I swear I'm spending more time writing the 1500 word paper I'm putting together now than I did the 5600+ word paper I submitted last week. It seems like I had just started writing the damn thing and i hit the word limit. Now I need to try and pull stuff out even though I want to write more. Maybe I should use caveman-speak.
We make thing. Thing good. Thing make other thing better.
It'd still be clearer than some journal articles I've read :)
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Shadow of the Colossus
Well, I finally finished this terrific game. And for a game with almost no story, it sure draws you in. I was amazed at how, even though there are less than half a dozen cutscene/story sequences over the entire game, I was completely enthralled during the ending. The crux of the game is that you need to beat these 16 colossi (basically massively huge monsters) in order to have a wish granted. In between the colossi there are no battles, no gold to find, no items to buy, and no interactions with other characters in the world. Hell, unless you're fighting one of the colossi there isn't even any music. Just the sound of you spurring on your horse. It becomes a very desolate game, and you begin to feel extremely isolated. Yet you keep fighting these battles because they are so damn engrossing. Imagine standing on the back of a winged bird that's got the wingspan of a football field while it's flying around a thousand feet in the air. You try and walk around on its back when it suddenly flips over and starts flying upside down while you hang on to the edge of it's wing hoping the thing will flip back over before you lose your grip and plummet to your death, or standing next to a creature who's toes are taller than you and having to find a way to defeat him, or running away from one of these things while riding your horse, all the while trying to shoot arrows behind you and the thing. The fights are so damn intense that whenever I finished one I would notice that I was on the edge of my chair, and I'd have to slump back and take a deep breath.
The nice thing about the story being so disconnected is that you can go without playing for weeks, even months, and still know exactly what your next goal is. Hell, I bought this game a year and a half ago and am just now finishing it. Now I get to go back and do the "time attack" mode, which lets you fight any of the colossi over again trying to beat a certain time. Which is cool, because I don't remember all of the colossi and am intrigued to go back and see if I remember how to beat them. It's so rare that a game lives up to the hype, and a 9.7 rating from IGN is major hype, but this game was as much art as it was entertainment.
Check out the first colossus:
The nice thing about the story being so disconnected is that you can go without playing for weeks, even months, and still know exactly what your next goal is. Hell, I bought this game a year and a half ago and am just now finishing it. Now I get to go back and do the "time attack" mode, which lets you fight any of the colossi over again trying to beat a certain time. Which is cool, because I don't remember all of the colossi and am intrigued to go back and see if I remember how to beat them. It's so rare that a game lives up to the hype, and a 9.7 rating from IGN is major hype, but this game was as much art as it was entertainment.
Check out the first colossus:
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
A bit of relief
A few months ago I had a bit of panic set in when I sat down with my supervisor and compared the amount of work I had left to do with the amount of time I had left to do it. We paced out how long each task would take, and it had me finishing in mid-late June, not leaving much time for thesis writing and the inevitable spillover.
Since then I've been a bit more focused on my work, and it's definitely paid off. I presented what I've done so far to my fellow lab-mates and my supervisor, and at the end he said that he saw no issue with me finishing on time (by August). There had been some concern that I would end up spilling over into an extra term.
So as of right now I could probably have the rest of my thesis work done in about a month of work, not including the writing I have to do. Now that may not seem like much considering I still have about 6 months to go. However, I've got 3 publications to work on (2 of which I'm the lead on) that are due between now and April 15th, a presentation for one of those publications in May, two weeks in Halifax in June (including some demo prep work I have to do before hand and a poster to create), along with actually writing my thesis, doing GA work, and finishing my thesis work, I don't think I'll have any problems filling my time between now and the end of August.
But the good news is that I finally see light at the end of the tunnel, and am now energized about getting things done again.
Since then I've been a bit more focused on my work, and it's definitely paid off. I presented what I've done so far to my fellow lab-mates and my supervisor, and at the end he said that he saw no issue with me finishing on time (by August). There had been some concern that I would end up spilling over into an extra term.
So as of right now I could probably have the rest of my thesis work done in about a month of work, not including the writing I have to do. Now that may not seem like much considering I still have about 6 months to go. However, I've got 3 publications to work on (2 of which I'm the lead on) that are due between now and April 15th, a presentation for one of those publications in May, two weeks in Halifax in June (including some demo prep work I have to do before hand and a poster to create), along with actually writing my thesis, doing GA work, and finishing my thesis work, I don't think I'll have any problems filling my time between now and the end of August.
But the good news is that I finally see light at the end of the tunnel, and am now energized about getting things done again.
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