David’s Ramblings

“So, I haven’t posted in a while. Mainly because I’ve been playing too many video games on my cool new computer. I decided to put together a computer capable of blasting most of the current games on the market out of the water with maximum settings. If you don’t game much, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, so let’s just say that games are much prettier on my new computer…”

It was at this point in the post that I stopped working on it and played more video games for a week straight. A firm example of how much I like my new computer and all the games I can play on it. I’ve decided it is in my best interest to leave it off while I finish this post.

Back to how cool my setup is: I’ve got it set up for dual monitor support. I can drag windows back and forth between two monitors. Add the power of synergy, which allows my mouse to drag over onto my Mac whenever it wants, and I have three screens sitting next to each other controlled with one mouse and keyboard. It’s really nifty.

I decided to install Vista, the latest offering from Microsoft, since I have a free copy from my school. I’m overall somewhat disappointed in it, considering how long it took them to release it, but that’s another post in the making.

Uh, oh, power’s back on. Suppose I’ll just have to get back to playing Supreme Commander.

My whole life I’ve been searching for that special someone. The one that thinks just like I do. The one that can finish my sentences for me. The one that likes me just the way I am, and the one that understands me. I’ve found that someone. Her name is Ruby, and she’s on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is a web application framework. This doesn’t mean anything to 66.7% of my viewers. Both of those viewers are shaking their heads saying, ÒDamn, we need to get David a girl.Ó

But the other 33.3% Ñ I know what he’s thinking Ñ ÒWhat’s Ruby on Rails, and where do I get me some of that action?Ó Not to worry Mr. 1/3, Ruby on Rails is easy to make friends with. All you need is a good web server with Ruby on Rails installed, then you’re all set to go.

Actually, you don’t need to know much about Ruby to get onto the Rails bandwagon. For me, it was love at first sight/tutorial. With a few simple commands, on can create a decent little application. It makes a lot of stuff that I hated about programming with PHP easy.

The beauty of the Rails framework is that it assumes a lot of things for you, like how to connect to and interact with a database. As long as you follow the guidelines, half of the code is typed for you before you even start, meaning you can work on the actually important stuff.

So check it out, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I was talking to someone the other day and I brought up the fact that I had been reading a design book. After it was established that design does not refer to intelligent design but graphic design, my friend made a point that he didn’t really see why I’d need a book about that.

He reasoned that perhaps he was just artistic enough to not need one. At the time, I must admit I took it as arrogance. He seemed a bit smug about it. (But I know the internet doesn’t always convey intention as well as it should, and this was probably one of those times.)

After thinking, I’ve decided it was actually more likely na•vety than arrogance. Hopefully I haven’t seriously offended this person by bringing all this up, as he’s one of the three readers of this site, but I’m going to explain why I feel that way and why I think every good designer (or even one who just wants to mess around sometimes) can and should try to learn from books.

The first major point for reading from books applies just as well to taking design classes or something like that Ñ learning the vocabulary. It doesn’t seem important, but it’s tremendously powerful. One designer’s work I read recently, The NonÐDesigner’s Design Book (Robin Williams), explained it best with a story.

ÒMany years ago I received a tree identification book for Christmas. [...] The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it only took two clues to identify it. Now the Joshua tree is a really weirdÐlooking tree and I looked at that picture and said to myself, ‘Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in Northern California.’

Ò[...] So I took my book and went outside. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. I had lived in that house for thirteen years, and I had never seen a Joshua tree.Ó

She goes on to explain that if you can name it, you can control it, especially in design. And she’s not just blowing hot air either. In the last three weeks since reading that book I’ve become a noticeably more confident and able designer, mainly because I can now look and say stuff like, ÒOh, that’s missing a strong alignment to really tie the piece together.Ó

Now, I’m not saying you can’t be artistic without knowing terms, I’m saying that if you know the terms it can help you be even more artistic. It can help you stop playing the Òhit and miss until you get it to look rightÓ game. Why do you think art class often has large portions devoted to looking at different periods and styles of art? This is one of the major reasons I recommend looking into a design book or two if you want to put together anything that could benefit.

The other major reason why I believe it never hurts to pick up a design book is that it’s just a huge collection of (hopefully) great work to get inspired by. Even if you are somehow born with a complete ability to innately know every design principle and apply it, you’re still likely to be inspired by other people’s work.

If you’re going to try to tell me you don’t need design principles or inspiration, I’m going to have to call bullshit. There’s no way any artist could go through life without inspiration and a good sense of how to compose their art pieces (often derived by studying others’ work). So Ñ if you want to design a school newsletter, a multiÐmillion dollar print campaign, or anything in between Ñ pick up a book, if you haven’t already, and it will be of some help.

Yeah. I’m a nerd. It never hurt me to admit the truth before, but before, I just thought I was a nerd. Oh no, I was only a demi-nerd. I hadn’t yet achieved nerd status. Tonight, I claim to have crossed that threshold.

I know I’m getting all apocalyptic, but it’s true. There are certain things that signify a transition in one’s life. Sometimes, there’s no going back Ð like when you flunk out of school and become a checker at the grocery store or when you invade Iraq. I believe I’ve reached that point in nerdery. (Yes, nerdery is today’s word of the day. Use it in a conversation, impress your friends with your knowledge of fake words,)

So, I was sitting there starting to get to work on my programming assignment. It’s an easy assignment, just some basic stuff on multithreading. It may sound intimidating to the non-programmers out there, but it’s not that hard if you already know all of the other programming stuff you’re assumed to have learned before this class. In any case, I realized, as is often the case, that I didn’t want to do my assignment today when I could do it an hour before it was due Friday. What kind of sense does that make? You know how it is.

“Oh, I could do part of this assignment that is worth 90% of my grade and involves a lot of time and effort today, or I could put the entire assignment off until the end of the semester and require 2 days, a straight jacket, and hourly injections of caffeine (later Meth). The later option doesn’t sound so pleasant, but that’s way in the future. I might get hit by a car next week and die. I’d much rather die knowing I played 8 more hours of <insert favorite video game/real life activity here> than working on the assignment.” But then you don’t get hit by a car and die and so end up with the whole end of semester mess.

Now, typically this is my method for doing any assignment, but the video game tends to vary. Tonight, I played “Learn Assembly Code”. Yes. I was teaching myself assembly code. For those non-semi-nerds in the room, that’s bad. I was teaching myself how to program in one of the most painful languages possible. To understand why, look at this code:

000001010011100110101010101011111

# This code will add 1 and 1 together or something else useless.

And that’s simplified assembly, known as machine code. Real assembly has more numbers and letters too.

Now, I’ll give you a second to read the first part about avoiding homework to do something fun and the second part about teaching myself assembly again. Now note that assembly is not part of my curriculum, I was doing this for fun. Yes. Fun. And thus dies the small part of my soul I had left, leaving me able to take my true form as a Level 0xf0 Nerd with preferred skills in magic.

Just taking a quick breather from my pages upon pages of English that still need done to post another journal I’m writing. Realize that these didn’t have to be about anything in particular and are only graded on completion, so I decided to try and write some things about Rick… maybe in an attempt to pretend that I’ll some day write that book my aunt suggested.

Media

Harry Potter is evil. Well, yes, the mass commercialization is disturbing, and the writing isnÕt my favorite, but IÕm talking about true evil here Ð the fact that J.K. Rowling is Satan incarnate trying to take our children with her down to hell. Do I sound a bit crazy? At least IÕm not serious. My stepfather, on the other hand, is quite serious about Harry Potter being evil. When watched the first Harry Potter movie, The SorcererÕs Stone, as a family one Thanksgiving, he swore that he felt the evil entering our household.

Mind you, this same man bought my mother Predator for a gift to go with our new DVD player. (Side note for those that donÕt know: Predator was a crappy eighties alien film starring Schwarzenegger and lots of blood.) No evil was felt from this movie, though he did throw it out after watching it once or twice. I guess thatÕs beside the point though, because a little violence and some skinning of humans is always less evil than kids in robes who learn to be friends and say ÒmagicÓ words at school.

Of course, Rick has always had a knack for finding the evil that other people arenÕt righteous enough to find. In our house, we were greatly blessed to have his enlightening view on every form of media. While not exactly what he said, roughly translated, the religi-babble always came out Òthat stuff is of the devil!Ó Rock music Ð ÒOf the devil!Ó TV Ð ÒOf the devil!Ó Internet Ð ÒOf the devil!Ó

Rick made his point very clear one time my cousin was unrighteous enough to play his punk rock while in RickÕs presence. He sat my cousin down and started talking to him about how this kind of music drives out the Holy Spirit. I walked away at that point, because I didnÕt want to get tangled in that kind of discussion. All I know is that when I came down an hour later, Rick was wrapping up his sermon with a seminary video that showed a bunch of dirty people destroying a perfectly clean house while telling my cousin, ÒThis is how I feel when you play your music in my house.Ó

IÕve had my own discussions with Rick on the subject of music as well. One time, he told me that I was not allowed to listen to the Lord of the Rings Soundtrack on Sunday, because it brought in the Òwrong kind of spiritÓ. When I objected, he simply went to prove the undeniable logic behind his reasoning. Classical music thatÕs played when Sauron is on screen represents Sauron, and since Sauron is evil, the music represents evil, thus, the classical music must be evil and is certainly not appropriate listening for Sunday.

Speaking of Sunday, letÕs not forget about TV. Our family is not allowed to watch TV on Sundays because it brings in all sorts of evil. TV on Sundays is apparently more evil than every other day of the week. While I can see his appeal that it makes Sunday less peaceful, heÕs got a very holier-than-thou attitude about it all. When the whole Janet Jackson Super Bowl half-time wardrobe malfunction scandal occurred, he proudly declared to everyone that our family didnÕt watch TV on Sunday, and that it was obviously a sign of GodÕs approval that we didnÕt have to experience the evil of a womanÕs nipple being flashed on television.

There is, in fact, very little media Rick does approve of, unless of course, he likes it himself. If I was on the internet too much, heÕd prove the evils of the internet by talking about how much pornography there was. If I played video games at my friends, I was in the wrong because these video games involved hurting other people. And music? Oh yes, Satan was talking to me there Ð just listen to the song backwards. ThereÕs no winning against a fanatic.