ok, paper's up: Gaming in the Metaverse

December 15, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I just put the HTML version of my paper "Gaming in the Metaverse" up in verbal intercourse (there's a much more readable PDF version there as well). This is the cause of my current tiredness and lack of sleep, but I'm happy with the outcome. Here's the thesis, for you to scan before deciding the paper's not worth reading.

While Second Life provides a fascinating platform for study and experimentation, inherent limitations in the programming model seem to dictate that for now its in-world creations will be unable to match up to dedicated games.

Now that I'm done with that, Second Life can actually be a game.

everybody's talking subway again

December 15, 2004 by Eric Richardson

So apparently while I was snowed under working on my project the MTA had some discussions about future subway building on Monday. An LA Times article from yesterday about busway funding included a good bit on subway talks. Tom LaBonge is the one who's really doing the pushing right now.

I agree that it's proper for the MTA to pursue making sure all its options are open. Light rail has done some good things in LA, but there are going to be corridors in Los Angeles that can not be serviced via a ground-level mode. The expansion down Wilshire to the west is just such a corridor. Whereas you can run the Expo Line down a former rail right-of-way, you don't have that option on the highly dense Wilshire corridor.

And that's why I absolutely disagree with Gloria Molina's contention that westside subway expansion is racist. The eastside Gold Line extension will run about 6 miles, and the budget is listed at a touch under $900 million. That's about half the cost, or double the length, of the similarly priced plan to extend the Red Line 3 miles to Wilshire/Fairfax. Of that 6 miles, 2 is in fact subway. If I'm on the eastside I'm just happy that I'm getting something built in the current funding climate.

Subway, thanks to its costs, is currently relegated to a solution of last resort in the city of Los Angeles. That's life. Push for full grade separation before you fight for subway.

the finishing is the hardest part

December 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson

It's been quiet here over the last few days as I've been absolutely enveloped in this last paper for the semester. I'm writing about game development inside Second Life, and it was supposed to be due at 6pm, errr, I guess that's yesterday now. But I got that extended. The professor wasn't coming in until tomorrow morning to pick up the papers, so he said as long as mine was in his box by then it would be fine.

And so I'm sitting here at my laptop at 2:30am, one paragraph into the 11th page of a 12 page paper (12-15, but for me, 12). I haven't written a conclusion yet, but my last point sort of culminates the argument raised in the previous three so I don't think my conclusion's going to be that long.

I hate finishing papers. I've said pretty much all I want to say, but now's the time where I just have to wrap it all up, and I don't think I'm very good at that.

I put section headers in this paper. I don't usually do that. One of them is:

Scripts in the Hands of an API

I hope my professor gets the Jonathan Edwards reference. I thought it was clever.

I'll post the paper up in verbal in an hour or two. Sometime over break I need to post all the other things I've written this semester.

laugh it up

December 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I just made a joke on Second Life about Swatch internet time and no one laughed. That's pretty sad.

Dude, Swatch says it's 431.

it's late, or early

December 12, 2004 by Eric Richardson

So why am I up at 4am playing a computer game? Because I have a paper due on it Tuesday afternoon, that's why. The game is Second Life, and to be fair it's really not a game so much as it is a virtual world. It's the closest thing I've ever seen to the metaverse in Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash. Aside from eating up any and all system resources you give it, it really is a cool deal. Today I finally got Windows running on my desktop so that I could get this up and make the final push for this last paper.

What I wanted to point out right now, though, is how absolutely out of place I am at a late-night Goth party. The first shot shows my arrived-in attire against that of the others. The second shows my attempt to be a little more appropriate for the setting.

The funny part is that in real life I tend to show up to parties dressed just like that top shot. I guess Second Life is a good reflection of reality.