Thursday, March 4, 2010

The 1st Week is Always a Bitch

So, We're outta O-Week and my fresh n00bs are looking somewhat pwned. Goodness knows I'm feeling kinda pwned too.

This year has proved interesting so far - we seem to have scored a peculiar combination of 1st years!

It's looking more and more like lower OP cut-offs mean a higher proportion of high school kids. Compare this to the previous two years, our percentage of ex-TAFE or other students is lower (though this may be a consequence of a former TAFE lecturer moving to head up the games element at QUT).

Most interesting though are our international students, mainly dudes who've already done some interesting things in the past - some former engineering, graphic design and psychology students! I'd be keen to see what interesting insights these folks have to bring to bear on the subjects we'll be covering.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

OK, let's see if this turkey flies!

As I've mentioned previously, I'm trying out a few things with Unity3D and slowly learning how to use C# (which is freakin' agonizingly slow!) Let's see how linking to a build will work eh? Bear in mind that it's windowed really small, uses WASD and mouse to control and has no interactivity in there... YET.

There's a LOT of builder's debris in there and nothing's been textured/UV'd yet. I'm kinda winging it on this project -there's very little preproduction, and I'm just experimenting with how cool shapes look so it's been a very very slow process:)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Angiogram Blues

Its a strange feeling having several strangers run a catheter through your femoral artery (from a groin based entry point). You can feel the damned thing crawling about in your torso, and it's more than a little unnerving.

The room is almost chilled, probably 20 degrees with a gentle breeze that blows over your body. The Nurses and Doctor have thoughtfully covered your feet with what feels like an electric blanket, but the rest of your body is covered in the thinnest of gowns and sticky plastic and paper coverings. Look up and you see a large xray device mounted on a robot arm. Periodically the doctor calls to the radiologist in the booth to shift it with cryptic acronyms, called more like bored liturgy than anything else. The arm whirls abruptly this way and that, pausing occasionally to make rapid fire snapping and crackling noises as though it's shooting a million rounds a minute.

Then comes the freaky hot and cold flush that washes over you chest first as they inject the x-ray opaque dye, then the strange angina pain as they inflate the balloon in a congested artery. Once, twice, three times as they try to shove the fatty deposits aside with a tiny spring that looks like it's a binder for a microscopic sketchpad. Eventually they spring pops open, locking into place and allowing a greater flow of life giving blood to starved regions south of the blockage.

I have no illusions, the deposit is still there, albeit pinned behind a dam of shape memory alloy wire. I have to make some changes - dietary, medication and a raft of others if I'm to make it through the coming years. I've been through this twice now - I can't recommend it as a fun way to spend Christmas.