Congratulations to Dr. Shields! It was such a treat meeting him at AIIDE last year - I highly recommend checking out his work on game design analysis, he has such a great perspective on design, balance and technology: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
(Yes, I passed. Yes, I've been holding onto that joke for 5+ years)
As it turns out, Shields...
😐🤏🕶️😎
Are good for defending
YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH
My PhD defense has officially be scheduled and is open to the public! Would be honored if you could tune in or join in person.
I'm going to be talking about player-centric approaches to game balance design and proceduralization.
Calendar details here: events.ucsc.edu/event/shield...
Urgent question: Are rhinos considered unicorns (or vice versa)
I can't stress enough how urgent this is
1. Majora's Mask
2. A Link to the Past
3. Tears of the Kingdom
My PhD defense has officially be scheduled and is open to the public! Would be honored if you could tune in or join in person.
I'm going to be talking about player-centric approaches to game balance design and proceduralization.
Calendar details here: events.ucsc.edu/event/shield...
Couch coops were my third place growing up. Feels like we need more of those these days!
Day after submitting dissertation: solid 13 hours of sleep.
Today, I build new commander decks in celebration
Now is an excellent time to get into self-hosted, open-source applications... Especially around communication.
Public libraries should be open 24/7
(This isn't facetious by the way. Spider-Man and Spiderman 2 are the 2nd and 3rd best superhero movies ever made. This is, of course, because Darkman occupies the top slot. Wait a second, is Army of Darkness a superhero movie?!)
Sam Raimi, completely casual and authentic, in a grass backyard.
Forget Altman, dump Bankman-Fried. Sam Raimi is the true Sam that all young, impressionable Sams need to model their Samness after. Truly the best Sam to have ever Sammed
We are deeply saddened at the news of the passing of Magic legend Kai Budde. His achievements in the game and community go beyond what we could say in one post. Our thoughts go out to Kai's friends and family in this moment.
Remembering Kai Budde: magic.wizards.com/en/news/anno...
Lorwyn Eclipsed is outstanding. The art style is what I've missed in magic, its draft is fun, world building is amazing, flavor is delectable. My favorite set since I've gotten back into the hobby by far
A gentle reminder: if you attempt to interact with me while wearing camera/smart/AI pins or glasses, I will give you a dirty look and walk away immediately
Badly drawn magic the gathering tokens. Who is the rebel rebelling against?! We may never know.
Seriously considering a career making MtG tokens
So how common is it to constantly resist the clarion call of writing in-depth about some cool new thing you've read or realized in your topic when finishing up your dissertation...
...Because those calls are LOUD for me right now and I am easily distracted
Nick Cave's Soundsuits, vibrant and figure-obscuring suits that make sound with movement. Made mostly from otherwise disposable and/or unique materials.
(Daydreaming) Nick Cave's Soundsuits as inspiration for homemade adversarial attacks against recognition and surveillance systems. Like, Scramble suits, but for non-authority folks that emphasizes expressiveness/history/culture. People would trade them to stay anonymous and share their creativity.
*sprays water bottle* BAD GOOGLE, BAD *sprays again*
Hello my name is Sam
I sometimes paint hands
Here's a little script to exclude google scholar results of articles you've already saved to your collection. Helps focus down literature reviews as you go through a bunch of search terms. (Note: LLM tooling used in authoring of script).
github.com/smshields/Ex...
Just found out that HostGator has been redirecting my domain to some spam site for some amount of time... Which I didn't notice because my site was cached locally 🤦
Curses to my first year self that thought writing a bibliography for a paper without using a .bib file was in any way going to be useful in the future
I'm not the best at keeping Zotero updated, so I had a ton of random .bib files that I needed to merge for my dissertation. I ~prototype slopped~ a quick python script to help make this a much more automated process - maybe it's useful to you all.
github.com/smshields/Bi...
Anything from Megaman X honestly - also anything from that soundtrack
I've unfortunately got to cut back on some subscriptions. What do we think is more valuable: LinkedIn Gold or Pokemon Home?
...It's definitely Home, right?
A cute bunny.
Oh also: cute bunnies attended too (5/5)
A huge thank you to @luked.bsky.social for sponsoring the game night, and @matthewguz.bsky.social for organizing and running an amazing conference (along with the rest of the committee!). I'll remember this one forever. (4/5)
The AIIDE community playing games at The Hexagon Cafe
Most important of all, I got to spend a great deal of time chatting, getting coffee, and playing games with these excellent folks. Tuesday night we had a super fun game night, @emilyhalina.bsky.social organized an awesome mixer, and I even squeezed in some extra magic here and there. (3/5)
