Radar blip Nerdy as hell, but with fresh air and exercise I was particularly interested in the theoretical ability to lay different visual schemes over existing world objects, so that instead of, for example, a grey, maudlin Canberra office block, one instead could see a Edo-period Japanese castle or, you know, Moon Unit Alpha or something. The ability to actively filter out the less savoury visual elements of one’s surroundings is not without appeal… The Educated Walk to Work
No, I don't think it strange. I have some things in an office upstairs and some in my office downstairs so that I often have to run up and down the steps to retrieve something. This is training me for my October Lindeman Island "holiday". I also take time out to write in blogs to train myself in writing, thinking I might actually manage to succeed in Nanowrimo in November, when I never succeeded in writing even a good short story all through school.
By Anonymous, at
12:31 PM
No, makes perfect sense to me. Then again I used to read walking to and from primary school - to the point where I could literally walk most of the trip with my eyes shut to avoid afternoon glare if I wanted to.
It's such a pleasure to read and walk. I did it a lot on campus.
Well, if one must be geeky, it is doubtless better to be adorably so!
Not at all.
Blip more, Radar!
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
My disappearance off the blogging radar for the past week or so is entirely attributable to the truly ridiculous amount of work I’m not quite getting through. Most of this hectic schedule is, worse still, largely or entirely unrelated to Project Porkpie, for which I am nominally being paid to manage. In fact, most of it concerns the recruitment of more and more IT personnel, which thanks to government guidelines is a laborious and painful exercise, repeated seemingly endlessly of late.
I have taken the drastic step of announcing that I intend to move desks and join my Porkpie cohorts in the unsecured area of the building, well away from my current team. This area is colloquially known as Siberia, both for its isolation from everyone else in IT and indeed the entire Agency, and for its incredibly vigorous air conditioning. It’s freezing down there, but such are the sacrifices I am willing to make to be with my fellow Porkpiers.
Also, it means I won’t be the first person in line of sight whenever IT needs to recruit another bloody business analyst.
Check out this version of 80’s arcade supergame Pac-man played with virtual reality technology superimposing the game features over real world objects! The idea is that as players move about, a variety of related technologies (global positioning, graphic display, wireless internet etc) provide the helmeted player with a view of the game elements (energy dots, fruit popups etc) as though they are real world objects, so that they can see the game artefacts and the real world in the same view. Players can be Pac-man – gobbling up dots and avoiding the Ghosts – or Ghosts, trying to catch themselves little ol’ Pac-man. And it’s played by literally running around a ‘maze’ (in this case, it appears to be the campus of a Singapore university) which has been fully mapped and modelled as game information.
Not to be outdone, an Adelaide university team is creating a similar ‘augmented reality’ game, but using gameplay modelled on the much less violence-free Quake. Because shooting slavering demonic horrors is inherently more scientifically credible than eating glowing yellow energy balls, you understand.
Of course this is all years away from being commercially viable, but I can suddenly foresee a glowing and wonderful future where sleek, athletic nerds emerge from their hermit-like desk-based existence and become the new sports heroes of the 21st century, where children breathlessly discuss Career Frag Counts and argue earnestly on the Quality of l33tness. Or not.
On the other hand, consensually-induced hallucinatory environments sounds like a pandemic of schizophrenia just waiting to happen. I guess we’ll see. I can’t wait.
Since I managed to break the gear lever of the bike - and being too lazy to organise its repair – I have been walking to and from work the past couple of weeks. When I walk, I read – sometimes a novel, but lately property investment magazines and project management texts.
To answer the inevitable questions - No, I don’t get run over or walk into things or collide with joggers. No, I don’t step in puddles or patches of dog shit. No, I don’t fall over (which puts it at least one safety ranking above motorcycling).
On top of getting the necessary minimum of leg exercise necessary for September’s ski trip to not be utter agony, I also find that my reading comprehension is better. I suspect it’s partly to do with the intermittent necessity to look up and make sure there are no bikes, dogs or SUV’s bearing down on me. When, satisfied as to my preservation for the next few seconds, my eyes return to the page, it takes a second or two to find my place again. I’ve noticed that if I keep thinking about the last point I read before I look away, I can not only return to the correct spot more easily, but I also soak the meaning in more readily.
I just wondered – does anyone else think this is weird?
6 Comments:
Marco
:~)
It is a little bit weird, but only in an adorably geeky way.
Why? Should I? Is it weird that I don't?
