Epic Adventures: UK is now complete!

 My stay abroad has come to an end, and with that, I have completed my podcast "Epic Adventures UK". After listener feedback, it is not only available on Spotify, but has an RSS feed and is available on Youtube as well.

What have I learned from my podcast? That speaking for 20-30 minutes is harder work than it looks like, especially if you cut out silence and random sounds. That software tools might lose your data, even if they are apparently backuped. That proper preparation is essential.

This project is complete anyways, and I do not intend to continue podcasting as I do not have any brilliant ideas and cannot commit enough time to get "professional" anyways. But overall, it was an interesting experience.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Royal Armouries Leeds

This time, I want to talk about a museum! During my UK travels, I could enjoy a special one twice: The Royal Armouries in Leeds. As an armoury, its collection are weapons and armour from all over the world, mainly from the medieval period onwards.

It does a great job to not only show heaps of metal, but to explain and contextualise their pieces, including opportunities to touch. Next to a focus on British military guns and jousting, it does have stuff from all around the world, including this:

That is the last complete set of elephant armour (from the Moghul empire) in the world. One example for why the British Empire's "acquisitions" make for a lot of concentrated sightseeing.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Order of the Stick

Remember when webcomics were a new thing? When upcoming artists filled creative niches in a bubbling cauldron of stories and gags? Well, that was 20-25 years ago. But some of these projects are still around, not new things anymore, but creations with a history.

The top spot of all of these in my heart belongs to the Order of the Stick. Started in 2003 and still going on in its last great story acrt over 1300 strips later, it is a story-driven, humourous comic about D&D 3.5. Which is the D&D I played most, but does date it a bit.

Starting as a lighthearted parody, it has since turned into a story about the fate of its world. Its compelling story, featuring a cast of awesome and deep characters including one of the best paladin depictions ever, has kept me enthralled for over two decades.

As the main comics are all available online, with only a few prequels and side stories gated behind print or Kickstarter projects, you are only one click away from joining the Order of the Stick's quest.

Stay epic,
Gilbert

Best of the Best: Stellaris

 Another one of my most favourite gaming time sinks is Stellaris, by Paradox Interactive. Released in 2016 and expanded/iterated upon since 9 years, it is THE space 4X game and the first one I liked better than Master of Orion 2 (released 1996).

Explore the galaxy, meet new species and hug and/or kill them, build an empire.

It is a complex game and not without long term issues centered about performance and AI (both issues being genre staples as well). Yet it shines as the ultimate sandbox for emergent SciFi strategy, having slowly incorporated most tropes of the field. Emulate the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, the Federation from Star Trek, or the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K? Sure, why not multiplayer all of them in the same game? How about a ring world to go with that? No matter if you want to turn the galaxy in a garden of wonders or utterly wreck it, there are dozens of playstyles available. With galactic archeology, anomalies, and space fauna, the void is everything but empty.

Release your inner empire if you dare.

Best of the Best: Vampire Survivors

 Vampire Survivors is another case of "well, of course it is good, look at all the hype around it". Sure, it is not unknown, but I am writing about my personal GOATs here.

In short, Vampire Survivors has you move around a character besieged by waves of enemies. The character automatically attacks with the weapons they have equipped. Player agency is about picking weapons and where to go, trying to survive till the stage's timer end. This is framed in a Castlevania-ish style and story rudiment. Collected gold allows general upgrades and character unlocks.

But the "true" game starts when you stop surviving and start hunting. As soon as you have figured out how to beat the enemy growth curve, it turns into a game of unlocking content and exploring secrets.

As a big bonus, the game completed the circle and features an official and ginormous Castlevania DLC, allowing us to scratch this itch once again.

Who doesn't enjoy fragging 100k opponents as Alucard?

In its totality, Vampire Survivors is completionist dopamine-farming done perfectly, sold cheaply and without microtransactions. I have put more hours into it than in most AAA games I played, as it is perfect to let the brain cool off after a long day of sciencing.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Vorkosigan Saga

 To continue from fantasy to SciFi recommendations: My greatest "discovery" of the last years was the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is a series that is mostly military SciFi and mostly following the exploits of Miles Vorkosigan, who is the scion of a noble house, crippled by poison before birth, and also an utter rascal.

What makes the somewhat standard storylines work is Bujold's streamlined writing and a genuinely funny main character who bluffs his way from challenge to challenge. I am not through with the whole series yet, but do take a bite every 1-2 months with another book that I devour in 1-2 evenings.

Stay Epic!

Best of the Best: Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere

 Of the reading I did in recent years, the nerdy centre has been Brandon Sanderson's oevre. His fantasy-that-is-close-to-SciFi style and worldbuilding is not for everybody, but it has me in its grip.

While he came to wider attention with his Mistborn series and by finishing Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's untimely death, I consider his Stormlight Archive series to be my favourite. It combines an alien world with great character development, and it is currently at the halfway point of five out of ten books. His original fantasy stories are all connected in a greater "Cosmere", which enriches reading depth. I have recently finishes reading the last story part of the Cosmere, and even with Sanderson's driven writing speed (we are talking about a guy who wrote four extra books during the pandemic) it leaves me wanting for more.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: The Dominions series

There is a series of fantasy strategy games that unites Spartan graphics, ultra-detailed mechanics and absolutely everything of myths, legends and fantasy lore into a single game: Dominions.

Currently at Dominions 6, it is the game for people who want to dig into fantasy warfare campaigns with micro- and macro-management and many opportunities for role playing.

Multiplayer mode and extensive mods (including randomized and a full-blown Forgotten Realms mod) on top of incredible customisation allow for incredible replayability. Sure, it is not an easy game to get into. But it tries to give lots of information on what is going on. Mostly.

If you enjoy old-school gaming and fantasy, give it a try.

Best of the Best: Slay the Spire

 It occured to me that I could make up for my lack of content over the last decade with a series of posts about the "best" media that I encountered over that time. Favourite book series, long-time gaming favourites, whatever comes to my mind.

Let's start with Slay the Spire. In short, it is an unforgiving roguelite card builder game.

Collect cards, potions, and relics on your mission to slay the heart of the Spire. Do not expect to win often. One round going up to three hours for successful and complex builds, I can fit that time into even busy weeks without worries about RPG or strategy campaigns. I can even play it on the Switch. Oh, and part two is in development right now.

It is not a "new" game, but one that I come back to some time since years. 

Well, let's start the necromantic ritual: This year, the blog was admittedly not the main focus, with only a few posts. BUT this was mainly due to new and exciting projects: I started recording gaming videos ("Let's Plays" for YouTube), while rapidly professionalising. At some point, I set up a proper channel called Professor Plays! Check it out, I even have an SFX intro. Highlight was my ability to play and upload the Wasteland 3 Alpha at launch due to holidays.

More creative energy went into the overdue continuation of my musical side project Commander Deep, with the release of its second Album Rematerialisation In Finity. The production volume is approximately 100x higher than the last one, featuring multiple instruments, better SFX and proper artworks.
Gradient of Disorder is still around, with our first album rapidly steadfastly approaching completion. Only vocals and a few instrumental parts for one song need to be recorded, with eight songs being already mixed. Expect it 2020, for real.

On the scientific front, I wrote an article about magnetic fields for "Der Skeptiker" that can be ordered here. Next year will probably see a few public education talks about 5G and why you don't need to hide under a stone because of it.

During traveling for conferences and meetings in north america, I made a nice travel video.

But most importantly, I got a new position (to be exactly half of one) for research using an intraoperative MRI that will be online in the near future. This cutting edge imager will offer exciting possibilities.

I summarise: 2019 was a productive and successful year!

Happy solstice, have a christmas and stay epic!
GG

Awesome Games Done Quick 2019

Admittedly a bit late as it started yesterday, but one of my favourite streaming events of the year, Awesome Games Done Quick, ist happening this week. It is an event that shows incredible speedruns of video games to raise funds for charity. Donations go to the Prevent cancer Foundation and currently the Castlevania block is running.

Stay epic!

Commander Deep Returns!

After a long time of neglect, I took the time to dust of an old musical project that I did in 2009 and to upload it to YouTube for convenient access: Lo and behold, I present to you Commander Deep -Bastions of Infinity

This space ambient music presents the efforts of base guitar effects and signal postprocessing. While it might not have the highest production value, it is an important artefact of my mind form earlier times.

Stay epic!

Public talk at Sceptics in the Pub Vienna: After action report

The talk in October went very well, and since last week, the resulting YouTube is available:

If you missed the talk but are interested, this is your chance to be edutained. ;)

Stay epic!

Public talk at Sceptics in the Pub Vienna

Tomorrow I have the honour to talk about the effects of magnetic field on us humans as part of the Viennese Sceptics in the Pub talk series. I hope I can discuss some interesting effects and facts and fulfill my duty as scientist by enlightening a few people.

Admittedly, the advertisement here is very short-term, but the event enjoyed some publicity in other channels. There even is a press release! I hope to see some readers tomorrow, but there will be a YouTube video for all the people missing the event. Therefore I will post an after show report and the link to the recording at a later date.

Stay epic!

Darkest Dungeon: Finally beaten!

Long time ago, I blogged about playing Darkest Dungeon, and my frustration at this game. A great game, but also unforgiving. Since that time, two addons and some quality of life improvements were released, so I gave it another try. Over the course of the year, helped by the less grindy Radiant mode, I slowly built up everything needed to finish the game.

After a long journey, I reached and defeated the final boss yesterday!

What can I say? It is a good game. It is an obnoxious game. It likes to punish you heavily, but this only makes victory so much sweeter. Still there is the Sleeper boss waiting in the Mill, so I might go back the old road one more time...

Stay epic!

Finally playing a tournament again: Vienna TableTop Masters 2018 - Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age

Yesterday, I finally managed to participate in a tournament again! The Vienna TableTop Masters 2018 allowed me to see how rusty I would be as general to my plastic and metal elves. My aspirations were modest, not coming in last and as bonus being in the upper half of the bracket.

I had three games, versus other Highborn Elves, Dread Elves and finally Warriors of the Dark Gods. They were all fun and nice learning experiences, thanks to my opponents. I sadly did forget to take more pictures, but I have shots of the first game opening and the second game closing:

 Here we can see two dragons in the opposing forces that gave me some headache. But in the end, my sword masters made shashlik out of the big one.

Here you see the moment before I charged the big dragon ogre character, who did die in the end after squishing my battle standard bearer.

In the end, I won the first and third game and lost the second game (I could not engage anywhere and my opponent cleverly occupied the secondary objective). Quite surprisingly, this was exactly enough to achieve third place! Way beyond my expectations and involving some luck to be honest.

In case you are interested, here is my list:

705 – High Prince, Army General, Dragonforged Armour [25pts], Great Weapon [15pts], Master of Canreig Tower [135pts], 2 Additonal Learned Spells [80pts], Blessed Inscriptions [65pts], Diadem of Protection [85pts], Ghostly Guard [40pts], Lucky Charm [10pts]

390 – Commander, Battle Standard Bearer [50pts], Dragonforged Armour [20pts], Great Weapon [10pts], Royal Huntsman [60pts], Banner of the Relentless Company [35pts], Protection of Dorac - Models on foot only [65pts]

490 – Commander, Griffon [220pts], Heavy Armour [10pts], Lance [10pts], Shield [5pts], Death Cheater [95pts] 

   

180 – 5x Elein Reavers

180 – 5x Elein Reavers

530 – 20x Sea Guard, Musician [20pts], Standard Bearer [20pts], War Banner of Ryma [60pts]

340 – 15x Sea Guard, Musician [20pts]

100 – 1x Giant Eagle

100 – 1x Giant Eagle

215 -  Lion Chariot

110 – 1x Reaver Chariot

779 - Sword Masters – 28x Sword Masters, Champion [20pts], Musician [20pts], Standard Bearer [20pts], War Banner of Ryma [60pts]

380 –Phoenix, Frost Phoenix

Just as disclaimer, I was not entirely satisfied with it, as it lacks a second combat unit, but the general and the phoenix performed really well.

Stay epic!

PS: As a bonus, nature sent a winged attendant to show off. To my understanding, this is a "Tagpfauenauge" or peacock butterfly (Aglais io): 

Science communication: Where you can find me speaking and presenting in the near future

In my opinion, as important as science-ing is the communication of your topic and results to the interested public. Therefore I strife to do exactly this, resulting in some events/event participations to announce!

For starters, the "Lange Nacht der Forschung" i.e. the long night of science on the 13.4.2018 draws closer. Our centre will show of our equipment and research in guided tours between 17:00 and 20:00.  As soon as the details are available online, you will find them here! If you cannot come or represent a bigger group, please feel free to contact me for an extra tour at another date.

Soon afterwards, I will talk about the effects of magnetic field onto humans at the Volkshochschule Donaustadt (adult education centre), details are available here.

I will also present a poster about my recent scientific work at the CCC-TRIO – Translational Research & Immuno-Oncology symposium here in Vienna on the 6.4.2018, but this is a bit too specific for the general audience, I guess.

For the younger generation, I will also organise courses for the children's university in summer, but its program will only be online in May.

More interesting will be a special surprise for late 2018 that I will announce in the future.

Stay tuned and epic and see you soon.

Something Completely Different: Pendants

Todays topic is, a bit unexpectedly, about jewellery. While the blog was down, I acquired two nice pendants for myself.
The first one is a roman silver coin mounted to a chain.

It shows Sol Invictus / Gordianus III (yes, that makes it pre-christian). I am currently very much interested in Roman history and felt it to be a great idea.

The second one is a jade fishhook from Hawaii, a nice example of pan-pacific craftsmanship.


The seller was very nice and commented favourably on my "monkey king" shirt (actually a Dragonball one with Son Goku, but he was based on the monkey king from Chinese lore, I consider this to be quite spot-on).

Lets see if the future will bring more bling.

Stay Epic!

My Own Scientific Project: 3D 2HG mapping as biomarker for IDH-mutation in glioma

Today it is my special pride to talk a bit about work: I was blessed with near-divine grace by the Austrian Science Fund to receive a project grant for a clinical research project about "3D 2HG mapping as biomarker for IDH-mutation in glioma". What does that mean? First of all, three years of PostDoc for me, being able to conduct research. :) Secondly, it means that I want to develop and improve magnetic resonance imaging measurements that can detect 2-hydroxyglutarate, a metabolic byproduct of some types of brain tumour called glioma that possess certain tumour-specific mutations. In the end, we want something that can be used beyond basic research and is fit for clinical use. Here you can check out more details if you are interested!

This reminds me of maybe writing a bit about the basics of magnetic resonance imaging in the future if anyone is interested (maybe drop a comment?). Just per chance I might know a few things about this.

Stay Epic!

Holiday shorts: Riga and Hawaii

While this blog was offline, I put together some holiday shots into some Imgur albums. As I do not see much sense in reposting everything here, I invite you to take a look at these two albums:
Our holiday in Riga in February 2017 featured surprisingly warm weather and a great time in Latvia. My pre-conference holiday on Hawaii saw volcanoes, Pearl Harbour, great food and black sand. if you are curious, check them out!

Stay Epic!