New Theme, New Posts Soon, New Happenings

I wanted a new coat of paint around here. We’re going to try this one on for size. It may or may not stick, we’ll see. I’m going to try and revive blogging here, as there are a number of things I’ve been meaning to write for many months. Many of those things are about photography, some of them are about games, and not a lot are about SlimDX or SlimTune.

Don’t hold your breath on the Slim* stuff – I just don’t know what is going to happen in the coming months. I’ve decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Computer Science at my alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. I hate school, but given other events in my life this was an important step to take. It does cut into my time quite severely, so I’m basically stepping out of the consulting business and maintaining a blog during school is daunting to say the least.

I am also working on game development for the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. That is an extremely interesting effort which I will attempt to discuss as much as I can, though a lot of it is not and will not be public soon. That’s the nature of the beast, unfortunately. I will say right now that it should be obvious that psychology and neurology play an important role in game design. It turns out that game design plays an important role in psychology and neurology too, and research has only just started to explore the implications of that crossover. There is a lot of potential.

Lastly, I’ve found myself very heavily invested in artistic pursuits, primarily photography. I think it’s important for any game developer (or any entertainment industry professional at all) to nurture their creative/artistic side as much as possible. You don’t have to be good at it, but you can’t neglect it. I picked photography because I’m terrible at drawing, and because I hoped it would clarify a lot of things I’ve never understood in graphics engineering. (It did.) It’s now a pursuit of mine in its own right, and I intend to be writing a lot about it.

Lastly, I want to thank all half dozen people who are actually reading this post. You guys are nuts and I’ve wasted your time, but I promise better things are coming down the pipeline. I am working to finish an epic post detailing the basics of digital color representation. I can almost guarantee you’ll learn something.