Monday, October 20, 2008

Busy

So, the new academic year has started. I'm following a Master in Computer Sciences now, option Human-Machine interaction. I've got a bunch of interesting new courses (Computer Graphics, Distributed Systems, Compiler Construction, ...), but the workload is getting pretty heavy. I'm also organising events for the improvisational theater group I'm active in, Preparee.

So I'm going to do the very thing I think is a landmark in laziness: instead of writing out paragraphs and paragraphs about the tidbits of interesting things I've found in the last few weeks, I'm going to sum them up. That's right. Yes, Dave, I'm afraid I can do that.

  • I've been using Drupal a lot for the Preparee website. It's quite complicated to get started with at first, although the module system is a bless. It was hard to get things running, since we opted for drupal 6.X, and a lot of modules still don't have release candidates for the 6 series. Especially the Date module had some problems, but with my little project living against the dev-release line, I helped to debug it.
  • The Telectroscope is an awesome art project.
  • World of Goo is the best indie game I've played in a long time. It's a physics-based puzzle game with a unique art style and tremendous music. It's quite hard to believe this is a two-man project. I try to avoid using the phrase Bedroom Programmers here, since it tends to sound quite homoerotic.
  • Automated P2P enforcement gone wrong: printer sued for downloading Indiana Jones 4. Of all movies, the poor printer.
  • Promising one-man MMO: Love. Procedural animation and rendering.
  • Video series I've laughed at lately: twisted cubicle workers in ManInTheBox and the ever sarcastic Zero Punctuation.