gewgaw

Ok so I have some super cool halloween stuff to post but the password for my UNIX account at school got all goofed up and now I’m sooper busy w/work… so for now I’m just going to say that

a) Halloween in SF rocks its own pants off (literally).

b) Matt is in town – YAY!

c) I saw the Paper Bag Princess – how cool is that?

A zillion superballs rolling down Leavenworth Street here in SF – as part of the new Bravia campaign. Really cool.

What is not cool is how the new QT player has Itunes buried in it, which starts a process on your machine when you boot. That is ass.

I left my cell phone charging… in Seth’s apartment… in Chicago.

So….

If you are trying to call me, voicemail will reign. Apologies – I don’t even have a land line here at home so email will have to do until I replace it (have been meaning to do that for a while) or get it back via FedEx.

I’m lucky my head is attached to my body…

In a spur-of-the-moment burst of phone-tag and planning, I finally managed to arrange my relocation via EA. I flew out to Chicago last minute… one of those “wake up, pack some shit randomly and hope you remembered your toothbrush” trips. I’m here for a day to get my cat and move my things from storage onto a truck. The movers show up at my old place in the afternoon and I fly out early Saturday – in time to meet up with friends for some Halloween hijinks.

I forget how friendly people are out here in the midwest. People talked to me on the plane, on the bus to the car rental lot, at SuperDawg (couldn’t resist getting myself a loaded cheese dog and a thick, chocolate malt!) … and at the bar on the end of my old street. Paul and I went out there for a drink, because his roomie was sleeping and we wanted to catch up… we ended up “getting to know” a very drunk, soon-to-turn-37 hairdresser (female) in search of friends. Everyone is talking ’bout the Sox, and feeling good. I may only be here for 18 hours of daylight, after a 4 month absence, but it feels like I never left.

And Sabine sure is doing her part to make me feel welcome. I arrived here at Seth and John’s place (they are in Boston – John’s interviewing with a second lab at Harvard!) to find her full of warm purring and meows. She followed me around the house as I did email, unpacked my stuff (yay! toothbrush!)… and then curled up with me as soon as I got in bed. While I’m a bit worried about the plane trip (Will she howl? Throw up? Pee in her cage?) I’m really looking forward to having her in San Francisco. Especially since I found a mouse in the garage yesterday!!!

While I’m here I think I’ll try and pick up a heavier coat, scarf and hat – possibly a sweater. I’ve been wearing the same stuff since I flew out to SF in July, and it’s all just a bit too light now that the fall weather is settling in. And if I can find it…. a celebratory SOX T-shirt!

:)

Good picture, Souris!

Goodbye!!!!!

Photo galleries here and here.

Cool name popularity graph, from Steve (who goes by Stone!).

Looks like “Robin” peaked in the 60’s. Hippy name! Hippy name!

Check out Martin. Who knew???

I wanted a win – but this? This was just amazing! And depending on how you look at it, brutal!!

And for added bonus – it was calm and beautiful up on the hill:

*happy*

More on Q4.

via electric current at your ears? Creeepy!

—-

UPDATE: From the inbox

If you ask me, I smell a product idea that’ll be a hot seller in sex shops
everywhere. No more having to say “little to the left, little to the
right…”

Woah!

(thanks Randy!)

KD on Boing Boing… via Lulu

… again!

“What are you doing?”
“Mixing, just trying some new stuff.”
“Like what?”
“It’s kinda hard to explain. Why – you wanna hear something?”

One of my favorite samples – striaght outta Beat Street – via channel 584, on my new cable box. High on a hill in San Francisco… watching TV, with my laptop and a glass of wine… I am starting to feel at home.

—

I’m living at the end of Castro, in Diamond Heights – on the bay side of the hill. It takes me about 30 minutes to drive to work – down the hill till my ears pop (it’s that high up!), across Caeser Chavez, then south on the highway to Redwood City. The condensation on my car dries, and by the time I’m at work it’s about 15 degrees warmer.

On the way home, I drive into the setting sun – orange behind banks of clouds which creep in over the city. Heading back up the hill towards my house, I can see lights all around, and rising up into the distance. It’s almost like a fairytale, the way the fog makes everything glow, turning even street lamps into soft, warm orbs of yellow light.

I’m looking forward to taking some great tripod photos here on the hill… but in the meantime, I’ve posted early fall pix, as well as some from the summer trips to LA.

Email is next – I swear!

Go Sox!!

Best “breadcrumb” in a long time. Now that I’m almost “settled” (picked up the keys to my new place today!) I should really start them up again:

Quake 4 has everything!

It’s got the graphics of Doom 3,
the setting of Quake 2,
squadmates just like Opposing Force,
rail shooter segments like Sin,
an airboat sequence just like Half-Life 2,
mechs like Chronicles of Riddick,
a recharging shield system just like HALO,
a hot chick computer voice who coordinates the troops just like HALO,
aliens holding glowing energy shields just like HALO,
the grenade effect from FEAR,
the shellshock effect from Call of Duty,
a Scary Level without any enemies, just like Aliens vs Predator,
and cheesy music stings when “surprising” things happen,
just like every B-grade horror flick ever.

The only thing they didn’t put in
was something to make Quake 4 a game in its own right.
And I think they missed something else –
what is it? –
Oh yeah,
the fun.

Maybe they’re saving that for the expansion pack.

HARSH!!!

HIGH RATE of IDEA PRODUCTION (hereafter called HRIP) is an extremely powerful aptitude that has a major impact on a person, both in career and personal terms. It is a simple thing. A stimulus causes lots of ideas in a short period of time.

Everybody is always being bombarded by stimuli, both internal and external. In response to these constant stimuli the HRIP person reacts by constantly producing a high volume of ideas. The quality of ideas is not the point – simply the rate of their production.

People like this are always gushing with ideas. Some folks manifest it as the gift of gab. They can’t turn the ideas off. It is possible for them to put a lid on it, but only with an effort. The HRIP almost always has something to say, and usually says it. People like this grin knowingly if I jokingly mention that they might have once or twice considered lobotomy or putting tranquilizers in their oatmeal.

You don’t just have these ideas and that’s the end of it. The HRIP person wants and needs to express them, try them out, act on them. That is one reason HRIP individuals find limits hard to deal with. Set limits and the HRIP person often can’t help thinking over, under, around and beyond them.

An inherently narrow job situation – an assembly line task in either physical or mental terms – tends to be extremely frustrating for a HRIP person. The expression or use of ideas is of little value and possibly dysfunctional. So people like this get bored or distracted easily, a source of on the job injuries and errors. In those situations, the HRIP person has to spend energy stifling part of himself just in order to function. It doesn’t feel good to stifle yourself. That energy can be used more productively.

In general, the larger the organization the narrower the job description. Greater satisfaction of HRIP might be found with a smaller company where a wide variety of tasks is more likely. Doing ten things in ten different places is likely to be more pleasant for this kind of person than staying in one place all day doing just one task.

Another compelling link from Patrick. And a good indicator of why I chose graduate school, AI (which is highly interdisciplinary and involves varied levels of many different types of thinking)… and now games/design. A strangely organized page (written by someone like me) but fun to poke around on.

An exceptionally moving and thoughtful post on American casualties in Iraq.

Thanks for taking the time, Mark.

From my A.M. inbox: an interesting approach to selling the Game Writers Conference

Does story matter in video games? Ask Steven Spielberg. Just this week, he announced a deal to develop three games with Electronic Arts. Other filmmakers, like Peter Jackson, John Singleton, Bryan Singer and John Woo are also signed on to develop projects with game publishers. At first annual Game Writers Conference next week on Oct 26 – 27, 2005 in Austin, Texas industry experts will explore the art and craft of game writing.

Whether your readers are game developers or game fanatics – or both – they want to know what the future holds for games. The Game Writers Conference – http://www.GameWritersConference.com – takes a look at that future and we invite you to attend and cover this fantastic event.

For the first time, the best storytellers in the industry are gathering in one place to discuss their craft. Speakers include the writers behind Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Act Of War, Chronicles of Riddick, and more.

Our best storytellers are immersing themselves in the world of games. And game developers are taking a greater interest in story. EA’s Neil Young, at last month’s Tokyo Game Show, said it’s time for games to start moving people emotionally. Gamers are looking for way to imbue their titles with meaning and emotion. And story is the key.

PS: Congrats to DC and all my EALA peeps on the announcement!!

My friend Zack has been working down in Austin at a bio lab for the last couple of years, as part of his ongoing attempt to find new and amazing ways to apply his huge brain (he used to make video games!). As part of that work he’s heard much about the potential outbreak of avian flu – which publications like The Economist, Science, and National Geographic have also been reporting on.

Now, others are following suit.

Today, Zack sent out an email which expresses some concerns about popular coverage – in particular, its lack of concrete advice on stemming the spread of disease, should an outbreak occur. Here’s an excerpt:

There’s a simple and low-tech solution to convert a pandemic into merely a very bad flu season: seclusion.

…Fewer interacting people equals less moving virus; it is that simple. You stop a forest fire by starving it of fuel and it’s the same with a virus — the virus’ fuel is YOU, therefore you must not allow yourself to become fuel! It is tempting to say, “Well, if I get sick I’ll seclude myself”; this is a reasonable response during a normal flu season but will be irresponsible if a pandemic strain breaks out. Flu infectivity continues for about a week, but begins at least a day BEFORE the onset of symptoms[3] therefore the only fool proof way to avoid propagating a virulent virus to others is to ensure that you are not infected in the first place.

Being prepared to seclude yourself by storing up food and supplies and planning how you might continue to be productive while minimizing face-to-face interactions is not an indulgent act of paranoid hoarding — it is your civic duty.

…If even a small percentage of the population engaged in prepared seclusion, it might mean hundreds of thousands or millions of lives saved. This is not hyperbole, it is simple mathematics. What has inevitably put the brakes on past pandemics such as bubonic plague and the 1918 flu was unplanned seclusion realized via death and panicking. The plague years and the winter of 1918 are replete with stories of towns and cities worldwide shutting down out of practicality and fear. Why wait until everyone is actually infected and millions are dying to remove the fuel from the fire?

While it may seem paranoid or scary at first glance – I think he makes a sensible argument. Surely one month’s supplies aren’t too hard to set aside, if you assume water is potable and you’ve got electricity or gas to cook with. In fact, compared to hurricane preparedness (which my own relatives in Florida and New Orleans are certainly familiar with), it’s pretty simple.

Could you become fuel? Regardless of an outbreak, it’s worth considering.

Patrick sent me this photo link today – which is really awesome. Some of the photos are too grey for my taste (at least, on the LCD monitors in my cube) but… the subjects and composition are often really interesting.

Having said that – I really dislike the names. It’s one thing to take a photo of some surreal, other-worldly landscape while traveling in China… but it’s totally lame to call it “Wayward to Earth”. If the photo *must* say something that obvious – it should do so without words.