I moved

Just realized I forgot to post here.

I moved my blog to WordPress. You can find it here.

So there.

~Toby

My thoughts after taking the SAT

I didn't post last Saturday, because that day at noon, I sat, (pun intended) at a minuscule desk designed for right handed midgets. And I still haven't figured out the schedule option on Blogger.

So instead of posting the blog post I had already finished writing this week, I'm writing down my thoughts after taking the SAT, in the form of a blog post rant.

Overall, I am unimpressed with the SAT.

Not with the content within it, per se. If you're going to try and rank a student's college readiness/intelligence in the most formulaic manner possible to increase time/money efficiency, then a standardized test is a way to go. I have issues with the testing concept at it's conceptual roots, of course, but that's a subject for another blog post.

If you don't want to read some kid complaining about the inefficiencies of the SAT, this blog post is not for you. Otherwise, read on.

First of all, something I mentioned at the beginning of this post; The desk.
I am home schooled, which means I was able to (thanks to the generosity of my parents) help select the desk that I use for schoolwork. What I've used for the past year is a standing drafting table with a glass light desk top and a backless stool with an adjustable height.

Basically, it is a desk with a height that I can stand at comfortably, but I have a tall stool so I can sit down if I want to. I am constantly switching between sitting and standing while doing school, depending on how I feel and what I'm doing. (Also, it's supposedly healthier to stand than to sit, but that's still in relative debate by people in that area of study.)

Not that I could not get used to a different desk if I had to say, take the SAT, but from a designer's perspective, I must say that the desk I had to use was, to put it lightly, a monstrosity.
Maybe not everyone who takes the SAT has this problem, as it is given in varying locations around the country, but the high school I took it at had extremely tiny desks.

I am fairly sure they were designed by a government statistician.

I imagine the day it was designed went something like this:
"Well, the average American is 5.58 feet tall, so we will optimize the chair measurements and desk size for that exact height, And %75 percent of people are right handed, so obviously it will be made for right handed people. Then we'll make it as small as possible within those constraints, to be efficient."

Perfect for the average American. If you're a 6 foot tall left handed American, you aren't really that statistically unlikely, you're simply out of luck.

Not that the averagely sized right handed American could enjoy taking a test at this desk. The test required you have 2 books open on your desk at a time. It does not take much geometry to see that there was no way to do this on desks this size without books overlapping and therefore constantly having to readjust booklets around as you progress through the pages.

Moving on from the desk, we have the testing officiator. He was the man who stood at the front of the classroom and made sure the rules were being followed while he ran down the checklist of everything that must be said and done when the SAT is being given.

Let me just mention real quick: I have no problem with checklists. I like checklists. I use one everyday, to make sure I don't forget to do all the normal daily chores and remember to complete my weekly tasks such as filming videos for my YouTube channel and posting on this blog. Checklists are great.

But something I've noticed in my dealings with those using organization mandated checklists is that they don't actually follow the intent that was meant by the person who made the checklist, due to the fact that it must be completed by the letter.

I have on my daily checklist to draw at least one picture. If I get the end of the day, and the time I spent drawing a picture was instead spent on designing a logo, I mark it complete, because the intent behind me having it on my list was fulfilled.
I carved out time in my day to pursue a visually artistic endeavor.

But with a mandated checklist, it doesn't matter the intent of what is on the list, only that it is completed exactly the way it says on the paper. Back when I was in driver's ed, I noticed very quickly that my teacher's were simply checking things off the government mandated checklist.

This many driving hours, this many classroom hours, this many tests. It didn't matter the actual content that was within, only that the quota was filled, even they had to sacrifice actual teaching to do so.

So back to the SAT, the man at the front of the room read from the paper, spelling out exactly what the students were supposed to do in excruciating detail; Reading everything that he was required to, per his job description. He paused to take breath whenever the paper had him stop for questions.

That wasn't a huge deal to me, but the blatant inefficiency made me cringe. But then came the most annoying part: The actual test.

I took a CLEP test about a month ago, so I'm using that as a comparison. The CLEP was done on a computer, so not only was I able to input my chosen answers almost instantly, as soon as I was done, the testing center was able to print up my scores and hand them to me within two minutes of me taking the test.
Do you know what the SAT is taken on?

Paper.

I knew beforehand that this was likely to be the case, but actually being there and experiencing the outdated and inefficient way of taking a test of this magnitude was something else entirely.

I know computers are more expensive than paper. But that is literally the only disadvantage I could think of. In fact, computer testing installed in a high school might even pay for itself in a couple years through printing and labor costs.

Computers have less environmental impact. They require less labor. It's harder to cheat when using them. They are more likely to get accurate test results, due to not having any scan-tron errors from incorrect bubble fill.



Anyway, that's my main thoughts on the SAT. I'm hoping I got all of them down so that I don't feel a need to rant to my friends anymore. But I doubt it.

Also, I'm switching my blog posts from Saturday to Monday, in case you didn't figure that out. I think that works better for everyone.

~T

Why I deactivated my Facebook account

This post has been in the works for a while, and then Facebook forced my hand. But then it sat half-finished as a draft for a couple months almost a year, because I procrastinate in the form of getting distracted by other projects and forgetting about previous ones.

Let me explain.

I've been ranting about the Facebook news feed to my friends for a while, a lot of built up thoughts on the subject accumulating into a list of reasons not to use the news feed. I still did, until a couple days months ago. When Facebook lied to me. Before I explain about that, for the sake of suspense, and to put it in the proper context, I give you the original reasons why I hated the news feed.

Problem 1 - The Algorithms

Ah yes, Algorithms in general social media feeds. Some hate em'. Everyone else doesn't know what they really are. But if they did, I'm pretty sure they would hate them too. The algorithms are, in my opinion, the root of everything wrong with the Facebook News Feed.

For those that don't know, what the News Feed algorithms are supposed to do are keep track of what posts you "interact" with, (meaning liking, commenting on, clicking on links, etc.) and tries to come up with more things you'd want to see from this data.

The problem is, the algorithms in Facebook's feed not only keep track of what you interact with to decide what to put in your feed, but also what the people you interact with interact with. And if you're aware of this, like I was when I was on Facebook, it puts you in a constant state of indecision.

("Do I really want to like this post? I know I like the post, but it will affect my News Feed if I actually like it on Facebook.")

On top of this, not all interactions are created equal. While it makes sense a comment will affect the news feed more than a like, a heavy bias is put towards none other than link clicks.

Meaning if you click one link-baity article that actually looks interesting to you and may even be well written, Facebook will see that as a sign that you like all link bait articles, particularly when the ones that friend shares, and it will put more of these in your News Feed. This made me afraid to click on any links at all, for fear of rendering my already useless News Feed impossibly even more useless.

Furthermore, the algorithms also opened the floodgates for posts from non-friends appearing in the News Feed, which I will address in the next topic. Which is:

Problem 2 - The favoritism towards those with lots of "friends"

The problem for me was that the entire thing was optimized for people who would add every single passing acquaintance as a friend and actually interact with them. Or even people only half as extreme as that. Or a quarter.

I prided myself in keeping my friends list count to a minimum. I figured even with the algorithms, an element of somewhat randomness, I would be able to use the same principle as I was taught for deck-building in most TCG's. If you keep your card count to as low as possible, then you get to the stuff you actually want faster. Except in this case, instead of essential basic lands and mythic rare hard hitters, you had relatives and best friends you really want to keep up with.

The problem was, that soon after the algorithms came into play, a new wild card entered the Facebook news feed: The non-friend.

Suddenly instead of having a pre-built deck of friends, parallel to Magic the Gathering, it became a game of Dominion where the cards I get are people, and I'm stuck with them unless I trash them, which might insult them in real life, and I'm playing against Mark Zuckerburg, whose deck is just made of Torturers, and he's throwing negative victory points in my hand in the form of mutual friends posts I really don't care about.

In other words, I had not control over what actually appeared in my News Feed. Which needless to say, did not make the News Feed very helpful to me.

But what was actually causing the problem here? Once again, the answer lies inherently in the algorithms. The thing is, these algorithms were built to fill up the feed with as many things that will make the Facebook user spend more time in the News Feed, as much time as possible in fact.

So if you have a long friends list, that's great, it has a lot to work with. But if you keep your friends list short, like I did, then it doesn't have anything to work with, so it just fills in the blank space with things like "your great great Aunt liked this post from somebody you don't know and never will" or "that acquaintance you added just to be polite commented on his college buddies picture of a birthday party in Canada"

One or two of these I don't mind. but it got to the point where this was literally half my News Feed. And many of these posts I couldn't even interact with, due to the privacy settings of the Facebook users that posted them.

Yes, you read that right. I was getting posts in my News Feed I wasn't even allowed to like.

So what could I do to turn to get all this stuff out of my News Feed that I didn't want? Surely Facebook has multiple options for users who want a slightly different Facebook experience right? I mean, if you can change the website language to 'Pirate', why wouldn't there be options for the News Feed? You'd think so, but there was absolutely:

Problem 3 - No customization

But wait Toby, isn't there a little button that lets you view posts sorted by "newest first" instead of "top stories"? Why yes, yes there is. Kind of.

The falsity that is the "newest first" feed

First of all, while not a huge problem, when you set this option, Facebook will constantly have a ribbon at the top of your feed asking "if you want to switch back to top stories". As if the only way someone would want to use their supposed customization of the News Feed is by some sort of mistake that they don't know how to remedy.

But the "newest first" setting is still plagued by the Algorithms trying to fill up the feed, but now they are constrained by sorting things in chronological order, which makes it a huge mess. It constantly gives you updates about post interactions by your friends in order to actually put things in your News Feed as often as the algorithms demand. Things like "your friend liked this post that already popped up in the feed" or "your friend's grandmother commented on their photo from five years ago". True story.

And this News Feed still has mutual friend’s posts show up when your friends interact with them, in my case even more than when in "top stories" mode.

Well at least I see everything when it happens, even if there's still tons of things I don't care about in the feed, right? Well, no. Even with adding tons of needless or unwanted specific updates about likes on posts or mutual friends lives, and constantly begging me to switch back to the "top stories", the algorithms will omit posts by my friends that they think I don't want to see. Or posts that simply don't have enough likes.

So no matter what News Feed setting you use, the people who get likes and comments will show up in mine and other's feeds, and therefore get more likes and comments, and those that don't get likes and comments won't show up in the feed, and therefore will not get any their posts seen unless they are in somebody's stalker feed. (Sorry, the "close friends" feed)

The joke that is the "improve your News Feed" survey

And before you tell me "But Toby, you can take a survey to improve your News Feed!" I will tell you that the laughable excuses for surveys I took tens of times never seemed to affect my News Feed in any way.

It's possible this was a problem specific to, probable even, as I have been told mythic tales by friends and family of the survey asking questions like "do you want to see posts like this in your feed?" but every single time I took the survey it only asked me one question, about an accompanied post. One question, over, and over, and over again.

"Does this feel like an ad to you?"

Pardon my French, but Qu'est ce que ça veut dire, Facebook? What does that even mean? It either is ad, or it isn't. Either they paid you to put it in my feed, or the algorithms actually computed that I might want it there. It is either meant to advertise, or it isn't.

And how can I feel like something is an ad?

The survey shows me a friend sharing a news article. "Does this feel like an ad to you?" I suppose they could be advertising for their favorite presidential candidate, the definition could be a little subjective there, but I don't feel like it's an ad. It is either an ad to me, or it is not an ad to me.

The survey shows me an ad for diet coke. "Does this feel like an ad to you?" No it doesn't feel like an ad. It is an ad.

The survey shows me a picture of a friend holding their newborn baby. "Does this feel like an ad to you?" What!? It's like some sort of twisted psychiatric session I didn't even ask for.

"Hey, social media, can you show me better posts in the News Feed?"

"Let's talk about your emotions related to your friend constantly posting pictures of their children."

"What?"

How does it make you feel?"

What does that even..."

"Be honest: Does it feel like an ad?"

So that's the most annoying things about the News Feed to me. And you might be like "So what? Stop complaining and just stop using it." And after all these things piled up, I did for the most part. I added the people I actually wanted to my stalker feed, (sorry again. I'm just calling it what it is) then I only used the News Feed when I actually specifically wanted to waste my time, or find internet debates to do research for my show, (Someone's wrong on the internet, or SWOTI. Watch the first episode here! #ShamelessPlug)

But then, while I was in the middle of one of my rare times of scrolling through the News Feed, when I saw it. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but it made me stop. I narrowed my eyes. I didn't know for sure until twenty minutes later, when I had proved it with the help of my sister. Facebook lied to me.

The bald faced lie Facebook told me

The thing I saw in my feed may have looked normal at first glance. I might have scrolled past it if I hadn't been paying attention.

It simply said that one of my friend's had liked a post, then it displayed the post. It was from some random pages that share random BuzzFeed type news things. This post was a link titled "15 Shocking images, #15 can traumatize you!"

It's the kind of thing you might expect in your News Feed because an annoying friend or relative liked, commented on, or even shared it. But the problem was, the News Feed said that my sister, Elsie, had liked it. And she and I have had long talks talking about how dumb the "BuzzFeed click bait 'news source' article" fad was. It quite simply wasn't the type of post or page Elsie would normally interact with.

If it had been anyone else I knew any less on my friends list, I might have simply filed it away as weird, then continued scrolling. But I knew Elsie's thoughts on these types of articles well. And more importantly, she was three rooms away, and I could go ask her about it.

I showed her the post. She denied liking it. Our first thought was actually that she might have been hacked. But here's the thing: Throughout the entire list of the 25,000 people who had liked the post, the list stored on Facebook's servers mind you, Elsie was not on it.

So according to Facebook, and Elsie, she had not liked the post. But Facebook told me she had, for the sole purpose of having the post come up in my News Feed. Facebook had lied.

But why, you might ask? What motivations could Facebook possibly have for doing this? Was it some sort of glitch? Not so, for after I told my friends about this, they started crosschecking some of the weird stuff in their feed and realizing it was happening there too. My brother caught several more lies about Elsie liking things in his feed alone.

What does this mean? I can only speculate. But the most rational conclusion I could come to is that Facebook is getting paid by some pages to have them show up in the feed. Who knows how often such things show up your feed. But how do they keep from getting caught by the general populace? The answer is the same complaint I've been bringing up throughout this whole thing.

Algorithms.

The algorithms already keep track of everything you interact with. Why shouldn't they be able figure out to replicate it in your friends’ feeds? Confused? Let's use a hypothetical example.

Joe is democrat and a liberal. He likes a lot of articles supporting democratic policies on a lot of pages run by other people similar to him in this way. Suppose another page that Joe does not follow approaches Facebook and says: "We post a lot of things Democrats liberals would like. Have some money."

So Facebook is able to use its collected data to figure out who would like such posts, and then insert these posts into the feeds of those people's friends. It does this to Joe's friends’ feeds.

So if Joe has 5000 friends, what is the density of the sun?

(Sorry, I've been studying for the SAT)

I know this sounds a lot like I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist. You might be saying, "Why would Facebook do something so risky?"

First, I'd like you to consider this quote:

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."

That quote is from Mark Zuckerberg, creator and CEO of Facebook. No, it's not proof, I just wanted you to consider the quote.

Oh, but don't worry, there's proof.

See, Facebook has already done risky things in the News Feed. And they were found out. And credible News sites wrote articles about. But almost nobody I've talked to has read these articles. Only speculation on this front, but it might have something to do with the fact that they mysteriously never ended up in the News Feed. Or it might just be that people find the news boring.

Facebook has no qualms about testing their power

The events I'm speaking of can be summarized in this article from the Guardian. If you don't think it's credible for some reason, just google "Facebook mood control". It's been covered by everyone from Forbes to the New York Times. I just thought this article explained the situation the best.

To sum up what happened in my own words, Facebook decided to test to see if the News Feed affected people's real life moods.

So they gave some people happy News Feeds with positive articles, and those people started using more positive words when posting on Facebook. They were generally happier about life.

And then they gave some people a news feed filled with news about disasters and generally how bad the world was. These people started being more negative on Facebook, and their outlook on life became bleak.

All this was without asking these Facebook users if they wanted to participate in the study. Why should they? If they told them, it would give inaccurate results. And besides, they all read and agreed to the terms and conditions, right?

Facebook changed the mood of over half a million people just to see if they could. I would compare this to a child roasting ants with a magnifying glass, but that would honestly be giving them too much credit. Or not enough, depending how you look at it.

The child destroys the insects to show his power to them, but this experiment was done all on the down low, and meant to be kept that way. Facebook is trying to find out how much power they have, so that they know the extent of what they can do. The question is, why?

I'm sure some of you have heard of this chat exchange between Mark Zuckerberg and a friend soon

after Facebook was invented and was gaining popularity. Those that haven't, should. Here's how it went:

Mark Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Mark Zuckerberg: Just ask

Mark Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Mark Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.

Mark Zuckerberg: I don't know why.

Mark Zuckerberg: They "trust me"

(He then went on to call these Facebook users a not very nice word.)

This is the person who runs the site that holds all your personal information. One that effects your mood, and is not afraid to abuse this power. And on top of that has a record of your face logged into its facial recognition software. So knowing all this, when Facebook decided to lie to my face, I closed the book on it. Never will I willingly and knowingly support such a business.

It's been very freeing, honestly, not having to check my Facebook, or feeling the need to waste time scrolling through the News Feed. I've been using Twitter, which is great for the most part, but there's been talk that they might switch to an algorithm based feed. If they do, I'm out. I'm not doing that again.

~Toby

P.S. as may be obvious, I am attempting to get into blogging again. I plan to post every week, Saturday at noon. We'll see if it works this time.

Why Ultron was especially scary to me

While I don't think this post will have any big spoilers for the plot of Avengers age of Ultron, it will have a lot on my thoughts on the movies villain, so I suggest you not read this until after you have seen the movie, even if only because it won't make much sense. And it will probably still spoil enough to annoy you. Yes, you, I'm talking to you. You have been warned.

Ultron scared me. He didn't creep me out, he wasn't especially freaky as villains go, but the idea of him scared me. At first glance he might seem like your cliche robot genius, but upon further inspection he is really the scariest robot villain I may have ever seen in a movie.
Because in other stories, even the artificial intelligence robots make sense in their actions. They are usually emotionless, calculating, planning. They are robots. Ultron scared me because he is a robot that I cannot relate to at all in any of the senses I normally relate to a robot.
But I can still relate to him. And that scares me.
Unlike other robot villains I've seen, Ultron will usually act upon his emotion. Emotion is something most robots don't have, and even when they do in stories, almost always something held in check, hidden by a blank face and glowing stare. Ultron made little to no effort to hide his emotions.
If you know me in real life, you probably know that I don't deal very well with the emotions of others. Not in the way that I react badly to it, but in the way your average highschooler doesn't deal very well with their math homework. I don't understand it, and see no reason it should exist, much less be upon my shoulders to achieve something with it.
It's not that I don't have emotions, I just don't let most of them surface, because I see no reason to let them and I have the power to stop them.
So back to Ultron. He is more than an artificial intelligence, because he not only has the ability to think freely, he has the ability to feel freely.
Some see Ultron's plan as a gaping plot hole. After downloading himself into the internet, (spoiler alert!) he could of caused so much destruction then. But he didn't.
I think this is intentional. He knows so much from being able to download it. He knows not only facts, but he knows stories. He knows that in stories, both sides have a chance. Hope is at the center of all stories, for both sides.
I think Ultron doesn't care about winning. He cares about the fight. He could have nuked avengers tower, done. If he was being stricly logical, he would have done that. But that would have boring.
He wants to earn his win. He wants to prove himself, to himself.
I think what disgusted himself about the human race was the same things that disgusted him about himself. I remember him talking very little about how weak they were, though there was some.
I remember how he talked to the Avengers a lot about how they were monsters, how they were evil and deserved to lose. They were monsters. And he made a point.
They were monsters because they created him. He knew that he was a monster. But he knew because he knew the humans were a race of monsters, and he was like them.
The insane, evil, twisted, destructive, maniacal, villain thought he was like a human. And that's scary. Because I think he was right.
But he's not exactly like a human. He's a robot that was given the gift of humanity; the gift of free choice.
The entire movie, he's playing with that gift. He knows what he would do if he were still a machine, so he acts in spite of it. He is amazed at this gift, yet fears it. He fears it, because he knows everybody else has it as well.
In the beginning, God gave us free choice. Then he gave us a rule. The first humans, Adam and Eve, used their free choice to break the rule. Because they wanted to. Emotions.
Free choice is an amazing gift. It let's us choose our side. We can help, or we can harm. It is what let's responsibility exist.
Robots have no responsibility because they have no free choice. They must do as they are programmed to do.
Emotions are an amazing gift. They let us react to free choice. Ours or other's choices. It's what makes responsibility matter.
Robots have no responsibility because they have no emotions. They can not fathom why anything other than what they are programmed to do would matter.
Ultron has free choice. Ultron has emotions. And he uses them to make the wrong choices. Like humans sometimes do.
Ultron is a genius, he has more knowledge than every human. He knows the choices he's making are
bad. But he makes them anyway. Like humans sometimes do.
That's what scares me.
What makes good villains scary is not the death stars or or doomsday devices, but their humanity. When you see someone doing horrible acts of evil, and you relate to that person, that is what is truly scary.

I'm not going to end on that note. Because there is another side of the coin. The by product of free choice and emotions is something else: Hope.
People can be the bad guys, because they are human. But people can also be the good guys. Because they are human.
Robots are neither good guys or bad guys. They can't be. They simply act upon their programming. They have no hope.
We are humans, and we have hope. I think that is what scared Ultron.

Why this blog has been empty

If I want to make excuses, I could say I've been so busy doing all sorts of projects to actually write about the projects I'm working on. It's true, I have been working on a lot of projects and blogging about them is usually not in the forefront of my priorities.

Or I could say my parents went on an anniversary getaway recently and I had to help keep the house from falling apart while they were away. Which is also true, but the blog was inactive before that.

But honestly, these excuses are only part of the reason this blog fell by the wayside. At the heart of the problem is my insufficient use of prioritizing projects (including but not limited to this blog) and using priorities in my time management.

Or, to put it simply, I keep forgetting to write for the blog. Which is why I must examine the very reason I started this blog in the first place: to connect my mind to the real world.

See, I think a lot. I mean a lot. On the Gallup's strength finders test I was not surprised to find my top strength is intellection. (which doesn't mean I'm smart, it just means I like to think) The blog is helpful to help me get my processed thoughts down, leaving me room to move on in my thinking and giving me a chance at a tidy organized thought process.

But that's not the only reason I have this blog. On the MBTI, I'm an INTJ, a personality that comes with a lot stereotypes affiliated with it. Mostly ones involving emotionless genius villains and a few annoying genius heroes. It also means I like to plan.

So I think. I plan. And on top of that, my next strength on the list is Learner, which means the only thing that comes close to thinking on the list of things I like to do is to learn new skills. Then I think about hat I've learned. So I learn, think, plan, learn, think, plan, and then I think about ways I can continue the cycle. 

Which brings me to the other reason I have this blog. Carrying out my plans.

In this world inside my head, I come with ideas, learn skills to better these ideas, plan ways to use these ideas and skills to create something new.

But most of it is inside my head. Which is where this blog comes in. Through the power of the English language, I can take these crazy ideas and intricate plans and imprint on a page using only twenty six letters, ten numerals, some punctuation, & a few special symbols (I'm looking at you ampersand). And maybe some charts and diagrams. Those are cool too.

Because it doesn't matter how horrifyingly useless a thought is. It can't do anything while it's inside my head.

Monthly (apparently) update!

Once again, almost a month since my last post... but I've been busy, and this time I have work to show for it!
First off, you can download the latest issue of the codex here. As usual, I am referred to as Evar-Scarcarver. The colored version of my drawing I posted earlier is on page 20, not that I'm encouraging you to skip pages. (Unless you are not a fan of Heroscape, in which case the magazine will be quite boring for you to read.)
Another big project I've been working on is Good Morning YouTube, which at the time of this posting has two episodes released on our channel and thirteen subscribers. We are also working on a website for it, and I am almost done editing the third episode.
So far both projects mentioned, (the HS Codex and GMYT) have been great, they've helped me learn to work on a team and helped me develop new skills.
Not only are these projects going to continue with updates, I have more projects and posts in the works, so expect more soon!

~TNL

A lame teaser for things

This is less of a post for my readership, and more of a post to remind me not to let this blog die. It's been nearly a month since I last posted, but it's been a busy month. Projects in the works that I could post about soon:

• A change of format for the magazine I volunteer at (The HS Codex)
• Several YouTube channels I am working on
• A colored version of the drawing I posted last month
• An update about the animated minecraft show I am helping to organize
• Plus a few philosophical posts about the state of the world that are currently in draft form

Hope to have more posts up soon!
~TNL

A drawing and a general update

This is a drawing I made for a magazine I've mentioned before that I volunteer at, (the HS codex. View the latest issue here. Just so you know, I am referred to as Evar-Scarcarver in this magazine) and I'm currently in the middle of coloring it using GIMP. I will try and post the finished version here when it's done, and I'll also try and post the issue it will appear in when it comes out.
In other news, I did a 24 hour music video challenge last week. Last Saturday, me and two of my sisters got up at 4:30, wrote a song, and spent the rest of the day recording audio and making a music video for it. One of my sisters has not yet signed off on the release of it to the public, but if that changes I'll probably post that here as well.
Also, my sister Elsie has recently moved her blog to a wordpress site, so I'll just leave a link to that here, so you can check her blog.
I think that's it for updating on my assorted art projects... Until next time!
~TNL

New design!

Since I'm getting this blog back up and running again, I decided to upgrade the design and logo. Hopefully this version flows better and is a lot easier to read. Let me know what you think in the comments!
~TNL

A geek of many trades

Okay, so I could apologize to my (non-existent) readership for not posting for so long. What has it, been? Nine, ten months? Who's counting anyway?
A lot has happened since my last blog post. I have formulated many a thought, continued my studies in many a field, and my family has moved to e new house.
Since I'm reviving this blog like a long dead computer from a different era, the first thing I must visit is the reason, the point of this blog. If you know me, you might know that I strongly dislike the pointless, and in the end that is why I find myself interested in so many topics, to discover the ideas and thoughts behind these arts and skills. And so I must examine the idea behind my own creation, the blog "A Geek of Many Trades".
They say necessity is he mother of invention, and I think the purpose of this blog begins at a problem. I think I originally created the blog because I simply liked the idea, but when I dig deeper into the matter, the real reason is because of the problem I have.
First, of all, back story. I'm an artist. I love to draw, enjoy writing, find happiness in playing music, and I like to dabble in assorted preforming arts (Magic/sleight of hand, acting, and stand-up comedy to name a few).
As with all good artists, I was a consumer before a creator, devouring all the art I could get my hands on, and like all good artists, even as I became a creator, I continued to consume, using other art to inspire my own, taking apart every drawing I saw, understanding the techniques used, dissecting the prose on the pages I read, researching storytelling techniques of the great writers, transcribing my favorite solos and riffs from all my favorite songs, creating new ones based off of the classics, and watching performances, enchanted by the pure skill and practiced inspiration of the many artists on this earth. And so I consumed and created, and the more I learned, the more I realized I did not know,
But back to my problem. There are so many tools for artists to use to create, and almost as many that artists can use to share their creativity. In this digital age, an artist can upload his creations to a multitude of different sites and release their imagination upon the world. Not only is this helpful for the creators, but it's helpful for the consumers, a virtual myriad of art anywhere where they can get an internet connection.
But I find myself avoiding using these tools to share my art, always with the same mantra in my mind, the same reason: It's not finished yet. Even in the physical realm, I have trouble sharing my art. Always the same excuse: It's not finished yet.
And even when it is finished, it's filed away, whether physically or virtually, and hidden with the excuse that it's not good enough. I know I can do better. So I have tons of art that I never share with people, either because "it's not done" or "it's not good enough".
Really, it boils down to the second one. It's not finished yet, so it's not good enough to show people. So at the heart of the matter, I don't share my art with the world because I don't think it's good enough. This is where we get to my problem.
See, my problem is not that I think that my art is not good enough. No, that's a symptom. The root of the problem is that I'm right, it's not good enough, and it's my fault. For you to really understand what I mean by this, you must first understand my views on the fundamental purposes of art in general.
When you look at- no, not look at. That term is too light. Anyone can look at something without really understanding or comprehending it. When you experience a piece of art, whatever form it may be in, you are judging. I guarantee it. I'm not saying your judging the worth of the art, or even necessarily the artist's skill, but you are judging something. Some pieces of art might have you judging a portion of their skill, maybe their ability to represent real life, maybe their handiwork with a brush. Hard hitting pieces of art will have you judging something bigger than the piece of art itself, maybe judging your thoughts, your life, the amount of time you spend with family, or even the state of the world.
In essence, art will point to something for you to think about, and whether it be the artist or the state of the economy of Asia, a good piece of art will try to change the way you think about a specific subject, even if this state of mind is temporary. I have termed this idea the impact of a piece of art. Each piece of art will have a different desired impact for the consumer, and accomplish it to different degrees. Depending on what the artist's goal is at the time of creating the art will change the impact it has on the audience.
Likewise, the consumer, his goals, thoughts, worldviews, opinions, even mood, and of course his understanding of the art he is consuming will effect the impact.
As I create a work of art, I will consider the impact I want it to have. That's part of my problem, I focus so much on that sometimes. I don't consider the art complete until it has an effect on me, the creator. Until the desired impact is impacts me.
that is my problem. I am correct in thinking that the art is not finished, because it is not up to my impossible standards. It's not good enough because the audience has booed it off the stage, the audience of one, the director.
So you see, there is my problem with sharing my art. I don't share my art because the people I show it too don't think it's good enough and I only show this art to myself.
It is one of those real life death spirals that can only be fixed by direct intervention of both sides, and that is what I want this blog to be. I want to create art, and share it with anyone who wants to see, whether it fits my standards of art or not. Because in the end, very little of my art will have any impact me. Any impact it would have had probably went on in the creation project. And if I'm honest, my favorite pieces of art, the ones with the most impact on me, are not any of the ones I put in a file in drawer somewhere in my room, not the ones that are sitting in some not often accessed portion of my computers memory, but the ones I've shown to people.
If I remember, one of the moments I really knew I loved being an artist, I was ten- maybe eleven? I don't remember my exact age. It was a family reunion type of thing, relatives distant and close all around, talking. I was sitting there, drawing. The drawing had no impact on me. It had gone from my mind onto the paper, and it was finished, and in my young mind, once the art was done, for me, it was useless. I simply enjoyed the process of creating, watching as my hands clutched the pencil, replicating a piece of my imagination onto the canvas in front of me. It was none of my concern what happened to it after I was done. One of my relatives saw the drawing, my great aunt I think, and loved it. I gave it to her, somehow a younger version of me understanding greater that art is meant to be consumed after it is created more than I do now.
We moved recently, and we have a bin full of old papers that I went through when we were packing. Even though I knew they were there in the back of my mind, I was kind of surprised to see a bunch of my old drawings, from when I was ten, nine, eight- sometimes younger. I can't say making these drawings had very large impact on me. But what made an impact on me more than any piece of art I've created, is watching the impact art has upon it's consumer.
What I often forget, is that art is made to be shared. That is the impact my art has on me. Me seeing the impact it has on the audience. That's what this blog is for. I'm releasing my art into the world, and anyone who wants to see it, can.
Because art that's not seen can never have any impact.

~TNL

Manuscript Review Monday: The Testing

Decided to try my hand at a book review, because I needed a blog post and it was the first thing that came to mind. The book I'm reviewing is "The Testing", the first book in a Dystopian trilogy by Joelle Charbonneau. If you plan to read the book later and don't want spoilers, skip to the spoiler-free summary at the end.

Writing Style

The author's style of writing is different than most other first person writers I've read. Instead of being inside the main character's head, it feels more like you are reading their diary, getting a play by play of their life. I don't mind the style, but it feels a little out of place in a harsh Dystopian world. That mostly my personal preference though.

Characters

However thankful I am that the characters are not cliche, they lack a lot of depth and there is very little development inside the story. The fact that the main character gets her mind erased of nearly all the events of the book at the end undoes what little development there was. The book is very plot driven, making this less important, but I would have loved to see more depth to match the how the world has changed in this torn version of the future. The main character's personality can be summed up in one sentence: Her parents taught her morals, and she's trying to stick by these morals.
Apparently very few parents teach this these days, because every single other student at the Testing thought up (on their own) that it would be a good idea to kill the other students. In fact, they all decide this will improve their grades.

Plot

This is where it gets juicy. The book takes place in a similar type of future as the Hunger Games, (a 70% serving the 30% one, albeit in this one, the general public is not aware of it.) but this is not a huge concern. It's a classic Dystopian plot line, much like alien invasions in science fiction, and while not original, if the writing is good, it doesn't matter. Sadly, the similarities continue, and by the middle, anyone who has read Suzanne Collins popular series feels a little sense of deja-vu. The biggest problem I found with the plot is that things you know about the society simply don't add up. The book takes place a few generations after a war huge enough to make most of the planet uninhabitable. The civilization all the characters live in are the descendants of the survivors, who banded together to rebuild society. Very little description is given about the schools, but what you are told makes them seem similar to modern day public school. So by the end of the first few chapters, let's run down what we know about this society:

• Overall traditions and societal norms seem very similar to our own, the main differences coming from the significant decrease in access to technology.
• The smartest members of society are chosen to go to the testing, which will determine the next generation of leaders.

Sounds like everyone is working together to rebuild in the most efficient manner possible, right? Except, apparently some things are happening that few know about. Apparently a scientist, (Dr. Barnes father) came up with the idea that killing three fourths of the smartest people in the country would make better leaders, because the remaining 20 would be the best. That makes sense, that someone would be that stupid. What doesn't make sense is that everyone else agreed. So basically what I'm saying here is that there is a big issue with the back story, and it messes with the flow of the story. Ignoring this discrepancy, the plot flows very well, and all secrets are revealed at the right time to keep you turning the pages.

Summary: NO SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT
So overall, the writing style is one I am not a huge fan of, but the author has it developed enough that that didn't bother me at all, and the only thing she seems to has a problem doing is thinking completely through characters and plot. The book was okay, not something I would read again, but good. I will be reading the rest of the series, (I've already started the second book) and hopefully events in the next two books will sort out some of the unexplained back story. I will definitely be keeping an eye on the author's  future work. The writing talent is definitely there, and if she manages to master the difficult task of forming more elaborate worlds and compelling characters, her writing will be amazing.

Masterpiece Monday: Improvement

A little rushed, so a short post today. At one of my siblings suggestion, I redid a drawing I did nearly six years ago. Enjoy! (Hopefully I'll be posting more often now. Trying not to let this blog die.)

Can you guess which one is more recent?

Math and Sciences Monday: Cheaper by the Dozen (Also it's better mathematically)

As many of my friends know, I have long been (at least a year) an advocate for changing our number system to base twelve, or dozenal, as it is known by it's fans, and it's technical name being the duodecimal system, which is how it is addressed by smart people with degrees. The supporters for this cause are far and few between, and I know this for two reasons:

• Everyone I told about it either met me with a blank stare, or said it will never happen. 
• When I typed the word "dozenal" just now, spell check insisted it wasn't a word. 

So I have decided to compile a list of advantages of this new system, in addition to a (short) list of disadvantages.
First, you might need to know what base twelve is! We use the the decimal system, though it's often referred to as base ten. That means we count like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
The fact that it is base ten means that on the tenth number we add a zero, and so forth for every multiple of ten. We have ten digits in the system, (1-9 & 0) and to multiply by the base only requires adding a zero at the end. In base twelve, you count like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ᘔ*(dek), Ɛ*(el), 10(doh)
Dek is equal to ten, el is equal to eleven, and doh is equal to twelve. So in base twelve, instead of multiplying by ten to add a zero, you multiply by doh, which is the mathematical decimal equivalent of twelve. For further reading on base twelve, I suggest you read the wikipedia article on it, or if you prefer to read something that doesn't sound or look like you need several degrees in mathematics to understand, there are plenty of articles and books that cover the basics and/or advanced ideas behind dozenal. If you're looking for the basics, watch Schoolhouse Rock's "Hey there little twelve-toes" or read the section on base twelve in Here's Looking at Euclid, by Alex Bellos[1]. If you prefer something a bit more complicated, or took my advice and did these things and want to continue, I suggest you read through Dozenal Society of America's (DSA) paper on basic mathematics using base twelve.
Now for the reasons to switch! But first off, because I believe in a fair fight, I will list every single reason that I could find to not switch to base twelve:

1. We have ten fingers (some argue this is ten reasons)
2. It will be too hard to transition

Tell me if I missed any, (I didn't) but these two reasons are really small hurdles to jump for the greater good of mathematics. I have now compiled a list of great reasons to switch to base twelve:

1. It works better mathematically, especially pertaining to divisors. Our current system, base 10, the base has two whole number divisors other than one and itself: 2 & 5. And what are the four easiest numbers to count by? Ones and tens, obviously. And then fives and twos, due to the fact they are divisors and ten, and more familiar and cohesive. Meanwhile, 12 has four divisors other than one and itself. So theoretically, if we switched to base twelve, anyone who learned basic mathematics could count by ones, twos, threes, fours, sixes, and twelves, as easily as people can count by fives using base ten.
2. It will make (a little) sense of why we don't use the metric system. I thought about making a table showing why, but it would probably just be better to make an entirely new measurement system when/if we switch bases.
3. Our current rite of passages pertaining to ages will be better divisible, and subsequently be easier to remember/make more sense. If you think about it, there are a few ages to consider that will be changing to better numbers. Thirteen, the age where you become a young adult, would be printed as 11, and is one higher than doh. This makes sense, considering the transition to young adult is now takes place at the same time as the transition to "the numbers beyond 10" (in this case "10" being "doh"), which is generally the number a young child would first learn to count to, their first milestone. Eighteen, the age in which someone becomes an adult, would now be printed as 16, and would be equal to a doh and a half. 
4. It pertains to our divisions of time. The number twelve being our base would improve our calender because of it's divisibility. I am now going to list our units of time, with it's base twelve equivalent in parentheses after each unit. There are 12(10) months in a year, with 30/31(26/27) days in each month most of the time. There are 7(7) days in a week. 24(20) hours in a day (which makes 12(10). 60(50) minutes in an hour. 60(50) seconds in a minute. Note how all things either become a cleaner rounder number (days in a month, hours in a day, minutes in an hour, seconds in a minute), or don't really change that much (days in a month, days in a week).

I hope to come up with more reasons later, (hopefully expand to a list of twelve) but that's all for now.

Masterpiece Monday: Heroscape Codex

So I've kind of been forgetting about my blog for the past couple weeks. (Okay, a month, but let's not dwell in the past.) I recently got involved in a project: an online magazine that is centered around the game Heroscape. (for those of you that don't know what Heroscape is, I suggest you go find out right now. Unless, of course, you hate games.) If you like to ignore orders given in parentheses, then I will give you a brief description of the game: It is the only board game I have ever played where a ninja can work together with a samurai to take down a mech, only to be caught by a massive army of gladiators led by Spartacus, and have to call in a back up of American revolutionaries and WWII paratroopers. And the board is a customizable 3D map. Now that you know about the game, you can understand why a large amount of it's fans were very unhappy about it's discontinuation. However, 4 years later, the game is still going strong due to a large and cohesive community of players.
Anyway, in this magazine I volunteered for, for am the Art Director and Co-Head and Editor of the Fan Art and Fiction section. If you like the Heroscape game, I suggest you download the latest issue of this magazine, (The Heroscape Codex) here:
Heroscapers.com - HS codex issue 2
In case you're curious, anywhere it says the name "Evar-Scarcarver" it's referring to me.

In other news, I recently got a Deviant Art account, so if you want, you can follow me on that site. My username is Evar-Scarcarver. (Noticing a trend with screen names anyone? Also, anyone notice how I might use parentheses a little too often?)

Today is not Monday

I have decided to make a post every week, to ensure that my blog does not continue to lie by the wayside and be useless. I will be posting in the form of:
Math and Sciences Monday (A post having to do with Math and/or Science)
Masterpiece Monday (I will post a piece of art, probably by me)
Music Monday (I will post a music related video/article/something else)
[anything else beginning with M] Monday (Pretty much anything I feel like posting)

That is all. You may continue with your regularly scheduled internet surfing.

An Extra Special first post

For my first post of my blog, I was hoping to have some really cool subject to talk about, like producing my first album (I wish), or finishing a really large art project. However, after my blog sat around for a week or two with no posts, I was called out by my little sister of all people.

I have apparently been 'nominated' for the Liebster Blog Award. 'Liebster' means 'dearest' in a langague other than English. I'm not sure what the word 'Award' is supposed to imply, because as far as I can tell, none of the nominees actually win anything (Awards or other prizes/titles), they just get to answer random questions.

Here's how it works. I'm supposed to:
-Link back to the blogger who tagged me
-Answer the 10 questions she asks me
-Nominate 10 other blogger at the maximum
-Let those Nominees know they were tagged



I will be skipping steps 3 & 4, due to the fact that Elsie nominated every blogger that I know/would feel comfortable nominating for this 'award'.

The link: Keep Calm and Beethoven On.

The questions:

1. Whats your 3 (ONLY 3) Favorite books?

Here's looking at Euclid (By Alex Bellos)

The Dictionary (Assorted Authors)

Stan Lee's how to draw Comics (Stan Lee)

2. If you found suitcase lying on the ground, what would you do with it?

I hate questions like these, because they frankly don't give you enough information to work off of.

3. What is the most interesting thing you could do with a paper clip and a strip of silk?

Probably kill someone. You asked.

4. When writing, do you prefer to write in 1st or 3rd person?

The all-knowing 3rd.

5. What is the weirdest thing (That you can think of) that you have ever said?

"Armpit power." Again, you asked.

6. What would you do with $100?

Um. Spend it?

7. If you could go anywhere in the world (Or a fictional world) Where would it be?

Comic Con.

8. If you had the choice between drowning in yogurt or being buried alive, which would you choose?

Again, not enough information. Assuming someone was holding me captive and letting me choose,
I can only assume my captor does not want to choose himself, or does not care what I think, in which case the obvious choice is to refuse to choose.

9. What is your favorite season?

Early Fall. Not too cold, not too hot, not too many insects.

10. What is your favorite/most used word?

I cannot choose but one word, but must choose a few. Please see this site for my choices.