Yearly Archives: 2007

Proposed workspace expansion

the mindlab

Here at the Broad there seems to be a constant re-construction of the work-space going on. In fact since I started here I’m not sure if there’s ever been a time when some part of the building wasn’t being torn apart and reorganized. My collegue Abderrahim and I have been displaced twice already due to this construciton and apparently in an upcoming phase of the process we will be displaced yet again, although in theory we’ll eventually end up back in our current space after the work is done.

In preparation for our potential move we were actually asked if there was anything necessary to make our temporary accomodations more suitable to the work we undertake. Since the proposed new space (a decontaminated, decomissioned BL 2 lab) is situated next to another area (the weighing room) owned by our team, we thought possibly we might be able to combine the two spaces in some way, potentially by expanding through the separating drywall.

Not knowing how far the facilities folks would be willing to go in reorganizing the space I drew up several proposals of how the space might be arranged to our advantage, a few of which are detailed below:

Reconfiguration Proposals

Drawings are to scale except for wall thickness which I found difficult to estimate accurately.

After reviewing these proposals the facilities folks informed us that Proposal 1 was out. Breaking through the drywall would not be feasable since that wall contained a significant amount of plumbing and electrical conduit.

Sadly, though I had a warm place in my heart for it, Proposal 3 was rejected as well. No reason was given for the rejection, though I suppose the high pricetag on research grade ethanol stock solutions might have something to do with it.

Ultimately it looks like they’ll be implementing Proposal 2, most likely due to it’s simplicity.

Phallus Phish

the mindlab

There’s a little fishing store you can see from Route 50 on your way west, right before Kent Island. I’ve been meaning to take a picture of it for years now, but Buff got it while on her way back from a job interview. What were the designers thinking?

phallus phish

On Teaching

the mindlab

This will be my rant on my particular experience with teaching in China. It had to happen eventually and I guess that I should be glad that there’s no chance my employer will read this blog, as some employees have faced problems for saying less than I’m about to say.

There’s a problem with the way English is usually taught in China. It is taught via book learning. This fundamentally wrong because a language, by definition, is spoken. The effect is a couple generations of Chinese who can read pretty well and who often have a surprisingly broad vocabulary, but who simply cannot speak English. If you can’t speak a language (hint: “lang” latin derived for “tongue”), then you really can’t do much with it, can you?

My company’s mission is to teach oral English to young Chinese students, to get them actually speaking the language, not just learn about the language as if it was a dead one. Seeing as I’ve learned Chinese the Chinese way (mostly reading and writing, very little speaking) and didn’t appreciate it much, and based on the linguistic theory that I’ve studied concerning language acquisition, I fully believe in my company’s mission. Unfortunately, the company itself doesn’t.

Continue reading On Teaching →

Gets Paid

the mindlab

It is a bloggy thing to do… but I am going out of my TREE.

So here goes:

1) You know it is over when you let your guitarist sing and people are sticking feet in his face.* I can’t stop laughing about this.

2) You know you’ve hit an all new level of genius when you can release a song about writing tunes on the bowl, have them make a music video out of it and get paid.

3) And this has hands down got to be the absolute lamest-half-hearted-I-have-no-idea-what-to-shoot-for-the-video I’ve ever scene. I can only imagine the conversation leading up to it. “Hey guys, we’ve just written a really great song, but let’s not even try on the video. Let’s just shoot a home movie of us making a fried breakfast.”

They should have let Edge stick his feet in the eggs.

If anyone has got some other ones – hit me up in the comment section. Cause I’m here till 5 so I gets paaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiddddd like Biz Markie.

  • Observation #1 is courtesey of Tim.

d20 New Character Classes – The Magus

Dragon's Den

It’s pretty well established that I like to tinker with role-playing game mechanics, and that I have several dissatisfactions with the d20 (D&D) spellcasting systems in particular which I’ve tried to remedy over the years.

But in spite of my disillusionment with the spell-slots/*fire and forget* style of casting in it’s several iterations, sometimes I still get the urge to design characters more closely fitting the standard spellcaster mould, though generally I’d prefer them a bit more flexible.

Now the usual spellcasters all have some sort of limitation on how many spells they can learn and/or which ones. Also, excluding the Sorcerer, most classes must prepare spells ahead of time and have an additional restriction on how coppies of each spell they can prepare in a given day, a set of rules which rankles my sense of verisimilitude.

Long have I coveted a class which overcame these restrictions. A class with the spontaneous casting. A class without limitations on how many or which spells can be learned.

The generic “Spellcaster” class presented in Unearthed Arcana perhaps comes closest to this goal, although even that class still has a couple issues. For one thing the Spellcaster, like the Sorcerer, is limited in the number of different spells they can know at any given level. Additionally, the Spellcaster is only intended for use in games where the other generic classes (the Expert and Warrior) are being used.

As an alternative I propose the Magus, a sort of omni-mystical sage or man of power, to provide a suitable player character class.

The magus provides greater flexability regarding the type of spells which can be learned, but with limits: Magi are relatively limited in the number of spells they can have prepared at any given time, also the number of spells they can cast in a day is relativley low, and they gain no bonus feats or other special abilities. Further, to learn and cast spells most effectively the magus must diversify her abilities greatly and learn at least two different skills; while, by contrast, wizards need only concentrate on one ability and a corresponding skill.

Continue reading d20 New Character Classes – The Magus →