear background and no lighting issues. The other one is noir. I'm going with noir.

Please note that both have the curved toe, lugged rifle sight, and barrel shaped rod.

[5MadFarmers]

Bah, this might be long.

Dick, I respect your knowledge and you're a saint. I'm fully aware that you want the book to succeed and are giving advice in that direction. I'm purposely ignoring it. I'm not saying I'm wrong or you are wrong. It's not "right and wrong." It's focus and belief. You have a belief as do I. You are taking what you know of publishing and applying it. I'm taking what I know of publishing and ignoring it. Not out of ignorance or malice or anything along those lines. I'm ignoring it as I don't care about that.

I used to do work in a knitting mill. I'm very aware of Pantone color. I used to support graphics artists in their rendering of nice glossy and slick printed material. I'm aware of dye sublimation printers and all that entails. I'm very aware of what "RGB" and "CMYK" are and the problems of converting from one to the other. I'm aware of ICC color profiles. I'm very aware of alpha channels and all the other gunk that goes into computers and printing. I spent a fair amount of my life in that arena. If you want a real education in the history and aspects of RGB I'm your man. Bits per pixel and all that gunk. I grok it. My pay check was generated by that. The first three nice pictures I took for the book were in CMYK format with the correct ICC profile. Calibrating color? Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

I'm choosing to ignore it. Why? Because that's my choice. If I wanted this to be work I could easily drive down to my place of employment and log in. In this job we don't do glossy printing. We don't do color in fact. We do black and white and H.264 compression with b frames and all that other wonderfully technical compression stuff. Want me to detail what that entails? That's work. 30 frames per second is about right for television video. That takes room. Chop the frame rates. That doesn't do what people think. You see there is a side effect of chopping frames as inter-frame compression suffers greatly. If you're only doing intra-frame it doesn't matter but if you're doing inter-frame it does. Oh, that's today's job.

RGB is light. In CRTs there were three guns. You could control those three. In the wonderful days of VGA it was really 16 bit color. 16 gives 4 bits total for R, G, and B. That leaves 4 bits which can be used for alpha channels. Of course if you wish to ignore the alpha channel you can dial up the R, G, or B. Then we get into the methods. That was followed by 24 bit and then 32 bit color. 8 bits per color for R, G, and B = 24. Add the alpha and it's 32. That's 256 intensities for each color. Total color possibilities in 32 bits is 4 billion of course. The problem is that's light. Color printers aren't light - they're ink or wax or die or whatever. That reflects light. The opposite really. So turn off all three guns and you get absence of light. Black. Whereas absence of ink is white. Nothing. Mixing all the inks together is black. So how to map color light to color reflection? ICC profiles.

Dick, I'm not unaware of the field. I have simply chosen to not care. If that bugs people they're welcome to take nice color pictures and paste them over the ones in the book.

What will those images render as? That's easy to know. I have a laser printer. They're gray scale. I can print the PDF and check. If they're too dark I'll reshoot those that are. If they're at a level that doesn't bug me I'll leave them be. Because they're not important to me.

I also use an interesting set of font choices.

Which is fine as that's what is what I want.

Benefit number 4 of doing the work myself and not going through a publisher: they don't get to write my book for me. Is there a benefit to that? Yes. Is there a downside? Certainly. It'd be their book.

Call me artsy and realize I control my own output. So if it makes you unhappy you'll just have to skip it. I'm aware you're trying to help. Call me hard headed. It's a binary thing. I can either go full boat or simply jump into the canoe. I've elected to use the canoe. It's intentional.

[Dick Hosmer]

[jon_norstog]

Aaah,

does this mean the book is coming out soon?

jn

[madsenshooter]

Not until the artist is done with all the drawings Jon. Back to the original subject. Maybe the rumored MGM Cadet was another one of the museum specimens. How many are accounted for?

[5MadFarmers]

Back to the original subject.

I wondered if I was the only one catching that. A picture of what is a very interesting area of the field followed by two pages of worrying about the background. If I look at the original Harley Davidson I don't spend my time focused on the rust on the spokes.

I bought a brand new truck once sight unseen. What's to see? I want the following options: X, Y, and Z. The told me they didn't have one with those options. Get one from another dealer. There are two in Minneapolis. Blue or Brown? You pick. I don't care. If it has the options I'm after the color isn't something that I'm going to spend time on.

Different strokes I guess.

My wife was very particular her car be dark blue. She didn't care about the options. She had red hair. That was my weakness. So not even the same with the same person.

Dick, I didn't say I couldn't do it. I said I didn't care enough to.

Maybe the rumored MGM Cadet was another one of the museum specimens. How many are accounted for?

CPSD. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. That term is in the book. You'll chuckle when you get it.

The cadets are solved.

[5MadFarmers]

Aaah,

does this mean the book is coming out soon?

jn

Before Christmas at the latest. Started on the 19th of July so it's going to be quick and dirty.

Of all the people I can think of I suspect you'll enjoy it the most.

That's a compliment.

[Dick Hosmer]

I never said I thought you COULDN'T do it. But, I'm done on that facet of the subject.

How did you fake the stock, or did you find one already cut for the band-spring? Butt swivel is easy, especially on edge in the shadows, though a grain-matched plug could be fitted for more realism, if the parts were to stay together. I was going to stretch a surplus carbine stock, but, as you pointed out, the wrist wouldn't be right.

[5MadFarmers]

When they made science fiction and submarine movies they used models. Hung from thin wire. Everyone knew that as you could see the wire if you looked hard. When the television Star Trek came out they used models. You couldn't see the strings. They hung them upside down and then did a 180 on the film. The wires are below.

I didn't need to know that. Now I spend my time looking for the strings. Best to keep the illusion. Perception is an interesting field.

The thing is kind of hypnotic isn't it?

====



Think I should use the mill to turn the barrel down?


Stare really hard at the grasping grooves. See it?

[Rick the Librarian]

I'd certainly like a copy of your book, as well. Ballpark idea on what the cost will be? If it would work better, feel free to email/PM me.

[Dick Hosmer]

Don't know what you are driving at with the grasping grooves, and you are not going to lure me into saying why, but, on the "cadet" you certainly could have Photoshopped the band-spring, or, simply laid a strip of metal, or glued a slip of silvery-colored paper, in the right spot. Once you start making things up, where do you stop? No, don't turn the barrel - you don't have a "school gun"?

[Kragrifle]

Four of the later cadets produced. One was brought back to West Point by Mallory and an accomplice. Tom had one he sold at Baltimore 2 or 3 years ago. One was owned by a lady collector , Mary? The fourth one, ?

[madsenshooter]

That's what I was thinking too, Kragrifle, guess I'll give up hope of finding one in some old barn that I can buy for a couple hundred. Got a good look at Schultz's Krag today, appeared to be a rifle with its barrel cut to 24", or maybe one of Dick's BOF rifles, certainly not a 30" barrel.

[Dick Hosmer]

So, Bob, HOW LONG IS IT???????