My Photoshop Project May 30, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Everything Else.Tags: background, fishing, glass, guy, image, in, lake, layer, martini, mask, my, photo, photoshop, picture, pictures, pond, project
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I recently downloaded Photoshop 6.0 on my laptop and I’ve been messing around with it lately. Most of the stuff I’ve done so far isn’t so great, but I think I’ve finally managed to make one picture worth sharing:
Click for the full-sized image
Just in case I became unsatisfied with how the image turned out with the guy, halfway through I decided to save a copy of just the martini glass in the lake:
Click for the full-sized image
I made this picture with three different source pictures. The first was the background image of the lake, which I found on flickr and thought looked really really cool:
The second was a picture of an interesting-looking martini glass that I found on Google Images:
And the last one was a picture of a guy fishing on the beach. I was hoping to find a color image, but this was the best image I could find and it was in black and white.
The first thing I did was to mask out just the martini glass and paste it onto the lake. I split the glass at around the halfway point to make it look like half of it was underwater. After that, I added color to the picture of the guy fishing by selecting various parts of his body with the quick mask tool and manually altering the color balance. I wasn’t quite sure what color to make the fishing rod, which is why it’s an obnoxious neon-blue color. After more masking and resizing, I got the guy the right size and put him in the martini glass. I applied a layer mask to the glass to make it translucent, merged it with the layer containing the dude, then duped the whole thing, reflected it vertically, and changed a little bit more to make the reflection on the water.
So… what do you think of the pictures? I’d welcome all constructive feedback, shout out in the comments if you’ve got anything to say!
The Future of Humans May 29, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Everything Else.Tags: advances, change, competition, darwin, evolution, future, human, life, medicine, modern, natural, over, reproduction, selection, species, technology, theory, time, variation
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As I was reviewing Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology earlier today, I couldn’t help but wonder future evolution of humans.
Modern medicine has improved the quality of life to the point that many diseases that would have been potentially fatal in the past are now easily remedied by a few pills every day. Right now, natural selection basically doesn’t apply to humans anymore because nearly everyone has the same chance of surviving to reproduce. If that’s true, then what does the future hold in store for us as a species?
Fancy, Misleading Advertising May 27, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Everything Else.Tags: acids, advertising, amino, bcaa, branched, chain, drink, electrolyte, fancy, gatorade, gel, gu, intentionally, misleading, redundant, salt, sports, sugar, terms, water, words
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There is so much intentionally misleading advertising in athletic products nowadays that it makes me sick.
Gatorade: “Rehydrate, replenish, refuel.” What’s Gatorade really? To put it simply, it’s a solution containing water, sugar, various salts, and artificial flavors. Doesn’t it sound so delicious now?
GU: “Simple to take, simple to digest, GU Energy Gel provides just what you need for premium exercise fuel and none of the extras that slow you down.” This is a gel containing sugar, protein, artificial flavors, and a hella lotta salt. Yum.
High School Graduation: Not a Big Deal May 26, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Rants.Tags: and, be, big, childhood, circumstance, deal, diploma, easy, fun, funeral, graduation, happy, high, last, like, not, of, pomp, procession, sad, school, should, worthless, years
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Guest speakers, renting out a concert venue, and slashing half the school day off just for a high school graduation ceremony seems a little obnoxious don’t you think?
I know that I’ll probably make a couple of enemies saying this, but I think it has to be said: high school graduation is not a big deal. High school is like a little speed bump in your life, and graduation should just be a quick ceremony where they hand you your diploma and say, “congratulations, now get out of here.”
Damn You, Nature! May 25, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Running.Tags: day, miserable, nature, overcast, rain, rainy, run, Running, storms, weather
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Today looked like a miserable day right from the beginning: hot, muggy, and overcast.
Of course, I expected it to rain. But, as noon rolled around and no rain came, I became hopeful that my 3PM run wouldn’t be ruined.
Well, I was wrong. Just as I planned to go out for a run, it starts pouring. And I don’t mean any normal downpour, but a massive torrential downpour. Now I can run in light showers, but when the rain’s coming down sideways like little BB’s, I prefer to stay home. Sadly, there are going to be storms all week where I live, which means my running schedule is going to be really messed up this week. Just as I plan to significantly up my mileage, nature throws in another speed bump for me.
It just seems that weather has this weird tendency of raining or snowing whenever I don’t want it to. If I’m about to go out for a run, it rains, or it snows (it’s happened before!). If I’m about to walk to school, it rains. If I’m about to go anywhere, guess what? It rains.
I just wish that nature would cooperate with me just once. That would be really nice.
Has anyone else noticed how nature loves to ruin your schedule? I sure have.
Athletes Can’t Be That Important May 24, 2009
Posted by Jacky in In My Opinion....Tags: athletes, be, dollars, high, lower, millions, more, much, of, paid, pay, president, salaries, should, sports, states, than, the, too, united
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Tiger Woods earned $100 million last year.
Does that seem ridiculous to anyone else? What do athletes do that deserves more money than the leaders of the free world earn? Is keeping the nation entertained that much more important than keeping the nation alive?
Does this possibly say something about how much we value entertainment over everything else? If we can afford to pay athletes millions a year, how come we can’t even afford a simple raise for Supreme Court Justices? Here’s an idea: stop charging so much for sports tickets and slash the salaries of athletes.
5 Most Epic Ways to Die May 23, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Everything Else.Tags: accomplishment, achievement, after, attack, bucket, cliff, club, death, dying, epic, falling, funny, games, health, heart, hilarious, kick, laughing, off, playing, the, to, video, ways, while
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Click to see the verse on the tombstone!
Dying is probably one of the least enjoyable activities ever. I’d say it’s up there with going to hell. Some people die in boring, unoriginal ways like from heart attack or murder, but there are so many better ways to kick the bucket. What would you like to be known by: a short paragraph in the obituaries of the local paper or by a front-page article in a national paper about how epic your death was? I mean, if you’re going to die anyways, you might as well make it cool. I’d take the second option anyday, assuming I was able to choose in the first place.
The Century Mark May 22, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Blogging.Tags: 100, amazing, blog, budgeting, century, develop, efficiency, improvement, information, like, love, mark, my, skills, synthesizing, the, time, unique, voice, writing
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This is my 100th post.
To me, the fact that I even managed to get to 100 is extraordinarily amazing. When I started this blog, I didn’t really think I’d get to 50 posts, let alone 100 unique posts. As I’ve posted my random ramblings on the internet, I’ve watched my stats get better and better. Sure, this may not be the most popular blog on the internet, but I feel like I’ve come a long way.
Blogging started out as a project that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue. When I started blogging, everything was rather raw, and I didn’t really develop a voice (check out my first few posts as examples). As I wrote more, though, I felt like I was starting to develop my own, unique voice. That’s probably the greatest advantage of blogging for me: I’ve gotten so much better at writing ever since I’ve started blogging actively.
Of course, I do have reasons why I like blogging, but not only has blogging become an enjoyable activity that’s now an everyday kind of thing, it’s also helped me so much with everyday life.
- Synthesizing information – I’ve gotten exponentially better at research papers because I now can effectively pull information from different sources. Before, research alone for a paper would take me days, but now I can finish the preliminary research in a matter of hours.
- Budgeting time – It’s tough to make sure to write a new post every day and still have time to run, do homework, play flute, play guitar, play harmonica, and keep some semblance of a social life. Hell, it’s nearly impossible. But somehow, I manage to fit everything in. Of course, I may miss a day or two blogging here or there, but keeping myself on a regular schedule for blogging has helped me keep a regular schedule for everything else in my life. Days seem so short now that I have so much to do, but now I can finish multiple tasks when before I’d stress to finish half of them.
- Writing – I’ve actually developed a writing voice now, something I’ve lacked for a long time. Writing on a regular basis like blogging has definitely helped me develop my voice quicker. If it wasn’t for this blog, I’d still be writing horribly.
- Efficiency – Kinda goes with #2, but now I’ve become so much more efficient at doing everyday tasks. Trying to write a blog post every day while I’m busy with running, music, and schoolwork definitely forced me to do things more efficiently.
So, I’ll probably continue blogging, and (hopefully) people will continue to read my stuff. But whatever happens, I’ll still like to blog.
The Mirror World May 21, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Stories.Tags: angst, bad, break, clothes, dirty, disobedient, eat, family, mirror, never, no, opposite, people, shower, story, taboo, teenager, ungroomed, vomit, wear, world
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They sat around the dinner table naked, a rather smelly bunch of completely naked, ungroomed people. There’s nothing wrong here. In fact, this is everyday life. One may not want to believe that this really is considered everyday life, yet it truly is. The same scene repeats itself in every household: smelly, dirty, nude people conversing normally.
Maybe to get a better idea of this insane world, we should join a “normal” family at the dinner table.
Why Education is Broken May 19, 2009
Posted by Jacky in In My Opinion....Tags: algebra, assessments, behind, biology, bottom, broken, child, easy, education, english, government, left, national, nclb, no, race, standardized, standards, states, system, tests, the, to, too
13 comments
Yesterday, I took the HSA (High School Assessment) for Biology. To be brutally honest here, it was absolutely the worst waste of 2 hours in my life.
Sure, it’s important and all, but the test is so EASY! All you need to pass the test is basic knowledge of the English language and elementary knowledge of the subject itself. Any person could walk into the room after studying for half an hour and pass the test. It’s that damn easy.
It’s not like the students are that dumb; it’s a GT class and 99% of the students knew material way beyond the testing material. Not only were all the subjects present on the test itself covered in a single semester, but the class went way deeper into those subjects. What I don’t get is why the HSA only scratches the surface when it comes to material. If the test is supposed to measure how well students are doing in the course, shouldn’t the test be based on what the students learn from the course?
That brings me to my point: educational standards are broken and we desperately need to fix them. There’s no excuse for what I’ve seen and been through personally. The U.S. educational system is completely broken and needs to be reformed, now.
