from seed's daily zeitgeist

take that creationists!

THIS IS NOT A GAME

i've started playing this alternative reality game, the lost ring, by jane mcgonigal and others. a long time ago, i got really excited by the prospect of these games. especially "majestic", which came out during my first year of college. i was dismayed to hear, at the time, that shortly after it was scheduled to begin, the game was stopped. it was only recently that i found out that this was part of the game, which now, seems obvious, but then i was just a silly, trusting 20 year old.

flashforward: 2008 and one of my favorite game designer/theorists (the above-mentioned ms. mcgonigal) has developed an ARG. so, even though it started a month ago, today, on a rainy sunday, i dove right in.

if you'd like to join me, go here and get started. erase huizinga's "border" between game and reality. remember: "this is not a game"

cave test

i went to the cave today (a four plane, immersive virtual reality setup) at the high performance computing center of hanzehogeschool to test a project i'm developing for it in conjunction with one of my teachers, daan tweehuysen. after a nausea-inducing-hour-and-a-half (long live the dash!) i had a good idea of how i want to progress from here. click on the pics above to see more.

UPDATE: i've gotten a few emails asking what the cave actually is. here's what wikipedia has to say

eyes wide open exhibition @ the stedelijk in ams

UPDATE: due to a lot of crazy mishaps, i didn't make it to amsterdam. i'm in gro for the weekend.

tomorrow (friday) i'll be in amsterdam to see a number of exhibitions, one of which is this group show, "eyes wide open" at the stedelijk.

see a short video

Now Playing

screens from the hammer editor in sdk that i'm using to edit dust2, the most popular counter-strike map. it's a bomb map that i'm filling with "collateral damage."

march hard on geeks

i'm a bit late blogging about this. all i can say in my defense is that i'm lazy.

march saw the deaths of two of my childhood heros, gary gygax and sir arthur c. clarke. gygax, besides having an awesome last name, was most notable for creating dungeons & dragons and sir clarke was an amazing visionary who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey and thought up geo-synchronus orbits and satellite communications.

there are numerous (better written) articles out there in the tubes for you to read, so all i'm going to do is point you towards a few of my favorites.

gygax:

nytimes op
blog.wired
playthisthing.com

clarke:

bbc.co.uk
teahouse on the tracks - alastair reynold's blog

my life is richer because of you two, thanks.

The Hellanic Report

again, i'm really behind on my posting, but... well, i'm lazy.

so i'm back from greece. i've been back for a week or so and have had time to ruminate and distill my experiences into a neuron-frying post. actually, i just remembered i hadn't written about it. the two things to keep in mind about my trip,

i had a lot of fun and,
northern greece (halikidiki and thessaloniki) look like someone flooded southern california.

that said, i went with two friends to visit a third. we did an all-night train trip from groningen to dortmund so we could catch a cheap easyjet flight to thessaloniki (saloniki to the locals). from there it was a short 2.6 hour flight to hellas (greek for greece; i'm still boggled that we don't use their word for themselves, even though i did some research and have a semi-solid theory about why we don't, silly romans).

we spent three days in thessaloniki at the apartment our friend lives in, seeing the sights/sites and meeting her friends. the power company of saloniki was striking so every day we'd have a 2 hour, or so, period of blackout which meant whole sections of the city were dark, while across the street it would be buzzing and alive. the most potent experiences with this were that we sometimes had to take cold showers (or go without) and that we ate this fantastic meal at this little restaurant in this little alley in the dark. or near dark. we had candles.

on the fourth day we drove 2 hours to ierissos, a small village of 2000, where our friend grew up. it was on this drive that i really started to notice how much southern california looks like greece. albeit there's much more dynamic coastline in greece, but the topography and vegetation is startlingly similar.

we did this drive on sunday, the last day of carnival and our friend thought it would be fun to stop in the capital, polygyros, for their celebration. it was. we saw a parade, dancing and ate some free food.

once we arrived in ierissos we stayed at her parents apartment and got to meet her cousin, grandparents and childhood friends. we spent the next days exploring the area, going swimming in the sea, and visiting a few tourist spots. since it was off-season most places were closed or offered limited services, but this made for a much more authentic experience and limited the surreal displacement i sometimes feel on being caught in the plastic tourist frenzy.

i'm glossing over a lot here, but really, you should go yourself. i took a horde of photos (of course) and they speak better than i do.

Crayon Physics Deluxe

some bit of goodness mon found and passed along. :D thanks mon!

FMI Open Dag

saturday was the fmi open day. they asked me to install this knex project i've been working on. i found this great space that was the main stairwell for the buildling. more words later, more images now.

music video pays homage to 80's bumpers

Justice - DVNO [NEW]
by PeteRock

some new work in progress

click to see some images of what i've been working on lately. the conveyor belt feeds to a camera. ultimately i'm think four or five projections with a mix of camera feeds, videos, and still images. better pics when i get more done.