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Google's a game, right?
Feb. 11th, 2012 01:43 amI'm too good at it.
...Where you win if you can research obscure things? That, or I'm way too fucking stubborn and I insist upon running my results dry time after time.
Other than tracking down sold-out items from over a year ago, I have successfully tracked down a lot of things recently. It has only made me wish that databases were more comprehensive, so instead of searching 50 sites I would only have to search one. This is especially a problem with online shopping, where a small store may have exactly what you want, but it doesn't show up on Google Shopping or Amazon and their site is basically unsearchable or undiscoverable unless someone else points you directly there. BUT I DIGRESS.
Earlier this week our professor challenged us to find a slightly meme-ish image of what looked like the Michael Jackson of zebras. His head was striped, his upper torso was white, his back was striped, and his back legs were white.
First of all, don't google "half white zebra" because you get nothing but pages of "ARE ZEBRAS HALF WHITE WITH BLACK STRIPES OR BLACK WITH WHITE STRIPES LOLOLOL".
Second, in under five minutes I found the image by trying "albino zebra" and then I believe "partially albino zebra" which led me to a page about zorses. And zonies. Which are half zebras, half horse/pony, and are generally bred in Africa (much like other places get donkeys, and they are most often sterile as well) because zebras have some natural biological defenses they can pass on.
Uh and then in class Thursday we were talking about what a temple is, thematically, and for a brief few moments the prof had an image of a buddha on the screen, of course with no source. HOWEVER I realized that under this seated buddha was a script that was too familiar... A script from the old online COSI: Adventure game that was linked from their site (to LiveScience?) a while back. I think the game is still up if you have a direct link.
ANYWAY, the online game was based slightly on the Adventure! exhibit, but without a lot of the originality, probably because of time/money constraints. (I'm not complaining, it was made for 8 year olds, approximately, I'm most likely the only person who ever cared.) However, given my extensive gradeschool examination of Egyptology, I recognized that one of the... uh... sacred items? that they used in the game was a slightly photoshopped version of an Egyptian alabaster papyrus-lotus vase.
Anyway, eventually you have to crack a code, and if there's one thing about me, I LOVE CODES. I was always upset though that you never got a good look at all 26 letters, because you never used them all, and the closest you would get is the "dictionary" you would get, but since it was a very low-quality shockwave file, you couldn't look at it too closely to get a good enough idea, either.
I always assumed they found some random font (which, tbh, they probably did) and just threw it on there. That, or they made it up, which was awesome. And since I never found anything about it, I just kept on assuming it was awesome and went on my merry way. I took the character that kind of looked like a "d" (I don't know what character they used it as) and I think I have it as my random icon on a few different sites-- Twitter I know to be one.
UNTIL THURSDAY.
So I'm sitting there looking at this buddha, which I know absolutely jack shit about except that we're currently discussing stupas in terms of temple design and what they are, and under this buddha are TWO TO THREE LINES OF THIS TEXT WHERE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS CODE
AND I'M ALL LIKE "HOLY SHIT OMG I FOUND IT" WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY "OH FUCK NO IT'S NOT ORIGINAL I AM LE SADFACE"
And then the prof decided to not post the presentation, from which I was hoping to steal the image so I could try to tineye it. False! Hahaha, just kidding.
So I googled combinations like "seated buddha sculpture ancient stone hand raised" for about thirty minutes, pretty much ever permutation of ideas ever and then decided to try a library image database. I tried to be a bit more general and tried things like "seated buddha" and "buddha sculpture" and eventually I stumbled upon one that was SIMILAR but not exactly the same sculpture (and was much plainer, had no text, etc.). So I took one of the title words from that, not knowing what it meant and tried Googling it, nothing. Took that back to the art database, found an even closer-looking image! Took a different word from the title/description, tried Googling that, SUCCESS! So then I tried googling/wikipedia-ing that, etc. to try to find more, plus "city name of sculpture + text" and FINALLY came across a wikipedia page that had some ancient script information.
It was very close, but not quite in the ballpark enough yet. So I clicked through to several different pages, and a few more from there, and I have a few pieces here, and a few pieces there, and at this point I think I'm pretty darn close and I need an expert or to sit down side-by-side with the "code" and pick out each one individually.
So... I have completion problems, I guess. Or research fascinates me too much, I don't know. Or I'm too stubborn. OR I'M TOO GOOD AT THE INTERNET.
Anyway.
On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed I've gotten more in shape this week. I call it "skinnyface" from tour but it's usually about three weeks into alldays for me when I realize that I'm exercising and eating well and I have lost weight. I don't know if I can chalk it up to bloating or something? Because it always seems to be something I notice overnight, one day and not any day before, which doesn't seem possible. But at any rate, I've also been very tired and physically worn out again this week, though not feeling sickly-tired like I did two weeks ago. So I don't know? Maybe this trying-to-eat-healthy thing is too much undereating? What I've found is that I am much better about controlling what I eat (that is, not eating too many junk foods) when I control the shopping. I'm still probably not working enough fruits and veggies into my daily diet as opposed to grains and dairy and delicious, delicious pizzas (I'm serious [Red Baron 4-Cheese]), but I'm trying to slowly edge myself into a healthful diet that I enjoy. I could eat a veggie diet that I bet would be supremely healthful but I would probably get sick of it very quickly. Not to mention hooooow fucking expeeensiiiive fruits and veggies are. Well, everything in Hawaii.
So anyway, that's what five-miles-a-day-bicycling-on-all-hills and dropping 75% of the junk food will do.
Last week I tried to make it my mission to, instead of buying lots of frozen things and eating them one day at a time, to buy some bulk food items and make enough for a long time (ignoring the fact that I still have pasta sauce in the fridge and my mom just mailed me two cans of skyline! AUGH OM NOM THE TEMPTATION). I bought shrimp and rice and all the supplies for garlic shrimp, it was STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE. Partly because I now have enough garlic shrimp-making flavorings for, uh, the rest of the year, but whatever. On day three I was already sick of garlic shrimp. What the fuck? I hate my food-moods. I've eaten almost nothing but pizza for about three weeks, this is some crap. I like pizza but I AM TRYING TO GET SOME HEALTHFUL VARIETY UP IN THIS BITCH MIX. I'm mostly pissed because it seems like a waste of money if I'm not going to eat it, WHICH I NEED TO BEFORE IT GOES BAD, and especially if I keep in this pizza-and-italian-food rut for the rest of the semester. Fuck.
So, uh... I'm kinda learning to cook? Not that I can't, given an adequate recipe, it just takes up SO MUCH FUCKING TIME and I HATE IT.
I think next up might be coco loco chicken!!!!!11! though, because ON NOM DELICIOUS but also omg chicken?! With lime curry sauce you bet your ass
It is delicious.
...Aaaaand I didn't do my pushups for this week (again), I am a failure. As much as I would like to be able to do and gain all the benefit from pushups, I JUST HATE IT and I've totally let it slip my mind this week.
Which I'll say is forgiveable since I now have to spend the entire fucking weekend in the stupid studio AGAIN. Free time on a weekend?! What the fuck is that?! I would like to fucking GET OUT ON A BIKE RIDE THANKYOUVERYMUCH
Luckily next weekend is a long weekend with no homework over it aaaaaand the student architecture club is having a sand castle building contest. FOR REALZ, Y'ALL
...Where you win if you can research obscure things? That, or I'm way too fucking stubborn and I insist upon running my results dry time after time.
Other than tracking down sold-out items from over a year ago, I have successfully tracked down a lot of things recently. It has only made me wish that databases were more comprehensive, so instead of searching 50 sites I would only have to search one. This is especially a problem with online shopping, where a small store may have exactly what you want, but it doesn't show up on Google Shopping or Amazon and their site is basically unsearchable or undiscoverable unless someone else points you directly there. BUT I DIGRESS.
Earlier this week our professor challenged us to find a slightly meme-ish image of what looked like the Michael Jackson of zebras. His head was striped, his upper torso was white, his back was striped, and his back legs were white.
First of all, don't google "half white zebra" because you get nothing but pages of "ARE ZEBRAS HALF WHITE WITH BLACK STRIPES OR BLACK WITH WHITE STRIPES LOLOLOL".
Second, in under five minutes I found the image by trying "albino zebra" and then I believe "partially albino zebra" which led me to a page about zorses. And zonies. Which are half zebras, half horse/pony, and are generally bred in Africa (much like other places get donkeys, and they are most often sterile as well) because zebras have some natural biological defenses they can pass on.
Uh and then in class Thursday we were talking about what a temple is, thematically, and for a brief few moments the prof had an image of a buddha on the screen, of course with no source. HOWEVER I realized that under this seated buddha was a script that was too familiar... A script from the old online COSI: Adventure game that was linked from their site (to LiveScience?) a while back. I think the game is still up if you have a direct link.
ANYWAY, the online game was based slightly on the Adventure! exhibit, but without a lot of the originality, probably because of time/money constraints. (I'm not complaining, it was made for 8 year olds, approximately, I'm most likely the only person who ever cared.) However, given my extensive gradeschool examination of Egyptology, I recognized that one of the... uh... sacred items? that they used in the game was a slightly photoshopped version of an Egyptian alabaster papyrus-lotus vase.
Anyway, eventually you have to crack a code, and if there's one thing about me, I LOVE CODES. I was always upset though that you never got a good look at all 26 letters, because you never used them all, and the closest you would get is the "dictionary" you would get, but since it was a very low-quality shockwave file, you couldn't look at it too closely to get a good enough idea, either.
I always assumed they found some random font (which, tbh, they probably did) and just threw it on there. That, or they made it up, which was awesome. And since I never found anything about it, I just kept on assuming it was awesome and went on my merry way. I took the character that kind of looked like a "d" (I don't know what character they used it as) and I think I have it as my random icon on a few different sites-- Twitter I know to be one.
UNTIL THURSDAY.
So I'm sitting there looking at this buddha, which I know absolutely jack shit about except that we're currently discussing stupas in terms of temple design and what they are, and under this buddha are TWO TO THREE LINES OF THIS TEXT WHERE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS CODE
AND I'M ALL LIKE "HOLY SHIT OMG I FOUND IT" WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY "OH FUCK NO IT'S NOT ORIGINAL I AM LE SADFACE"
And then the prof decided to not post the presentation, from which I was hoping to steal the image so I could try to tineye it. False! Hahaha, just kidding.
So I googled combinations like "seated buddha sculpture ancient stone hand raised" for about thirty minutes, pretty much ever permutation of ideas ever and then decided to try a library image database. I tried to be a bit more general and tried things like "seated buddha" and "buddha sculpture" and eventually I stumbled upon one that was SIMILAR but not exactly the same sculpture (and was much plainer, had no text, etc.). So I took one of the title words from that, not knowing what it meant and tried Googling it, nothing. Took that back to the art database, found an even closer-looking image! Took a different word from the title/description, tried Googling that, SUCCESS! So then I tried googling/wikipedia-ing that, etc. to try to find more, plus "city name of sculpture + text" and FINALLY came across a wikipedia page that had some ancient script information.
It was very close, but not quite in the ballpark enough yet. So I clicked through to several different pages, and a few more from there, and I have a few pieces here, and a few pieces there, and at this point I think I'm pretty darn close and I need an expert or to sit down side-by-side with the "code" and pick out each one individually.
So... I have completion problems, I guess. Or research fascinates me too much, I don't know. Or I'm too stubborn. OR I'M TOO GOOD AT THE INTERNET.
Anyway.
On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed I've gotten more in shape this week. I call it "skinnyface" from tour but it's usually about three weeks into alldays for me when I realize that I'm exercising and eating well and I have lost weight. I don't know if I can chalk it up to bloating or something? Because it always seems to be something I notice overnight, one day and not any day before, which doesn't seem possible. But at any rate, I've also been very tired and physically worn out again this week, though not feeling sickly-tired like I did two weeks ago. So I don't know? Maybe this trying-to-eat-healthy thing is too much undereating? What I've found is that I am much better about controlling what I eat (that is, not eating too many junk foods) when I control the shopping. I'm still probably not working enough fruits and veggies into my daily diet as opposed to grains and dairy and delicious, delicious pizzas (I'm serious [Red Baron 4-Cheese]), but I'm trying to slowly edge myself into a healthful diet that I enjoy. I could eat a veggie diet that I bet would be supremely healthful but I would probably get sick of it very quickly. Not to mention hooooow fucking expeeensiiiive fruits and veggies are. Well, everything in Hawaii.
So anyway, that's what five-miles-a-day-bicycling-on-all-hills and dropping 75% of the junk food will do.
Last week I tried to make it my mission to, instead of buying lots of frozen things and eating them one day at a time, to buy some bulk food items and make enough for a long time (ignoring the fact that I still have pasta sauce in the fridge and my mom just mailed me two cans of skyline! AUGH OM NOM THE TEMPTATION). I bought shrimp and rice and all the supplies for garlic shrimp, it was STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE. Partly because I now have enough garlic shrimp-making flavorings for, uh, the rest of the year, but whatever. On day three I was already sick of garlic shrimp. What the fuck? I hate my food-moods. I've eaten almost nothing but pizza for about three weeks, this is some crap. I like pizza but I AM TRYING TO GET SOME HEALTHFUL VARIETY UP IN THIS BITCH MIX. I'm mostly pissed because it seems like a waste of money if I'm not going to eat it, WHICH I NEED TO BEFORE IT GOES BAD, and especially if I keep in this pizza-and-italian-food rut for the rest of the semester. Fuck.
So, uh... I'm kinda learning to cook? Not that I can't, given an adequate recipe, it just takes up SO MUCH FUCKING TIME and I HATE IT.
I think next up might be coco loco chicken!!!!!11! though, because ON NOM DELICIOUS but also omg chicken?! With lime curry sauce you bet your ass
It is delicious.
...Aaaaand I didn't do my pushups for this week (again), I am a failure. As much as I would like to be able to do and gain all the benefit from pushups, I JUST HATE IT and I've totally let it slip my mind this week.
Which I'll say is forgiveable since I now have to spend the entire fucking weekend in the stupid studio AGAIN. Free time on a weekend?! What the fuck is that?! I would like to fucking GET OUT ON A BIKE RIDE THANKYOUVERYMUCH
Luckily next weekend is a long weekend with no homework over it aaaaaand the student architecture club is having a sand castle building contest. FOR REALZ, Y'ALL
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