Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Morbid Curiosity's LiveJournal:

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Friday, July 10th, 2009
11:35 am	Gosh, nearly a month already? Time has been passing quickly. So, where was I..? Lance has moved out of our flat, and in with Nick and Fi. Here's hoping that works out well for him. If all works out well we may be getting a Sam, who's looking like pretty good flatmate material despite being a first-timer, and will certainly help us in covering those winter expense bills. Scott's managed to get a bit of work to tide him over until he gets the kind of job he wants, too, so as a flat that'll have us in a somewhat less stressed place I hope. I've made some useful progress on the technical side of my thesis, implementing a learning activity in Second Life (and portable to OpenSim with the right art assets). Getting used to LSL (the scripting used in Second Life) has been a bit tricky, as the API is a less than consistent thing and sometimes the things I'm trying to do with it fall (I suspect) a little outside the standard use case. Still, now that I have a bit of a better idea of how to do event modelling, storing object properties and handling inter-object message passing, future work will be a lot easier. I've got a couple of other designs in the pipeline to do, so there should hopefully be some interesting things to conduct activities around. For OpenSim I can also do some things in C#, so that's a good excuse to learn the language, finally. On the more academic side of things, I've formed a general structure for my PhD proposal. I also just had a department interview with the HoD and a postgrad research committee member. Happily, they try to make the process supportive rather than adversarial. I got some good advice on things I'll need to concentrate on going into the proposal period. One piece of advice I particularly agreed with was the idea of writing it with a cynical audience in mind. While I'm working in a field that has a "cool" factor, that's not something I should - or want to - rely on. A chief concern will be showing people where the science is. Having a proposal that reads like I'm going to have fun for three years and then try to claw some observations and justifications together to make a thesis out of is not the thing to do. Game work is proceeding, though I don't have too much time to devote right now with other priorities. I'm still doing enough that I feel like I'm contributing, even if much of that is helping colleagues refine their ideas rather than creating my own materials right now. Really looking forward to travelling. I had it suggested to me that I might want to look at suspending or going part-time with the thesis while I'm away, just to make sure I don't get caught out at the tail end of the PhD in terms of time to submit it. I'll need to investigate what implications that has in terms of my scholarship funds, though. That said, I can work from a laptop in the U.S. as easily as I can here, for the most part; if I can have a productive Skype meeting with colleagues in Seattle and Toronto, I can certainly meet with my PhD supervisor from Versailles or Pasadena. And nothing will stop me from going anyway. Current Mood: determined Current Music: Project Pitchfork - Drone Assembly (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
4:04 pm	Interesting article I came across. Given that a lot of the news coming out of Iran at the moment is unmediated (for better or worse), a suggestion that we Follow the Developments in Iran like a CIA Analyst. [Source: Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic] Stay safe out there, Iranians. Current Music: Angels of Venice - Tears of the World (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 6th, 2009
9:28 pm	Life's progressing. I've finally got things sorted out with a permanent computer in the CompSci department, and as soon as I have local admin access on the machine I'll be installing far too much stuff and getting a development environment up and running. It's a quad core machine with a fairly reasonable entry-level graphic card, so it should be pretty zippy for getting compiling done. My supervisor's out of the country again at the moment, but he's given me a fair number of things to progress with. Some things I can't discuss openly as they're still under an embargo of sorts, but I've got materials that are certainly inspirational in terms of developing new virtual learning experiences. We're feeling like a good fit, in terms of work style and motivations. My side-project work seems to be coming along. Things seemed to have finally finished with regard to the simulation work I was doing. My MMO stuff's mostly simple writing and research tasks at the moment, but it all adds up to useful stuff. I've also got a bunch of library books to work through that should hopefully help both my academic and other work. Speaking of which, I've just finished reading through Game Development Essentials: Game Story & Character Development by Marianne Krawczyk. Most of the content is, understandably, a primer on creative writing as it pertains to games. Since I've been geeking in this field for a while there was little that was news to me, but there were still a few interesting industry anecdotes and the like. My main issues with the book were that some of the examples were either a bit forced or not very well explained. The book also comes with a CD: most of the demo game stuff is pretty pointless (IMHO), but having real-world examples of design documents, storyboards and concept art from a number of titles provided a few insights. I'm also looking at returning to the U.S. for a month or so later this year. The travel agents are looking out for specials and deals for me, but it's still likely to cost a few grand. On the other hand, it's a priority I'm more than happy to save for, in the circumstances. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
10:25 pm	Wrapped in the warmth of you. Long-distance relationships are pretty much a suckful situation by definition, but I'm really glad I got to talk to Jana via Skype for a couple of hours tonight. Having a chance to just hang out and talk together - even with the various cute fur-kid interruptions - just makes life better. Seeing her smile makes my heart sing. Every time. Current Mood: loved (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
2:41 am	I've mostly had my head down doing work stuff and keeping out of trouble, recently. Not a great deal to report. Winter's been rolling in, so I've put up the heavy winter curtains again (thanks, Kat!). They're helping, but we've still had a fair number of sub-zero nights and not-much-better days of late. More soup is planned. Some of my hobby time has been interesting of late. Though I didn't have the time to commit to any more significant role, I'm now a "junior game designer" in an indie game development project. Industry experience ranges across the board, but it's a pretty good bunch of people to work with and an impressive amount of creative talent in one place. I'm learning things and extending myself through said project in ways that benefit my other interests and potential career opportunities, and having fun at the same time. Strange how things like that can happen, sometimes. I shan't be performing any equine oral inspections about it, though. Decided to get my MIDI keyboard out tonight and do a bit of musical dabbling. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be behaving at the moment. I'm hoping it's just the USB cable misbehaving, but I may need to borrow some nouse and a multimeter if that doesn't turn out to be the problem. Missing wolfwitch a lot recently. Well, I generally do but I guess with the season change it's hit me a bit harder of late. Talking via IM and seeing her semi-regularly on Skype helps, though it's not the same as being there. When things are bit less up in the air for us (there's a good chance she'll be moving city at some point, and I'd like to coincide with a conference somewhere to increase travel funding chances), I'm planning on going to visit for four weeks or so. Not that she isn't on my mind a lot of the time anyway, but I'm really looking forward to being in range for hugging, cooking, kisses and all those other good time-being-with-the-woman-you-love things. Or if you've got teleportation technology on the go, let us know okay? Current Music: The Endparty - Home (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
1:34 am	Far too catchy. Current Music: As above (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
10:39 am	Moral Universes elissa_carey found this interesting article, looking at the essential differences in moral priority between U.S. liberals and conservatives: Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe — And Here's Why It Matters [motherjones.com] It's an interesting read for people who want to look a bit deeper at why people with different political leanings disagree with and often misunderstand or mischaracterise each other. However, I'm going to be geeky (quelle surprise!) and apply it to world building for games and stories. One of the major points in the article is a taxonomy of moral impulses, outlined below: Harm/care. It is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering. Fairness/reciprocity. Justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions. In-group loyalty. People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad. Authority/respect. People should respect social hierarchy; social order is necessary for human life. Purity/sanctity. The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad. I can see this being used in a descriptive way to explore reasons why certain groups in a game/story world may come into conflict or work with other groups: if they differ greatly on some of their core moral priorities, then there's a reasonable likelihood of tension even if their worldviews are otherwise similar. It may also be a nice way of getting away from the old Dungeons and Dragons-style Law-Chaos/Good-Evil alignment compass, while still having a workable framework for characterising societies' moral values. In this frame of reference it's still possible for people to commit good or evil acts, but what count Note that similar priorities wouldn't necessarily mean that groups would be firm friends, however: two groups who care strongly about purity may have different ideas of what constitutes "pure", and people who're greatly concerned about fairness may have different ideas about what rights should be upheld and how justice should be applied. It's definitely more a design lens than a golden hammer, mind, but something to ponder perhaps. [Current music courtesy of skonen_blades and the Unknown Origins podcast team. Nice tunes, guys, and you crack me up regularly.] Current Mood: working Current Music: Talvin Singh - O.K. (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 17th, 2009
11:00 am	It's that time of year again. For those who expressed interest, I've a table booked at The Twisted Hop for 12:30pm. Hope to see you there. A fairly quiet start to the day so far, but hey. Current Music: Headless Chickens - Expecting to Fly (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
12:56 pm	Attn: Christchurch folks Would anyone be interested at catching up at The Twisted Hop around lunchtime tomorrow? I'm considering doing something birthdayish. Current Mood: oldening (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 11th, 2009
9:48 pm	I'm getting used to the new glasses. Certainly able to read a lot more than I was, and I've even been able to do a bit of programming. Research is plodding along, and I may even get paid sometime next week (ha!). Cooking-wise, I've been getting back into stir-frying recently. Made quite a nice dish with bok choi, spinach, cashew nuts, sweet chilli and lime the other day. It's also getting colder, and very definitely getting into soup season, so I'll probably be making 6-8L or so of minestrone at some point over the long weekend. Happy Easter/Pesach, those who celebrate it. Progress with various things may be a little slow at the moment, but at least I'm taking care of myself. Speaking of progress, I'm once more around the calendar at the end of next week. Any thoughts on what I should do to celebrate it? (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
6:27 pm	New Glasses! My new windows of clarity into the world have arrived. They look like this: From Glasses With proper glasses to look over and "distinguished" greying hair, I am well on my way to looking the model of a Proper Academic. Also, modulo a small adjustment period, I shall be able to read far more stuff without risking the debilitating eye strain I've had for the last couple of months. Hurrah! Current Mood: happy (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
1:34 pm	Is it The Future yet? Current Mood: amused (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
1:41 pm	Glasses of Seeing +3, +6 versus academic journals My first scholarship disbursement's come through, so I now have a positive cashflow again. Hurrah. Went to see the optometrist yesterday. She seemed to like having someone she didn't have to talk down to about human vision. All up, new spectacles (exam, frames, lenses, 10% discount) are going to cost me $812.90 - hooray for having a suitably abnormal prescription. Still, in 7-10 working days I'll have glasses again, which means getting a lot more reading and coding done. I got bad eye strain from overdoing it during my summer crunch research (which they still haven't paid me for). The eyeballs themselves are healthy, but they're still marginal on endurance for doing a lot of focus work. Which is pretty much everything I do. Speaking of focus, the PhD progresses. I'm looking at research in virtual environments, primarily with application to education. I'd like to get to a point where they're more of a useful tool than a curiosity, and there are definite advantages for a number of people who don't work well in traditional classes. It's an area that's had a lot of marketing hype in recent years, but the ground's still fairly fresh for conducting fundamental research. One of the major steps there will be identifying and categorising problems with existing technology, and looking at how to solve them. I've got a few ideas I'd like to pursue already, but there are two important things: making sure I'm actually moving towards solving a problem rather than creating an intellectual sideshow, and making sure that I'm making an actual novel scientific contribution rather than just an applied software integration project. Ideally I'd like to come out at the end of three years and still have a passion for what I study (and hopefully reasonable employable), so I don't want to just latch onto the first idea that settles for long enough. It'll be an interesting process, certainly. I have the bones of many synthetic worlds to stare at and much hype to cut through. Now I just need the eyes for it. Current Mood: working (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
7:19 pm	Some sweet corn is sweeter than others. At my parents' place at the moment. Mum discovered that the "no added sugar" variety of Wattie's cream style corn actually tasted sweeter than the variety that has added sugar. So we did a bit of a comparison and some research. No added sugar (per 100g): ENERGY - 305kJ CARBOHYDRATE - 11.4g - SUGARS - 4.3g Standard: ENERGY - 405kJ CARBOHYDRATE - 16.7g - SUGARS - 2.9g How is it that the former brand has more sugar content? Checking the ingredients, there are two differences. One has no added sugar, and also contains supersweet corn - a eugenically-selected recessive variety of sweet corn that produces more sugar. Since the mutant sugar enhancement alleles are recessive, it needs to be kept away from standard field corn crops. However, note there's still a higher carbohydrate content in the standard variety, hence more energy with less sweet taste. Interesting stuff, this food. Current Mood: contemplative (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 20th, 2009
11:15 pm	Nature rocks. Thanks, mactavish :-) Current Music: Beyond Good and Evil OST - Home Sweet Home (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
8:42 am	My friends list seems to be full of things I'd like to be able to afford or concerts I'd either like to go to or like to have gone to at the moment. I'm thinking I may just pay no attention to the Internet at large today, try to get some work done despite my limited eyeball capacity, and hope I get paid soon. I'm now waiting on four months of income. I hate eating my savings, but things would be far worse if I hadn't saved anything in the first place. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 14th, 2009
6:51 pm	Food for thought. My sweetie finds and shares many interesting things. Currently reading: Why is there Anti-Intellectualism? Recently seen: Horny toad Roomba-cozy Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: Absurd Minds - Damn the Lie (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 13th, 2009
12:03 pm	Presented without further comment. Current Mood: woooo! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
8:18 pm	Attn: SFGLJ listies If I'm subscribed to the point where I can get the list, does anyone know a reason why my posts might not be going through to everyone, or who I should prod to get it fixed? Thanks. (Comment on this)
3:05 pm	Payment pending Good news: I'm now offically enrolled as a full-time PhD student at the University of Canterbury. Bad news: I'm still waiting on income for three months of summer research work, and because my enrolment went through a couple of days after the start of the month, they can't pay my scholarship disbursement out until maybe as late as the 24th. This makes my finances tight, to say the least - I've currently eaten through about $1,500 of my savings over the last few months where I should be a good four figures into the black. My list of short- and medium-term expenses for when the money comes in is mounting up slowly, including: ( some fings wot I need to spend money on ) That'll probably eat up a grand or two easily, but I should be able to cope. And looking at income (once it comes in) versus expenses, I should still be in a good state for saving up money for travel later in the year. Speaking of which... Other good news: Met a potential co-supervisor today to discuss research. He's going to be sending me through a bunch of current research material so that I can potentially incorporate that into ideas for my thesis research proposal. He also seems to be happy to look out for funding opportunities so I can visit the U.S. and attend research conferences (and "coincidentally" visit my fiancée, too), so it's looking like I'm well-blessed in terms of academic support. Other not-so-good news: It looks like I chose the right time to be making a concerted effort to look after myself health-wise. Given a family history of heart disease (a father with a triple heart bypass) I had a cholesterol test done during my start-of-year medical. I've got moderately high levels of cholesterol, and the ratio is distinctly in favour of the more dangerous low-density lipoproteins (LDL cholesterol). Luckily, though, the remedy for this is pretty much what I was intending to do anyway. Getting more exercise - for example the 10km round trip from university to home and doing a bit more sword work (read: screwing around with bokken) to improve my upper body fitness. Eating more legumes: falafels count, especially if cooked with grapeseed oil (some studies show cholesterol-lowering properties, and you generally need to use less than cooking with other oils). More fruit and vegetables (currently tasty mesclun salad and cherry tomatoes with a light vinaigrette, and high-pulp blackcurrant/raspberry juice). I've also found that rolled oats have either no or minimal gluten content (so I can eat it without the ill effects I seem to suffer on a high-wheat diet) and cholesterol-lowering properties. I think an important part there is not making the changes too extreme all at once - severe diet and exercise changes tend to make the body revolt, but making little changes to your everyday routine makes things a whole lot more manageable. Of course, there's a thing on at 5pm over in Engineering where they're offering free pizza, and we all know that free food is important for a balanced student diet, right? :-) [Edit:] Actually, strike that. The advertised date of "Wednesday, 12th March" on shiny full-colour posters in CompSci seems to have been replaced with black and white prints in Engineering with the date of "Thursday, 12th March". Smooth move, IET. Instead, I had a rather nice Bombay Aloo. Unintentional vegetarian day! Current Mood: optimistic (13 Comments |Comment on this)