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Academia, Gaming, Culture
Feb. 12th, 2018 10:37 pmI've been preparing a few papers for the 2018 European tour, including one on "Issues In Event-Based HPC Cloudbursting" for the International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation in Orléans, and a full-day tutorial on "Andragogical Techniques in High Performance Computing Education" for the International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt. With abstracts already submitted for the Advanced Scientific Computing conference in Basel, Switzerland, and the Human-Technology conference in Enschede, Netherlands, I am hopeful that at least a few of these submissions will be accepted in what is already looking like an extensive and rewarding journey. Of course, I'm rather looking forward to catching up with the Stuttgart side of the family again as well.
It's been a good few days gaming-wise as well; Sunday was our regular RuneQuest Questworld game, which has included other 'gateway' locations such as Elderad and Griffin Island - neither popular supplements but we're making good use of them so far with the players providing the direction of the story. Last Thursday we wrapped out our game of FATE Red Planet, a rather cheesy utopian space opera of utopian socialism. I have also submitted my review of Hunter Planet to rpg.net, previously in the most recent issue RPG Review. In that matter, have been working hard to get the final pages down for the increasingly late issue 37, which includes a hefty review and summary of second edition Exalted, which is a rather challenging game system.
Nevertheless, as is my want, I have a cunning plan to use Exalted as means to integrate my desire to expand my cultural knowledge of classic Chinese literature, specifically sì dà qíshū, the four extraordinary books. Hopefully by combining the stories into a new version of Journey to the West I will gain an appreciation of the texts combined - and it may even reinvigorate my off-again, on-again interest in contemporary Standard Chinese - and on a completely different cultural tangent I've been doing something quite rare, paying attention to a television series, specifically Altered Carbon, which I am enjoying quite a lot. I can certainly see how it influenced Eclipse Phase.
It's been a good few days gaming-wise as well; Sunday was our regular RuneQuest Questworld game, which has included other 'gateway' locations such as Elderad and Griffin Island - neither popular supplements but we're making good use of them so far with the players providing the direction of the story. Last Thursday we wrapped out our game of FATE Red Planet, a rather cheesy utopian space opera of utopian socialism. I have also submitted my review of Hunter Planet to rpg.net, previously in the most recent issue RPG Review. In that matter, have been working hard to get the final pages down for the increasingly late issue 37, which includes a hefty review and summary of second edition Exalted, which is a rather challenging game system.
Nevertheless, as is my want, I have a cunning plan to use Exalted as means to integrate my desire to expand my cultural knowledge of classic Chinese literature, specifically sì dà qíshū, the four extraordinary books. Hopefully by combining the stories into a new version of Journey to the West I will gain an appreciation of the texts combined - and it may even reinvigorate my off-again, on-again interest in contemporary Standard Chinese - and on a completely different cultural tangent I've been doing something quite rare, paying attention to a television series, specifically Altered Carbon, which I am enjoying quite a lot. I can certainly see how it influenced Eclipse Phase.
