Ravings of an Undead Cheese Minion

I am constantly trying to push my life towards better levels a) organization, and b) deep work. I'm not very good at it yet, but I am trying. :P Obvious areas of focus such as church, work, and school don't count towards this. And it's less of a pyramid and more of just an abstract triad.  The "Holy Trinity", prioritized in no particular order: 1) Computing, and understanding each piece of how a computer works fundamentally. This includes computer science, software engineering, math, physics, information technology, computer graphics, PLCs, and computer/electrical engineering.  2) Art. This encompasses drawing, design, digital painting, and 3D work: from 3D skills like you do in CSANM 150 to learning VFX in Houdini.  3) Writing. Primarily speculative fiction, with poetry and fanfiction as a side thing -- and lots of reading. I am trying to push through and finish draft 1 of Carnivile because wow, I've been writing it since January 2019. I need to move forward!

Oddly specific, but I spent way too much time awkwardly standing in Hobby Lobby trying to figure this out, so here we go.  First off, yes these are approved for Drawabox if that's what you're using them for. Get the letter F size, which is 0.5mm as recommended. That's why I bought them today.  Here is what the pen looks like unopened. My issue was that I was dealing with the pens that weren't pre-packaged.  Open the outer packaging, if applicable:  And now we see that looks can be deceiving, because we are going to UNSCREW THE WRONG END OF THE CAP. Yes, that's right, the smaller end of the pen is for ink refills, not drawing, and cannot be opened without pliers. The larger end is where the tip of the pen is, which is naturally counterintuitive.  And boom, it's opened. Hopefully, I saved someone else from standing stupidly for ten minutes in Hobby Lobby while trying to unscrew the wrong end of the pen.  THE END

“Your learning should not be a mile wide and an inch deep, nor should it be an inch wide and a mile deep.  It should be a mile wide and a mile deep.” -  The Modern Polymath

Since I look forward to them every year. The winter subreddit has over twice as many people as the summer subreddit, and the autumn subreddit has over twenty times as many people, and the mod at r/summer randomly decided to make the sub private without providing a reason, which is stupid, so the activity is basically zero. I tried to take over as a mod but there was a whole complicated process that I didn’t go through and thus I was denied. The spring subreddit has some activity, but it’s mostly a combination of 1) flower photos, and 2) people trying to talk about the Java Spring framework. I love the I HATE WINTER!!! Facebook page, but even then, it’s focused more on hating winter than the excitement I feel every year as spring and summer approach. Trying to search for “I love summer” on Facebook doesn’t get you very many exciting pages or active groups. I love looking forward to Memorial Day, for example, and I would love to be a part of a community of other people who are planning

So on Thursday night, I told myself that I wasn't allowed to do more than 1 hour of homework today, since I work for 8 hours on Fridays and spending the rest of the night doing homework after that absolutely burns me out. Then I can't focus well on Saturday or Sunday, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle.  This turned out to be a great idea, as it made me insanely more productive at work. After all, I had relaxation to look forward to afterwards. I snuck in a quick quiz during work, admittedly, and then after work I got some Panda (so healthy with so little sodium! oh yeah), then worked on my port scanner for about 40 minutes.  Then I restarted, once more, the arduous process of getting caught up on my favorite webcomics. Arduous, but also relaxing, because it's not like I'm going to get graded on it, and it's nice to lose yourself in a story for a while. In an ideal world, I would be fully caught up on my webcomics and fanfiction readings each week, but that doesn&#

That was awesome to watch. I didn’t catch the whole thing, but I did catch the important part, the actual descent and everything leading up to it.  Look at how happy they are! So heartwarming to see. Most people have probably seen this by now but wow that was so cool.  Second photo.  I love stuff like this. It always gives me a renewed drive to learn as much about science as I can. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get back to coding...

And I'm grateful. I did enjoy President's Day; despite doing hardly anything other than art and taking a freezing cold walk at Springwater Park, which apparently becomes really ugly in the winter. Granted, I felt exhausted pretty much all weekend, and my leg injuries are killing me to the point where sleeping and sitting hurt (well, now that I've taken ibuprofen, I feel just fine, but...I've been taking a lot of that stuff lately and I can't do that forever). I'm also behind on animation stuff...again. Same old story, all the time, and I need to break out of it.  Look at it! It's ugly, isn't it?! This is quintessential February. I hate it a lot.  I'm not planning on walking at Springwater again until winter is over. There are plenty of better places to go for now. Snow was falling lightly, it smelled weird, it was slushy and muddy, and everything was...just...dead. Yuck.  And now, it's snowing like crazy. At least here in Utah, we're not in t

This is something I’m trying to live by. This past weekend, my IT lab took me so long that I didn’t do anything else, other than exercise, church, grocery shopping, and watching a grand total of one (1) episode of Rick and Morty from season 4. No art, no writing, no Cracking the Coding Interview, no water slides. I spent all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on this lab. Now I love pentesting, but that lab should NOT have taken that long. I was just having a ton of issues with VMWare — again. Honestly I didn’t even fix all of them but was able to hobble through and get it “good enough” to hopefully get most or all of the points, but WOW my knowledge of networking is CRAP. To get the lab done, I tossed aside a bunch of other really important things, which I hate doing, and only now just finished the project. I am beyond exhausted, and my back hurts. I have a fantastic gaming chair, but when you sit for way too long it somewhat nullifies the effect. And it makes running injuries worse bec

I am using the term "polymathy" liberally here. I don't mean that I'm currently competent  in a variety of fields; that certainly isn't the case. What I mean by polymathy is that I'm currently trying to become competent  in what happens to be more than one field.  I never once  intended  to have my life span multiple fields of interest. That was never a conscious decision, and if people hadn't reacted in surprise when they found out the different things I was learning, I wouldn't have even recognized that I was doing it. I was just doing what I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it, and however I wanted to do it, which I think is a pretty good life philosophy. I am a programmer by profession and nature; I just happen to also love other things in addition to it, like art, animation, writing, music, theme parks... I just legitimately thought that everyone had 3-5+ interests that they really, really love doing. I still find it hard to believe that oth

It often seems like most people I know listen to music for, well, the music. This is super common on music subreddits like r/OWLCITY. I find this bizarre. I listen to Owl City because he sings about things that I can relate to and understand.  For me to enjoy a song, the lyrics have to mean something. At work today I’ve been programming while listening to Firelights by Swallow the Sun. I love the dark world it paints, and I love thinking about all the different things it could mean.  Even when playing in symphonic bands — I find that, while classical music is fine, I only really love a classical song when it’s one that I’m currently playing with a large ensemble. Otherwise, the lack of lyrics bugs me and I can’t focus. I keep waiting for the vocals to come in, and they never do.  Of course, if the music sucks I’m probably not going to enjoy a song. But, if the music is just okay and the lyrics are fantastic, I’m much more likely to still love the song.  Weird how that works. 

 Cal Newport talks about this in a very old blog post  here .  Basically, I’m trying to be laser-focused on the three most important areas of my life (which, mind you, is pretty difficult in and of itself): - Computer science - Art - Writing.  And I still have to do school and work (granted, they help with the first one) and church (which is great, but does not help any of these areas).  Additionally, I am trying to autopilot a better fitness (lifting and running) routine and play music more often.  Computer science also comes with math and algorithm review, and writing comes with lots of reading which I can quickly fall behind on, art starts with a drawing warmup then I progress to 3D, etc.  But, this means I fail miserably at completing administrative tasks on time, and this can have bad consequences. For example: - I still haven’t resubmitted my graduate program of study, or responded to the status update emails they want from me. I just want to code and ignore all that other stuff

This is not up for debate, and is unequivocal fact. It also only applies to places that have seasons.  12. February  Oh, what do you do during February? Answer: Suffer. What’s better than February? If I may quote Squidward: Being dead, or anything else. This month is cold and dark, it is still very much winter, and it has Valentine’s Day, which is an altogether horrible holiday. This month drags on, and on and on, and HOLY CRAP IT IS STILL FEBRUARY, WHY. I seem to get parking tickets only in February, and honestly, nothing you do in February is actually fun, even if you enjoy it at other times of the year. Everything just sucks. The only redeeming facts about February is that a) it is slightly sunnier than January, or at least you pretend it is, and b) LTUE happens in February. If you haven’t slipped and fallen on your face yet this winter, you will in February. You will watch roller coaster POVs or NoLimits creations online and try very hard to convince yourself that you’re not sittin

Man, I have been on a roll with posting lately lol. Just a few for today. Feels good to actually be done with your homework by 5 PM, and I hope to continue that trend tomorrow. 

As the title says... I would have taken more AP tests in HS, so that I would have had as many generals out of the way as possible. In reality I was depressed for most of HS and only took a few AP tests because that was what everyone else was doing. Like I didn’t even know what an AP test was when I first signed up for APUSH; I was just told that I wasn’t challenging myself enough in regular history lol (and I am very grateful to Mr. Tackett for pushing me).   With what remaining generals I had, I would’ve taken them from the easiest professors possible so I could focus on my major. Having decided my major early I would’ve also avoided a good degree of redundancy (note to prospective BYU students: do not take BIO 100, take PWS 150 because it double counts and is one of the easiest and most fun classes at the university. BIO 100 is pain and if you’re a biology major or minor you are supposed to take 130 anyway. And if you are a CS major, DON’T FREAKING TAKE CHEM 105 unless you’re doing b

I haven't had one of these in a long while, and tonight certainly hasn't been a good example of it (considering that I spent almost two hours on my self-study course lol).  First, I would eat some good food. Orem gets crazy crowded after work on Fridays, so it's better to just get food right away before the lines get even longer.  After dinner, I would do some art and writing. Just a little bit, since it's Friday night and I'm tired from the week. Then, maybe I would play a little bit of music. Or screw around with some CTFs, just to get the brain juices flowing a bit.  After that, it would be time to transition into the Internet. I would visit all my favorite forums and social media websites, read fanfiction, RP, look at art, reply to emails and messages, and read webcomics, all while listening to some excellent music.  Then, I would play video games for a while. I take forever to finish games; I'm still partway through Portal 1 and have been for a long time, p

It's been an obsession of mine for a while. I wanted to make it a wiki page for ease of use.  Finding a free wiki with plenty of storage is a pain in the butt, especially because I do NOT want to deal with setting up a server or something.  Right now I made the wiki on PBWorks --  here it is  -- but I am not sure who actually has the ability to see it. I think you may have to be a PBWorks member, since I'm using the free version. I also want to make sure that other people don't have the ability to touch anything -- you shouldn't , assuming I set things up correctly.  IMO more things need to be free. If this course ever takes off, I will never charge for it. We pay for too much crap these days.  I might just throw it up on my website at some point -- not sure. I hate how so many things are paid these days -- I'm already getting close to filling up on storage, like I'm over halfway, so hosting an entire course on my portfolio site might be like a really bad idea. 

I was going to write something longer, but ended up deleting it. In short, it's been a rough couple of days. Career-wise I've been hitting a lot of bumps, and I have made no significant improvements in other realms of my life. This is, obviously, frustrating.  A major objective, when pursuing a goal, is to become "so good they can't ignore you" (phrase by Cal Newport). To become so good, that anyone who has ever rejected you will regret that they ever did.  It's like if Terrence Tao tried to transfer universities for some weird reason. No university would reject Tao. Why? Because he's the best.  I need to become the best. Or at least the top 1% in my three main pursuits (programming, writing, art), and the top 25% in everything that lies beneath that.  I could go on. The publishers who rejected J.K. Rowling probably hate themselves right now. Why? Because she became so good that nobody could ignore her. So good that nobody could reject her.  So take a brea

I've been way too distracted with this blog lately, and I need to hurry up and start getting crap done. But...I've been dying to write this lol.  The advanced neckbeard A rare variety. When a neckbeard is forced out of his mom's basement and into college, he becomes an Advanced Neckbeard. You can always tell when he's coming, because you can smell him from half a mile away. He is very overweight, and wears shirts that are either plain or adorned with anime/gaming graphics. These shirts are either stained with sweat, Hot Cheetos, or something a little bit more, ah, suspicious . He is so socially unskilled that he makes everyone else in the major look normal. Age 30+, GPA at a 2.0 or just barely above it. Will never drop the major despite his lack of effort, because he simply doesn't care if he gets bad grades. In fact, he is probably highly intelligent, but his grades will never reflect that. Nevertheless, he will get a much higher paying job than a regular neckbeard

 When one is passionate about, and pursuing, a few serious fields of study, it can be very difficult to take care of the "practical" things in life.  I don't mean working. I can usually take care of that, since I've really enjoyed all the jobs I've had (my dad's business, OIT NOC, 240 TA, software engineering, web dev). And cleaning isn't a big deal -- I work better when my spaces are clean anyway.  Bills are also fine because it's 2021 and if you're not using autopay by now I don't know what to tell you.  I'm talking about things like  - Insurance. For example, with my allergist (who, mind you, is very good). My allergy prescription regime is working quite well; I don't want to take time away from my studies and personal projects to have another appointment when I really just need prescription refills. But, idk, medical policies or something mean you have to do x/y/z, due to boring law policy #30894894l, honestly I have no idea and I j