Room to Think

I wrote last time about how mixed reality (MR) might be better for everyday augmentation of my crazy life, and virtual reality (VR) would be better for lazy days. After another week of thinking, hearing, speaking, dwelling, learning, absorbing, and immersing, I'm beginning to think I'm obsessed. In my lunch circle, I bring up the subject so often that my friends have dubbed me the "VR girl". I can't help it if I've been doing rapid learning and I'm really excited to share and process what I've learned! Today I want to return to the impressions I had during some of my first VR experiences. The first time I threw myself into VR was in the 6th floor expo hall at PAX Prime this year, playtesting a student game where it seemed like the goal was just exploration--in a very simplistic, child-like, and limited world. This is all in comparison to 2D video games, mind you. I didn't have anything else to compare with. Of course my graphics and physics sta

It's been a week, and I successfully got myself out to another coffeeshop! This time I'm at Pomegranate Bistro in Redmond, and I have a work buddy! She's sitting across the table from me reading and editing her short story. I'm so jealous that she's even in the frame of mind to be creating, but it's so inspiring. I hope she and I can do this more often. (at least, she was when I started this) In any case, here's my post for this week! I had hoped to post it on Wednesday for a new theme: "Wondering Wednesdays", but didn't have time to finish it until now. About 3 weeks ago, I got to play through the very first level in virtual reality that I've actually enjoyed. It was on the Vive, and I playtested a student game in its earliest stages, no less. It inspired me to do more research on VR and where it's currently at. My excitement about VR seems to be a bit delayed from the rest of the gaming world. The concept of headset VR has been

I have a confession: I've been putting off writing. Over the past 5 years, writing has become less and less a part of my life, and I'm realizing more and more that it's something I need.  I used to be an extremely reflective person. I prided myself on my introspection and as a result, I was more intellectual, patient, empathetic, open, and relaxed. I think I was a better person because of it. Now I'm impatient, with little time for wasted minutes, and feeling like I'm pressed for all the time. You know how people recommend meditation for health? To slow down in a sped-up world? That's what writing is to me. Mental yoga. And I do it about as often as I do yoga. Not often enough. There was a simple question in my  Spark Notebook  yesterday, and it made me think--as it should. That's what I paid for. It asked: What have you been putting off lately? Inexplicably, it made me sad. And, I had a rare amount of time that I had time to reflect on why. 

Guess what? It's TUESDAY. And I'm here. Granted, it has taken me twenty days since my last post, and I'm about to go to volleyball, but I have managed to make time for this, and all of you. So, I watched a couple TEDtalks in my quest to find one to bring to you today. One was "Why Google Glass?" by Sergey Brin. He's a Google co-founder, and now the leader of their Special Projects. The other was "How do you get your ideas to spread?" by Seth Godin. Personally, I don't think Sergey's talk was all that spectacular--not really something I would originally consider as "worthy" of the TEDtalk title. Many other people agreed with me that his talk was somewhat lacking...It was really just a commercial that introduced Google Glass, which then launched an interesting philosophical discussion in the comments. I wasn't originally going to post this as my blog topic, but then I found myself asking all sorts of questions...about

Why hellllooooo there. I haven't seen you  in a while...or rather, you haven't seen me. It always surprises me how you can go from having all the time in the world, to being very, very busy in such a short span of time. For example, I've been busy since January 3rd, doing the internship thing, complaining about zombie-hour wake up times and whatnot. Now that it's over, I seem to have all the time in the world... EXCEPT that I'm now spending that time applying to big kid jobs. Zombie hours are now a regular thing for me. I wake up at about 6:30 every morning practically dying  of thirst. Not being able to sleep through something like that must be an adult thing. That, or I'm starting to sleep with my mouth open again. Hrm. In summary, I've been busy. But I'm alive, and semi-well. I'm a tad bit anxious about filling my bank account again so I can start saving for Italy... again (and NOT dip into the savings I've already got for it), but other

I suppose I should post something  tonight. I've been feeling kinda bad the last couple weeks because of how sparse and lacking in quality my posts have been. Especially  because I keep seeing my pageview count continuously increasing. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing that. But I love it more when I know I've posted something good recently, and frankly, I don't think I have written anything worthy of the number of pageviews I've gotten since my last post. On the other hand, I'm so glad you like my blog! I'm so glad you keep coming back, and I really wish I had more time and energy to keep up with it like I used to. On Tuesday this week, I happened to watch this TEDtalk by iO Tillet Wright. It came up in my facebook feed because of course  I follow ted.com on facebook. To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the content to begin with. If you follow me regularly at all, you'll notice that the TEDtalks I tend to cover involve design, vide