Styles

“Look at the sky” — Brown Eyes

R

is the worst programming language I have ever used.

I was using it for Ec/ACM/CS 112: Bayesian Statistics and it was originally just kind of annoying because it has some strange conventions like using “<-“ instead of equal sign (=).

However, the real issue I discovered today is that if you make a matrix from a vector, it does so in COLUMNS instead of ROWS. I don’t think any reasonable people would ever think that would be the case, since most people in the world read from left to right and then top to down.

So, I had completely wrong results compared to J, who I was checking with.

Prof. Rangel did say that students may “think nasty thoughts about my mother” when learning R, and I cannot confirm if that is true, but it’s possible that some students may feel that way.

Comics

I’ve thought about starting a comic strip in the school newspaper, and here’s an idea I had for a four-panel comic.

Double Entendre

1. I’m wearing like a lanyard and a propeller hat to show that I’m a freshman, and I’ve got my backpack on.
2. Some woman comes up to me to ask for directions to Beckman Institute.
3. My speech bubble: “I don’t know, you should probably ask a senior.”
4. Woman goes up to them, comic end.

Art Style

I’ve always wondered how people find their art style. It probably just happens randomly, but today I had an experience where I realized what my art style might be.

I was in Drawing and Painting and I noticed that the figures which I enjoyed drawing were very rock-like. When I draw with pastel it kind of looks like it’s carved out of rock rather than being smoothly pasted into the paper.

Rock-style doesn’t seem cohesive enough to be a complete art style, but I think it’s a good start.

If I must compare myself to an existing artist, it would unironically probably be Araki, since the figures I draw, because of the sharp edges, have a mannequin-like shape. Also, I use Jojo’s characters as my references quite often so that’s probably the main reason why my style is similar.

Gary Larson

makes very interesting comics and is most well-known for The Far Side which featured a lot of confusing comics.

The most controversial one is “Cow Tools,” which is featured in this video on single-panel comics:

I personally think that the images give a sort of ominous vibe, but apparently Larson only meant for it to mean that if cows had tools they would be kind of rudimentary.

One thing that makes the image kind of scary is how the cow has no eyes, only a line across its face where the eyes would be. It reminds me of Marty’s dad from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but it could just be me.

Midterms

I think that midterms should just not exist because they really destroy the momentum of the quarter. Everyone basically falls behind on work during and after midterms.

It basically happens consistently for me every single term, where the first few weeks I’m ahead on work, and then from week 4 to 10 it’s just a race to the bottom.

Yoga

has been quite interesting because I’m realizing that it’s quite connected with art. In order to draw something, you need to capture the object in your mind. But also, to meditate, you need to capture something in your mind with a very powerful image without realizing that you are able to do it.