I want to be more

So I hired two people to help me.

Their names are Victoria and Michael.

As you can see, if you followed the links, they aren't real people but highly detailed 3D models.

One of my long time hobbies, well, let's call it an intererest, is in 3D modeling.

Victoria and Michael are figures to be used with an application called Poser. Long story short, you buy Poser (I got a super deal on Amazon at Christmas for the new version) then you buy assets to use with it. Those assets can be people, as noted, or they can be lighting rigs, poses, materials, enviornments or whatever else you need in order to create scenes that you render. You don't have to buy anything though as you can do some nifty stuff right out of the box or by incorporating free stuff you find.

Think of it like photography but without so many limitations. You can have all the people you need without having to work with people. You can shoot anywhere you want without going anywhere and you can set up your lights in any way you want without having to invest in equipment.

So, why would I mess with it? It's a creative outlet.

I know what you'r thinking. How real could it possibly look?

Well, take a look at what's possible using DazStudio (a free competitor to Poser) and a rendering program called Reality.

There's been a lot of back and forth about the benefits of DazStudio versus Poser but ultimately it comes down to what you like and what is going to give you the tools you need.

DazStudio does some amazing stuff, but so does Poser so the quality question is moot.

Poser has more models that will work with it but that's because DazStudio is new.

Both solutions are somewhat unstable for different reasons and in different places.

If you have any interest in art, photography and/or 3D modeling but you've really never known where to start then I recommend Poser or DazStudio as your jumping off point.

They are easy enough to learn with some decent results right off the bat but they have enough power and features that they can serve you for a good long while.

But why would I tell you all of this?

Well, it's fun and interesting and different so I think you should check it out, but also it highlights an important thing we all need in our lives.

A creative outlet.

Everyone needs a creative outlet.

There are writers and musicians and dancers, sculptors and painters and clothing designers.

There are people that enjoy crafting (I call it gluing shit to other shit but hey, it's their hobby).

Some are sports fanatics who use fantasy leagues (football, baseball, Jai alai) to slake their thirst for creative problem solving.

And some folks simply day dream.

Anything you do where you are making decisions based on more than a simplified rule set can be defined as creative.

Gardening? Where are the flower beds going and what is going in them?

Fitness? What is the best plan for you and how can you change it for better results?

Sex? I'm not even going to go there...but you're a creative sort, you can figure it out.

I belive that when people are denied being creative that they lose an important part of what makes them who they are. I belive without our creative outlets we become less distinct as people.

Does that mean that really creative people are more distinct than those who are less creative? Not at all. Quantity doesn't equal quality.

In the end, without a creative outlet, we are nothing more than actors in someone else's play. We are pices of someone else's game.

Without creativity we are not as we truly are and we can never become more than what we are now.

Life is a closed system

Disassemble

That's an interesting word isn't it?

It's made up of two pieces.

Dis, is a latin prefix meaning "take apart" or having a primitive, negative or reversing force.

Assemble, means to bring together, come together or put together. Together is the key.

So, literally, disassemble means to take apart "togetherness."

Time for a hard right turn.

How about a high level primer on thermodynamics?

Essentially, the natural state of "things" is to be apart. To be more precise, entropic. Therefore, it is simply unnatural for things to be orderly or together.

Everything is slowly moving toward entropy and the only way to order it is through heat (or lack thereof) or pressure (or lack therof as well).

In a closed system (like a tire, baloon) if you increase pressure it generates heat, if you heat something it increases the pressure (think pressure cooker).

If you decrease the temperature the pressure goes down (put a baloon in a freezer) and if you release the pressure the temperature drops (which is why when you vent an oxygen tank the nozzle freezes over with ice).

The natural, un fucked with, state of the world is entropic. In other words, chaos or apartness. 

Back to our word.

As "dis" modifies "assemble" we are making something return to its natural state of apartness. Shouldn't the base word illustrate entropy and that the modifier be "to bring together?" We are releasing the pressure of "togetherness" to enable a stable closed system.

Conversely speaking, we have reconcile.

Reconcile is made up of re and concile.

Re- is the latin prefix meaning again, or again and again.

Concile takes us to conciliate (to win, gain or make compatible) which takes us to conciliātus (past participle of conciliāre  (to bring together, unite, equivalent to concili (council  + -ātus -ate).

Okay, we're getting closer. Council means "an assembly" (as in, an assembly of people) and "ate" is the latin suffix (eventually...geeze, -ate is like the bastard child of the english language) that turns a noun into a verb (among, it seems, about a billion things).

Let's see if we can build this now.

We are going to re (again) concile (assmbley of people) ate (turn the noun to a verb so we're bringing the assembly of people together). 

We are gong to "again" bring a group of people together or reconcile. We are taking entropy and enforcing order by applying pressure to the participants. As most of us know, bringing people who were getting fussy with each other back together always generates heat (emotions, anger, etc..)

But that's not how we use it, is it? We think of reconcile to mean settling a dispute (for example.) So, reconcile is not the activity of resolving a dispute, it is what we can do once the dispute is resolved. 

Reconcile means we can now hang out together again because we've struck an accord. 

That said, we also do things like reconcile checkbooks which means to bring them into agreement.

We are also reconciled to our fate which means we've accepted something we don't like.

Looking at the word like we did with disassemble we see an interesting difference.

We are using various constructs to represent an assemblage from entropy. It takes work to bring things together and nothing to let them fall apart.

Whereas disassemble means to actively move something toward entropy reconcile means to forcibly put something together.

Let's simplify this.

Disassemble is the reduction of pressure to achieve a stable "chilled out" state and reconcile is reducing the heat (argument, disagreement) or "chilling out" to alleviate the pressure.

It is very easy to let the world fall apart and a lot of work to keep it together because the world naturally hates tupperware, boxes and tape.

Today I am cleaning out closets and packing things into neatly organized boxes that I am carefully labeling and storing so that I can reconcile my life as I simply have too much entropy. I am also disassembling my life, simplifying, reducing the pressure so that I can relax...so that I can chill out.

As an aside, Isn't it interesting that when it gets warm out we decide to get ourselves in order but when it gets cold we hunker down and don't want to go anywhere? I've always wondered why that was the case.

How to select artwork

One of the things I've been thinking about and working on lately is artwork.

I recently picked up a new couch and dinette set but my walls are notably absent of artwork.

How does one purchase art exactly?

Well, you just buy it when you find it and fall in love with it. Well, okay that's true but I have about a two dozen walls and the like that need art so I'm kinda behind. Okay, I'm a lot behind. At this rate I'll have a picture over the bedroom lightswitch by November.

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Welcome to the rabbit hole: miso, dashi and soba

As you may or may not know I like to cook. I especially like to cook things that I never thought I could.

My first foray into cooking really started when I realized I could make my own pizza crust. Home made pizza crust and fresh ingredients make any of the pizza chains seem almost sickening. 

I then tried making home made pretzels. You know the ones.  You get them at the mall and try to eat them with dignity while pimply faced teens eye you from their food court fortification and wonder if you brought reinforcements.

Bagels were next. I made asiago and plain bagels and I have to say, they were fantastic but oddly misshapen. Mine kind of looked like emaciated hairless cats trying to eat their own tails. Clearly there is a trick to bagel making.

American Chinese is one of my ongoing efforts. I've figured out Crab Rangoon, Egg Rolls and Chinese mustard. I'm still working on sweet and sour sauce and General Tso's chicken. I have the recipe for the general but haven't had the gumption to break out the deep fryer. Breaking out the deep fryer requires a certain amount of "I don't give a fuck how fat I am" that I'm, at present, fighting.

Real empanadas were something I tried and made happen (with the assist of the deep fryer). They were savory and crispy and tasty. I was missing good dough though so I may need to make a second pass just to be sure I didn't miss something critical.

This weekend I worked with three new ingredients that I've not used before: Miso, Dashi and Soba.

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Houzz, Queer Eye and the Motorola 6121...oh my

It's time for another "all links and tips" entry!

I know how much you love those because every time I do one I get more than 1,000 comments and emails. No...no, those are restraining letters from the various pretty young things in the building.

Actually, let me count (one, two...three...yeah...yeah) okay the final tally is zip. That is nearly twice as many comments as I normally get so I think it's a worthy effort.

Let's kick this off with a website / application...

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