In Medias Resolution

I was recently interviewed by Alessandro Arena-DeRosa of The Rule of the Games, check out the article write up and/or full audio of the interview in the links below. Thanks Alessandro for being uber professional and keeping my tangents to a minimum! Article: http://theruleofthegames.tumblr.com/post/101312310722/the-frontier-of-video-game-research-an-interview-with Full audio via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/the-rule-of-the-games/the-frontier-of-video-game-research-an-in

Here's a media article about my sempai at NAIST, Dr. Raula Kula (pictured here on the far left). I got to know him through many long and in-depth conversations, some while drunk, and others while highly caffeinated. All these discussions has helped me to become the researcher that I am today, and has enhanced my motivation to want to do great work. Thanks Raula, your new-found fame is well-deserved. I hope others can benefit from your expertise as much or even more than I hav

The study I just finished reading concluded that a game became harder when the difficulty level of that game was increased. I am trying to refrain from making my own conclusions that that study was empirically valid but somehow bankrupt of insight. To be fair, I will pore over it again, as I have more than just a sneaking suspicion that it is in fact my mood that is precluding me from the true meat of the article. The question laying heavily on my mind currently is just as ir

Going through my deck of collected business cards this morning to compose a shortlist of candidates to be my external advisor (for my Master's Thesis defense). Usually, the lab professors put together a panel of faculty from NAIST to act as the advisors, but in my case, the field is so weird that it requires at least one professor from the field itself, which is intrinsically located everywhere but this institute. Pleasantly surprised to find that as I look at each business c

From the California State University Dominguez Hills "Guide to Writing and Research in the Humanities": "Every time we write we employ a set of assumptions about how the world works. The facts do not speak for themselves, nor is any interpreter completely objective. Sometimes we're conscious of them, sometimes not. The more conscious of our assumptions we are, the more careful we can be that our assumptions serve us well, and the more honest we can be with those around us abo

#acecombatzero #conference #digrajapan #game #gamedesign #gamedevelopment #gamestudiescurrently #gradschoollife #japangamestudies #japanese #japanesegameindustry #masters #paper #research #researchers #trip

In my lab every graduating season, there appears to be a custom of placing the graduating PhD candidate's thesis near the daily newspaper for everyone to check out. This season is no different. I browsed the PhD thesis placed there, felt the negligible heft of it in my hands. To think, this was a person's life for several years, their every working thought bent towards the production of this binding of pages. I continued to silently regard the thesis this way for some moments

やっと、3月の学会の日本語の第一の原稿はとりあえず終了である。まだネイティブチェックされていないけど。先生に出した際にめっちゃ恥ずかしかったわ。「ちっちゃな子供っぽい日本語で書いたらしいと見えるかな」って怖い。10年前の教えた播南の生徒が英語のレポート、宿題などを出した気分と同じだろう。 My Japanese draft for my upcoming conference in Kyushu is finally done. I stress the word "draft" because it is a first effort and I am really afraid that it sounds like it was written by a little kid. This must be how all my Japanese students felt when they turned in their essays and assignments. #acecombatzero #conference #digrajap

Newly-noticed trend: Of course, it is always good practice to be present in one's own laboratory. But it is becoming gradually more apparent that it is particularly beneficial to be here on Fridays. This is the third time that providence has ambushed me on a Friday at the lab. Fridays--those most loathesome of days to be at a place of work, is slowly but surely evolving inversely into a day of surprise goodness. A month ago it was the boon of revelation gained from an intense

Left the lab today at about 6pm. When I reached the top of the small hill behind the Information Science Building, out of curiosity, I turned around to look at the building to see how many lights were still on; how many people may still be mulling about the labs. Being that it's New Year's Eve here in Japan, I had a hunch there wouldn't be many. As it turned out, there was only one set of lights I could see: 3rd floor, A Bldg--my lab. #gradschoollife #institution #naist #musi