I grew up in Texas around San Antonio. Summers were hot. Winters weren’t all that cold. If snow fell, school was let out for the day because everyone was afraid the roads would close. Hard to imagine with the winters we have around here.
We didn’t have air conditioning. In the summer, when temperatures would rise above 95 degrees, the operating limit for computers back in the ’80s, we’d plop down in front of a fan and read a book. I tried to imagine a world where books were available on-line and on-demand, computers had gigabytes of memory (and would fit in my hand), and computer screens were as good as a laser printer. It’s taken twenty years or so, but we’re almost there.
I was fortunate in high school to have an internship at Southwest Research Institute where I explored chaos theory by building a digital model of a dripping faucet to explore energy transfer patterns between the solar wind and the earth’s magnetosphere. It was fun and challenging. I later used that experience in a math modeling class to see how well I could predict stock prices. The trick in life is to use what we learn in new and interesting ways.
Around the same time, I became interested in text adventure games, both the single and multi player varieties. I’ve played around with LPMuds and played MMORPGs like EverQuest for the Mac and World of Warcraft. Over the course of the semester, we’ll explore how these games work as stories. If you have an interest in text game development, planet mud-dev is a good place to check out.
My background is in Physics, Math, and English, so don’t be surprised if I bring in some science or math into our discussions. I’ve asked you to view a wide range of TED talks and read a lot of stuff about writing and story telling for the second week. Some of it is academic, but there are also a few pieces that aren’t all that scholarly. Communication happens in many ways.