Golden Flowers

A few days ago I found a field full of bright yellow flowers. It looked kind of nice, so I started taking pictures. My main goal was to get a photo which showed the vast number of flowers, without any extra information that might distract the mind. I ended up with this:

CG Earth

You may have noticed that my blog background changed a couple days ago. I've been meaning to change it for quite a while, but I didn't get around to it. Then, a few days ago, I had some free time on my hands. Why not create a 3D model of Earth, I wondered? So I pulled up Blender (a free computer graphics program I use) and got to work.

Overview of Functions

Imagine you have a blender. To your blender, you add a couple scoops of ice cream and some milk. Then you press the buttons on the blender. Soon, you have a delicious vanilla milkshake. Next, you add strawberries and press buttons again. The result is even better than before: a strawberry milkshake.

Input

Output

Of course, strawberries aren't the only option. Suppose that, instead of strawberries, you added cocoa powder and avocado. The result is a chocolate-avocado milkshake. Or you could have added some mint leaves, for a mint milkshake. Or some peaches, for a peach milkshake.

In each of these cases, you pick the ingredient, and get a different milkshake. Whatever ingredient you pick, the result is always a milkshake. In other words, the blender took your ingredients, and returned a flavor of milkshake.

The blender is like a function.

Is MSG Safe?

Monosodium glutamate, commonly abbreviated MSG, is a very common chemical used to enhance flavors in food. MSG works by activating the "umami" receptors on the tongue, effectively enhancing flavors and making food taste a lot better. This is similar to the way sodium chloride (table salt) works, but MSG is much more powerful, so sodium content can be reduced by adding MSG to food. For this reason, many food companies use MSG as a food additive.

Despite these apparent advantages, most people would agree that MSG is unhealthy and should be avoided. Sensitive individuals even experience negative side effects after consuming food containing MSG. But what exactly is wrong with MSG? If a person is not MSG sensitive, is it okay for them to consume it in their food?

Nature GIFs

I recently created a couple of nature-themed animated GIFs. (Click the images to view larger.)

The first image is a blossoming tree. I thought the tree looked pretty, but I realized that part of the beauty came from the gentle swaying in the wind. So I decided to animate the image.