Quality of Life

Some people like to say, "Eat well, do good, get exercise, and die anyway," as some sort of excuse for partying, being unhealthy and/or being inconsiderate. This logic has no place in a happy, fulfilling and successful life. Regardless of when you die, you want the life you live today, and tomorrow to be the best life you can possibly have. There is no excuse for not doing the best for yourself and the best you can for those you love. Even if I were going to die in six months, I still would continue my diet exactly as I do (if not do even better) because I want the highest quality for my life. The quantity is quite irrelevant.

~Raederle Phoenix Jacot

"Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?" ~ M. C. Escher

Friday, October 29, 2010

Overpopulation



A comment someone left on this video (minus the swearing), went as thus:

Your math is wrong. World population is 6,908,688,000, Texas is 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft. Divide it and it's 1084.76 sq ft/person, that's enough for a small house.

My reply:

If each person learned about 'forest gardening' -- a technique of growing produce -- that would be enough land for each person to live off of. I've learned enough about agriculture and gardening to know that with today's technology (and without it if you live in the right climate) a family can live off of a piece of land the size of a standard mattress. Also, most people would not be living alone, so families would have enough space to own a full-size house.

A family of four would have 4339 square feet of land. If the house has two or three stories, that is indeed plenty of space.

Someone asked me, "What about sewage?"

My response: Ideally, there would be a deep hole dug (about the size of a well, but not deep enough to hit water), for each property, and drain contents would enter into the hole. Soil would be added to the hole regularly and the earth would naturally recycle the waste. But that's just the environmentally ideal solution for sewage.

Technically, there is no reason why underground sewage tunnels couldn't still be built and lead to some place to be "treated" or whatever.








I'm interested in learning more about this topic, so if you have an opinions or facts you want to throw out there, please comment.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Board Game Illustration

It's a dream of mine to illustrate book covers of fantasy novels and also to illustrate board games (and creative card games as well.) I love digital painting, and have even decided to create a blog dedicated to talking about my art projects and thoughts on art overall. Perhaps I'll even create tutorials in the future on digital painting.

I went to a board game gathering recently and met a couple board game designers and played their game. I told them I was an artist and was interested in working for them if they needed someone. One of them gave me their card, and I wrote her today:

Awesome Girl,

Hi! I just checked out the website. I'm also a web-designer so I had to check and make sure your site was good. I know a lot of people struggle with online presence because of a poor template, but I was glad to see that your site is perfectly functional, well organized, and designed in such a way that is appropriate, even if it isn't exactly exciting.

I notice your card says you're the "Marketing Director." I'm wondering what methods you're using besides attending board-game meetups and having a card, website and facebook. If you don't have a blog and a twitter, you should consider it. It's a great way to bring attention to yourself and what you're doing and keep people checking back.

(I run five active blogs at a time, as well as a twitter and constantly updating my facebook to keep people traveling to my site. Although I'm mostly trying to spread word about my cause more than what I have to offer in services/products at the moment. When my book is published though, it'll be good that I already have such a well-established online presence.)

My online portfolio is here: http://phoenix-muse.darkfolio.com/

I really hope you're interested in hiring me for something or other because I'm very passionate about board games and really want to get involved in creating them. I've done artwork for logos, websites, an array of graphics for fliers, banners, buttons, shirts, etc, as well as designing countless signs, postcards, business cards, and pamphlets.

I've done custom artwork for tattoos and even for a writer who wanted a drawing of their main character. But I've never done board game illustration for anyone but myself.

I actually have three very extensively designed board games that I created entirely myself, but being a freelance artist doesn't make me the kind of start-up money to even create prototypes of any of games I created. My only prototype was so cheaply created that I couldn't even get into testing it because I'm so aesthetically inclined that playing with a cheap mock-up made the game experience difficult to enjoy.

Even if you don't require an artist, I also can write professionally (as well as creatively), edit, run a twitter and/or blog for your business, create any of the things I named above (for example: new spiffy business cards featuring your next game), or even offer my ideas for new game designs.

Perhaps I'll see you at another meetup soon and we can talk in person more about what your business needs are, what your budget is, what the goals are, and so forth, after you've seen my portfolio and had some time to think about it.

Best wishes, hugs, and a Happy Halloween!


Well, let's hope it develops into something awesome.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Drinking Affects Your Image

I started drinking here and there at the age of fourteen and quit at the age of eighteen. I quit because I realized that how I behaved when I drank was embarrassing, inappropriate, and harmful.

We've all seen someone saying something stupid while they're drunk. That's a no-brainer.

Interestingly, new evidence shows that drinking is bad for your image even if you're not drunk.

According to a working paper from the University of Michigan's Scott Rick and the University of Pennsylvania's Maurice Schweitzer, just holding a glass of alcohol makes you look stupid. Regardless of gender or the type of drink, if people see you drinking, they think less of your intelligence.

"It hurts you," Rick says, a Ph.D. in Behavioral Decision Research.

The study conducted five experiments.

One experiment had people judge photographs of others holding an alcoholic drink, a non-alcoholic one or nothing.

Another experiment tested how persuasive a speech would be if the audience knew the speaker was drinking alcohol or something nonalcoholic.

In both cases, alcohol dimmed the perceived intelligence of the people holding the drinks.

One of the experiments put together job seeking and alcohol. Let's say a potential employer takes you, the potential employee, to dinner. The study shows that when you order a glass of wine or a beer, the employer views you as less desirable; even if the employer orders a drink as well.

Worse still, the study found that when that even if the drink you're holding was ordered for you "the bias still exists," Rick says.

"There are so many associations with alcohol," he adds. And very few of them are positive, as Rick's study reminds us.

I notice that this is true for myself. When I look at other people drinking I think to myself, "What a waste of money," and "What a waste of time," and "Doesn't that person care about their health?" Of course, I also have those thoughts when I see people drinking soda.

~ Raederle Phoenix

Adapted some information from an article written by Paul Kix