Yes, I’m still alive… (but not by much)

So yeah, I haven’t posted anything new recently.  Thank college and exams for that.  Final exams for the spring semester start this week, so I’m busy studying and finishing up the assignments that my professors decided to add on just to make our lives that much harder.  My two CS classes both (independently) decided that we should get an extra assignment, so I’ve been clamoring to finish up both of those early so that I still have time to study for exams.  (My last assignment is due the day before my first exam…)  Once these next 10 days are over though, I’ll be done until September.  That means there will be much more activity on this front.

On the ASCII3D front – there’s nothing much going on to note.  I tried to implement a simple particle system at one point, then scratched the code I had written in favor of spending a good 3-4 hours at some point designing the system before implementing it.  Many of the features that will be implemented from this point on will be open to scripting, making the design of the engine code/API that much more complicated (to make everything customizable by scripting at some point).  On a better note though – I might have recruited two of my friends to assist in the development of ASCII3D (one for the coding and backend, one for helping with developing the scripting system).  That should make for a bit more progress if they help me out some.

I’m looking foward to working more on this project – I hope you guys are looking forward to seeing more pictures and demos (and possibly something “playable”!).

On college students and sleep (or lack thereof).

Why is it that college students always stay up much later than they need to and get much less sleep than is recommended?  (Yes, this is a sweeping generalization.  Yes, I’m going to continue as if it isn’t.)

I’m a really bad example of this.  Since Sunday night, I’ve been asleep twice, totalling around 16 hours.  Not a good idea.  I’m managing to pull through, but I can’t imagine the effects this is having on my body.  Having taken a class in sleep psych last semester, I’m fully aware of the detrimental effects of lack-of-sleep from a scientific standpoint, and years of experimentation gives me first-hand proof that this is all true.  And yet I continue to do it.  I’m not the only one though – many of my friends sit out with me in the hallway of our dorm until 2, 3, 4am, sometimes even staying up late enough to go out to eat when a popular “diner” near campus opens at 5am.  Now, granted, most of them aren’t as bad as me (I barely have a sleep schedule anymore), but sleep deprivation is chronic and widespread among college students.  It really is a shame, as these are very important years in our lives from a developmental standpoint (mental, physical), and yet we keep ourselves from fully developing.  There’s just too much stuff to do, and not enough time.  I’m not saying that we should be assigned less work so that we can still have the “full college experience” and still get enough sleep, but I feel like someone out there should do some real research into this, and try to find out a way that we can efficiently balance everything that demands time out of our finite daily allotment (sleep included).

(If, after reading through that, it seems like a bunch of nonsense, just think of it as proof that all-nighters are not such a good thing.)