BrainBottle

Wait- what?!

2011-08-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I received a call at 9:40, it was from Ken Anderson at WSU. I thought he was calling to discuss why I had decided to not attend this fall, like some kind of exit interview or something. I wasn't in the mood to have that conversation while I was at work, so I let it go to voicemail. When my phone showed that the message was waiting, I gave it a listen.

I could not have been more wrong. Ken was calling to offer me full tuition and a stipend as a teaching assistant. I sat, bleary eyed. I had spent the last hour and a half fuming about some random crap at work, and here (finally) was my way out-- but I was in shock. The key issue is that classes start on the 22nd (in 10 days!) and the mandatory orientations are on Monday- as in three days.

Of course this puts the kaibosh on the $300 Job offer, and completely shifts my focus to being a student. What a day!

The $300 Job Offer

2011-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

Today I launch the next phase in my job search- I enlist you, 'netizen, to find me a job. The sucessful headhunter will receive $300. More details at BrainBottle.net/300dollars.html

Coming Soon...

2011-06-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased a belt grinder for my shop, which has required quite a bit of work to assemble. Part of the difficulty has been that the instructions are not clear on some items. For example, the instructions say that the face of the motor should be no more than 2.25" from the edge of the base. Which part of the motor's face? There's a large flat area, a raised ring, and then there is the flat face of the drive shaft. It sounds somewhat trivial, except that by following the instructions precisely, I am still not able to make the belt on the grinder track properly.

I will be undertaking a rewrite of the instructions, partly at the invitation of the fabricator of the main grinder body. I think he thinks this will be a set of short notes to correct grammar, and spelling. But, in my opinion the insructions need a complete rewrite, and pictures are mandatory. Should he choose not to use them (and even if he does) they will be available in the writing portfolio, as well as on Alchemyforge.net.

Thoughts on XHTML-- Q tags

2011-06-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

Briefly, I did hand coding of web pages back in the late 90s, though I wasn't able to ride the wave of the tech bubble. Last week I started putting myself though a refresher course, and last night I ran into the "q" tag. How utterly worthless. I understand that using a tag to denote a quote is helpful to -some- systems that interpret HTML, but I tried it in Firefox last night and the double quote it gives is weak in comparison to what I can simply type (by that I mean, the quotation marks are hard to see). Further, the author of the book says they're usable within the "blockquote" tags, and I find that to not be the case with blogger.

I probably wouldn't mention it, except that the authors spent no less than 7 pages extolling the virtues of "q," how it works with, and how it's different from "blockquote."

Course change

2011-05-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

It has become clear that an ability to arrange words in an order that conforms to the rules of a language (in this case English) with clever and meaningful usage, proper spelling, more-or-less proper punctuation (there's so much debate, there really is), and appropriate grammar is not considered a valuable skill. At least not unto itself. It seems this ability must needs be coupled with some other skill, and in these cases it has been my experience that the writing skill is such a distant second that the light from the star that is the first skill will take several decades to reach the planet that is the writing skill. That's a pretty long way to go to say "a distant second," but I like that it's a geeky way to go.

To that end I have decided it is time to again delve into intensive learning, and this blog will be the record of the devlopment of whatever new skills I choose to learn. Among my choices are members of the Adobe suite to develop graphic arts skills; HTML and CSS to develop my hand-coding website skills (for the brainbottle.com site I rely on a blog-type interface that is provided by Yahoo); or C++ to develop a series of apps that I have in mind, acting as a springboard into 3ds Max or Autodesk Maya.

What I have learned from my blacksmithing self-training, though is a handful of useful lessons. Given the amount of time I have to devote to an avocation, I can be good at one thing (forging metal) in exchage for being less good at some things (working with wood for handles and scabbards) which leads to being utterly useless at other things (casting metals). So whichever of the above I choose I expect I will encounter a similar best/better/good/poor hierarchy of skills.

I already have some experience with HTML so that makes the HTML/CSS project an early favorite. And I have enjoyed the projects I've done with photoshop, making the Adobe suite clearly in the running. I did not enjoy the c+ programming I had to do in college, but apps are written in a c++ cousin.

At any rate, whatever I decide will be logged here for posterity. Brainbottle will continue to be my online portfolio for all projects that are fit for the web, and I expect there will be a little tangential crossover with my blacksmithing site as I develop the pages and graphics thereon.

PAX 2010 overview

2010-09-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

The embedded blogging didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped. For the record, a 17" Vaio is heavy (especially when it's in a backpack with event swag, keys, wallet, phone, PSP, dice, chargers for all of the electronics I'm carrying, etc.) So I have a lot of respect for the folks who manage to do this.

The wife went crazy and decided that we MUST get a PlayStation 2 and a PS3 so she can play all of the God of War games. I’m fine with that. We picked up an indie game called Zombie Pirates that is a lot like desktop tower defense, but with pirate ships (you may need to wiki tower defense). I loaded it Sunday afternoon at about 6:30 and I've probably put in about 12 hours with it already. It's very very addictive.
I also bought the reboot of the dungeons & dragons red box, which is now based on the current 4th edition rules, but eliminates a lot of the clutter. I don't need a lot of what I've heard about the rules for 4E. I'm fine with the old-school, basic human, elf, halfling, dwarf races that can be fighters, rogues (formerly thieves), mages and clerics.

The Mortal Kombat reboot looks awesome, too and I have video of the wife and I playing it. I’m going to post it to YouTube as soon as I get a few minutes to edit the footage. So yeah, 2010-11 is the year of the old-school reboot and multi-player (in general, if the game wasn’t an update of a classic, then they were adding multiplayer to it).

There were several variations on dance and music games, too. Microsoft’s Kinect looks like the Wii but without the controllers. They didn’t do anything too impressive at the booth, but a couple of developers had made yoga/dance based games that looked pretty cool.

Are you tired of Guitar Hero and Rock Band? Never fear, you’ll have about four other choices to do more of the same, and one company is already using 6 string guitars as controllers (I believe this will become the norm, and people may be able to actually learn these instruments by playing the games).

The table-top gaming area (specifically D&D and Magic cards) was awesome. It was almost a refuge from the noise and crowds of the main exhibition hall. Plus we met up with Maxhavic, half of the team (and store) of Wandering Havoc. We haven't seen Dan in years and it was nice to get a couple of minutes to catch up. I hadn't seen this (or heard of it) before, but players were given chits that could be redeemed for items at the game registration booth. They had T-shirts, small backpacks, string backpacks, and game-related cards that could be "purchased" with these chits. I think it's an awesome way to draw people into multiple games. That said, this area needs to expand next year to accommodate the crowds. For a brand that was all but dead a few years ago, the interest in D&D was very encouraging.

The only game I played that I was really not impressed with was Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest. This is completely attributable to how the Wii systems were set up. Players need to be a few feet from the sensor bars, but PAX pretty much squeezes people right into the screens they're playing on. This made control difficult, at best.

I'm sure there will be more as the photos and videos are gone through. I will definitely post the Mortal Kombat footage, and may have to split the LotR:War for the North demo footage into pieces.

PAX 10 Day 1 1517

2010-09-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Wow.

There are a lot of people here today, and Friday is usually a slow day for PAX. I took video of the demos for LOTR War in the North, Assassin's Creed's new multiplayer offering and Gears of War 3.

LotR:WitN looks really good. The graphics are impressive and the multiplayer is mandatory. If one of your characters dies (or the AI, if you don't have 4 players) then the quest is a fail. The game looks tough, too.

I didn't get a lot of info about Assassin's Creed, other than the multiplayer aspect. It seems to defeat the concept of the lone assassin, but this seems like the natural progression for the series.

Gears also looks to be a multiplayer, capture the flag type of game. I didn't watch that too long, I was looking for my wife.

WB Games had an interesting idea: of you want a shirt or aluminum water bottle you have to collect 5 badges. Badges are earned by demoing a game, or watching the demo video for LotR:WitN. We played Lego Universe, which is an interesting concept. It's an MMO where users can create their own content (hence universe). The first thing I thought of was the user generated world in Snow Crash. It has a very slick interface, which was designed and refined by kids according to the WB games rep who was handing out the badges.

I'm going to rest for a little while and then head back in. It's intense!

PAX 10 Day 1 0852

2010-09-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

We have a late start here for getting to PAX. Our internet connection was ridiculously unstable last night- we would have moments of 1MB/s download and then it would shut off. As a result, the Mrs had to go in to the office this morning to send some data. It's good that the building we work in is on the same street corner as the convention center, so this morning was just like any other Friday for her.

the crowds were non-existent on the main floor. I imagine everyone is on floor 4 with the vendors and the queue for goodie bags and whatnot. The energy in there from excitement over new games, meeting new people and seeing friends from the last PAX was almost tangible.

At Penny Arcade Expo (PAX '10)

2010-09-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Greetings
PAX is in my backyard, and the Ms and I will be attending again this year. I thought it would be interesting to try some embedded blogging, so every few hours I will try to log in to the WiFi and post an update of goings on. I'll have my camera and monopod (which should help with image stability in the relatively dark main exhibition hall). I may even try to take some video with my Countour HD- check for YouTube updates as well.

Neglected...

2010-08-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

Certainly there has been more going on than what I've managed to blog about. I've been adding updates to the writing portfolio as they've come up: additional class assignments and links to some of the work that I did for Deadliest Warrior: The Game.

I went through commencement in May, and actually graduated last week (though the degree was officially conferred on 7/31). It took some asking around but I found out that my summa cum laude doesn't relate to class ranking* though I was second amongst the distance degree students who graduated (58) and 25th amongst all summer graduates (694).

I completed the professional writing certificate in May, so I had at least one piece of paper to look forward to this summer.

I've been looking for work in the video game field to build my resume of work. I'd like to do some more of the equipment/item description work like I did for DW:tG, but I'm absolutely open to expanding my horizons. To that end, I joined Elance.com last night to see what's available for side work.

I'll try to maintain this more regularly, but I honestly have more to say that is appropriate for my other blogs (even if what I might have to say is generally inappropriate). I'll add links to at least one of my other blogs for those who are interested in my less-formal blogging style.

Thanks!
Kris

*At some schools, like University of Washington, summa cum laude corresponds to a percentage-place in one's graduating class. Summa is the top 0.5%, magna represents the next 3.5% of graduates and the top 10% is rounded out with the cum laudes. Certainly in a program like that any honors conferred are truly honors. Appalachian State, by contrast, wanted to tighten their GPA requirements in 2006 becuase 26% of graduates were leaving the school with honors and the board felt this diminished the meaning of these honors.

Additions

2009-05-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

I added three new papers from my technical writing class and added a description to my Anthropology paper.

Samples added

2008-12-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

I have added the first two samples of my work.

The first is a term paper for an anthropology class. The class was about communication and we were supposed to observe people while they communicated. I chose to write about how food affects conversation.

The second is a proposal about the best way to use funds to buy 100 fifty-acre parcels of property. The purpose is to best protect the diversity in the region.

I've also added a copy of my most recent resume to the top of the page.

Publishing

2008-12-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

I just received an email from my advisor at WSU- I can officially post the work that I've produced for classes. Apparently the only restriction I'm under is that I can't submit a paper written for one class as an assignment for another. So my biology papers can't do double duty in, say, Civil War history (not that they could, but that's the gist of the argument).

Look for updates to the portfolio in the next few days.

Beginning in Earnest

2008-11-24T22:33:00.000-08:00

I am approaching the end of fall semester at WSU. While I'm supposed to be on "Thanksgiving break" I have an exam that is due next Friday, the 5th and I have to have the exam proctored. That means I have a test on Monday. The real issue is that I had a paper for this class due last Friday and now I have to cram four additional chapters worth of information into my brain in a week. And that's just my biology class. Thank goodness the anthropology paper is only supposed to be 4-5 pages.

As usual, I am indecisive about how I want to proceed, career-wise. I'm looking at craigslist and it's not particularly promising. That's part of the reason I started this blog (and I'm keeping this separate from my others because I'm constraining them in different ways). I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find something suitable, even temporarily, relatively soon. I'll make a concerted effort to avoid retail and worst case scenario may send me back to my former employer to see if they need some help. Fortunately I left on very good terms and my former supervisor has even called me a couple of times to offer per diem work and to try to bribe me back to her department. We'll see how this goes...