I guest-posted a summary of my dissertation on Terra Nova! TN is a blog on virtual worlds research that was started by a bunch of luminaries in the field. Go take part in the conversation!
All posts by markdangerchen
I hate dealing with insurance agents who don’t care about people
As you may know, Robin and I were rear-ended by someone about three weeks ago. The car’s fine, we’re fine but needed some medical treatment, the other driver’s fine. Pretty minor, but there’s permanent emotional trauma caused by, first, having to deal with the guy who hit us who became confrontational when we asked for his insurance information and, second, his insurance (Pemco, btw) who keeps trying to downplay what happened.
Essentially, we were turning left, the light turned yellow while some cars ahead of us continued to turn, we stopped since it was red *before* we got to the intersection, the dude rear-ended us and told us that he thought we’d run the red. When we pulled over to trade info, he kept saying that it wasn’t necessary because there was no damage, while we kept explaining that we have no idea if we suffered bodily damage because back and neck injuries can take a while to manifest. He then became confrontational when we insisted on getting his insurance info and kept saying that he could see that we weren’t injured. We got that sorted out after a little bit of yelling back and forth. The next day it was clear that our backs and necks were tweaked. Over the next couple of weeks, I have gotten better on my own while Robin has gone to the chiropractor and massage therapist a few times. The dude’s insurance agent called me up and tried to make a deal with us stating that it wasn’t an accident since there was no damage to the vehicles and that we didn’t suffer real injuries since they weren’t permanent. She kept saying “let’s nip this in the bud before it gets serious” and then said that she would have to escalate the issue and contest our claims to injuries if we did not agree to her deal.
Let me just say, for the record, that I think it’s preposterous for vehicle injuries to matter more than people injuries. If, by definition, we did not suffer an accident, does that mean Pemco is saying that the dude deliberately hit us? Did he accidentally hit us or deliberately hit us? If the former, then it’s an accident! If the latter then I need to press some criminal charges against the guy. It’s even more preposterous to consider injuries as only counting if they are permanent. So, if I had broken my arm, according to Pemco, I wouldn’t have suffered an injury because it’d eventually heal. WTF?
Anyway, we called our insurance agent and explained this situation at which point our insurance (Progressive, who we love, btw) pointed out that we shouldn’t be talking with the Pemco person at all since Progressive is paying for our medical bills and is going to attempt to recoup the costs from Pemco directly in an act called subrogation.
I tweeted the ridiculousness of the situation this morning and had a brief talk with Moses about it:
7:12 AM Moses: so some jackass drove his car into yours and now the insurance is being shifty because there was no vehicular damage?
7:14 AM me: yes
Moses: dude, so sorry, that’s a biter on all counts
me: but luckily our insurance company is covering our costs since we have personal injury protection
Moses: right on, that’s good at least
7:15 AM me: i just hate dealing with insurance people who are shits
Moses: absolutely
it’s bad enough that they’re insurance people
me: our insurance (progressive) is subrogating our claim (and I learned a new word so that’s good)
Moses: wow subrogating
sounds . . . I don’t know, medical
me: hehe… I had to look it up on wikipedia
7:16 AM Moses: possibly a form torture
“Subrogate him until he talks!”
me: the dude’s insurance was like “it’s not an accident since there was no vehicle damage. instead it was a ‘bonk'”
BONK! really? wtf?
Moses: WTF
a “bonk”
me: yeah
Moses: that’s incredibly poor
7:17 AM me: it’s sad how out of touch people can get in their professions
Moses: no kidding
I mean, I at least understand when it’s customer service for an airline and they’re over seas
7:18 AM they have no sense of the geographic constraints I’m working with
but “bonk”?
really?
7:19 AM me: when I said, “well people were injured” she just said “well they aren’t injuries since they aren’t permanent”
Moses: /double face palm
7:20 AM that woman needs a fucking dictionary
me: we’d had to be wheelchaired or something for her to count us as injured
7:21 AM Moses: incidentally Injury n.:any harm done to a person by the acts or omissions of another. Injury may include physical hurt as well as damage to reputation or dignity, loss of a legal right, or breach of contract. If the party causing the injury was either willful (intentionally causing harm) or negligent then he/she is responsible (liable) for payment of damages for the harm caused.
7:22 AM me: well, she did say that she wasn’t disputing liability
which tells me that she understands that we were injured
Moses: mm hmm
7:23 AM if she didn’t she wouldn’t just be sleazy, she’d be utterly incompetent
Dr. Video Games: Reflections of a PhD Graduate
[cross-posted to CGP and markdangerchen.net]
After I defended (YouTube) and submitted (PDF) my dissertation, for a few weeks I’d been meaning to write some reflections on the whole PhD process. The problem is that I’m not sure where to start. The image I have in my mind when I think of the process or journey or whatever you want to call it is that of slow extrusion, like being dumped into a meat grinder by the giant named Academia who revels in slowly cranking away at your bones until you plop into a mixer bowl piled with the chunky grounds of previous scholars. But I figured that wasn’t necessarily a useful image for other students to have while they are trying to successfully navigate academic life.
So, instead, I thought maybe it’d be useful to just create a list of things you should know if you are interested or are now attempting to get a PhD related to games (lots of Wikipedia refs incoming!):
Continue reading Dr. Video Games: Reflections of a PhD Graduate
Dissertation ready for download
Here’s the PDF (4MB) of my dissertation:, submitted to the graduate school on September 2, 2010:
Now to make it into a book…
Leet Noobs dissertation defense videos are up!
I decided to upload and annotate them on YouTube, including the admin frontmatter stuff since I figure PhD students who are defending in the years to come can get a sense of the format of a defense. My slides are available in a previous post.
Bike USA: Mark’s fast food firsts
Dairy Queen, A and W, Arctic Circle (only a rootbeer float though), Texaco, Ampride, Amoco (and a whole slew of other gas station/convenience stores), Hardees (which is now owned by Carl’s Junior)
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| Won’t eat that. Not yet. |
Bike USA: Memorable Quotes
‘It’s ridiculous to walk that far for a stupid animal.’ – overheard in Yellowstone coming out the mouth of a middle-aged woman… what the hell was she doing in Yellowstone?
It’s such an exhilarating feeling to bike through Yellowstone and show no fear for all the freaking motor homes as they pass. The culminating experience was definitely the ride out of the East Entrance, riding 35-40 down that awesome hill, taking up the whole lane, forcing cars to obey the speed limit.
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| Idaho |
‘This grass is like high school grass.’ – Luke in Iowa during RAGBRAI
‘No, this grass is like bank grass.’ – Luke, quickly amending his statement.
‘Let’s just go over there.’ – Mark, while pointing to a city a little bit off the road in the dark outside of Valentine, NE, moments before totally wiping out due to the road turning into gravel.
‘I think I’m going to get Da Bomb.’ – Mark at a convenience store, getting his lunch which happened to be a huge red-hot burrito with a funny moniker.
‘You ugly!’ – Max’s way of telling me that someone in the near vicinity was totally, butt ugly (usually a white person, no offense).
Pho Found, Trip Over
‘Let’s just take the freakin’ train the rest of the way!’ – Mark and Max, after their first train ride.
As soon as we broke down and bummed our first ride, we had no qualms of doing it over and over again, although we only ended up doing it two more times and only when we blew a tire or something.
The inside of our tent was the site of many a killing. Bloody smears everywhere from where we smashed mosquitoes and other bugs.
Never trust a local to give you good biking directions. Half of them don’t know what a bike is.
‘Dude, that person should NOT be wearing a Superman T-shirt!’ – Mark, gawking at the largest man in the world wearing a baby-T with his midrift showing. The word ‘midrift’ automatically perks up any room, but this guy totally ruined the image for Mark.
Make sure you buy the right kind of chain for your bike. When I replaced my chain in Prineville with a new one, the two highest (as in smallest rear cogs) started skipping. I had thought that I just needed to replace the casette and had to wait until Boise to do so. It turns out that the chain that I put on sucked for my set-up. Next time I’m sticking to a name brand like Shimano or Sachs. – Mark
Bike USA: August 9-29, 2000 – Now what? Boston
Max’s stuff in black, Mark’s in brown.
Now what?
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| in Princeton with Ted and Bindiya |
So we rented a U Haul and high tailed it to Princeton. We both have some time to visit friends on the East Coast before going back to the west. My brother misses Robin and Ushki. I miss San Francisco and friends. And yet, I’m only going back for maybe a week before I leave to Japan, China, East Malaysia, and finally Australia. I’m going to be doing more of this travelling craziness for the next few months! What am I thinking? Unfortunately I didn’t make my Green Tortoise reservation in time and I will not be riding the hippie bus for 16 days from Boston to San Francisco. Most likely I’ll be taking Amtrak, but now I can visit North Carolina.
All three of us piled into this U-haul, after doing a whole lot of phone calls finding out that most of the rental car places wouldn’t work for us due to a minimum age requirement (Max is 24) or the fact that they don’t do one-way rentals. When we finally found a rental place that would work, we discovered that it was about $100 more than a U-haul rental. The New Jersey Turnpike was a new experience for me. I thought the rest areas that have restaurants and gas were kinda funny, and I could’ve added about 3 items to my fast food firsts list.
We got to Princeton and spent a night with Ted, a high school friend. Ted makes awesome tacos al pastor. Princeton is the ice cream social capital of the world.
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| crazy ducks |
| Movie of the Infinite Hallway in MIT |
| Movie of the Infinite Hallway in MIT part 2 |
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| in Boston on the Freedom Trail |
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| Chris likes fruity drinks more than I do. |
The next few days were just us hanging around Boston, Max with Nancy and me with Chris. At one point George catched a plane from Providence back to Reed. I went to hang out with Ben in Providence for a couple of days before taking Amtrak back home. Read Cryptonomicon on the train.
| Movie of that chair piece in the Arthur Ganson MIT exhibit (might have to boost up your monitor brightness) |
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| Redbones bbq place – they have a bicycle valet. |
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| virtual aquarium at Boston Science Museum |
| Movie of the lightning show at the Boston Science Museum |
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| Dunkin Donuts with fellow Reedies: Tom, Stephanie, Claire, Mark, Chris, Ben |
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| at Claire’s after donuts |
Right now it is time to sleep and read. STILL haven’t finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I just bought the Joy of Yiddish. Oy! Soon this meshuggener is coming home.
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| Amtrak sunset |
| Movie of Mark’s train ride home |
If there is one thing that people should learn from our trip, I believe that it is to take life a little slower, think about your actions, enjoy the world around you, and ensure that it lasts for others. Coming in at a close second, though, is some bicycle knowledge: 26 x 1.25 tires are NOT the same as 26 x 1-1/4 tires.
Bike USA: August 9-29, 2000 – The Rally
Max’s stuff in black, Mark’s in brown.
The Rally
August 20th from 10AM to 2PM we were supposed to bike around the D.C. Mall (monument and museum central of the U.S.). After that there was a party in Mt. Ranier until the wee hours of the night. Unfortunately, Allen’s house is much much farther than I had anticipated and I arrived at 1pm. ouch. There’s nothing quite like 10 miles growing to 25 when you’re starving and sleep deprived. I thought everybody would be circling the Mall until 2pm so I just stopped in the shade and started eating Milk Duds. Met a Thai guy raised in Laos who has been bumming around in the U.S. for the past 20 years or so. Now there is a side of America I wish we had seen more of. You can learn a lot from a simple world traveller. Their values don’t include luxury cars and stability. Maybe I’m attaching too much romanticism but it’s like a modern day monk.
George did not have a bike for the rally, so while Max biked to the rally, George and I and my bike took a subway to the approximate location of the rally and looked for a bike rental place. It turned out more difficult than we had anticipated and we decided to break for lunch. By the time we finished getting our food and heading back to the rally location on the way to the bike rental, we saw that the rally turned into an impromptu podium/speaker/everyone-lounge-around-and-watch deal. So we didn’t get George a bike, and I ended up not riding one single loop of the rally route!
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| the rally |
The rally was not very large. Maybe at most two hundred people with just a handful of trans am riders. The party was cool – live bands, local bike shop tents, food, like RAGBRAI without so much alcohol. Martin Krieg, the organizer, introduced us to the masses, but most everybody already knew us as the Chen Brothers. We were big stars among this small niche of crazy people! Meeting all the crazy people behind the log entries and email and attaching faces to words was like putting the final pieces of a puzzle together. I mainly talked to Monty and Bill, two hilarious guys who biked from Seattle. I had breakfast with them the following morning while they were wearing matching “I [heart] Intercourse (pennsylvania)” T-shirts. Our trip would have been completely different if it wasn’t just Bo and I.
Did anyone lose a blinking taillight? I’ve got it.
That night I slept outside the local rec center. Bo and George had already gone back to Allen’s earlier in the evening. It was the last time our Portland bought tent would be used for a while. The inside stank of pungent B. O. and the walls were lined with blood smears from squished mosquitos. This was it. The bike trip is finally over.
George and I spent the time watching Macross Plus and Once Upon a Time in China 6. 🙂
Leet Noobs dissertation defense presentation slides
In case you want to check out the slides I’ll be using tomorrow:
- Leet Noobs: The final powerpoint slides and
- Leet Noobs: The print version (which gets rid of the extraneous slides that allow for faux animation)
I’ll be recording the presentation to be uploaded later and a version with my voice will be uploaded to slideshare later. Sorry, no live streaming! 🙁