No Alamy, that misty photo is NOT out of focus

Many years ago I wrote about the evils of microstock (here and here) and nothing has happened in that time to change my mind. No photographer should ever work for microstock agencies.

I do use a couple of traditional stock agencies nowadays, specifically Alamy and Rex, to send out editorial photos. I’ve seen some success with it. We’re not talking big bucks, but they’ve certainly earned me a modest amount of money that I wouldn’t otherwise have made. So, despite a few grumbles, I continue to use them.

Why are gamers ‘uncomfortable’ talking about race?

I’ve been a gamer for close to forty years now, from the earliest days of home computing. For a good chunk of that time I was a video game journalist. I thought I knew gaming pretty well. But the weirdest things can blindside you…

When the gathered wisdom of social media is collectively wrong… and dangerous.

Something I love about Reddit is how you can see an interesting picture or a video, and then read hundreds of comments from people who know a lot about that particular subject. It’s like instant gratification for the hungry mind.

But this week I had a stark reminder that you need to keep your wits about you when you read something on social media…

Six Things I Wish I’d Known About the Nintendo Switch Six Months Ago

I’d been thinking about getting a Nintendo Switch for quite some time, but I always had my doubts. I mean, it’s a kids’ console, right? Underpowered graphics. Cartoony games.

So, time and time again I’d find myself standing in the local toy store, playing with the display model, trying to convince myself that it couldn’t really be as flimsy as it felt, telling myself that there were some great games on the way.

Arrested. Prosecuted. Case abandoned. Now two police officers and a prosecutor face criminal investigation.

Last August I wrote about being arrested while at work.

To quickly re-cap: In May 2017 a police officer with some sort of agenda, against either me or the press in general, arrested me while I was working at the scene of a road accident. He initially gave me a “recorded police warning”, which I contested. The warning was then cancelled and I was reported to the Procurator Fiscal (the criminal prosecutor here in Scotland) for prosecution.

Using step/lerp to avoid branching in shaders

Most of my Twitter feed is game development, so I often see people posting tutorials on writing shaders. Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love that these kind folks are taking time to help others. Learning how to write shaders can be daunting. But all too often these beginner tutorials include conditionals / branching, which is a bad idea.

Twitter bans hate speech, tolerates death threats

Twitter’s decision to ban the far-right group Britain First must send an uncertain chill through anyone who believes in freedom of speech.

As always, people who support the decision will say that Twitter is a private company so this isn’t censorship. But it is censorship, and it’s wrong.

It is important to allow people to say things that you don’t want to hear.

(Updated 13 June 2018) Simple Procedure is far from simple, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it

Simple Procedure is the new name for the small claims court. Over the past four months I’ve been through the process to recover money owing from a former landlord who failed to return a rental deposit. I won my case, but it was handled so poorly by the court that it might serve as a warning to others, and could help you be prepared for the challenges you may face.

I also learned a thing or two about how the process is stacked against the person making the claim, so I’ll mention those too as they’re not obvious.

Solving Unity’s NavMesh “Stop” Bug

(For regular readers, yes this blog is usually about my photography work, but I also program video games for fun! I’m going to be posting some stuff about my new game, and general programming stuff.)

One thing you commonly need to do when using Unity’s NavMesh pathfinding is to stop an agent, either permanently or just paused.

How not to join the police: Stand in a field, get arrested.

This month I should have been embarking on an exciting new adventure, as I was applying to join the Special Constabulary to work as a volunteer part-time police officer. Instead, that’ll have to wait at least six months, and now I’m sitting here telling you this rather ironic story. It’s a long one, but I’ll try to keep it light…