The process. (Also I am proud)

[Zoom]

tl;dr: I made a new avatar


I have a lot of fun making avatars, so I tend to cycle mine pretty frequently.

The panda had to go.

I started thinking about what I should make next. A 'dolly zoom' is a filmmaking technique, but I go by Zoom. I almost went with a zoom-in button - you know,

, but then I got thinking about fractals - how the same pattern gets repeated no matter how far you ZOOM (haha) in or out, like nature (ie the same rules that govern the stars govern atoms too, and everything in between), which is cool, but it wasn't enough.

Something you should know about artists is that we are almost universally fascinated by the golden ratio. Artists mostly use a combonation of experience and gutwork (like guesswork, but you have a hunch) and it's pretty unreliable, so it's really awesome to have this thing that's proven solid in your back pocket. As far as I can tell the visual arts are the only ones that get a nearly-foolproof cheat like this.

Plus BY DEFINITION it's nice to look at.

So I google "golden ratio fractal" and get a bunch of stuff, including something that looks like a nautilus.

Nautiluses are cool. They're been around basically forever (!!!) and their growth follows a pattern (!!!).Then I realize if I made it SPIN around the center(!!!) it would give an optical illusion (!!!) of zooming in (!!!). I decide to go balls-deep and make it flicker too!!!!

This is where the metaphor-happy art student part ends. On to the realms of tech-geekiness and obsessive perfectionism...

So I started with the largest decent picture of half a nautilus I could find.

I opened it in my ancient version of Photoshop (the most recent one that works on my computer), centered the origin in the largest perfect square possible, and then messed with the color balance twice, saving each time.

Then to Gamemaker, because it has a decent gif-editing program. I loaded both colored versions and messed with the timing to make it 'flicker'. Each coloring is a semi-inverse of the other, so the general effect isn't too overwhelming. Then I made it rotate 360 degrees over 350 frames. Saved this.

The problem with rotating a square is you get white space at the 45s. So I go to GraphicsGale to crop it.

Back to Gamemaker to resize it to avatar size, then a reversal of the direction it's spinning in to increate the effect, then a horizontal mirror because I like it better this way.

Voila. I have spent two hours creating something for no real reason and then another twenty minutes detailing the process!

...Haha, I thought it was only like 2 but I heard a birdcall just now and I was like "lol dumbass bird what are you doing" but then I looked at the clock and it's almost 5 and the sky is lighter in the east. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN

[Genesis]

Zoom... that's awesome
It's amazing how time flies when you're having fun, eh? it's almost 4am where i am, but i just don't want to sleep.

[Zoom]

Thanks

I figure people should eat when they're hungry and sleep when they're tired. Really it's incredible we do it any differently. The other night my sister was telling me how she had tried to get to bed super-early so she'd be charged for the next day, and she ended up spending hours tossing and turning, and going to sleep around the same time she would have anyway. So...high five! Home from college is pretty sweet huh?

Oh oh oh:

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like bananas.

[sapphire]

That's awesome, Zoom.
It's kind of amazing how much work goes into creating something so small.

I stay up later than I intended to all the time. Like every night. It's been a few weeks since I heard the birds singing before I went to bed, though. I'm trying to dial back my sleep-clock to be more like a normal adult, since I'm trying to enter the workforce and all.

[Genesis]

HHAHAHAHA!!! That's joke's great! XD

I work 3pm to midnight these days, so I can go to bed at four and get up at one without any negative consequences

[Zoom]

Pfaw, 'normal adult'. Once a LNRS sufferer, always a LNRS sufferer. I had a t-shirt made.

But yeah, I'm getting that feeling too. It's looking like either I'm getting like five jobs this summer, or I'm paying student loans for the rest of my life. The longer I drag out this dreamy semi-nocturnal thing, the harder I have to work later.
How's the job search going anyhow?

Aw Gen I am genuinely jealous. Though it's too bad you're spending the best hours of the night, uh, earning money. Is it a good job?

[sapphire]

Yeah, the whole "go to bed earlier, get up earlier" thing isn't working so well for me.
I just want to earn money so that I can move out of my parents' house. I have nothing on the "real job" front so far, but I'm rewriting my resume, so that might help. I have an interview with Dairy Queen on Monday, in the meantime.

My favorite hours of the night are one to three... When it feels like everyone else in the world is asleep. But then, I'm extremely introverted. So.

[Zoom]

I imagine it must be tough, living more-or-less on your own for years in college, then having to go back to "our house, our rules" and the bedroom you grew up in. At least it won't be for too long, hopefully. And sticky ice cream money is better than no money at all, right?

OMG EXACTLY. You know the feeling when you have the house to yourself? Well in the wee hours you have the WORLD to yourself.
Except for the opposite hemisphere, but whatever. Unless they have some sort of crazy curvature-of-the-earth-bypassing peri-telescope, you're probably pretty safe from them.

Introvert, eh?

[Genesis]

It's a good job, however due to Obamacare and friends I can't work full time anymore... back on the job hunt

My family's great, but I do cherish solidarity. College was nice in that respect, I got a lot of alone time.
As to being an introvert, I'm not as... nervous/angry/disgusted/disturbed around people as I used to be. When you work customer service, lead a band, and lead small groups, anti-people syndrome looses it's power... so I CAN be sociable, but I don't always like to be.

[Zoom]

Cool, you're in a band?

I think a mix of both is probably the best, yeah.

If I want to be alone half the time and with people the other half, which am I? A grass-is-greener-vert?

[Genesis]

I was yeah. I went to college, they tried to keep goin' but eventually they gave up due to conflicting priorities. I e-mailed Spectre my vocals for "Churchbells" last night. We're hoping to get some instrumentals ready for it at some point... but he is in Poland right now, so it may be a while XD

I think we call that condition "being human," my friend.

[Zoom]

Whaaaat, Spectre's in Poland?
I was wondering why he hasn't been on for a while. When's he coming back?
Hey uh record what you get, when you get it, and post it here hey?

Haha yeah huh? I remember seeing a comic once, this kid goes into the psychiatrist's office and starts saying like, "I'm so scared about everything all the time, and everybody has it figured out better than me, and I'm like a chronic procrastinator," and etc, and the shrink nods understandingly and writes in his clipboard and then says, "You're a textbook case," and the kid goes "Of what?! Tell me so I can fix it!" and the shrink says, "Humanity. Good luck fixing it, I know I never fully cured myself. NEXT."
Or something, it's been a while since I read it.

[sapphire]

It's not so bad being home. I get to eat meals that I didn't cook, for one thing. But yeah, I'd really like to be on my own again... My parents are pretty good about recognizing that I'm an adult now, but they're still parents.
I'd actually prefer to be back in my childhood bedroom to this, I think. We moved just after my senior year of high school, so this room doesn't really feel like mine.

As to introversion/extroversion, it's more about how you recharge than how you relate to people. I'm actually pretty good with people - a bit shy, but well-liked in general. But they exhaust me after a while, so I need to be alone to get my energy back up. That's why I love those early morning hours so much. No one else around, so I can relax.
Extroverts recharge by spending time with other people. I believe they're actually more common than introverts, but I could be wrong there.

Haha. I'd like to be able to cure humanity, too.

[Zoom]

If I had to guess I'd say there's about an equal number of intro/extroverts. Of course some people who are naturally intro try to be extro, so it gets hard to tell, but the opposite happens as well. Also shyness can create a false positive for introversion, and the confidence you get when you don't know how terrible you are can create a false negative. I'm just thinking back to Global Geo in high school, because EVERYBODY had to take it, so there was a pretty good cross-section. Of course I wasn't personal friend with everyone in the class, so I couldn't ask to make sure, but my self-educated guess is half and half, based on how a person recharges.
Early morning hours, hmm, I think I'm an introvert who is very suceptible to lonliness.

Or at least those parts of humanity. Some of the other ones are pretty sweet. How best to balance them, ie what defines a 'good human', is probably the topic Logan and I argue most heatedly about.

[Genesis]

yeah... however much I hate to admit it sometimes, i can get really lonely at night... and during the day too, because I sleep til noon, and everyone's gone and doing stuffs. Hopefully things will be easier when spectre gets back and we can talk

I don't really give a f**k about curing humanity. It can't be done, therefore we shouldn't try. Instead those of us who have more than enough should attempt to support those without... sadly however, no modern society is capable of this on a grand scale.