Culvë ve tye ne

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Five Tribes A great write up of mine and my wife's (Sarah) thoughts on Five Tribes

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Electrons on Mars, the Rebooted Series!

Electrons on Mars, the Rebooted Series!

A blog? Oh yeah! I have one of those! Let’s flip through it and see… 2015 goal is to post 100 times in a year? Hahahahahahahahahaha! And my 2014 goal was to post once a week? *sigh* Well, this makes post 4 out of 100. That means I only have to post about 5 times every week to catch up. Yeah, not going to happen. I’m hoping to start posting here a bit more regularly, but I know better than to make…

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A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Goodreads Link

My Rating: A solid 4 out of 5 stars

TL;DR: A focused, no nonsense fantasy adventure that moves fast and packs a punch. Well loved tropes pop up here and there, but in new and interesting ways that in no way detract from the story. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and look forward to potential sequels, though the story is satisfying as is, and in no…

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Fiction Reading List 2015

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m planning on reading at least 52 books in 2015. I’ve already finished one book (The Meaning of it All by Richard Feynman). I’ve gotten a lot of books recently, both as gifts and purchases. I’m not going to plan all 52 books right now because it wouldn’t work out, but I will say that I can name a handful that I’m sure I’m going to read this year.

In no particular…

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Busy Busy Bee

So, it looks like it’s been a month and a half since my last post. This post will be much the same as that one: a basic run down of all the things that have happened since I last posted. Not interesting, I know, but I think that it’ll put any future (hopefully more regular) posts into context. A lot has happened in this last month.

Graduated with a 4.0

Accepted into A&M’s doctoral program with a…

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7 Days

I have one week until school starts. I think I’m mostly just excited to have more than one or two days at a time when I don’t have to work. I’m tired of the tedium. I’ve talked before about how work kills my motivation every day, but I’ll sum it up here again: before work I think, “I only have a few hours till I have to go in, so I might as well just relax.” I make plans for all the good I’m…

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7 Days

I have one week until school starts. I think I’m mostly just excited to have more than one or two days at a time when I don’t have to work. I’m tired of the tedium. I’ve talked before about how work kills my motivation every day, but I’ll sum it up here again: before work I think, “I only have a few hours till I have to go in, so I might as well just relax.” I make plans for all the good I’m…

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Update on Project and Life

Update on Project and Life

I promised myself that I would post last night. Sunday morning counts as last night, right? I’ve been doing so well all summer with accomplishing things, but over the last week I’ve fallen in the same rut that usually captures me when I’m off of school. I come home exhausted from work and go straight to watching movies, browsing reddit, and playing video games to kill time until bed.

Part of my…

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I need an extra hour

I need an extra hour

There’s not enough time in the day. It feels like as soon as I get into what I’m doing it’s time to do something else.

I have about an hour left before I have to go to work. Luckily, I only have a 5 hour shift today. That means I don’t even have to stop for lunch. That also means that sometime in this last hour I’m going to have to stop what I’m doing so I can eat some lunch.

I introduced Ashok…

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Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes by D. Nurkse

Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes by D. Nurkse

from Poetry, the February 2012 edition. It also can be read here.

Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes

Ignorance will carry me through the last days, the blistering cities, over briny rivers swarming with jellyfish, as once my father carried me from the car up the tacked carpet to the white bed, and if I woke, I never knew it.

Ashok let me borrow a couple of his issues of Poetryyesterday. It’s a…

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Wooden by Kay Ryan

Wooden by Kay Ryan

From The Best of It, page 141

Wooden

In the presence of supple goodness, some people grow less flexible, experiencing a woodenness they wouldn’t have thought possible. It is strange and paradoxical as the combined suffering of Pinocchio and Geppetto if Pinocchio had turned and said, I can’t be human after all.

I’m sitting with Ashok, drinking some great coffee out of my Syphon Pot, full on very…

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The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

From The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats revised second edition edited by Richard Finneran.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

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Just Under the Wire

Just Under the Wire

Enough is enough. I know when I’m beat, even if it takes me a while to admit it. 365 posts in a year obviously isn’t going to happen. Not while going to school. Once a week seems to be just the right amount. Next year, maybe I’ll try twice a week.

I’m getting really involved in school. Not socially involved, just mentally so. I’ve gotten some science books to read (non textbook, non required…

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Don't Say Her Name

Don’t Say Her Name

Like ___ be a lady tonight. Fill in the blank, and you’ll know what we’re talking about today. Never say her name, or she’ll abandon you. You know who I’m talking about.

Randomness has such a huge factor in ToF, and I think that’s both boon and fault. Think about procedurally generated games. Part of their charm is in the strange situations that arise from their random nature. Dwarf fortress, for…

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Thoughts on Death in Games

Thoughts on Death in Games

Inspired by Shivers’s comment on my last post, I started to think about scaling in Guild Wars 2. You scale down, but never up. That means you are always challenged, but you can decide how challenged you are. If you just want to mess around, go to a lower level. It’ll still give you some difficulty, but not so much. If you are feeling strong, go to a higher level.

But, how to apply this to ToF?…

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Motivation to Play

Inspired by Games Precipice I decided to look at the motivations to play Tales of the Fallen. Some points I broke into positive and negative aspects of my current vision, some I just discussed. I did this during school by hand, so this is a retyping of my…

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Electrons on Mars

This is my 22nd post out of 47 that I should have. I think I may need to lower my goal down to maybe two posts a week. That feels like defeat, though. When I get in the mood, and get the time, I post maybe three or four times at once. It’s all the other…

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