consolidation, coagulation, coalescence

Between bouts of studying for physiology and improving my vocabulary on FreeRice, I managed to complete, more or less, my animation final project. I put it on youtube for easy narcissistic access, and also because it just makes more sense for showing it to people without having to pull up the 100+ Mb file.

Anyway. Here it is (music might be added later):



Also, youtube's compression did something funky to the movie, and makes parts of the screen "jump". That is rather unfortunate.

the inner geek reminisces

Found this interesting blog post (part two here) via reddit about a guy who's teaching his daughter how to write code to make her own computer game, using a program he's been designing called Greenfoot. Pretty great stuff, especially as the daughter is 9 (in part two, his 7-year-old becomes interested and involved as well). This kind of logical creativity is exactly what kids need to develop critical thinking skills - at least I think so, anyway.

Reminds me of the various programs I use to fiddle with as a child, and learning how to navigate around DOS, before there was a Windows. There was also this great cartoon maker program we used in my elementary school's computer class, where they provided a slew of characters that you could drag onto a scene of your choice, then have them move by setting keyframes on a timeline. I forget the name of the program, it probably ran in Windows 95 or 3.1 (was there anything inbetween those two?), but it was so much fun to play with. You could make speech/thought/yelling bubbles, have inanimate objects, and the backdrops ranged from wooded forest to alien spaceship. Oh, and they even had various body parts you could add onto the character, like a Mr. Potato Head, so an angry character would have a "yelling" speech balloon and big angry eyes.

I wish I could remember the name! It wasn't the Dreamweaver storybook creator, or whatever. Something else...

Meme-age

I've apparently been tagged to talk about my 7 top weirdest traits/facts by the Daily Bubble Tea's Todd. Hmm...

1. I raised Madagascar hissing cockroaches when I was in 5th grade, a gift from my science teacher.
   
   
2. I've lived with freshmen all 4 years of college, since I was in all-freshmen housing my first year, and I've been a freshman UGA (RA) the other 3 years.
   
   
3. I have a constant inner dialogue going in my head that narrates what I'm doing/thinking at any point during the day.
   
   
4. When I was in high school, I was convinced that my ideal life would be that of a hermit living in a log cabin in the mountains. Reading books like My Side of the Mountain helped cement that belief. I've recently realized that I would actually enjoy living a simpler life, and feel that I am too dependent on technology.
   
   
5. When I am in places with randomly patterned tiles, like in bathrooms or hallways, I often mentally rearrange the tiles so that they make patterns, with my own rules for how the tiles can be moved and how other tiles can be moved with them, so that I can figure out the smallest number of "moves" to create a pattern I want.
   
   
6. I get heartburn very easily and have managed to compile a mental list of things that are most prone to cause it. I ignore that list most of the time because it includes all of my favorite foods. The only one I've lightened up on is coffee.
   
   
7. I obsess. For instance, I was obsessed with my favorite number, 7, as a child, noting everything with 7 that was related to me, such as my birthday which is on the 7th (as is my brother's, but on a different month). When I first was introduced to Ben Folds, one of my favorite musical artists, I got all of his songs and played them on repeat on my computer. Constantly.
   

Right. Well, I don't really want to tag anyone, though anyone who is inspired to do this on their own blog is, of course, welcome to.

Rules:
Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
Post these rules on your blog.
List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag seven random [?] people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

lolzers?

I've long been steadfastly against the use of any internetspeak in my online correspondences. I may have dropped an "lol" once or twice when I first started using instant messengers, but that has all fazed out. I think it's a travesty that so many people use internetspeak, and especially younger generations that are growing up on mySpace and AIM. I've already made it clear to my younger brother that he needs to write his words out completely if he's going to be e-mailing and IMing me.

"Inside jokes" of the internet are interesting, though. The LOLcats phenomenon was something I hadn't even really encountered until recently, but a friend of mine just sent me a link to a new one: LOLscience.

I have to admit, they are pretty amusing, if only at first. The extreme mutation of words and grammar gets a little tiring after awhile, though. And so far, I haven't actually laughed out loud from any of them.

But the top 100 4chan pictures? Yeah, I lol'ed on a lot of those. Or more like sol'ed...snorted out loud.

With that, here is physics cat:

Part of your world

Real? Fake? You decide.

Absolutely ridiculous? Yes.



Speaking of worlds, here's another YouTube video of the French "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." The participant is stumped by the question, "Qu'est-ce qui gravite autour de la Terre?" or "What revolves around the Earth?" He turns to the audience for help. Insanity ensues.

Unconventional Ideas

I've found this website, Unconventional Ideas, that just about sums up the way I look at life, and at my own future in particular. My first thought at stumbling upon this site was, "That's not a very well designed site." And my second thought after reading a couple of the essays was, "This is just like that Paul Graham essay a friend sent me a few months ago!"

The essays in the site are all very digestible, written in the "to the people, by the people" way that reminds me of a close friend or relative giving frank advice. And the site is filled with insightful and peppy quotes, many of which I've "collected" at one time or another (I am a packrat and collector of all things, quotes included).

A tidbit from one of the essays, entitled "Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop In: A Simple Living Primer":

Forming lasting relationships, giving service to causes in which you deeply believe, or pursuing hobbies with passion--each could give you infinitely more satisfaction than spending your energy hoarding possessions. Clear out the clutter. Free yourself for the things you really love to do, or always wanted to try.

How much more leisure time would you have if you owned less stuff which require regular repairs, maintenance and upgrades? Consider Henry David Thoreau’s insight that the "cost of a thing is the amount of...life which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run." Do you really want to obligate your future leisure time with caring for a lot of possessions? Would you rather be doing something else? Is it possible that too much baggage could keep you from doing some of the things you've always wanted to do? Could selling off a bunch of unused stuff help to make those dreams a reality?

And on a completely unrelated note, one of my absolute favorite Daily Show clips:

O cats

Time and Money

Surf's up

I have just been whizzing through the internets at a higher than normal rate recently. Aided by the various links I get sent to me by friends, I've become addicted to websites like reddit.com, cracked.com, and scribd.com. And just now, I've found a webcomic I must add to my sidebar: Left-Handed Toons (by right handed people). Such a nifty idea, and it's got some funny strips.

But this one, which was on reddit, is already one of my favorites:

[link]

Observances of the day

The garbage truck jingle is quickly becoming a daily source of temporary insanity.

Inspired from blog-hopping to identify the flora I've photographed thus far, I've come to the conclusion that trying to identify plants is incredibly hard when you don't understand half the terminology in the keys and have to look them up. One at a time. Even Wikipedia couldn't help me differentiate between introrse and extrorse anthers. For the time being, I give up my ambitions of publishing my Guide to Taiwan's Flora.

I'm not even going to look at the fauna.

Physical keys with visuals are so much easier to use.

With that, here are my two favorite pictures from today: