Observations of the Fox

It's a few days into the design part of the Game Chef contest. I'm a little annoyed that it took so long for someone to be inspired by my artwork. But in the end someone did take on my girls, so I guess things could have been worse. Now I'm busy writing a game based on dark-gothic imaginary friends, and how they survive in a world where innocence is in short supply.

I'm starting to get a bit slack with my posting, but I'm still trying to keep up the blogging habit. Time to look back on a couple of the things that I've promised to observe and make comment on. Religion, Commerce, Human Nature. I haven't started with the small ones. Today I'm going to look at one of my favourite aspects of any religion; Zen koans, kabbalistic riddles and those ancient questions that are designed to make people think outside the square. Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand ? If a tree falls in the forest and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? It is possible for the creator to create a stone so large that even (s)he cannot move it? Does a dog have Buddha nature or not? I came to a great conclusion that covers every single one of these questions, it stretches back to Confucius. I'll be paraphrasing here, but one of the first things that Confucius stated was that conflict often arises through a lack of...

I thought I probably should probably show two of the images I submitted for the Artist's Section of Game Chef. I hope someone can do something interesting with them.

After having some fun with game design contests over the last few months, I've decided to take part in one of the biggest ones. I've entered The Game Chef 's contest for 2008. The last contest of this nature that I entered resulted in a game about time-travelling, swashbucklers and quantum mechanics. Something that is nearing the final stages of self publication for a release date in July. This years Game Chef contest is called "Artists First" and the basis is that artists produce a small string of illustrations to evoke a setting and mood, then a game designer produces a complete result from the artistic basis. I've looked at some of the artworks being submitted and while some of the work is pretty average, there are some absolutely astounding pieces. I'm not sure at this stage if designers will be randomly allocated images to work with, or if they will be able to choose from those available. I can see benefits and flaws to both options. If we get randoml...

Nothing too long or dramatic today...just an observation and comparison. United States protecting its interests in Iraq with a "pre-emptive war" during the 2000s. vs Nazi Germany protecting its interests in Poland with an "annexing" during the 1930s. Shock and Awe??? It might require a bit more historical research, but the cursory stuff I've been looking at today shows a lot of similarities.

The Seven Deadly Sins. Lust (Latin, luxuria) Gluttony (Latin, gula) Greed (Latin, avaritia) Sloth (Latin, acedia) Wrath (Latin, ira) Envy (Latin, invidia) Pride (Latin, superbia) Ever notice how the seven deadly sins are all forms of self indulgence and one of the key points of Christianity is to value to community over the self? "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." In studying several different religions I've noticed a common thread across them all. Each religion basically has the same ideas in place, they just say them in different ways. The three Judaeo-Christian religions (Yes, I'm including Islam among them because it has the same core origins as a religion of the book, founded by the figures Abraham and Moses.) have the Ten Commandments, each of which is a rule that puts the selfish goals of the individual behind a more community oriented goal. Buddhism has a tendency to claim that the very concept of self is a lie, and only by transcending the...

I've got a dozen ideas going through my head at the moment, ideas and observations about belief, spirituality and the whole answer about what is wrong with the world, but the problem is that every time I try to focus on a single point to begin my ideas, a dozen new ideas immediately link up and chains of thought push into new directions. I guess that following on from my previous post might be a good idea, as this can be used to link into more esoteric concepts later on. Corporate chromatography, thermodynamics and the problem with capitalism as an economic model. It almost sounds like the title for a post-graduate thesis. The pie chart is a great way of explaining things, it is used frequently throughout economics. It's all about describing a chunk of the world as a whole unit then dividing up the parts according to the relevant players in a particular field. We have $100 between us, I've got $50 and you've got $50, we each have half of the pie. We expand the economy ...

Scientists use a process called chromatography to separate component parts of a mixture. I'm not going to get into a whole lot of detail about this process, there's a decent article in wikipedia about it and I'm sure there are plenty of other articles scattered across the web. I'm no industrial but the analogy fits my rant for today...so bear with me. Chromatography basically works on density, with the component parts of the mixture dividing themselves out into bands of like-substances over time. My experience with the corporate world strangely seems to reflect the chemical process of chromatography and I'm starting to wonder if the process is some kind of universal constant that applies as much to social and ideological interactions as it does to chemical interactions. When you talk to someone who has been successful in the corporate world (or any other social field for that matter), they love to use the phrase "the cream rises to the top". I've heard...

I'm sitting here typing away at a computer as I develop a website as a part of a year long course at Padstow TAFE. For those who don't know what a TAFE is, it's a technical college. The reasons why I'm doing this course are long and complicated, as are the reasons that I find myself writing this first post in my blog. I'll try to sum things up in some short points. I am no longer employed by my former company, having lost my job in the week before Christmas 2007. (Describing the events around this could involve a long and complicated list of posts in itself, some of which would seethe with venom, while others would be insightful comments on the human nature, greed and ego.) Very shortly after I lost my job, I took up unemployment benefits knowing full well that Christmas is a difficult time to find employment. I had hoped to find something, or return to study if I had not. I started doing some casual work to help make ends meet around the house, while I frantically ...