Spike's Home Page
This is the homepage of Spike (Dr. Michael Barlow) physically located in Canberra Australia.
Who am I?Hmmm, perhaps a quick summary will provide some hints. As of the time of writing I'm a 37-year-old Australian male. I'm a Computer Science academic with a wife and two (lovely) children. While I grew up in Wollongong I've lived in Canberra for sometime (my current city of residence), Brisbane, as well as a 2-year stint in Tokyo (which I loved!). My non-work interests include martial arts, wuxia fiction, Hong Kong cinema, and gaming (computer and roleplaying).
The things that I've included below are what I believe are important enough that I've taken the time to put them up on my page. Maybe that'll give you some idea of who I am...
My WorkCurrently I work as a senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). ADFA is a "sub-campus" of the University of NSW with an undergraduate body comprising officer cadets from the three armed services.
Prior to lecturing at ADFA I worked for 2 years as a researcher in Japan for Nippon Telegraph & telephone (NTT). Prior to that I worked for 3 years at the University of Queensland as a research fellow on a syndicated speaker verification project.
I am the founding director of
VESL (the Virtual Environments
and Simulation Laboratory) within the School. The lab consists
of a WEDGE virtual reality "theatre", associated hardware,
workstations, and software.
The lab is employed for research in the areas of scientific visualisation, military command and control, collaborative learning and research, and agent-based modelling of conflicts (amongst other topics).
My research interests lie
in the four areas of:
There is a page describing in more detail
my
research interests and I might even get around to hanging a paper or
two off the page.
My immediate family consists of my wife Maria Liondi-Barlow, the
same age, my daughter Zoe Drew Barlow (currently 5 years old) who was born in
Japan, and my son Grant (rapidly approaching 3 years old).
If you're interested in knowing more (e.g., you're a friend
of the family) then
further information such as photos
may be available.
I have many, many interests outside of my work. A far
fuller description of them exists
including documents I have written and links to related sites.
Basically my interests fall into the following areas:
This is a catch-all bucket for things I've written and am now hanging
off my Web page. The items include
my newsletters from Japan,
various game reviews and things I've
written for roleplaying.
These things can be found hanging off the relevant sub-pages or you
can go to my collections page
where there's links to all of them.
My FamilyOther Online Publications
Here's some things that I've done that have left online
"footprints" but aren't directly related to or hosted at this
site:
Wuxia Fiction Article at Mark Morrison's excellent
Heroic Cinema website
dealing with Hong Kong (action) movies.
JBots System - a programming
environment for learning both Java and agent control in
which robots compete with one another inside an arena.
Competition is individual or team based and can be combat or
task solving (e.g., hold territory). Robots can move, communicate,
sense the world, and (of course) fight.
My Interests
Collections
Spike's Home Page - Feedback welcome!