Whenever I see someone that is interested in a very specific niche and obviously expends a lot of effort towards it, I'm always in awe. How did they become interested in the topic? Why choose this specific thing? How do they keep their motivation to continue with it?
I've personally never really felt like I've cared enough about anything this much. Because of this, I've always felt like I'm missing something in life. I would love to be passionate about something as much as Junnn11 is about Arthropods.
My mind goes to the guy that packaged 1/3 of all Arch packages in the official repo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqMf6XFacR8&pp=ygUKZGlzdHJvd...
I come across him whenever I am trying to figure out what a specific distro or tool _looks and feels_ like. If you search any distro name plus "distrotube" there is probably a video of him setting it up and playing around with it.
I have wondered about this guys background before and finally looked it up tonight.
> Despite the geekiness of my content, I have never actually worked in IT or a computer-related industry. Although Linux and technology have always been my hobby, I worked in the retail industry until recently. In 2020, with the pandemic and the subsequent shutdown, I lost the job that I had at the time. The retailer that I worked for went bankrupt and cut most of their supervisory positions (including mine). Thankfully, I already had a side job of sorts—making YouTube videos! So since the pandemic started, my full-time job has been making video content.
> I have been strictly a Linux user since 2008. The distro that I currently run is ArcoLinux with the xmonad window manager. Some of the software that I use daily includes GIMP (for graphics), Kdenlive (video editing), Audacity (audio editing), and OBS (for recording/streaming video). I also use a distribution of Emacs called Doom Emacs. It is my preferred text editor, although I often use Vim as well, especially if I am already in a terminal.
from https://people.zsa.io/derek-taylor/
Which still leaves a lot of mystery to the "how did he get into this" question.
(Previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31261533)
Magic happens when you find someone with the same weird interest: emulation brings innovation through iterations!
Maybe someday I'll find someone interested in running Excel through wine rendering in Sixels within a terminal :)
And before you ask, yes I've enjoyed way too much reading about https://github.com/taviso/123elf and the history behind it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUDX6amkHOg
It's in mandarin but CC translate works.
That can lead to very positive output. The flip side is that my mind starts going in circles repeating the same thoughts over and over again.
Nothing wrong with being neurodivergent, don't see why this would discredit the contributor.
I myself have tried to force myself into one (or more) passions. Never works. I'm 34 now and part of me is just (radically) accepting my ADHD. That's not to say I cannot cultivate discipline. Rather, it's just working with what I got and I'm one of the people who like hopping from one thing to the next: T-Shaped.
Today (34 as well!) I've managed to narrow this down with trying numerous video games and exploring political topics that interest me, and occasionally a few side dev projects.
Finding routines I enjoy has created stability overall.
Jerry (on Keith Hernandez): Yeah, he's a real smart guy too. He's a Civil War buff. George: I'd love to be a Civil War buff. What do you have to do to be a buff?
Spearing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20220123_stomatopod_strik...
Smashing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20220123_stomatopod_strik...
In case they manage to find this thread: @Junnn1, do these biomechanic animations incorporate the dynamics, or maybe just the kinematics of the physical forms? Is there anywhere (i.e. blog) where you discuss the techniques you use to develop your animations?
My first thought was that it might be the same person, since they had a Japanese username! But I don't think it actually is; the Sketchfab person has all kinds of natural models. Here's the account in case anyone is interested: https://sketchfab.com/ffishAsia-and-floraZia/models
https://www.zum.de/stueber/haeckel/kunstformen/natur.html
(unfortunately only the low resolution images (Bildschirmauflösung) are still available on the page)
https://www.rawpixel.com/search/ernst%20haeckel?page=1&sort=...
I've got several of these on my walls :)
https://archive.org/details/Kunstformen-der-Natur-PHAIDRA_o_...
In my grade school times, we had this really dedicated biology teacher who believed that being able to properly copy illustrations from books is the key element to understand lesson's subject. So we draw all these organisms, bacteria and viruses with pencils and colored em with either gray shades or pencil crayons and described parts.
It’s been mind expanding to say the least - I thought I spent my whole life seeing, but I realized I saw nothing until I took my first sketching/figure drawing class. Drawing is seeing.
[1] http://ing.univaq.it/continenza/Corso%20di%20Disegno%20dell%...
Some interesting videos for laymen:
Michael Levin - Cell Intelligence in Physiological and Morphological Spaces https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLiHLDrOTW8
SubAnima - How NOT To Think About Cells https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPhvic-eqbc (this channel has a lot of other great explainers)
https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13...
Only yesterday I was reading the WP page on Camel Spiders, saw the chewing animation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Junnn11#/media/File:20220..., and thought it was quite cool!
/s
Props for alphabetical ordering though
I wonder how common it is for folks to try to understand some new field in order to build something vs. the other way around vs. just outsourcing that expertise.
It's enough to make you want to have a pet arthropod, or a Pokémon game based on real creatures.
Aren't insects such as beetles somewhat popular pets in Japan, and wasn't catching and collecting a major inspiration for the Pokémon games? (Not to mention the bug catching minigame in Animal Crossing?)
They're kind of underappreciated in the US, which is too bad.
https://www.deviantart.com/albertonykus/art/The-Cartoon-Guid...
I kept trying to use it for finding reference material for a game I was working on, except every query I tried returned results like I had suffixed porn to the search. Maybe deviant is doing more of the heavy lifting in the name now...
I haven’t used deviantart for 15+ years but I still remember the site and a small chain of followers dearly.
I looked at search results and didn’t notice any changes in my sample queries (elf, goblin, potato), they looked similar to what I’d expect 15 years ago.
(if you ever read this:) )
it is a long-standing zoological dispute concerning the segmental composition of the heads of the various arthropod groups
Anyways, lots of mediawiki devs hang out on #mediawiki on irc.libera.org irc channel. If you want to get involved come say hi.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hac...
Someone has a lot of time on their hands…
