A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

I'm still on Broad Institute mailing lists so I get mail from unknown names with subject lines like
ROOM CHANGE!!! DOG DISEASE MAPPING TALK
and it's not spam.

I've been feeling kind of poopy these last few days. It doesn't quite make sense given that things around me are exciting and interesting. I theorize it's because this is my last week at ICCB and I've been reacting to this by hiding from ICCB, so that makes me want to feel lame and useless even as other things give me cause to feel energized and leaderly.

Today's my last day and I don't wanna go in. But I really oughtta. I mean, I'm currently typing on a laptop that will no longer be mine to use in a day, technically speaking. Well, not very technically speaking.

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I may be sitting next to the guy that tahnan was sitting next to the other day. I was doing pretty good at not listening to him when he chose to illustrate a point to his friend by pointing at me and splurting "LIKE THIS GUY HERE HA HA!" I shot eye-lasers at him pshew pshew and he looked away.

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Video Game thoughts:

I am finally playing Super Mario 64, more or less. (The DS version adds some star-gathering missions and a modicum of touchscreen gimmicks to the original game, as well as the earnable ability to switch between four different Mario-world characters. You actually start the game as Yoshi, that freaky nudist dinosaur, and need to fight through some prologue levels in order to unlock Mario.) I actually owned a Nintendo 64 several years ago, and for some reason I never played this game on it. (Instead I played through Ocarina of Time, which was great, and then traded the whole thing in for a Sony PlayStation.)

It's kind of incredible... after I got past the nearly 10-year-old 3D graphics and the mushy controls (the lack of a real analog joystick is a bummer, and I just can't use the emulated analog control that the touchscreen offers) I was a little stunned to realize that the star-gathering mechanic is the root of all the treasure-hunt 3D platformers that have appeared since, like Jak & Daxter (with its power cells) and Beyond Good & Evil (with its pearls). I mean, these newer games don't even attempt to hide their design debt to Mario 64. I did not know this. It's an interesting discovery, to me.

And it's all so tight; each level has a whole bunch of different ways to approach it, all layered over each other in the same physical space. The newer games do that too, but they tend to prefer vast, sprawling spaces. Take Jak & Daxter: the levels are rolling fields, lush jungles and craggy hills, all a joy to leisurely explore, and it's up to the player to figure out where the actual challenges lie within them. Mario 64, on the other hand, acts like a bridge between the old 2D "every pixel on the screen is an obstacle" design aesthetic and the potential that 3D games had opened. While there's a lot more freedom of movement than any of the 2D Super Mario games, it's still true that every piece of ground you can stand on is there for a reason, playing a role in at least one of the physically overlapping missions on the level; no space is "wasted".

I like it.

This TV thing is addictive, but not in an unfamiliar way... I feel like this whenever I'm really on top of any creative endeavor. (I never got this way with the books, but I did with the shorter articles I wrote around them.) The morning so far has been spent emailing people as I start preparing to make the next couple of shows. (All on the technical side; no calls for talent until I set up a shooting schedule.) My biggest motivation is the desire to improve on show #1.

I fear that I'm letting it take up too much of my time, but I can't stop thinking about it. Then again, it's sort of a vacation from my vacation, which I guess I kinda needed. And it's tangential to my other obsession. doctor_atomic has given me permission to have two (2) obsessions. Thank you, doctor.

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Next week I pop through two levels of recursion and return to ICCB, but only for a couple of weeks, after which I'll sink back to a pseudo-contracty position. (Which may be news to you; I may have last noted here that ICCB was just going to cleanly sever me from them to avoid union-contract kerfuffle, but someone has since found a workaround. Which is actually pretty good.)

I really hope the hunt won't involve much outside activity.

I got a temporary Harvard ID today, so at least I'll be able to board the bus to get home, instead out waiting outside for the T again. Wheeee, that was a mistake.

It is my awesome cubicle! Now i need to remember what my job is.