I support the project thing. I like the idea of having a place just for keeping track of what you're doing with game maker or whatever. I also know that the project section will never work if no one looks at anyone else's project, so to promote the project section, I have copied my first project into this blog.

I also feel that the project section demands a different style of writing. My first enry is too bloggish, and if a more formal style is not used in the projects, they will simply become a second blog. There should also be some form of comment function for the projects, but again, that should not be treated like the blog comments, but should focus more on the project at hand.

So without further adue, here is my project:

Project yet to be named.

So I've been trying to do something but school's been getting in the way. I thought about making an MMO because everyone's been doing one lately. I wanted more custimazation in the game, so I made a system where you can select things like skin color, hair color, and some clothing options, but it was terribly innefficiant becuase it used black and white sprites with color blending and simply overlapped them to create the graphics. I also realized that that system would need to be modified in order to easily communicate the sprite data over the internet.

Another thing I want in this game is an isometric view. I made a sprite outline that can eventually be adapted to the custimaztion system when I get that done. It walks and jumps in 8 directions. I have parabolic motion in the jump, using differential equations. I also have blocks that stop you, some can be jumped over, and some can be jumped on, only to make you slide down them.

I also made some motorcycle sprites, because I want to use motorcycles instead of those standard horses most crappy games use.

The most important part of an online game is the online. I downloaded a "Simple Online Communication" dll with the intention of learning it, but physics got in the way. Also, I don't even know if that specific dll is best for what I want to do.

Ultimately, I would like a game with multiple job classes, and the ability to change jobs. I want groups and raid type things, and lots of PVP. But you'd have to be within 10 levels of your target to prevent excessive noob-hunting. I'd also like to use trains to travel long distances quickly. Mostly becuase trains are underutilized in games, and this leaves the possibilty of train jumping open, so you can get off at any point along the route, while taking mega damage for jumping off a moving train.

However, school has been keeping me from making any real progress. But in two days, my finals are finished, giving me four weeks before summer session begins. Another factor that will prevent work is because I have all my game maker stuff on my laptop, and the AC adapter shorted out last night. I'm just sitting there, wondering why my laptop has been telling me that the battery was low for two days, then I see the AC adapter starting to melt and I unplug it quickly. I ordered a new one on eBay today, I hope it's the right model and that it gets here soon, becuase I have 15 minutes of laptop time left on the battery.

In school related projects, I will be doing research in synthetic biology this summer. The genetics professor did this last year as part of MIT's iGEM competition. MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other important schools from all over the world participate, and our tiny college does as well. We're about the smallest school in it, and most likely the poorest, I'm not even being payed for this.

But this is what we're doing: DNA is normally written and read by a cell in one direction, called 5 prime to 3 prime. But last year the research team at my school developed a method for using polymerase chain reaction to force DNA into a reversed position. The cell cannot read the backwards DNA, but can copy it. Davidson college, the school we're working with on this, developed a new type of vector for inserting DNA into a cell's chromosomes. We used both of these new techniques to create several backwards genes for antibiotic resistance and their specific promoters. The backwards genes were then inserted into E. coli.

Salmonella has a special method for activating the genes responsible for cilia production, or something like that. The genes are normally reversed, but a protein called HIXc is used to flip it into a readible order, then flip it back when it's done. The genes to be flipped are bordered by sections of DNA called HIXc sites, where the proteins bind for flipping. The DNA sequence for these sites was determined, and HIXc sites were placed on both sides of each backwards gene in the E. coli.

Finally, HIXc protein was administered to the bacterial cultures to cause the genes to randomly flip. Then, a series of antibiotics were adminstered, killing any cells that did not flip the genes so that they were all forward, and that the promoters were in the right order. This is supposed to model some type of math problem, but I forget what. Anyway, our team won best presentation last year, and some other things, like that backwards gene method and the new vector, and the school has been using this to advertise how cool we are, but they still won't give us money. bastards.

I guess this is really two projects, so in the future, I'll split em up, and formalize the biology project some more. And if you happen to be near MIT in November, check out the iGEM presentations, synthetic biology is fricken' sweet.

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There. Hope you support the project section as much as I do.