QuestionBae

Projectile Penetration Time and -Depth of Non-Deforming Bullets

Anyone who brought it upon themselves to write an overly realistic bullet simulation for their game will inevitably come to a point where they discover – this isn’t so realistic, why do bullets just disappear when they hit a wall?. While the majority of game developers shrug, research the subject for about 13.2 seconds, ignore the subject completely and wear a blank expression for the rest of their programming days, I, dear reader, decided to embrace the pain.

Panoptesv has published an excellent write-up on different penetration regimes [Accessed 9th of August, 2019]. This guide details pretty much every situation you can dream of in projectile penetration. Both non-deforming- and deforming bullets. Low, high and intermediate speed regimes – although these are only analytically solvable for the non-deforming bullets. There’s even some pointers on how to handle thin wall penetrations. It’s definitely not complete, but it’s a good beginners’ starting point compared to much of the published literature from the 70’s on the subject.

What is the problem?

The problem with Panoptesv‘s excellent article is that what is given is the penetration depth of these situations, but not this depth with time nor the remaining velocity. This is where the problem lies – the frame rate of your bullet simulation will likely not exceed about 60 FPS, or 16.6(7) ms per frame. This is plenty fast if your simulations occur completely within one medium – say, air. But, as soon as another medium, such as drywall, is entered, you are working with fractional physics simulation steps. An example:

The time frame of a 9x19mm Para bullet (diameter = 9 mm, mass = 8 g) penetrating something under the assumption of non-deforming bullets is not going to exceed about 1 ms, and it will penetrate into the target for about 88 cm. So? That means penetration is much faster than the framerate – why bother simulating it? Because, the residual velocity of the bullet depends on how deep your bullet penetrates. And, if your bullet penetrates 50 cm of drywall when it could penetrate 88 cm, it’s gonna come out the other end. You’ll need to know how far along the penetration your bullet is at that point, otherwise you can’t come up with accurate residual velocities. Furthermore, if your physics simulation has less than 1 ms left to be simulated, your bullet will need to stop being simulated in the middle of the drywall, only to be further simulated as the next physics simulation frame comes around.

How are you gonna solve it?

I’ve spent about a full day (13:00-21:00, a typical day) converting the non-deforming bullet formulae from penetration as a function of velocity to penetration as a function of time, and time as a function of penetration. I made several lucky guesses which sped up the process, but then I hit the roadblock that is called What is the average value of x(t) = Log(1+x'(t)^2)? I’ve solved it all, though, here’s the results (and a nice graph to show you I solved something! Fancy!).

Non-deforming projectiles: Low speed penetration

I’ll give it to you straight, like a pear cider made from 100% pears. Here’s the answers you’re looking for, the rest of this section (1 out of 3) is the derivation. There’s three sections in total, each built up much like this one. Feel free to skip the derivations and straight up copy the final results at the start of each section! I know I would.

Penetration Depth x(t) [m] as Function of Time t [s]

x(t) = t * v(0) - A * Yc * t^2 / (2 * m)

    const = m / (2 * A * Yc)

x(t) = t * v(0) - t^2 / (4 * const)

Penetration Time t [s] as Function of Penetration Depth x [m]

t(x) = 2 * const * v(0) - sqrt(4 * const * (const * v(0)^2 - x))

    or..

t(x) = 2 * x / (v(0) + sqrt(v(0)^2 - x / const))

Now let’s begin the derivation.

x = m * vi^2 / (2 A Yc)
x = const * vi^2

For this case, let us define a constant const = m / (2 * A * Yc) for brevity, with m [kg], the mass of the projectile, A [m^2], the frontal surface area which could be calculated as A = PI (d/2)^2 with d [m] the bullet diameter, Yc [Pa], the cavitation strength of the target which apparently matches about three times the yield strength of a material. Furthermore, we have x [m], the penetration depth at a certain time, and vi [m/s], the velocity upon impact.

x(vi) = const * vi^2

We should immediately notice that Panoptesv did us dirty – this entire formula is not time-dependent! How can we possibly know what the velocity is at a certain penetration depth, for example? Calm down! I randomly guessed the following, and miraculously it worked. How do you know it worked? So I tested the formula by checking that the distance x(vi = 500, v = 250) plus the distance x(250, 0) indeed matches x(500, 0). Later I checked that x(600, 599) + x(599, 598) + (..) + x(3, 2) + x(2, 1) matched x(600, 1). Again it did – this was a lucky guess.

x(vi, v) = const * (vi^2 - v^2)

So! That was easy! What’s next? Well, we only know the distance travelled between velocities vi and v. We’d like to also know the time it takes between those two velocities. My first instinct was to over complicate it, so instead I looked at the simplest way to do this. The distance travelled can also be described as x = avg(vi, v)*t with avg() a function of both velocities and possibly more, and t [s] the time in seconds from the start of the penetration. What average do we want to use, though? I guessed correctly that it was the arithmetic mean. First try.

x = avg(vi, v) * t
t = x / avg(vi, v)

    (..guessing..)

t(vi, v) = 2 * x / (vi + v)

Again I tested my typical scheme – t(500, 250) + t(250, 0) did indeed match t(500, 0); great success! This is a problematic result, though, because this equation has three unknowns, both x and v are values we don’t know and their resulting value t is similarly unknown. What now?

Luckily, we also have our previous equation for x, which can be rewritten to read v = sqrt(vi^2 - x/const), which can be filled in to yield t(vi, x).

x = const * (vi^2 - v^2)
vi^2 - v^2 = x/const
v^2 = vi^2 - x/const
v = sqrt(vi^2 - x/const)

t = 2 * x / (vi + v)
t = 2 * x / (vi + sqrt(vi^2 - x/const))

While this is a nice way to calculate the time taken to reach distance x with starting velocity vi, it will be quite convenient as well to know the maximum distance x we can penetrate within our remaining time t. Let’s do it the only way we know how: calculus.

t = 2 * x / (vi + sqrt(vi^2 - x/const))
x = t (vi + sqrt(vi^2 - x/const)) / 2
x = t * vi / 2 + t / 2 * sqrt(vi^2 - x/const)

And then we’re kinda stuck. Luckily, WolframAlpha comes to our rescue:

x = t * (4 * const * vi - t) / (4 * const)
x(vi, t) = t * vi - t^2 / (4 * const)

Quaint!

Wait.. did I just say WolframAlpha? Maybe I made a mistake somewhere… Better check absolutely everything again but only using WolframAlpha.. right? The only way we can convert our (x, v)-based formulae to (x, t) formulae is through the fact that v = dx/dt = x'(t), e.g by forming a differential equation. Boooooo.

x(t) = const * (vi^2 - v^2)

    v = dx/dt = x'

x(t)/const = vi^2 - x'(t)^2
x'(t) = sqrt(vi^2 - x(t)/const)

I haven’t a clue how to solve this. But. WolframAlpha does. And the result is.. Urk. Luckily this gross thing can be rewritten a bit more neatly by spotting -(2 c1 t + c1^2 + t^2) = -(c1 + t)^2.

x(t) = (- 2 * c1 * t - c1^2 + 4 * const^2 * vi^2 - t^2) / (4 * const)
x(t) = (4 * const^2 * vi^2 - (c1 + t)^2) / (4 * const)
x(t) = const * vi^2 - (c1 + t)^2 / (4 * const)

    rewrite to t

t(vi, x) = c1 - sqrt(4 * const * (const * vi^2 - x))

So, I haven’t a clue what’s the value of c1 which was added as a result of solving the differential equation, somehow, I forgot how it all works. But. When I compare the results if t from WolframAlpha with the results I got without it, it seems the equation starts the wrong way around – when t(vi, 0) = tmax, while t(vi, xmax) = 0. Huh. I guessed that c1 = tmax, because this would reverse the order again.. fixing the problem. Filling in c1 = t(x=0), everything works.

c1 = tmax = t(vi, 0)
c1 = sqrt(4 * const * (const * vi^2))
c1 = sqrt(2^2 * const^2 * vi^2)
c1 = 2 * const * vi

    filling in for t

t(vi, x) = 2 * const * vi - sqrt(4 * const * (const * vi^2 - x))

This result is somehow different from the other, but they give the same values. Finally, this whole ordeal can be rewritten to x(vi, t).

t = 2 * const * vi - sqrt(4 * const * (const * vi^2 - x))
(t - 2 * const * vi)^2 = 4 * const^2 * vi^2 - 4 * const * x
4 * const * x = 4 * const^2 * vi^2 - (t - 2 * const * vi)^2
4 * const * x = (4 const^2 vi^2) - (4 const^2 vi^2) - t^2 + 4 * const * vi
4 * const * x = 4 * const * vi * t - t^2
x(vi, t) = t * vi - t^2 / (4 * const)

Non-deforming projectiles: High speed penetration

Penetration Depth xp(t) [m] as Function of Time t [s] (v >> vthr)

xp(t) = 2 * m / (Cd rhot A) * ln(-(-2 * m / (Cd rhot A) - t * vi) / (2 * m / (Cd rhot A)))

    xc = m / (Cd rhot A)
    vthr = sqrt(2 * Yc / (Cd rhot))

xp(t) = 2 * xc * ln(-(-2 * xc - t * vi) / (2 * xc))

Penetration Time t(xp) [s] as Function of Depth xp [m] (v >> vthr)

t(xp) = 2 * xc / vi * (exp(xp / (2 * xc)) - 1)

Next up is the derivation of high speed penetration. Snicker.

xp = 2 * xc * ln(vi / vthr)
xc = m / (Cd rhot A)
vthr = sqrt(2 * Yc / (Cd rhot))

What is very different about this case is that the penetration depth xp listed is the depth that is reached until v = vthr, with vthr [m/s] a threshold value below which the simplification of high speed penetration is no longer valid. xc [m] is a length scale, calculated from some constants. Both depend on Cd [.], the drag coefficient of the bullet upon penetration (typically Cd = 1.0 in this situation, according to Panoptesv), rhot [kg/m^3], the density of the target (e.g rhot = 1000 kg/m^3 for water). All other variables have already been explained for the low velocity case.

We could try adding a velocity v again, but there’s an important catch to this. v must always be larger than vthr. Otherwise, it’s kinda strange to call this the high-speed regime when our boundary defining high speed is violated. Still, maybe we could do the following:

xp = 2 * xc * (ln(vi / vthr) - ln(v / vthr))

Amazingly, our guess again passes the x(500, 250) + x(250, 0) ==? x(500, 0) test. To be fair, I did try xp = 2 * xc * ln((vi - v) / vthr) as well, but this one didn’t pass the test at all. We’re on a roll again!

Our goals are of course to obtain t(x) and x(t) again. Only then can we estimate the depth of a bullet based on the remaining time step of the physics simulation tick, or the time until a certain distance (out of the obstacle?) is reached. Ummm. How do we do this? Maybe the time could again be easily described using t = avg(vi, v)/x? I tried, count with me!, the (1) arithmetic mean velocity, the (2) root-mean-squared velocity, the (3) geometric mean velocity, (4) inverse mean, the (5) logarithmic mean and basically all p-values of the (5 + infinity ~= infinity) stolarsky mean… And NONE were accurate (means listed in order, below).

avg(vi, v) =? (v,i + v) / 2
avg(vi, v) =? sqrt(v,i^2 / 2 + v^2 / 2)
avg(vi, v) =? sqrt(v,i * v)
avg(vi, v) =? 2 / (1 / v,i + 1 / v)
avg(vi, v) =? (v - v,i) / (ln(v) - ln(v,i))
avg(vi, v) =? ((v,i^p - v^p)/(p * v,i - v))^(1 / p - 1)

What I mean by none of them worked is that, when I try the tried- and tested t(500, 250) + t(250, 0) ==? t(500, 0) test, the results are never equal and each of these averaging methods fail my test!

Did I lose my mojo? Maybe, but I definitely lost my cool. Eventually, I decided to reach for a bottle of WolframAlpha… I mean, I entered the equation in WolframAlpha and observed the following:

xp = 2 * xc * (ln(vi / vthr) - ln(v / vthr))

    ln(a) - ln(b) = ln(a/b)

xp = 2 * xc * ln((vi / vthr) / (v / vthr))

    (a/b) / (c/b) = a/c

xp = 2 * xc * ln(vi / v)
vi / v = exp(xp / (2 * xc))
v = vi / exp(xp / (2 * xc)) = vi * exp(-xp / (2 * xc))

    v = dx/dt = xp'

xp' = vi * exp(-xp / (2 * xc))

The WolframAlpha Gods had answered my prayers! Of course, they added a factor c1 again, of course. I immediately rewrote the entire ~~piece of crap answer~~ equation into t(xp).

xp(t) = 2 * xc * ln(-(c1 - t * vi) / (2 * xc))
xp / (2 * xc) = ln(-(c1 - t * vi) / (2 * xc))
-c1 + vi * t = 2 * xc * exp(xp / (2 * xc))
vi * t = 2 * xc * exp(xp / (2 * xc)) + c1
t = 2 * xc / vi * exp(xp / (2 * xc)) + c1 / vi

I couldn’t tell you why, but in a stroke of genius I remembered that units in an equation must match on both sides. So, t[s], meaning that c1 [?] / vi[m/s] = [? * s/m], it must be the case that c1 [m]. Secondly, I had already prepared all of these darned averages which weren’t accurate to more than up to 1%. Meaning, I could easily try a few variable combinations with meter-units until they more or less matched the other averaging methods! Wow. After about a minute, it was obvious that c1 [m] = -2 * xc.

xp(t) = 2 * xc * ln(-(-2 * xc - t * vi) / (2 * xc))
t(xp) = 2 * xc / vi * (exp(xp / (2 * xc)) - 1)

And that’s a wrap on this case! Well done everybody.

Non-deforming projectiles: Intermediate speed penetration

Penetration Depth x(t) [m] as Function of Time t [s] (all v)

x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * t / (2 * xc) + atan(vthr / vi)))^2))

Penetration Time t(x) [s] as Function of Depth x [m] (all v)

t(x) = 2 * xc / vthr * (atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)) - atan(vthr / vi))

Maximum Distance xmax [m] and Maximum Time tmax [s] of Penetration

xmax = xc * ln(1 + vi^2 / (vthr^2))
tmax = xc / vthr * (pi() - 2 * atan(vthr/vi))

This derivation is the case of slight nightmares. The equations look ever so slightly familiar, but I can’t for the life of me derive this mess into a workable formula. Let’s do it anyways!

x = xc * ln(1 + vi^2 / vthr^2)

All variables are described before.. so let’s immediately get into adding a velocity v. Everything seems fine at this point! Gulp. All of the x(500, 250) + x(250, 0) ==? x(500, 0) tests work perfectly, so I guess we’re lucky with the guesses again.

xm = xc * (ln(1 + vi^2 / vthr^2) - ln(1 + v^2 / vthr^2))

Now to get the t(x) relation.. first off I hoped maybe one of the averages worked? And yea, no, no cigar. Similarly, the t(x) methods for low- and high-speed regimes were generally overshooting the value in t(500,250) + t(250,0) ==? t(500,0) tests. I looked to WolframAlpha for solutions, but the way I entered the formula changed the solutions I got – maybe I made an error in some of the operations deriving the differential equation. Therefore I ended up putting the whole thing in Mathematica, using DSolve[] and solving for x(t). Miraculously, one of the solutions was workable:

x(t) =	xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) * tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2 / (vthr^2 * (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2)

An absolutely terrible solution to the problem – too many characters! But, this form can be simplified a bit to make it more readable and workable:

x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) * tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2 / (vthr^2 * (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2)
x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * f(t) / (1 + f(t))

    f(t) / (1 + f(t) = ((1 + f(t)) - 1) / (1 + f(t) = 1 - 1 / (1 + f(t))

x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2))

Annoyingly, there’s another c1 [s] in this equation as well. We’ll leave it there for the time being, because it turns out to be quite a large formula. Instead, let us consider t(x), this is mainly a big rewriting job:

x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2)))
exp(x / xc) = (vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2))
vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc) = (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2))
- 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2) = vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc) - 1
1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2) = 1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)
1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2 = 1 / (1 - vthr^2) / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc))
tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2 = 1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1
tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc)) = sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)
vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc) = atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1))
(t + c1) = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1))
t = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)) - c1

t(x) = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)) - c1

Now, the results from t(x) again seemed to be completely different from the other averages. Furthermore, if v == 0, the formula would return a division by zero-error. Looking into this specific error, it appeared that the contents of (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) were exactly zero when v = 0. Why? It seems that the following happened:

g(x(v)) = (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc))
x(v=0) = xc * ln(1 + vi^2 / vthr^2)

    exp(xc * ln(1 + vi^2 / vthr^2) / xc) = exp(ln(1 + vi^2 / vthr^2)) = 1 + vi^2 / vthr^2

g(x(v=0)) = (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * (1 + vi^2 / vthr^2))

    a / (b + a) * (1 + b / a) = a / (b + a) + a * b / (a * (b + a)) = a / (b + a) + b / (b + a)
    = (a + b) / (b + a) = 1

g(x(v=0)) = (1 - 1) = 0

This issue can be circumvented. Whenever g(x(v~0)) ~= 0, 1/g(x) - 1 ~= Inf, such that sqrt(1/g(x) - 1) ~= Inf. Filling in atan(Inf) ~= Pi / 2. This then simplifies to t(x(v=0)) ~= xc / vthr * Pi - c1.

Another observation allowed me to find c1, namely that t(x) was again reversed, such that t(xmax) = 0 and t(0) = tmax. This again called for c1 = t(0), such that the following describes c1. The formula can be simplified a few times even:

c1 = t(0)
c1 = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2)) - 1))

    1 / (1 - a) - 1 = 1 / (1 - a) - (1 - a) / (1 - a) = (1 - 1 + a) / (1 - a) = a / (1 - a)

c1 = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt((vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2)) / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2))))

    (a / (a + b)) / (1 - a / (a + b)) = (a / (a + b)) / ((a + b) / (a + b) - a / (a + b)) = a / (a + b - a) = a / b

c1 = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(vthr^2 / vi^2))
c1 = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(vthr / vi)

Filling in c1 at x(t) and t(x) then yields:

x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2))

    tan(vthr * (t + c1)/(2 * xc))^2 = tan(vthr * (t + 2 * xc / vthr * atan(vthr / vi))/(2 * xc))^2
    = tan(vthr * t / (2 * xc) + atan(vthr / vi)))^2

x(t) = xc * ln((vi^2 + vthr^2) / (vthr^2) * (1 - 1 / (1 + tan(vthr * t / (2 * xc) + atan(vthr / vi)))^2))

t(x) = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)) - c1
t(x) = 2 * xc / vthr * atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)) - 2 * xc / vthr * atan(vthr / vi)
t(x) = 2 * xc / vthr * (atan(sqrt(1 / (1 - vthr^2 / (vi^2 + vthr^2) * exp(x / xc)) - 1)) - atan(vthr / vi))

The maximum time and distance of the projectile can be described as:

xmax = xc * ln(1 + vi^2 / (vthr^2))
tmax = xc / vthr * (pi() - 2 * atan(vthr/vi))

Finally, the remaining velocity after distance x is described as:

v(x) = sqrt(vthr^2 * (exp(-x / xc) * (1 + vi^2 / vthr^2) - 1))

That was it

Go home. Have a bath. Get some rest. Here’s the fruits of our labour. As you can see, low speed (purple) and high speed (green) assumptions are no-good very-bad. On the other hand, the intermediate speed (pink) is gorgeous.

For the penetration timesteps, it really looks like the low speed results are fiiiiine while the high speed results quickly converge to the low speed ones.. and both converge to the intermediate speeds. Oh well, maybe it’s better to be certain.

How I Got Into Hip-Hop

2008, age 11. I listened to nothing but pop music; Pink – So What, Flo-Rida – Low, and Rihanna – Don’t Stop The Music. I was in sixth grade of elementary school, a very nice class with lots of girls who liked how expressive I was, and all of them were into this pop music so that’s what I liked. I was on my way to skip right into eighth grade, a new class. During the introduction camps, Lady Gaga songs were played more and more on the radio, Poker Face, Just Dance, LoveGame. Based on previous experiences, I liked these songs as well. As classes started, one guy asked me about my favourite music and being an honest kid, I told him Lady Gaga. Not knowing what I’d done wrong, I was laughed at for the first time about my taste in music. Immediately, I decided that pop music was nothing for me, and I stopped enjoying it.

After a full year of being stuck in the last class in elementary, kids would scold the teacher or the smarter girls to get a raise out of them; I disliked school more and more, and I was so glad to enter middle school next year. Sadly, several kids from the class went to the same school, in fact about a third to a half of the class, so those who laughed at me came with me.

2009. Pop music sounded worse and worse for me. I stopped caring much for music except for trance or house songs, until I went to my cousin who had downloaded a single ZIP-file full of non-copyrighted music and we listened to it while playing games such as Team Fortress 2, It was a lot of fun. I decided to download the ZIP-file and listen to music from my computer for the first time. I disliked rap and hip-hop initially and just focused on the folders in the ZIP-file containing trance and house music.

Around the same time I recall playing through GTA San Andreas with my elementary school friend from before 8th grade, coming over every few days to continue where we left off. The general aesthetic of the game was so well-designed that you could feel the lyrics the in-game radio stations were sending out because you played their meaning. Radio Los Santos was my only source of Hip-hop songs, and it wasn’t a bad source at all. Driving down to Grove Street with a stolen, nearly-burning car after taking over Ballas territory felt so much better with Dr Dre ft Snoop Dogg – Nuthin’ But A G Thang.

2011. Around this time I had listened to all the ZIP-file trance and house songs and was kinda bored of them. I got a new computer, mainly because I wanted to play Skyrim, and forgot to put the songs on the computer, so I downloaded the ZIP-file again. This time I decided to unpack the hip-hop folders. I was sceptical of the songs at first, but very quickly started to enjoy it as I got into e-dubble. Several of his Freestyle Friday songs were packaged with the ZIP and I loved it.

Freestyle Friday (literally) spoke to me in a way none of the pop music on the radio did. In school, everyone was at least somewhat awkward and I didn’t talk to many people. Having a digital friend such as E-dub, who’d introduce his songs with jokes, rap on melodic beats with beautiful samples and maintain an air of ease in all his lyrics was eye-opening. This was my first conscious contact with Hip-hop.

It was around this time I became a huge fan of other radio presenters, and would listen religiously to (Dutch) Slam FM deejay’s Daniël Lippens and Ivo van Breukelen on their show De Avondploeg, with segments such as PornoPraat dedicated to answering young listeners’ questions about sex, weed and other subjects you “wouldn’t want to ask your parents about”. The ending of their show included samples such as Smoke weed everyday and included hardstyle music, two new soundbytes I had to look up.

2014. While I played RuneScape since 2005, I got bored of it around 2011 just before the worst updates to the game caused much of the player base to leave. OldSchool RuneScape (OSRS) was re-released in 2013 which made me reconsider the game again. Around 2014 I played a free trial and got hooked to the Twitch streamer B0aty after his name appeared in a news post. He would play more house-influenced music Body Rockers – I Like The Way You Move, Dev ft. Fabulous – Kiss My Lips but also UK rap a.k.a Grime music such as Meridian Dan – German Whip. Being the largest streamer for the UK-based game OSRS, he had several streamer friends who would play only Grime.

I got into the grimy sound of Grime, especially after listening to AOAATube‘s OSRS “player killing” streams, where he’d hype up every hip-hop song coming up next. A great example of his music taste would be the first #SixtyMinutesLive Grime Takeover. The entire set is typified by deep, gross bass lines with violent, macho lyrics screamed by jumping dance instructors. Being rather fed up with middle school at this point, the violent lyrics and expressive videos spoke to me and helped me vent my frustrations about life’s stresses. To this day I keep a playlist of violent songs for when I’m in one of those moods.

2015. Entering the Chemistry BSc program in my town meant a new era for me. Most importantly, longer holidays with little to do. My favourite past-time quickly became to listen to Hip-hop on Youtube and explore the recommended videos. I’d download full albums with youtube-to-mp3 tools. Some Hip-hop I enjoyed were old school or underground albums INI – Center of Attention, Smiff-n-Wessun – Monumental, Pete Rock – NY’s Finest. I had listened to the legendary NaS – Illmatic some time before this and wanted artists to emulate its clean, lyrically well-developed sound and the slight symbolism and artistic touches interweaved through the album. Nothing is the same, but some artists get close (much later I found Elzhi – Elmatic to be the album most closely resembling Illmatic).

While most Hip-hop to this point was less about the lyrics and more about the atmosphere, this changed with MF DOOM – Born Like This and any of his other albums or songs. You’ve got to make a conscious effort to understand what the artist talks about, and he seems to have a knack for taking the most roundabout way to say anything, a nice break from the direct death threats and bragging in some of Hip-hop. His songs are best enjoyed with Genius open while you listen to it. The novelty of the artist drew me in.

14,800x Not Interested in the Discovery Queue

Ever since the queue came out, I’ve religiously spent a few minutes to an hour clicking away. Most notably, I’ve decided to select Ignore (as it was previously called) or select Not interested for games which I have no interest in ever playing. And boy, do I have many games which I have no interest in ever playing.

I’ve likely spent more time in the Steam Discovery Queue than in most Steam games. According to SteamDB.info, I spent about 31.4 hours average playtime in those games I have played on my account. If each Not interested took about 8 seconds of my time, which seems fairly accurate due to the poor click registration both on the site and in the client, I’ve spent about 32.9 hours in the Steam Discovery Queue. That’s more time browsing games than time playing such smash hits as GTA: Vice City, GTA IV, Factorio, Terraria, Just Cause 2, Civ III and Civ IV.

So what the heck did you learn?

First, Steam/Valve prefers suggesting its own products in the discovery queue, such as Counter-Strike and Portal games. While this may not be immediately noticeable when browsing the queue, a single look at the Ignored products list gives us the most obvious preference for Valve games. It also doesn’t matter that I already own Half-Life, I can still be Not interested. Fair enough.

Second, all games with positive ratings, new games, triple-A titles are suggested to you at first, but once the queue runs out of these games, it switches over to a second selection of games. You’ll have a hard time finding anything triple-A in this second-rate section of the discovery queue, and the queue seems to be sorted mostly according to user rating at this point. This means a crappy game with few but mainly positive reviews (say 10 positive, 1 negative) will be suggested before a more popular game (150 positive, 31 negative). It’s probably worth it to send out review copies to friends and urge them to rate the game positively, as it gets your game high up in the second-rate queue.

Third, actually good games are mixed in with very crappy games indiscriminately, and I can’t be bothered distinguishing. Those who make crappy games know quite well how to make screenshots of the game, and it becomes pretty much impossible to distinguish a good first-person shooter from a bad one if both just use screenshots in their store page. Within the eight seconds I allocate to determine which of the two it is, I already pressed Not interested and the Next in queue button.

Fourth, I reckon about 15-20% of suggestions are games tagged with Nudity or Sexual content, as they span the range of ratings from Very Positive all the way to Very Negative. However amazing you think your game is, it will be suggested in the queue after something like Elf Enchanter: Arousing Anima or Hentai beautiful girls 2. The majority of these games are carbon copies of one-another, often (slide) puzzles or dress-up games, cookie clickers. Your typical visual novel is even of higher quality than the average Sexual content game in the queue.

Notebook Registers and Tables Of Contents

Atlases fascinate me since middle school. We were given an atlas and were told to look up such things as the GDP of a sub-Saharan country, compare the climate zone north- and south of the Himalaya mountain range or to explain the source of the height differences seen in two different Rhine river villages. The starting point of each of these queries was to open the back of the book, scour the register for clues to find the correct map squares and pages and to eventually end up exactly at the map you’d want to be. Registers to me were like miniature clue hunts, with a beautiful map as a reward.

The simplicity of a register can be a blessing and a curse to the reader. This specific atlas’ (Bosatlas, 52nd ed.) location register contained practically all locations described in its maps, while several of the concept registers (GDP, Climate zones) were slightly more difficult to navigate as you often would need to test about four different synonyms of what you were looking for until you found the correct register entry. The more free-form the data set which you draw up a register for, the harder it is to make the register both short and intuitive. My trusty Biochemistry, 8th ed. contains probably the worst register I’ve seen so far. There are so many small-but-crucial concepts (important enzymes, metabolites, reaction mechanisms..) which aren’t in the register, while the majority of large-but-obvious concepts are there.

I personally don’t have a solution to this issue other than to download a digital copy of the book and Ctrl+F in the hopes of finding the right page. So.. how does one intend to solve this issue in making their own register? Maybe a better question is, how much time are you willing to spend on it, and how much space do you have left for your register? Let’s provide an example of a self-made register including, but not limited to, article titles and text section headings in an 80-page A4 notebook:

On the left we’re met with a register, ordered alphabetically with nice column-headings “A-G”, “H-S”, “S-Y”. First letters of concepts are presented to the left, concepts are presented in the middle- and page numbers to the right side. On the right, a simple table of contents with each of the article names on the left and page numbers on the right. The table of contents is simply ordered by page number.

Making a table of contents:

Simply go through your work and note all article titles and page numbers. It may be nice to include sub-headings as well in your table of contents, depending on how much space you have on your page. Making a table of contents shouldn’t take much longer than 5-10 seconds per page, strongly depending on the amount and length of article- and header titles.

Making a register:

Be absolutely sure you’re finished with the work

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that registers are the final thing you’ll want to add to your book. Imagine writing one more paragraph on the last page with a title starting with “I”, you would need to shift your entire register by at least one entry.

Take note of everything you want to index

Open Google Sheets. Go through your work, one page at a time, and note every concept, word, article title, paragraph heading, subheading you would want to include in your register in one column, say column B. It would be very helpful to note for each of these what kind it is – something like “a” for article, “h” for heading, “w” for word, say in column A. Finally and very importantly, note the page you’re on in column C. Go through the entire work/book.

You might notice the order of the register entries is by page. You’d prefer ordering to be alphabetical – this can be done by selecting all of column B and select Data > Sort sheet by column B, A –> Z. If you’d like to separate article titles from concepts, you could do so by selecting column A and sorting it as well. Preferably you group everything you want together into the same column A value, so everything with an “h” would turn to an “a” to group them together.

Register the same concept multiple times

The astute among you with huge monitors and good eyesight will have noticed that there are about 180 concepts listed in my register, and there’s only about 60 articles listed in the table of contents, meaning the notebook must have something like three concepts per article. Naturally, it’s possible to create a register with that many small concepts listed in the register (and Berg’s Biochemistry would’ve been better for it), but instead I opted for a different approach.

Firstly: Since many of the names of the concepts and articles included the same things, most commonly dating, how to.., social and why.., I decided to ensure each of these concepts were grouped together in the register, much like Berg’s. All of the indented parts of the register therefore indicate that each of the concepts share a word/sentence part. I extended this to a series of articles as well – The Tao of Badass series on Youtube was meticulously copied in my notebook, and the register entry Tao of Badass would hold each of its nine episodes.

Sometimes your register entry names do not contain “how to”, but you could imagine it being added to the entry. In that case, create a copy of the entry with “how to” at the start of the name. You can do this with as many groupings of entries as you’d like. I don’t have great rules for this, it’s really just whatever you’d like it to be.

Secondly: Because article titles rarely conform to each other in a way that Fessinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance and cognitive psychotherapy group into the same register entry, I decided to pick important parts of each title and rewrite the titles to contain this important part in the front. Therefore, the register contains both (A) alpha sexuality and (S) sexuality, alpha. Or, (B) becoming a partner, avoiding the friendzone, (F) friendzone, (..) partner and (P) partner, (..) becoming a. This easily doubled the amount of registry entries, but it is worth it because similar concepts are now grouped together, and more importantly there was space for doubling the entries!

It’s very easy to do this for your own registry entries as well. Go through your Sheets list and Ctrl+F individual words in your registry entries. If the same word occurs in other entries, but the entries do not start with the same word, add a copy of both entries with the word of interest moved to the front. (H) How to get a beach body and (B) Best Polish beaches would spawn (B) Beach.. with entries body, how to get a and ..es, best Polish.

See if it fits

Get a new paper and write the beginning of your register or table of contents on it. Try to fit every row in your Google Sheets file on the paper by, say, indicating a “w” for each line. If you can’t fit all entries on one page, try splitting the page up into additional columns. Write down the longest registry entries within a column, along with the rest of the formatting (starting letters, page numbers, indents) to see if your entries fit horizontally. If there’s still no way, consider using multiple pages or consider writing smaller. Many books use quite a substantial amount of pages for their register while keeping an easily readable font, but I personally compromised on the font size because I expected myself to be the only one to read the texts anyways and I still have pretty good eyesight.

Making a register such as this one will take you the good part of an evening for an 80-page A4 notebook. While you may speed up eventually in the obtaining and ordering of all your register entries, you’ll inevitably spend a lot of time writing down each of the entries perfectly aligned and well-spaced in the back of your book.

Final thoughts: Is it worth it?

So, is it worth it time-wise to add a register to your book? I reckon you might save up to a minute per search, especially for more crowded books, so if you plan to use your notes say a few hundred times, you’ll probably get a return on invested time. On the other hand, making your own register is quite fun and rewarding on its own, especially when you open the book at a later date and see the neatness and order of the register. Navigating your own register and texts becomes part of the experience, and if you put in good effort to make the register “Search-Engine Optimized” for your own mind (or even for others’), it can feel really good to use it.

To me, having made the registers myself was worth it.

The Cult Of Awkward Writers

Nothing good comes of Googling “my blog is too awkwaes” [sic]. Surprisingly, I stumbled upon ScrabbledRambles‘ 5 Confessions of a Socially Awkward Blogger and I vibe with it to some extent. It’s not just me having something for shy girls, I promise, although it may cloud my editorial and directive vision. Cough. The post details an introduction defining awkwardness, followed by exactly five confessions: time of edits, ramble, dislike of comments, time of comments, not being part of a community. We’ll do like an OT and tackle them as they come up.

Introdawktion

What’s striking to me right off the bat is the introduction. I personally jump right into hubris and hope the substance floats to the bottom of the paragraph, but the introduction seems dead set on setting a tone of awkwardness, if not consciously then subconsciously. I’m quite sure my blog’s doing the opposite and it’s about just as bad in my mind, but it also seems more like who I am to a bunch of people. There’s got to be a time where I stop kidding and write like super scientifically like I did in my try-hard reports on stuff like synthesis of benzaldehyde. I’m quite pondering whether I’m part of the cult of awkward, even though I try and do the exact opposite.

Writing time

I personally seem to write these blog posts probably in the same amount of time as Tiziana, including all of the mental freezes. What helps me is to not look back! My mother’s pushed mythology high up on my reading list, and this story reminds me much of that of Orpheus and Eurydice; the more you love your idea and your text, the more you will want to look back at your previous sentences and make gosh darn sure they’re perfect. Behind the long editing times is to my mind a huge ego, because only those who care enough about their ideas to perform it to perfection would care to scupper them right after writing them down. Rest in peace Eurydice. In my personal experience it has been that when I cared oh so much about a project that it took 10x longer to write more or less the same paragraph. Perfection has its time and place in the writing process, but this is not during the first draft.

Not being part of a community

I actually haven’t edited my blog posts after writing (o rly?), and I wonder if I should. Consider the current state of the blog a “draft”, where I push as much product as I can to see what sticks. Part of this is the idea of community – I do aspire to write about many things, but not only about those things. So.. what community do I write for? I imagine you guys as a sort of silent, staring audience, mouths gaping in awe at all times, I guess much like a doll. Eventually there’s gotta be something I like more than any other topic, but now ain’t it.

Ramble

I couldn’t have said it better than Tiziana; somewhere in the midst of this blog will be something worthwhile, I just know it. Writing is not about listing everything worthwhile – I barely remember a single item on a fifteen ways to improve yourself list. Who even came up with list articles? I guess Bustle‘s got us covered. Writing is about expressing a feeling and figuring what resonates, just as dancing is self-expression, or kissing, or fighting, or.. crocheting? It’s the sentiment, the feeling in there that’s worthwhile. A writer who’s in awe of his own fantasy world is the writer who writes the most immersive books about his or her world.

I reckon there are more concise ways to share this same sentiment. Maybe a Tolkien quote or something. Let me know.

Stuff about comments

If I think and care much about comments sure they scare me. I don’t know, that’s all I have. Like comment and subscribe.

How One Writes Easily

Writing is like slowly pushing a dagger into your mind through the back of your head, clenching your mental butt cheeks to prepare for the pain which never comes. Or at least that’s what it feels to me to “soil a page”. Don’t quote me on this, but I think that writer’s block might suck. The life away from your creativity, that is. Whenever I get the honour to put a pen to the page, it always takes a bit of courage to actually, you know, write. Some tricks from the self-proclaimed, famed, half-elf james who trains his brain in snail racing games. Also known as yours truly (I had to do it to ’em).

You want to write a damn masterpiece but your brain shoots down all ideas

First off, WordPress’ awfully large font size on my mobile phone has helped me focus on flowing the words from my mind straight into the blog post. I tend to feel afraid when following my text while it’s being written on the page. Maybe I made a big mistake, not just grammatical errors but, say, the entire sentence is haram, and must be extinguished from existence as soon as possible and replaced with practically the same sentence with a single word changed. The smaller your view port towards your previous text, the less likely you’ll get a chance to become anxious about it.

If your editor of choice does not include such a large default font size and you find the whole idea of using huge fonts all kinds of dumb, first ask yourself whether whatever you’re writing actually deserves to be written professionally. If yes, try some of the following ideas for size:

To ensure you put all your ideas in text

Allow yourself to write only the “essence” of a sentence. Write as little or as much as you need to convey the idea of a single sentence, then just leave it completely alone and go to the next line. I don’t have a clue if there’s any evidence for this, but to me personally it feels as though textually disconnecting each of your ideas by a white line makes it easier to see them as unconnected and meant-to-be imperfect. After you’ve.. Blegh.. jotted down the words and you’re confident you haven’t missed a single thing you want to say, only then start ordering your frankensentences into something barely resembling a paragraph. Imagine you got this abomination from a fellow colleague, and perform your usual sighing and fist shaking routine, begrudgingly correcting this mess into a human-readable draft. Hopefully you forgot nothing and you can now rest easy your work is kosher.

To study a concept-heavy course and you have no chill to make a summary

Crap! You’ve spent the night(s) researching the mating rituals of sentient, hairless (both more or less) monkeys again, and now all the time you have left for studying only allows you to write like 300 words on a page and speed to the exam. Focus on copying big words like citric acid cycle, glyoxylate shunt and deoxyribose nucleic acid; and whenever you have time copy the smaller stuff like glucose-6-phosphate and 16S ribosomal RNA. While catching a packed bus, look at your paper and explain to anyone who will listen – e.g yourself – why a word is on your list, what its connection is with previous and next words and maybe even hazard a guess as to what exam question you might get on it and answer the question. Don’t bother writing grammatically correct summaries, just study concepts like a word list. Except the words mean more than “hey!”, “hello! (formal)”, “do you know the directions to the nearest train station?”.

Sleeping (like a) Log

People telling you to sleep is like eating. It goes in one hole and out the other. Somehow I managed to keep the idea of sleep logging stuck inside of me long enough to make it a habit to scanalyze and gathertain this data and transmogrify the crap out of it (translation: graph it). Follow my manic journey through.. mostly time.

My schedule taught itself to hold information as to what time I last turned off the lights before sleeping, and the first moment I read the digital alarm clock when waking up. So far this has yielded me: tons of “what are you writing?” from my significant other(s), a bit of a headache due to the different methods of data collection possible, some interesting ways to process and visualize this boring hobby project, and a three year dataset which I’ve half-assedly analyzed.

I urge you to skip this section because it’s too sassy

It doesn’t matter how elaborate your answer is to a question by your SO, they won’t bloody trust you until they see it with their own eyes. Yes, that’s my normal schedule. Yes, there’s months and months of sleep/wake hours noted on this page. Yea it looks a bit creepy like I’ve gone absolutely insane but I guess that’s just my handwriting. And, yes, the hour and minute noted for today are surprisingly the same hour and minute on the clock at this very moment. Huh.

How can you write down when you fell asleep.. When you fell asleep?

It’s really important to set a good definition of your time notation as early as possible – when do you make the notation and how accurate should it be? In the first year or two, I had decided to round digital time to the nearest hour and to note a later hour if I felt I had stayed awake a bit more after I wrote down the sleeping hour. This resulted in nice data with quite a low resolution – time spent asleep could only be calculated to the nearest hours, such that I could’ve slept between 8 and 10 hours if the calculated time difference was 9 hours. Therefore, I switched to noting hour and minute I last checked the clock before turning off the lights and hour and minute on the clock I recall when waking up. This means that a large part of the data set is of too low resolution to be particularly useful. But I still use it anyways.

OK there’s data, now what?

My data format has been 24-hour, with for each day (YYYY MM DD)[An] the time I woke up (HH)[Bn] (mm)[Cn] and the time I fell asleep (HH)[Dn] (mm)[En]. What’s interesting is the conversion of this mess of a format into time slept. It’s performed by the following formula[Fn] in Google Sheets. A simple ROUND() can convert this to integer hours slept to order each day into a quadrant of time slept, like some kind of nerd.

F2=B2+(C2/60)+IF(D1>12,24,0)-D1-(E1/60))

Weekly averages can be calculated easily taking into account the periodicity of the human calendar – e.g to note that there are 7 days in a week. Then, the contents of cells G1:G7 are as follows and this ancient runic pattern can be dragged down the Google Sheets column to store the average time slept every other week. Unless your data contains jumps in time of course. Fix that shit yourself.

G1=AVERAGE(F1:F7)
G2=G1
(..)
G7=G1

A more complicated problem is that of monthly averages. I just manually set cells in column H to AVERAGE() all days within each month. It’s only twelve operations per year, I can handle it manually.

The last Sheets calculations I perform are those of uncovering the sleep deficit[In] w.r.t a set constant in a cell far, far away[$ZZZ$169]. The value in the cell for me is “9”, but you’ll be able to let your creativity carry you away from this mortal world and put in “8.9” or something.

I2=I1+$ZZZ$169-F2

Results & Discussion

I sleep 9 hours on average, which is a relatively healthy amount I suppose. In a period I thought of myself as rather stable in life, I had a near-constant sleep schedule with 9 hours of sleep while my more chaotic periods (around exams, around deadlines, during research projects) exhibit mountainous freaking peaks, with average sleep hours below 8 followed by a “retribution” period of 10+ hours of sleep. What I find the most meta finding from the data set is that whenever I have updated the data set to see how my sleep was coming along, I slept for much and much longer for a while than the previous trend would suggest. Knowledge really is power, the shittiest superhero power, namely the one to change your sleeping patterns.

Ironically, I started sleeping about four hours past when I would’ve wanted to by writing this post. All in all, sleeping is pretty dope, I just can’t, don’t, won’t.. I’m not sure why. Maybe more data will help. Someone at the pub suggested melatonin pills, another suggested white noise. Cast your votes.

Each Word Is Worth A Thousand More

3.00-14.00 = 11 hr sleep, restaurant (fat pizza, 1 1/2, took friend’s half) + felt hungry after yesterday. Watched movies at another friend’s where it smells of cigarettes.
— “8 7 16”

These were the first lines in my first diary, which I lovingly called “N”, after the post-roman era notation of “zero”; nulla. At the time I had been shaken awake by my first attempt at dating, where I tried to escape the dreaded friend zone, and had been religiously copying large swathes of text from red-pill bloggers and youtubers as to never have this tragedy happen to me again — and the holy scriptures I had thus written were dubbed “I”, “II” and “III”, three 80-page A4 notebooks with 8mm line height. This diary was my fourth work of attempted ascendance to boyfriendhood when I dubbed it “N”, but beforehand it was just an Office depot 192-page A5 notebook with an expensive-looking, rough and dark blue cover.

11 hr sleep

Diary entries reflect your mind at the time of writing. At the time I was intrigued with noting sleep- and wake times, so a big part of this entry is the time notation. A quick calculation was also added, I slept 11 hours. At the time of writing I had no idea that I would go back a few months later to underline this 11 hours – seemingly to make a statement about my mental state at the time. In the meantime, about three years, I have taken note of every daily sleep/wake time and this entry clearly reflects that determination even in the wee hours of my diary-taking adventures.

fat pizza

Next up, a trip between brackets. At the time I was quite intrigued with the effects of food on mood, as you are when questioning your entire existence on the basis of your first romantic rejection. I figured that fat, it’s got to go. It makes you feel lazy and the next day, so I thought, you become frustrated. After significant efforts to research this topic I have come to the final conclusion that I have absolutely no clue whether this is true. But more importantly, I have more or less stopped caring, and can now gladly lay back and read my funny previous beliefs and hypotheses about something as simple and complex as fat.

It’s not even a question of whether you had some very strange ideas about life, it’s more a question how many of them are still yours. Over time I have more or less worked away the red-pill mentality I so tightly held on to at the start. I am glad that it took me just one short episode of dating to find out red-pill just ain’t me. I quietly cringe at the deep and profound realizations I write in my diary on the subject. Diaries are confrontational in providing you with your history – never do this again, as it doesn’t work.

took friend’s half

Information in diaries is about the mundane, the dumb little notices that meant nothing at the time and still do not, but which so clearly build your character. About this reunion I had with my middle school friends, I did not care one bit to describe any of the people there. Not one word about their studies, their lives and living environment. Not a single whisper suggesting enjoyment or even dissatisfaction about the event. Instead, an elaborate account of the amount of pizza and whom offered the extra pieces of pizza. What I value in a friend is an additional half pizza.

Arguably, during the event we had talked for tens of minutes about the intricacies of C#, our favourite programming language which he had mastered over several years of practice and which I had written a few words in. Writing this down however was not considered important enough. I had limited space to work with after all, that would be probably five lines out of 192 pages. Another account of this disgusting preference for sustainable paper I had prepared during my 80-page A4 notebook writing days is the fact that I had started my writing nearly a full text line above the first visible line to save space, and I had taken it upon myself to fit two lines of text within the 8mm apart guide lines, a tradition continued to fit 2.5 lines of text at page 24, 3 lines at page 28, 3.5 lines by page 35 and a staggering 4 lines of text at page 36!

+ felt hungry after yesterday

A common occurrence in my life otherwise difficult to notice is my constant hunger. I have been suggested several times by friends, family and strangers to visit a doctor and get tested for such unexplainable diseases as gluten intolerance, diabetes and anorexia. I have scoured much literature to build up a nice list of diseases or symptoms I might also have, including iron deficiency anaemia and Graves disease. Do I actually have these diseases? I doubt it, and my GP has never cared enough to test them based on my descriptions. I’m just not eating enough.

Watched movies at another friend’s

I was not entirely honest with myself regarding the movies watched at another friend – me and my pizza-offering friend did in fact watch the full Totally Spies library at that point available on Netflix after admitting to a strong love for the show. My favourite was probably Clover, as I could see myself being the kind to chase around hot men on a Beverly Hills college campus. The others disagreed, as they arguably should, but my mind was set on dating, holding hands and kissing, the works.

where it smells of cigarettes

Cigarettes have been a constant not only in my life but probably the lives of many around the globe. My mother in particular has had her fair share of second hand cigarette smoke during her time in university, along with uncles who smoked awful smelling cigars granting her and her brothers diseases after they had visited. My general opinion on cigarettes is thus fairly negative and I tend to blame many of the sinus, throat and ear infections I invariably catch on a weekly- to monthly basis on smokers.

While I am unsure people think of diary entries in the same way as I have detailed in this post, I am myself pleasantly surprised when opening my diary a few months after I.. shudder.. jot down a few paragraphs detailing my life in the moment, and I find a well-detailed and thought through viewpoint I can no longer agree with. Or, even if I can see something I still agree with, it gives me a good view of my character. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to share an island with the guy I was a few months ago – he’s kind of nuts.

Welcome, Try To Enjoy Yourself

Much like SaltBae I throw around entities arguably resembling content or containing substance, but unlike him I don’t own a business dead-pressed on infusing their product with precious metals.

Why did I do this?

My deepest and darkest fantasy is to be a normal human being one day and say “Hi!” to my neighbours, watch all football matches and make an attractive dating profile without incoherent cries for redemption. Alas. For the time being I will entertain myself and others with musings on whatever pops in my mind.

I’m a student of the natural science also known as chemistry, which makes my Quora answer requests extremely monotonous (What is the difference between a molecule and an atom?).
I dabble in diary writing and I’d like to think I value honesty. So naturally I seek to push my several year old diary entries into a public platform.
I have read so mamy blogs and books on self-improvement I can not believe I’m not a self-improvement blogger. So consider this an experiment how long it takes before I mention heart chakra’s and compare my life to that of the buddha.

To help you get started enjoying the blog, here are a few answers:

Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal? I crave human connection and hope to find answers in my life through some sort of crowdsourcing thing right here.
What topics do you think you’ll write about? Diary entries, chemistry knowledge, weird and long monologues about life, the universe and everything. But, as all blogs should aspire, the main subject matter will be how to interweave the complexities of bullet physics in an everyday blog post.
Who would you love to connect with via your blog? Fellow ruminators with too much mind on their hands. Let’s paint the walls with cerebrospinal fluids. Ew.
If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished? Have enough followers to be able to eat. That is, I’d love to have a custom Milka bar mailed to my PO box with pistachios and almond filling. Hook me up.

Some goals I have for this blog:

Weird out my family and friends without ever having shared it with them,
Build up a comprehensive report on the ricochet and penetration regimes of sub- and superballistic conical head projectiles,
Digitize my entire diary with annotations

Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”.
The example

Low-key I adore this quote. I wonder how long it will take for me to revisit this page and make it into an actually more coherent article, but for now you can enjoy this hot mess.

Revisited once, still a mess.