Making Cards

Yesterday I went a little card crazy.

I've been making cards for my personal fashion ideas, for goal-planning, and inner-pigeon training. They're quite convenient; Just stick them in your wallet and you've got 'em with you right when you need them!

Here's my goal-planning one:

The .pub files are available to anyone who wants them for now. I'm just carrying around a few low-res B&W copies for myself to see how they work in practice. I wish that I'd had room to stick in a section about urgifying goals. I'll probably make a more polished version and print 50 to sell by hand. In fact, I think I'll write a goal card about that now....

Lame Pun Pt II

The funny part is that it's self-referential.

Lame Puns Pt. I

Haha, it's like Crafty but with Kraft Macaroni Cheese? Get it? < / Don't explain the joke >

Planning Kata (Ham Style)

I think this needs no comment.

In Case Of Genies.

We all know what assholes genies are, right?

Always twisting your words around, granting your wish in a way that no decent human being would interpret it. Or worse, you might choose naively and have your wishes turn into a 'Be Careful What You Wish For' Aesop, causing you to waste a perfectly good second or third wish fixing the situation.

This is precisely why I have a plan in place in case I ever find a genie.

Protip: Don't wish for an orange for a head.

How Did We Get Up Here Again?

School project.

I was going to make the waterfall blue, except I printed it off before I remembered to. Somehow Mido's other hand got lost in the waterfall mist, I must have forgotten to merge that with the other Character layers before I moved stuff around.

The girl on the left is Quantum, the boy on the left is Mido. See my deviantart comics gallery for more of them.

The Good 'Ol Days of Dating

I remember when life was simple, in that horribly inaccurate sentimental kind of way that conveniently ignores how life was NOT as glorious as I'm making it out to be. Do you remember?

Those days were High School--the good ol' days! Days when I woke up (late) in the morning and knew how my day was going to go (i.e. straight into the ground.) I had a golden (piss) path set in front of me, and I picked ripe, succulent apples of (bullshit, useless) knowledge from branches pushed down to (the dirty floor) my level by shining (overworked) angels of wisdom.

And dating! Oh, the silly dramas I had then. I had so many more options available to me than I gave myself credit for! Life is so much harder now that I actually have to deviate from my normal schedule in order to find suitable partners in my age range.

That's all that you need, really. Why did I complicate it so? Every student in high school was guaranteed to be within an age range of about 4 years, and if you stick to asking in classes you probably won't get outside of a 2 year range. College is good for getting some options, but I have to check that the guy I'm asking isn't actually 20 years older than me and married, and similarly reassure them that I'm legal.

(On a side note, I need to start wearing make up again. People weren't asking if I what grade of Middle School I'm in or offering me the kid menu when I wore eyeliner.)

It's Tokyo, What Did You Expect?

Today we were learning about the Quickmask feature in photoshop. It was a simple enough exercise that I had time left over to propose a self-test of my selection skills--Does it look good spliced into another picture?

Clearly, the only sensible option for splicing a random animal into is a picture of Tokyo. I did so, but something seemed off.

What is this giant bird doing in Tokyo, anyways? It seems far too sedate. It lacks purpose, and while I am momentarily amused by the irony of a giant animal just standing around in Tokyo without any destructive inclinations, I cannot in good conscience leave a cliche unturned. BIRD NEEDS BE ANGRY!!!

Oh no no no no no no no no

I started up the diagram editor, and somehow I wound up making....

Is my mind STILL stuck on this subject? I'm not actually going to have to write this now, am I?

Hokey Pokey and Moldable Plastic

I REGRET NOTHING!!!!

In other news, I've discovered Moldable Plastic. It's fantastic stuff! I played around with it the other night and made a little rose ring. You just put it in hot water until it becomes clear and then you can play with it until it cool off into a shape, and then you can reheat it and start all over again! Haven't quite thought of any serious projects to use it for, but I'll think up a justification for buyi--I mean, uh... I haven't planned out all the specific details of whatever beautiful pendant-sculpture-thing I'm going to make with it. I'll think of something though, I promise.

(Come on, it's Moldable freaking Plastic! It's got to be useful for something, right?)

The lack of contrast makes it difficult to tell details.

Obligatory Funny Picture and Rationalist Slash Fiction

Remember how I promised in my Blogging Plan that I would draw a funny mspaint picture for days I miss? Well, I forgot to post. So here you go:

Self-referential humor is self-referential.

I wish I could say the delay was because I have been spending the last few days in deep contemplation about my priorities and formulating an awesome-tastic plan to take my life back. Sadly, it was filled mostly with truth or dare, junk food, vampire diaries, and star wars fanfiction.

~*~

At the minicamp I went to in California, we played version of a game called Cards Against Humanity using memes from a particular blog for the black and white cards. It's much like Apples to Apples, except the green cards are fill-in-the-blank phrases rather than an adjective to use as a theme.

The juxtaposition of two cards--"Lukeprog's love life" and "Rationalist Fanfiction"--began to hatch a peculiar idea in my head of creating a slash fic using prominent figures in the rationality community. It was just the sort of horrible, evil idea that I find impossible to resist trying. And try I did, on the plane ride back to Utah...

See also: Camp Orgy, tagline "It started with an innocent hug, but it became so much more..."

Things I Discovered About Myself Today

I've been working on developing a habit. Several habits, in fact, but in this case a habit of recognizing when I am flinching away from a thought and marking it as important to explore later. It just so happened that one of the thoughts I noticed I was flinching away from was... that I was getting further and further away from my initial pre-minicamp goal of leaving home. I thought about it quite a bit while at minicamp too.

Then I managed to bury it. Again. Under fear and excuses and self-loathing. Granted, I thought about quitting that job myself, independently of any outside prompting. But not like this. Not because I'm scared to deviate from the path put in front of me.

How to Answer "X or Y?" Questions: A Guide for Smartasses

Not much else to say about this. I thought about making a diagram detailing Amber Sweet's addiction to the Knife (from Repo: The Genetic Opera), but I decided in favor of this fun little tree instead.

The Formalization of Another Goal

The stick figure is s'posed to be me. With earrings. I may be adding to this in future days. Here's to hoping that Blogger lets you expand this picture upon clicking!

EDIT: New Layout, More Compact!

Value of Information Project

Value of Information: The amount of time/money/happiness that one is potentially leaving on the table by not seeking out additional information. For a common-sense example of this idea, you might be leaving quite a bit of money on the table if you don't ever spare a thought to figuring out what's on sale at the grocery store or if the store down the street might be cheaper in general. However, the value of seeking out extra information has a limit--you would spend more in gas money and waste a lot of time driving around town trying to find the DEFINITIVELY BEST deal. The idea of a VOI calculation is to figure out approximately where the line between too much and too little attention to optimization opportunities.

And I kind of suck at doing these calculations, especially on the spot.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. So I'm going to practice them. And then I'm going to see if there is any way that I can automate a good chunk of the process. I'd like to make a simple chart on a card that's about business-card size, much like one might make a tip chart to avoid having to do math, that would at least partially simplify the process. If that doesn't work, I'd like to build a mobile app that will let you set a few basic parameters to figure the same thing. Not something I can personally benefit from, as I don't have a smart phone, but it would be cool and useful and great for a starting portfolio.


((Looking at this, I just realized that I skipped the intended option of pawning a VOI assistance app coding project to someone with actual programming experience. I do still want the idea to help someone if it can. And that the 3 hours figure has no basis other than, "I'm guessing if I take any longer than this throwing a prototype together, it's probably going to take 3 whole months for me to muddle my way through." Also, I forgot to add the part where I write down and then deliberately ignore any really cool ideas that come up partway through the process. Mid-operation attempts at optimization tends to derail my entire endeavor. Oh well, it's still a cool chart. Another interesting Alternate project would be the Hope Function.))