Some basic mental warmups

Am back in Munich for another week. Switzerland was exceptionally lovely and fun. More words and photos on that later.

Have finally started spending some quality time with my laptop, trying to kick my brain back into shape. Decided some simple math/graphics projects would be a good warmup. I know that I'll need to tumble into the interview circuit at some point soon and I know I *can* be good at it... but it (at least the white-boarding part) is definitely a skill that I need to retrain up.

On a whim I was interested in animating vines unfurling/growing. Some basic Googling failed to provide me any existing algorithms so I had to figure out what I want. Turns out the Logarithmic spiral [x = ae^btcos(t), y = ae^btsin(t)] is what I wanted (as opposed to the Archimedean spiral) and so I waded into battle against Javascript, logarithms, and trigonometry. As I put it to Adam last night, it felt like I was doing one pound dumbbell curls with my brain. It was hard (despite being simple) but I felt good when things finally fell into place.

Used jsfiddle when working, which was pleasing. Here's the link in case this iframe doesn't work...

If you go to the Result tab you'll see the demo curl I made. Am still struggling to wrap my brain around what all of the parameters do/mean but this widget makes it a little easier. Next step: cleaning up the code and diving into b-splines (which, I will confess, I have already found helpful code/algorithms for here, for the vines)

Interesting (to me?) to look back at the little things I stumbled over:

• Omg- trig! Bane of my high school math experience! The problem I ran into here was that I wanted to rotate the spiral so that I could hold it's "tail" in a fixed position. (left alone it just spirals around the origin). That meant I spent *at least* half an hour trying to solve for θ (x′, x, and y being known) : x′ = xcos(θ)-ysin(θ) I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to isolate that fucking θ... the key to success was realizing I was solving for when x′ was 0 and that sine over cosine is a tangent. Sounds simple, but that took some time...
  
  
• I swear, every time I look at the canvas element and then look away, I forget everything. Another (smaller) stumble I had was keeping everything on the canvas... turns out that when you've got logarithmic stuff, things just fly off the page with astounding speed. Took longer then I'd like to admit to figure out what value I need to scale to and then to remember/realize the scale method call had to happen before the path. (turns out putting the scale right before the .stroke() doesn't get you much). Also had to remember to scale line width. If you check out the equation for the spiral you'll see that the value a is supposed to scale it... which I realized later, but found that the animation was smoother when I let the canvas scale it rather then squishing the equation myself.
  
  
• Pinning x=0 to one location was pretty neat, but wasn't actually the look I wanted (the spiral sat atop the point rather the to the right of it as I hoped) so I had to add in a "tail". The fact that I STILL can't figure out how to just solve the equation for a value when x is, like, -50 or something shames me but... whatever. I just manually added a fixed number of "steps" and computed that end point. Lame, but some times programming is about finding a solution and moving on rather then dwelling on the optimal solution mid-project.
  
  
• As I move out of jsfiddle and try to make this code usable, I'm finding Javascript Function Invocation Patterns to be a fun/helpful read. I feel like I know most of it, but it has helpful points/gotchas.

In other news :

• I am now 29.
  
  
• I saw Skyfall last night. It was pretty sweet. Highly recommended if you're an action/Bond fan. Best Craig!Bond by far, plus evil!Javier Bardem. That man is golden, no matter how bad of hair-cut you put on him! Vague internet rumors of Idris Elba as a potential future Bond make me happy and maintains my interest in the franchise. I loved Noamie Harris in this film as well, she plays kick-ass so well (see: 28 Days Later)
  
  
• I rode a cow this last Sunday.
  
  
• I wish I didn't like Taylor Swift but damnit, I do.
  
  
• The US Presidential elections. Need I say more? Adam and I will be up, watching late tonight, as the polls close in the US. We both voted before we left. GO VOTE. I WILL THINK LESS OF YOU IF I EVER FIND OUT YOU DON'T VOTE (_{of course I'm pro-Obama, but having things/people I don't like pass/win is much easier to swallow if there's high voter turnout. Then that *really* means "the people" want such a (stupid/silly/evil) thing... but when (stupid/silly/evil) things pass/win with low voter turnout it's just... really fucking depressing})

Gaming withdrawl...

My friends and I are in the middle of a free-form table top game that has gone on TOO LONG without a session. Seriously antsy here, folks. I desperately need to know what happens next. If a certain person by the name of N-------- F--- doesn't GM a session soon, I may have to, as one may say, "cut a bitch".

Above's illustration* is my vague recollection of where I last left my character-- Jaya had just subdued a mysterious woman where 'subdued' here means beat the shit out of and cuffed. If I recall correctly, her nose got broken in the process... Everyone else is exploring the room we're in and a mysterious hatch has just been opened, releasing a cloud of smoke/gas/vapor. WHAT IS IN THE HATCH?!? -- for the record, we're basically glorified BART police in a dystopian? post-apocalyptic? future/alt world.

In other news, let me try out Rdio's embedded functionality... Have I mentioned I love Rdio? Because I do. Gets me through the day! Anyway, not sure how well Blogger (or Reader?) + iFrames gets along...

First embedded attempt- Kiss With A Fist by Florence + The Machine (Jaya's theme song)

Second embedded attempt- my July/August 2012 playlist. Starts out epic/dancy/techno, heads into "good" lyrical territory, then swerves into crazy land at the end. I enjoy this pair of months' mix/breadth of music.

(Edit: Looks like it works! Plays 30 second clips of every track, which is certainly enough to get the idea of what each song is like)










_{* Insert obligatory disclaimer here} about how I'm so out of practice sketching and I really mean to do more and get better. Course, I'm missing Dr. Sketchy's tomorrow much to my sorrow so... yeah... I'm really doing a great job there..

Still Alive

I am still alive.

I was in New York two weeks ago.

I gave notice at work last Friday.

I moved this last Sunday.

I'm going on an extended trip to Europe shortly.

There's a lot of things going on in life that do not lend themselves to crafting/blogging/recreational coding. At some point (soon!) I'll be able to return to these activities.

Just one monster

_{[animated... wait for it...]}

Finished my red monster... wired jaws and wired fingers make for happiness.

The dowels in his legs and the grippy mesh I sewed to the bottoms of his feets means he's very stable. Oddly hunched forward when he stands, but still stable. Arms are wired a bit. I almost didn't give him eyes, but he looked too unfinished without them. Also added a fuzzy tummy at the last minute to hide the oddly shaped body.

Don't have a lot to share. Some health issues reared up and ruined my week. Lame. At least I'm getting better. Yay for having health insurance!



Wish I had more to say. Better yet- more results to show what I've done... Tried to get scanner set up but it wasn't meant to be-- stupid thing is now headed towards the junk yard and I'm out a scanner. Not sure what I should do- I need a fladbed scanner if I do get one (none of those single page feeders) but I'm not sure I want to give up that much desk space. Does that just mean I'll never again scan a sketch? That feels... odd.

I guess the temporary solution is to start comp. sketching again. Which I have started! Got new craft room set up a bit- photos later.

In minor news, I saw my family in Wisconsin which was awesome. Visited my sister in Madison which turned out to be a far cooler city then expected. I LOVED THE ZOO!!! And it was free! Later, my mother and I had a bake-off and Adam told me he thought I won. Which was good to hear. (I think hers was better). In other baking news I have failed one too many times at making cookies from scratch I'm in a self-imposed exile back into recipe land. Sad. Following recipes isn't all bad, I guess- I did manage to produce some tasty Mango chocolate chip cookies which definitely satisfies my "must not be easily store bought" requirement of food. There's another cooking party coming up this weekend- am not sure what to make yet but my brain gears are definitely a-grinding...




So... yeah... nothing much here. Not reading anything good, not listening to anything good, not watching anything good these days. Recommendations welcome.



_{[animated... wait for it...]}

Away-From-Things Time

Once again, hard to craft or code when I am not at home.

For one weekend I went berry picking with friends. On one hand it felt odd to pay for the privilege to pick berries- something I grew up doing in our back yard- and on the other it was so fun to be picking berries again! I delighted in all the blackberries I brought home. Pulled some of my Amish Bread Starter, mixed some things into it and got myself some dough. Rolled it out, laid out the super fresh berries, and rolled it up. Most tasty bread so far! (rather sweet)

That was one weekend, no time for crafting. Next up was my first trip to Yosemite ever. Went with a bunch of friends, interesting times. Spent a lot of time reading. I recently stumbled across two new Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood books that I'd missed! Am caught up now on the book series (stopped watching the show mid season 3 and have no intention of resuming it) There is something immensely pleasing in those Stackhouse books... I think it has to do with how grounded the main character is and the amount of mundane life/detail describing her actions when she's not being hassled by vampires, weres, witches, and fairies.

Adam brought along his new guitar and he spent some time playing on it. Our friend Vince also played a number of tunes which was rather awesome.

The highlight, for me, of the trip was my first stab at camp baking. I brought 2 bags of starter (one sweet, one not), flour, some yeast, salt, oats, and dried fruit. I also picked up a Dutch Oven on the way out of town (What camping trip is complete without a final stop at REI?) I love my new Dutch Oven-- I actually greatly enjoy boiling water in it. I look forward to making some sort of soup thing next trip. This trip was bread though. It was... enlightening. I knew when we moved the *entire* fire onto the oven that it was a bad idea. But whatever. No regrets! After approx. 30 min I pulled it out to find the fruits of my labor. Once you got past the centimeter + thick crust of char there was some really tasty bread in there! We also made bread-on-a-stick which turned out much better. In fact (since I used the sweet starter) it wound up standing in for the marshmallows that night. Took longer to toast, but it browned all nice like, just like a marshmallow. I was too impatient (no surprise) so mine was burnt outside and undercooked inside. Yaron however mastered it on his first attempt and made several rounds of tasty real (if tiny amounts) bread.

Micro projects & things

I'm terrible at finishing things. The bigger the task, the less likely it is to get done. So lets focus on some of the tiny things I've managed to do recently : Having purchased a sweet Paderno World Cuisine Stainless-Steel Egg Topper , I now have a small collection of very usable shells for my planter projects. Tried my hand at soldering again-- am way out of practice. Also, I apparently have forgotten what is and is-not solderable in my collection of junk. Wasted a lot of time with the wrong type of wire.

Sadly both of these are a pinch too large to sit on the actual window frame edge- which was the initial intention. They're on the hallway sill for now... the tan shell holds sprouted basil seedlings at this point, but the white one's mint hasn't shown sign of life yet... Neither egg is fixed to its frame... am going to make some needle-legged hanging ones next.

Speaking of which... I haven't killed the Easter one yet... though frequently it wilts due to lack of water. Am using my flavor injector to water them all. Surprisingly useful device, that syringe.

Baking has decreased due to increase in tasty resturant visits. I did however make something for the 4th. America Bread! Click image for details about bread.

Managed to make it to both Dr. Sketchy's this month here in SF. First time in a long time. Also managed to place in the contest both times this month- first for the pregnant lady session [Theme : Fertility Goddess], and second for the Roller Derby Girl session [Theme : True Blood vs The Walking Dead]. Not sure if that says more about me or those attending... but it makes me happy! I think about sketching a lot. A lot. But I sketch oh-so very little these days... aside from Sketchy's I've only doodled a picture or two relating to my new table-top character... Young Rebecca would be ashamed of me if she could see me now... Sorry for the terrible photos- I've still not yet set up the scanner situation...

Life goes on. I've been having extreme difficulty sleeping lately due to new upstairs neighbors. My usual 8-9 has been reduced to fitful 6-8 every night and I've not been able to sleep in on a weekend for a month. That, combined with some stressful stuff at work, has made my moods erratic and it definitely has affected my ability to craft/make stuff. The bedroom and craftroom are going to get switched in attempt to address the sleeping situation... hopefully it helps. (we're also looking for a new really awesome place... if you know of a top-floor, 2 bedroom, pets ok, parking included apartment in the Mission, let me know!) It also means I get to re-decorate a new craft-room... so more on that soon.

In closing, am working on a new random monster... it's restful to just put hook to yarn and be like "whatevs". No idea how I'll finish him, but I'll get there eventually.

Kindle & Code

Have I mentioned how much I love my Kindle? Because I love it a lot, if I haven't mentioned it yet.

Reading is one of the good things in life. Always loved reading, always loved sketching. Two of the most constant facts of my life. Reading however had always been a very passive activity for me pre-Kindle... I would read a book, love it or hate it, think about it, talk to folks later about it.

The Kindle added a new layer, a new relationship I could have with my books. It has that lovely little keyboard that lets me... I don't know what... "talk" back to the book? Talk to myself? I don't know what exactly I'm doing with it when I use it, but I love it now too. Never before could I bring myself to mark/deface a page in the book but boy howdy do I love to leave a snarky mark in the Kindle "margins".

These snarkisms were mostly just for the pleasure of commenting at the time. I'd mark it and poof- off into the Kindle either it would go. I've opened that dreaded clippings.txt file a couple times but the site of it revolted me. Quotes, highlights, comments... scattered about, hard to read, not related to one another.

Project this week has been several-fold and is still very much in progress.

• Get a Google App Engine server up and running. I'm not in love with app engine, but it's free... so... that's why I'm using it (long long ago I thought to set up a python one but I gave up on that ridiculous idea.. phh... python! Ha!)
• Start poking at some open/public APIs-- notably the GoodReads one, maybe find something Google related I can use... just.. you know, practice
• MAKE A USEFUL TOOL (I'm sure there are already other Kindle clipping processors out there, I don't care)

I felt like sharing a fragment of the fruits of my labor, so happy have I been with the work... not that it's complicated, or that it looks good yet (heavens no! I'm talking to a designer friend this weekend to hopefully come up with a good UI flow) but that I have liberated my comments! Yay! (merging of comments & quotes is still a bit buggy)

I've included below the clippings from The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson... a book that had lots of great ideas but toooooootally rubbed me the wrong way. It's book 2 in a 3 book series and book 1 & 3 I read in hardcover... so much criticism was never written down...

Anyway, here's my typical behavior with a book. Highlighted physical descriptions (in case I ever want to sketch characters later) and random comments.... (I've no idea what the un-commented bookmarks are for... I've stopped doing that these days)

Spoiler alert!

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson 34 entries

Location : 1957 03/01/10 12:43 AM	bookmarked location
Location : 1973-75 03/01/10 12:53 AM	" “I do have to say, however,” Breeze continued, chatting along in his normal way, protected from the ash by a parasol attached to the back of his saddle, “the ash is a tad unimaginative.” " cute discription
Location : 1982-84 03/01/10 12:53 AM	" Black is so monotonous that you can forget about it, but red—you’d always be thinking, ‘Why, look at that. That hill is red. That evil force of doom trying to destroy me certainly has style.’ ” " something Trisha would say for sure. sounds like her writting style
Location : 2028 03/01/10 12:52 AM	bookmarked location
Location : 2045 03/01/10 12:56 AM	hoooooow many times will we cover the same ground again and again :(
Location : 2060-63 03/01/10 12:57 AM	" The bobbing figure resolved into a young woman with golden hair, wearing a bright pink dress—one that made her look younger than her twenty-something years. Allrianne had a fondness for lace and frills, and she tended to wear colors that made her stand out. Sazed might have expected someone like her to be a poor equestrian. Allrianne, however, rode with easy mastery, something one would need in order to remain on the back of a galloping horse while wearing such a frivolous dress. "
Location : 2065 03/01/10 12:58 AM	" spinning the animal in a flurry of ruffled fabric and golden hair. "
Location : 2078-80 03/01/10 12:59 AM	" She didn’t quite “scamper”—instead, she held up her dress in a rather unladylike fashion. It would have been immodest if she hadn’t been wearing what appeared to be several layers of lace petticoats underneath. "
Location : 2103 03/01/10 01:01 AM	this whole Sazed abandoning his multi faith irritates me and makes me focus on the moromness of the author.
Location : 2105-6 03/01/10 01:02 AM	" He dried his face with a clean towel, then took out his razor and mirror so that he could shave his head properly. " sazed description....
Location : 2111-12 03/01/10 01:03 AM	" She wore her standard shirt and trousers, after male fashion, though during the last two years she had grown her raven hair to a feminine shoulder length. " blaaaah.... feminine hair... vin desc
Location : 2205-7 04/01/10 06:51 PM	" Most disturbingly, the First Contract contained a provision which, if invoked, would require the mass suicide of the entire kandra people. 11 " if they all kill themselves then they release enough power to capture the Ruin. They release the power used to create them. The will do this. My theory
Location : 2218 04/01/10 06:53 PM	they are all naked though... why bother saying it?
Location : 2218 04/01/10 06:52 PM	" cold and naked on the platform. "
Location : 2291-93 04/01/10 11:39 PM	" Vin hadn’t been TenSoon’s master—TenSoon had killed her kandra and taken his place, spying on Vin at Zane’s order. Zane. He had been TenSoon’s master. He had held TenSoon’s Contract. " oh my god. shut up already. we know this. why say it again damnit!
Location : 2335-36 04/01/10 11:43 PM	" Without her, we have nothing. We cannot create new Blessings, or new kandra, on our own! The Trust is hers, now! We should go to her. If this truly is the end of all things, then the Resolution will soon come. She will—” "
Location : 2471-72 04/01/10 11:51 PM	" Ham asked. As always, he wore simple trousers and a vest. He was a Thug, and could burn pewter—which made him resistant to heat and cold. He’d cheerfully walk around sleeveless on a day that would send most men running for "
Location : 2848-49 05/01/10 08:06 AM	" Tin helped an Allomancer pierce the mists, and Spook’s increasingly sensitive eyes were even better at this. He brushed through the mists, barely noticing them. " we knooooooooow!!!
Location : 2876 05/01/10 08:09 AM	I'm theeditor now and I say cut this line.
Location : 2876 05/01/10 08:09 AM	" His sense of smell, like his other senses, was incredibly sensitive. So "
Location : 2988 05/01/10 08:25 AM	way too much jessu for me.... blah....
Location : 4046-48 05/01/10 07:07 PM	" We’re thieves, he’d said. And we’re extraordinarily good ones. We can rob the unrobbable and fool the unfoolable. We know how to take an incredibly large task and break it down to manageable pieces, then deal with each of those pieces. " programmers!
Location : 4258-63 06/01/10 09:49 PM	" Noorden said, looking a bit shaken. “But . . . what if it’s not a coincidence? What does it mean?” “I don’t know,” Elend said. It means consequence, Vin thought. It means that there are laws, even if we don’t understand them. Sixteen. Why sixteen "
Location : 4282-84 10/01/10 02:34 PM	" Each slave who hadn’t been able to find at least one geode a week had been executed. There were likely still hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corpses pinned beneath the ground, lost in deep caverns, dead without anyone knowing or caring. " omg! we know already! whats with the stupid trivial details repeating all the time
Location : 4384-85 10/01/10 02:43 PM	" “Wasing the where of what?” Spook demanded. " this is only here, back in the past so that we can hear this style of speach agan. the author is way too in love with his concepts.
Location : 4603 12/01/10 08:26 AM	it seems like all he knows off warfair re sieges and sneak attacks. this sounds so childish when i read it... but only because ive heard it so many times before from him.
Location : 4603 12/01/10 08:24 AM	" and to endure a longer siege without running out of supplies.” "
Location : 5299-5302 12/01/10 05:54 PM	" Plus, you’ve managed—in our short three years together—to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancée. That’s kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It’s a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn’t you say?” Vin just rolled her eyes. "
Location : 5547-48 12/01/10 10:28 PM	" The priests who had filled them had mostly been bureaucrats and clerks—but, then, that had been the real power of the Final Empire. Its control of resources and management of people. " i want to stab my eyes out. we know this already!
Location : 5709-13 12/01/10 10:38 PM	" Vin stood in the doorway wearing a stunning black gown with silver trim, cut after a modern fashion. Somehow, it managed to look sleek despite the bell-shaped skirt, which fanned out with petticoats. Her pure black hair, which she often wore pulled back in a tail, was down, and it now reached to her collarbone, neatly trimmed and curling just slightly. The only jewelry she wore was her simple earring, the one she’d gotten from her mother when she was just a child. "
Location : 6751-52 13/01/10 08:21 AM	" The man was a Smoker, a Misting who could create copperclouds, " really? do we really need to say that again 40 % of theway through the book?
Location : 7637-38 20/01/10 07:27 PM	" Ash rained down like shards of a broken sky, floating, making the very air look pocked and sickly. " what the hell? shards ash floating? wtf?
Location : 8985-89 24/01/10 11:58 PM	" Sure enough, as he read about the religion, he saw the holes in its doctrines. True, the Nelazan had known a great deal about astronomy, but their teachings on the afterlife were sketchy—almost whimsical. Their doctrine was purposefully vague, they’d taught, allowing all men to discover truth for themselves. Reading this, however, left Sazed frustrated. What good was a religion without answers? Why believe in something if the response to half of his questions was “Ask Trell, and he will answer”? " dig at unitarians?
Location : 9558-59 26/01/10 08:15 AM	" The power in the Well was of Preservation, and an Inquisitor could only have taken it by first removing his Hemalurgic spikes. That, of course, would have killed him. " nut vin removed it and she has that earing...