lazar-codes

[lazar-codes]

14/01/2025 (ignore the fact that I'm posting this after midnight)

My goal for this week was to finish the desktop version of my portfolio website, but I was in the zone and am nearly finished both that and the mobile version! I'm really happy with how it's turning out! Soon, I won't be ashamed to show people my portfolio. Also, once this is finished, I can start creating stuff for practice/fun again.

[lazar-codes]

13/01/2025

Here I was thinking that I'd "quickly" work on my portfolio, since I want to get the desktop version finished before the semester starts again in a week, and, well...I got sucked into the process:

However, I made some solid progress! I have most of the stuff done (the "art" tab is empty for now, and I still need do draw a photo of myself). It took me ages to get the tabs on the top right to change the colour depending on the active tab, but I finally got it! Also, those modals were tough, but I'm glad I finally got them (mostly) finished. I'm really happy with how I did the information in the modals, and I was able to add the information dynamically, given the current project being open. Plus, you can test the project directly in the modal (using the iframe tag), or click the link that'll take you outside the portfolio. I still need to properly style the inside of the modal, but I'm happy with the progress!

[lazar-codes]

08/01/2025

So, funnily enough my dad uses my little Wordle replica quite regularly (both for himself and for his students learning English), and he reached out and asked for me to change the colours so they don't appear dark on his projector. So...I made a dark-mode toggle. It took me about 2 hours, and I actually learned something while doing it; using [data-theme] in CSS and manipulating it with JS. Basically, this lets me declare my desired colours for dark mode and light mode as variables with the same name, meaning I don't need to copy and paste the exact rgb values for every corresponding element, and I don't have to separate each element by "light" and "dark" mode. I can declare my variables and their corresponding colours just twice (one for dark, the other for light) and I can toggle between them using JS.

I also added the functionality of storing the status of "dark mode" in local storage; that way, if the user clicks on the button and refreshes the page, the page will remain the appropriate colour scheme. Yay.

There's a part of me that's wondering whether or not I should add the hidden word to local storage, so it doesn't change on refresh, and instead only changes when the user clicks a button...it's weird to think that I'm touching this project again 1.5 years later.

I also worked a bit more on my portfolio, and this time working with modals. I can open and close them now, but I still need to figure out how to close them by clicking outside of the modal...that's a tomorrow problem. And I still need to re-format the modal.

[lazar-codes]

07/01/2025

I spent nearly 3 hours programming today after not touching VS Code since last March or so. I decided to re-work my portfolio (for the 3rd or 4th time) to make it more professional-looking, and I'm really liking how it's turning out. I spent a good amount of time googling the basic CSS stuff, because naturally I've forgotten a lot, but it was still fun!

[lazar-codes]

New Year, New Update!

Here I am, sitting in my living room a day after the New Year, and I'm suddenly bursting with inspiration and motivation! Ironically, I had no motivation yesterday (on Jan 1st) to do anything or set any goals, but I suppose one day late is no problem.

Edit: It's now Jan 6th and I have been falling asleep at 3am every night because my brain is on fire with new ideas for projects, both with regards to art and programming. Literally, last night I was dozing off (at 2am...shh...) and I got a programming idea that I can so clearly visualize. It took all the strength in the world not to open my laptop and start coding, though I did sketch it out on my iPad. Maybe that'll be the project that gets me back into programming. I can't promise that I'll be posting updates here, because I'll be honest, sometimes posting here feels like a chore rather than something fun. I'm also just doing things as I feel like it, now that it's my winter break and the next semester starts on January 20th. It's been very freeing to just do whatever I want.

[lazar-codes]

Why did the programmer quit his job? … .. . He lost his drive.

[lazar-codes]

I submitted my final assignment for this semester (a literature review on Generative AI and its impact on artists), and I'm flying to Scotland for a few days tmr with one of my housemates. I'm exhausted, and I already can't wait until I'm back to just rot in bed

[lazar-codes]

reblog with a book that you have read this year and would like to suggest 📚📖📗📑📔🍵☕

[lazar-codes]

Random Rambles, part 2

It's nearly 10pm on a Tuesday, and while I'm supposed to be doing school-work, I have some thoughts. So here we go!

School

I'm nearly done with my first semester of my Master's in Human Computer Interaction, and I'm excited to complete it. This semester has been tricky, and it's mostly because lectures usually start at 3pm. Sleeping in is really nice, but my sleep schedule is super messed up because I do schoolwork after class, and I want to have some time to do things for myself (read, Netflix, or draw), so I end up staying up until 1am. I did do some volunteer stuff this weekend and so far it has fixed my sleep schedule (working in a festival for the weekend ensures that I'm wiped out by 11pm), but that can easily get messed up again.

My classes themselves are alright, they just require a lot of reading. A lot of the content of my classes is what I covered in my undergrad as a health science student, which is odd. Although, while I took a UXD course in my undergrad, it focused on "task-centred system design", whereas now we're doing "user-centred design". In fact, my group project involves building an app to its hi-fi prototype stage. We're finishing up the low-fi prototype and I'm happy with how it's looking. I might even take it a step further on my own and program it...we'll see. It's a little intimidating to work on this project, mostly because all of my groupmates have industry experience with graphic design and I don't. But hey, I'm learning.

Related to school news; I'm taking a class called "Data and Society" and it's the most depressing class I've ever taken, but I really like it. The themes of this class are essentially that big corporations are taking our data and using it for advertising purposes, or for targeting people, or for separating people. Basically, our data is being used for bad, and rarely for the improvement of society. And the more papers I read on this topic, the more tired I am of being in this type of world. I'm already taking a step back from social media and such (I basically only use it to post art), but there's a part of me that now really, really, wants to live in the mountains away from it all. Of course, I'd still like my Netflix, but the rest can go away. 

That being said, my classes have certainly made me want to look into stuff like data/media preservation, and ethical data collection and such. Does it feel like fighting a losing battle? Yes, but I still want to try. 

Coding

I finally logged onto Github after months. Will I get back into programming soon? Probably not, though I'm tempted to do Advent of Code to dip my toes back into it. Or maybe I'll get into app development...we'll see. Like I said, I have a project for school that I can code in the future, so I might do that. 

Ok, I need to get back to school-work. Those papers aren't going to read themselves.

[lazar-codes]

I love that now that I'm back in school, I have the motivation to do everything except for school. Read a book (or 3)? Draw so many pages/illustrations? Learn how to use gouache? Learn how to animate? Continue watching that tv show I've been putting off? Finally finish the video game I really only place once a week? Yes to all. It's like I can't go out and do stuff in public, because I feel like I should be at home doing school-work, but since I'm home I can do all these other things, right...?

[lazar-codes]

It feels really weird to be back in school after a little over a year. What do you mean I have to continue to do schoolwork after coming home? Or that I can't do my weekly extracurricular activities because I have to do schoolwork? Also, why am I so tired when I literally just had 1 class for the day and woke up at 10, when 2 months ago I woke up at 6:30am for 4 days and worked 8.5 hours, yet didn't feel tired then? Anyways, being back at school has been interesting, to say the least

[lazar-codes]

I just want to pop in and say that today marks 1 week of me living in Ireland for school! Classes start tmr, so this is when the real fun begins!

[lazar-codes]

Random Rambles

Note: I originally wrote this on June 17th and just stored it in my drafts to rot, but then I thought I might as well let the world hear me yapping, so here you go! There might be more to come in the near future.

TLDR: I talk about a lot of useless stuff, like my thoughts on productivity and art. Basically; being solely focused on productivity == not good, and art is fun again.

I have random strings of thought going on in my head and so I'm just gonna write and see where it takes me.

Thought 1 - Productivity:

I want to say that I haven't been a productive person these last few months, but that's not true. However, I feel like this "productiveness" that I've been doing isn't what a lot of "productivity-focused" people would consider productive. I've been seeing a lot of posts online about how to become more productive, or maximize the result by minimizing effort, hustle culture, etc... and idk if it's because I'm getting older or what (sure, I'm in my mid-20s, but mentally I'm 84), but to me this is so unbelievably un-maintainable. I get wanting to improve at stuff, but you'll burnout so fast and feel like shit after, I don't know why people go through that. Hell, that's how I felt with programming; it's super exciting to get started on it, but after months of going at it with very little breaks, it's hard to get back into it once you stop because you realize you don't like it as much as you did at the start, and that's fine. It doesn't mean you're a failure, it just means it's time for a break and to try something else. It feels like there's an expectation to have your identity tied to one thing only, but that's not right. Imagine how nice it is being able to do multiple things in different fields. You can switch your focus to work on something completely different while waiting to recharge. Sometimes it's better to take things nice and slow (if time permits, that is), and enjoy the process rather than the product. The problem is that that's not how the world works, and that sucks. At this point in time, it's a struggle to have a work-life balance for most careers, especially with the rise of hustle culture and gig jobs. And so I guess in my own way, I will continue to quietly rebel against that while I can and accept that it's ok not to be 100% "productive" and to spend time doing things I enjoy, even if it doesn't lead me anywhere in the long run. Ok, this is the end of this line of thought.

Thought 2 - Art:

Now, I want to talk a bit about art. I've recently been watching random videos on the art community and its drama, and oh god. Apparently the community in some apps is really bad, and I can't wrap my brain around why that is. For example, I heard that a lot of artists are discouraging and mocking new artists because of their lack of skill with regards to anatomy and style. I can't even comprehend why someone would do that...? At some point in everyone's life they're a beginner at something, and instead of helping them rise and being excited that someone wants to enter this new world, people put them down. It makes absolutely no sense. Before I started doing art for myself, I hated doing it and would only draw for class in elementary school. But after a teacher gave me an "A" in art class, I was so encouraged to continue because someone believed in me and thought I was good, and that feeling helped me enjoy art. And to think that instead of giving new artists these feelings people just shut them down, is so disheartening. How do you form a community if everyone rejects everyone else? I've been doing art for myself for 12 years now and have gone through long periods of no art, followed by some small bursts of inspiration, and the thing that I remember the most fondly is the friends I made and how excited I was for those specific people to see what I've created. And we'd all hype up each others' art, which motivated us to do more art, and it was the best positive feedback loop one could ask for. And now, things seem so separated and divided and discouraging.

But I'm not all doom and gloom here today. The reason what I said above is bothering me so much is because I've gotten a sudden burst of art inspiration this year, and even though I don't know what sparked it, I'm riding this wave out as long as I can, and I'm having such a good time! For the past 3 years I've been sketching in pen and hated it, but after spending 3 months doing pencil, I've gone back to pen and have fallen in love with it again. A lot of people say that drawing in pen improves your art because it forces you to think about what lines to draw and helps you draw faster, but I realized that those are the reasons why I wouldn't want to draw in pen. Instead, I've found that pen allows me to commit to my mistakes, and instead of being bummed about the sketch not looking perfect, I'm forced to continue and am encouraged to capture the overall vibe rather than the small, perfect, details. And you know what? I love that! Sure, I'll fill a whole page of ugly sketches, but when I'm flipping through my sketchbook and see those again, I don't think they're ugly at all. They convey an idea, and if I want to expand on it and make it pretty, I know that I can. As for the second point of drawing faster; like I said in Thought 1, I think it's better to take things slow and focus on enjoying the process instead of the result. I think it also stems from going against the productivity mindset and the whole short-attention span thing that we all apparently have, where instead of getting things done right away so you can move onto the next thing, you should just sit and focus on one thing at a time and get completely sucked into it. My last finished art piece took nearly 7 hours, and I might get back to it and change some things, but those 7 hours feel like they went by so fast because I was having so much fun! And I think that's the ultimate thing; are you having fun? Because if not, then why bother? And that can be applied to any hobby. I think that's why I'm not doing any coding projects at the moment, because I'm not having fun and I see it as a chore when it shouldn't be.

Thought 3 - Fanart and TV shows:

Now, a lot of my hobbies go through phases, where at most I'll be into 2 different hobbies at the same time. Luckily, hobby 1 (watching tv shows) is directly motivating hobby 2 (art) and I've got such a good cycle of working in my sketchbook because I'm obsessed with the show I'm watching (Money Heist) and drawing so much fanart. And as a side-note, I've only posted 2 digital pieces of fanart for the show and have refrained from looking up existing fanart (I'm avoiding spoilers like the plague), and I gotta say, it feels super isolating because I'm not sharing any of this with anyone, but it also feels really freeing? Like, I have no idea how other people draw the characters or what they like/dislike about the show. I feel like I'm a kid again without internet, just drawing what I want because I like it and the subject matter, not to just show other people. Sure, I already have a piece that I posted and want people to see, but again, I had so much fun working on it that attention to it is merely an afterthought and not the goal. Not only is that cool, but I'm also enjoying something without knowing what the general population thinks about it, and that's so freeing! There's no bias going into it because I haven't heard anything about it. Man...if you can't tell, I'm having such a good time. It's kinda making me want to abandon social media so that way I can experience a bunch of new stories without knowing anything about it beforehand. It's a shame I'm too addicted to scrolling...

[lazar-codes]

24/06/2024

I'm not dead, I'm just taking a long break from coding and am working more (apparently being on-call for a retail job is 100% possible and I'm trying not to regret it). This blog may be more active starting in September, but for now I decided I want to actually learn the art fundamentals despite being an artist for 12 years now, and I wanted to show my next piece where I use perspective and I'm posting it here because this counts as learning. I don't think I'll post more art-related studies on this blog; I mainly just wanted to say that I haven't abandoned this blog.

[lazar-codes]

06/03/2024 || Day 21 (dop)

TLDR:

🔸 practised ASL fingerspelling

🔸 went to ASL class

🔸 cleaned my room

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I was gonna be productive today, but I got an email from a school in Ireland saying that I got accepted in their Human-Computer Interaction Master program, so I couldn't focus on anything today. I still need to think it over and accept, but yeah, that's cool!. That, plus I'm flying to my home-town tmr and I'm a nervous flyer, so my brain has not cooperated with me today.

[lazar-codes]

05/03/2024 || Day 20 (dop)

TLDR:

🔸 practised ASL fingerspelling

🔸 learned arrays in PHP

🔸 sketched a page in my sketchbook

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Work

5in5weeks - I only covered 1 thing in PHP today, and that was arrays. When watching the video on them, I was thinking that they function more like dictionaries or maps, and had that suspicion confirmed when I went on the official documentation and it said that "An array in PHP is actually an ordered map". Good thing I've worked with maps a lot in my personal projects...

💌 Day 2: What are your three goals with learning PHP?

Honestly, my only goal is to get the basics of PHP down so that I can get familiar with it and maybe work more with it to the point that I'm comfortable enough with adding it to my resume. I'll look at what type of projects I can build using PHP later.

[lazar-codes]

04/03/2024 || Day 19 (dop)

TLDR:

🔸 practised ASL fingerspelling

🔸 started learning PHP

🔸 started learning Blender

🔸 sketched a page in my sketchbook

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Work

Volunteering - Last week was tiring, but fun! The event that I was volunteering at focused on people with intellectual disabilities, and I was part of the health screening section (though I was merely recording data, not conducting the screening). This event had people from all over Canada too. Because of that I had to brush up my french skills, which I haven't used in nearly 8+ years, so that was a struggle. What was less of a struggle was communicating with ASL!! I had one person who was deaf and when I realized it I was able to sign to him! Mind you, when he signed back I didn't 100% understand him because I was too focused on what I was signing, and I definitely made a few mistakes, but I'm still really happy!

5in5weeks - Ok, @izicodes made a challenge 2 years ago to spend 5 weeks learning 5 programming languages, and I thought that was a super good idea and that it would help with my burnout. (link to the project can be found here). Now, I'm gonna be taking weekends off (and I'm out of town for the next few days later this week), so I won't be doing this daily, but I'm gonna try my best not to take random days off. That being said, I'm starting this off with PHP! I covered some basics today by watching a youtube playlist, and I probably won't get through all 100+ videos in a week, but my aim with this challenge is to get the basics done and create something simple. After this challenge, I'll delve deeper into the languages that I like.

💌 Day 1: What are you most looking forward in learning PHP?

I had to use PHP for a class about 2 years ago and I asked my friend to help me (because I had no idea what was going on and it wasn't taught in class), and he basically did the work. Now, I keep on seeing PHP as a requirement for job applications, so I decided to finally get started on learning it. I actually applied for a job half a year ago and they emailed me asking if I knew PHP, and having to say no made me feel like garbage. So...time to change that.

Art - I've been wanting to delve into 3D art for a while now. 3 years ago I looked up the classic donut tutorial for Blender, but that's it. Now I'm gonna do the same thing, but this time progress past the tutorial and actually make things on the regular with it. Hopefully I will be as obsessed with it as I was when I was first learning how to draw, and just pump out as much as I can (quality doesn't matter at the starting point). There's just so much to the interface for Blender that you need to learn...it's overwhelming and intimidating.