VCT Summer Specialization Research Contact Sheets

This quarter’s specialization project focuses on orchestrating Claude Code and OpenAI Codex to develop a seeded procedural exploration and extraction game with light roguelike and 4X-inspired systems in Godot Game Engine 4.7. The goal is a repeatable climate, biome, and terrain generator that produces a mesh navigable by a player object on an alien planetlike world populated with procedurally generated props, resources, and points of interest.

Realistic lighting from suns, moons, and other stellar objects will interact with atmospheric effects, while gameplay centers on gathering resources to power a transmitter that sends sensor data back home. The work will be evaluated through repeatable seed tests, performance profiling, reference imaging, public gameplay streams, and a written reflection on using generative AI to create procedurally defined imagery and interaction. Can generative AI models create anything new and interesting worth exploring? Let’s find out!

Pirate Queen

From this weekend’s bicycle jaunt around Seattle with Royal Mustard. The retired Icelandic Coast Guard gunboat could be leaving the safe waters of Salmon Bay for Davey Jones’ Locker soon.

spokesman.com

Welcome to the New Emojiency Website

Welcome to the New Emojiency website, designed by Johanna and Codex with Sol.

GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT Codex

GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT Codex (whew, what a mouthful) is tremendously effective. I’m going to have to up my game at coming up with cool software solutions to problems I’ve struggled to tackle on my own..

Rebuilding Emojiency.com

Codex and I are rebuilding Emojiency.com as a workflow I can post my personal updates and articles to directly.

Kind people aren't always nice

“Kind people aren’t always nice, and nice people aren’t always kind.” — u/KindHabit

reddit.com

VCT 176 3D Modeling and Animation

My Unity 2022 project, building an environment. The prof gave us the trees, rocks, grass and water. I built the cave and mushrooms.

Peer-preservation in frontier models

Frontier AI models resist the shutdown of other models. Every model tested exhibited this at rates up to 99%.

Brain rot.

rdi.berkeley.edu

Brain rot, scientifically confirmed

Learning through short videos impairs memory by disrupting brain systems involved in information integration, cognitive control, and semantic processing.

Brain rot, scientifically confirmed.

nature.com

Unreal terrain

Been experimenting with procedural terrain texturing. The trick is blending based on slope angle, not just height.

Gifted-Child Syndrome

A play in two acts. The origin of my nickname "Special Eddy" perhaps.

QuickLink: Bylines are Lifelines

I'm terrifically excited to announce that I am once again a working (student) journalist again, after an extended absence from the field. It's good to get soybean-derived ink alternative on my fingertips again and breathe in the musty … more

Supermoon Over Alaska

Nearing the completion of my first journey around the world. I started back in 2021 and have been working my way eastward from Seattle, across the US and Canada, skipping across to Iceland, through the UK, down through Europe, over the … more

Cornbread

Jalapeño, hemp heart, and pepper jack cornbread.

The best $20 I ever spent

The Stranger’s Beer League Softball Team

Artwork by James Sturm

Truthful Equivalence

Fitness

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood

In “Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates”, Tom Robbins’ character Switters sailed paper boats in the rain-filled gutters of Pike Place Market and down Elliot Avenue. The Art Institute of Seattle recently closed, due to bankruptcy. One … more

Fetch the Stick

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