Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
mtfierce	2:18p	Another ADRPG slogan. "AMBER: Hate the game, not the players." (Why, yes, I'm gearing up for another ACNW... wherein I do not, at this point, plan on running any Amber games.) (Comment on this)
marcochacon	11:02a	Young apparently racist republicans It's not especially interesting that Young Republican leader-candidate Audra Shay got caught LOLing at an Obama-is-a-coon comment on Facebook. After all, the Republican party has had a significant spate of making racist (or "racist" jokes) about Obama--or, at least, forwarding them accidentally to "the wrong list of people." This isn't an isolated case: there has been a bunch of it and it doesn't play especially well with the youth vote (Audra Shay clocks in at 38 years old. The cut off for a YR is 40). What's interesting (other than that someone took a bunch of screen-caps of the offending Facebook page before she could clean it--remember to restrict your friend-list-views, guys) is that GOP presidential possible Bobby Jindal supported her. The problem is not so much that "this will sink Jindal" (people have recovered from worse) but rather that this is the sort of problem that taints the Republican part as a whole. Republicans are vulnerable to charges of racism the same way Democrats are vulnerable to charges of being soft on crime or national security. When Jindal plans his next move politically the charges of supporting a racist are the sort of thing that may actually hurt him. To be sure, endorsing a Young Republican candidate who laughed at some racist jokes online is not going to be fatal to a senior statesman but that's not the point. The point is that while these sentiments play okay with some elements of the base (and if you think that's an over generalization or just 'not true' you didn't see the Sarah Palin rally videos) they are the kind of thing that's absolutely toxic to the party as a whole. This is the sort of Rush-Limbaugh-Gets-20MM-Hard-core-supporters-and-loses-everyone-else pattern that the Republicans are currently choking on. If I were one of the guys "in charge" like say, Steele, and I were trying to figure out how to stop this kind of leak from happening ... what would I do? What are their options? Because of the nature of racism it isn't easy to simply tell people to leave the party if they harbor these views--it's not even clear what "these views" are. Worse, if this continues to happen we are going to see a very destructive trend towards the younger already-less-likely-to-be-Republican populace. Basically, today, you can't continue to make racist jokes and be taken politically seriously. As so much communication is online the ability to keep these kind of comments secret is seriously degraded. The Republican management will need to do something to get a handle on that and it isn't clear what that would be. I suspect that there is some strategic thinking going on in certain circles today because just expecting people to "get it" isn't working. -Marco (Comment on this)
simonjrogers	4:04p	Graham's New Trail adventure A quote from Graham Walmsley's new adventure, Watchers in the Sky. I was concerned it might not be as bleak as The Dying of St Margaret's. "The last clue is only available by dissecting Alice." I needn't have worried. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
robin_d_laws	9:20a	Public Enemies: Developmental vs. Impressionistic Transitions Although Michael Mann’s Public Enemies raked in an acceptable box office haul and scored a fresh Tomatometer rating, the film—which I quite liked—has been the subject of much concern trolling in movie blog land. Allegedly it’s too arty, too redolent of the filmmaker’s personal vision, to justify its budget in an era of tentpoles and CGI giant robots. I’m still puzzling that out: the Public Enemies I saw follows the conventional arc of an outlaws on the run flick. Mann’s adoring HD camera lovingly serves up the movie star charisma. ( Mild spoilers... ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
get_medieval	7:08a	( 10/03/06 - COMMENTARY ) (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 13th, 2009
immlass	10:30a	Dreamwidth invite codes If anyone needs/wants one, I have two right now. Also, I am over there with a not-very-used account at the usual username, if you have one and are adding people. Current Mood: tired Current Music: NPR, Thistlepod with Fiona Ritchie: Gaelic Song - Mairi MacInnes (3 Comments |Comment on this)
get_medieval	8:16a	( 09/03/06 - COMMENTARY ) (17 Comments |Comment on this)
drivingblind	9:40a	2009 Ennies Nominations So, the 2009 Ennie Award Nominations are out this morning: http://www.ennie-awards.com/nominations/nominees.asp As someone on Twitter said, my fingerprints are all over 'em. This is good, because I like the Ennies, and it's really great when the Ennies like me back. I'm already a proud papa lately, but this magnifies the feeling, and for my other 'babies' to boot. :) Evil Hat's Nominations Best Writing - Don't Lose Your Mind Best Setting - Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies Product of the Year - Don't Lose Your Mind Product of the Year - Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies One Bad Egg's Nominations Best Electronic Book - The Death Mother Best Electronic Book - Hard Boiled Armies I declare TRIUMPH with chadu at this point, since we went back and forth on the presentation of the Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies' setting so much, and lo and behold a BEST SETTING nomination. Yes, I'm jazzed as all hell for having two entries on Product of the Year (out of 10), but the setting nod is the real marker there as ultimate validation of the goal we had in producing S7S. And Ben Baugh getting BEST WRITING for his work on Don't Lose Your Mind? Well, yeah. He did such wonderful things with language and vignettes and all that in DLYM, I would have been sorely disappointed if that hadn't gotten a specific nod, too. The One Bad Egg stuff is a happy thing, finally, as that's the place where I actually wrote some stuff this year instead of doing higher-level production and layout stuff. I'm a little startled that Armies and Mother beat out Cultures (Cultures has been a consistent strong seller) for nomination, but they're both results from me working at the top of my game at OBE, so I'm pretty tickled. It doesn't stop there, though, as I look towards the question of "What non-Fred IPR-carried products got the nod?" IPR Nominations Best Cover Art - 3:16 (BoxNinja) Best Interior Art - HELLAS (Khepera) Best Interior Art - Mouse Guard (Archaia) Best Writing - Hot War (Contested Ground) Best Production Values - Mouse Guard (Archaia) Best Production Values - HELLAS (Khepera) Best Rules - Starblazer Adventures (Cubicle 7) Best Setting - Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor (Arc Dream) Best Setting - Hot War (Contested Ground) Best Podcast - Voice of the Revolution (IPR!) Best Game - Starblazer Adventures (Cubicle 7) Product of the Year - Mouse Guard (Archaia) Product of the Year - Starblazer Adventures (Cubicle 7) I'm mixed, of course, in my feelings about Mouse Guard. Mouse Guard is a fine work, worth the nods it has gotten (and more that it curiously didn't). But Luke and I are on the outs (something I don't really want to talk about, but also don't want to pretend isn't true) after he decided that it was more important to spit in my face than accept an apology for a big goof-up I made earlier this year. As such, I am doubtful that I'll be continuing The Summer Revolution past this year, and am on the fence as to whether I'll use that promotional site this year at all, since it was based on a partnership with Luke, and Luke's temper makes him a poor partner for me. I might be giving Mouse Guard some vote love, but that love's all for Archaia at this point. Anyway, enough of that drama. Overall, that's a pretty good spread. It's a great spread from the Evil Hat perspective, too, given that Starblazer Adventures is based on the Spirit of the Century SRD, but I'm also intrigued that IPR's catalog includes three of the five Best Setting nods, given that I think there's a sort of general perception out there that "indie means setting light". I'm sad that Master Plan isn't on the Podcast list, but Ryan's influence is still strongly felt, as he's been doing the audio production on Voice of the Revolution, which has improved the show's quality in all sorts of subtle-but-palpable ways. Don't Lose Your Mind author Ben Baugh is getting some love for Candlewick, too, which is good & just; he's probably one of my top five setting authors these days anyway, and it's *hard* to get me to love setting writing. In the end sum, it's important to realize that in one very big way, the Ennies are already done for us (speaking in the smaller EHP/OBE sense, and in the larger IPR sense). Nominations are hard-won and carefully considered by the judges each year, but the voting is in the hands of the general public. It's particularly hard getting actual wins from that everyone-in-the-world vote; our catalogs do their best work not in quantity, but in quality, so to some extent creating the product familiarity necessary to garner a vote is the biggest obstacle of all. So when you hear folks on the above list say things like, "It's an honor just to be nominated" -- and it is! -- listen a little closer. That nomination they're talking about is a win all by itself. Edit: Chad's post: http://chadu.livejournal.com/743514.html Second Edit: Somehow I failed to mention I did the layout on Starblazer Adventures, so I have an actually-palpable connection to that product beyond contributing to the SRD on which it's based. (20 Comments |Comment on this)
robin_d_laws	9:20a	Tex Avery Lives Corner of Baldwin and Augusta, Kensington Market, Toronto. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
princejvstin	6:36a	Morning Workout 7/13/09 I am not completely over my virus, but I did go into the fitness center at work today and worked on the bike for 20 minutes. I figure that if I can keep up and return to my dedicated ways, in a couple of weeks, I'll be able to start to add resistance to the bike run and return to previous levels in time. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
xkcd_rss	4:00a	Tab Explosion http://xkcd.com/609/ (199 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
marcochacon	5:10p	The Great Recession I've named it "first." It's too depressing to call it The Great Depression II--but it'll go down as The Great Recession--mark my words. Secondly, what everyone wants to know is: "What shape is it?" Here are the options: V-shaped: The Optimist The faster it goes down, the faster it goes up say V-shapers. In this case we get to come out of it in late 2010 and things "get back to normal." Do I think this is likely? No: I do not. However, there's something interesting about the blood-letting in this scenario: the people who got most hammered seem to be investors--oh, sure, consumers are largely out of work and that's going to probably bring the suck in the super-sized 64-ounce cup. Probably. But where the middle class invests is two fold: (a) your 401-K and (b) your house. Your 401-K is fucked. Your personal portfolio, yes, is cratered. That sucks and it'll suck for a while. However, what's supposed to happen when your home-investment tanks is that you wind up homeless. That's, I think, the 1930's narrative (and the 1970's narrative) anyway. But today it's different: today the government response is to try to keep people in their homes at all cost--and the banks don't want your house and maybe cannot effectively foreclose on it anyway. This can have a bizarre result of actually reducing monthly expenditures drastically (either you re-finance or just stop paying and get 24 months of rent-free living before something happens). In another common case you just walk away and pick up a cheap place to rent. These wreck personal investment (your home was, uhm, your retirement)--but as those were already wrecked (double-mortgaged) what the net result turns out to be is a much, much lower monthly out-lay. The loser is the guy holding your toxic asset, uh--legacy asset--I said legacy there, son (this is what Tim Geithner is calling 'em now--they done been re-branded!). U-Shaped: The 'Realist' It took us a while to get into this mess--it'll take a while to get out of it. This is what the somber-voiced Obama would have us believe. In this view unemployment has just about peaked and while we'll bleed jobs for a while the Stimulus or Stimulus II or Son of Stimulus ... or The Bride of Stimulus or something gets us out of it around 2011--before the 2012 election anyway. Do I think this is the one? I hope so. W-Shaped: The False Hope In this view we get, uhm, green shoots and stocks recover--for a while--but unemployment doesn't and when the dollar crashes and China does a 17 trillion dollar pullout of our currency we go back into the red hard. Maybe the mid-term spike is just a "media bubble"--but whatever the case is, the W-shaped Great Recession is a scary one because in the second half people are badly demoralized. Maybe that's where we get deflation or hyper inflation ... or monkey pox or something. Do I think this is it? I'm afraid so. Right now Sears and K-Mart are putting out Christmas displays. In July. Now, they aren't committing much floor space to these and it's not clear what the thrust will be (maybe, cannily, around seasonal collectibles so that in order to be fully-locked-and-loaded you've got to engage in Pokemon-mode buying starting in August?)--but it's clear that they (a) want to be top-of-mind when it comes to holiday spending and (b) want the very-first-damn-dollar you spend on the Santa-Claus season. This sort of thinking is going to generate W-shaped waves in my opinion: everyone's narrative from the retail sectors to the auto-industry is going to be hyper-positive. Any shred of good news will be breathlessly reported. If the MSM-Placebo doesn't actually cure us it could produce something pretty damn W-shaped. L-Shaped: No Recovery For this paradigm things don't "get back to normal." What they get back to depends on how L-shaped it is. Maybe things "get back to Europe" or possibly things "get back to the 70's." Maybe we get a cyber-punk dystopia. In the below video futurist and sci-fi novelist Bruce Sterling speaks at the Reboot conference about the next 10-years. It's all pretty damn L-shaped in his perspective. Take away: if you are going to tell people the collapse is coming being all alarmist is so last century. Today you smirk at them and act like you're in-on-the-joke, thus insulating you from charges of trying to raise hysteria/fix anything. Do I think we have an L-shaped Great Recession: Maybe. Here's a theory behind it: from the 80's to today there were great gains in productivity. This gave us stuff like big-box stores that can fill their shelves with stuff calculated to move. They gave is just-in-time logistics that keep inventory from mouldering in warehouses. In other words, the technology revolution may have created giant rows of web-surfing cube-dwellers but it also really worked. What happened though was that instead of improving "real wages" (which any study will tell you have declined since 19XX where XX is whatever the study decided to start measuring at) what was improved was access to credit. So everyone made up for the gap between what they were paid and what they needed with credit and all this credit flowing like heroin into the veins of industry created not just a X, Y, or Z-bubble but an actual Consumer-Economy-Bubble. Now the party's over. It's a theory anyway: Peak Consumer! A Few Others Want some other economies? Here we go: !-Shaped. Mad-Max. Also call it the 'THUNK' scenario. Everything fails and we wind up shooting zombies with shotguns. In this case Zombie==neighbor. ^ - Shaped. Up, up and away. Screw this economic melt-down shit, We get Fusion/The Orbo working and everyone's happy. Free energy solves all kinds of problems and we get to watch as the Middle East has to figure out how to work in a world where it doesn't have us and Europe over an oil barrel. WOW-Shaped. The economy dies--but everyone is playing World of Warcraft so no one notices. Bread and e-circuses FTW! -Marco (Comment on this)
get_medieval	7:04a	( 08/03/06 - COMMENTARY ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
heron61	1:38a	Learning Fire - Practicing I've been practicing most of the various moves I learned in my first fire-dancing class. My precision remains wretched, but I have actually managed to repeatably swing one poi (or in the case of home practice - a sock filled with dried beans) forwards while swinging the other backwards (but I can literally only do so as long as I'm not looking at them), and to manage both forwards and backwards figure eights. One important aspect of fire is clearly directed energy. For me, the oddest part of this is that I can do the moves with my hands far better than with poi (or socks), which is I think why fire-dancing with poi is considered to be closely related to juggling. teaotter excels as juggling, in large part because she can see the balls (or for fire-dancing, the poi) as extensions of her arms. I can control and direct my arms, and the poi are just along for the ride. I don't ever expect to be particularly good at this, but I'm hoping for adequate. Current Mood: hopeful (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 11th, 2009
princejvstin	10:25p	Songs of the Dying Earth Table of Contents Now that I have the copy in my hands, I can report on the table of contents. I haven't seen anyone else do it yet, so I get to be first! Songs of the Dying Earth TOC: Thank You, Mr Vance --Dean Koontz Preface --Jack Vance The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale --Robert Silverberg Grolion of Almery --Matthew Hughes The Copsy Door --Terry Dowling Caulk the Witch Doctor --Liz Williams Inescapable --Mike Resnick Abrizonde --Walter Jon Williams The Traditions of Karzh --Paula Volsky The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod --Jeff Vandermeer The Green Bird --Kage Baker The Last Golden Thread --Phyllis Eisenstein An Incident in Uskvesk --Elizabeth Moon Sylgarmo's Proclamation --Lucius Shepard The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee --Tad Williams Guyal the Curator --John C Wright The Good Magician --Glen Cook The Return of the Fire Witch --Elizabeth Hand The Collegeum of Mauge --Byron Tetrick Evillo the Uncunning --Tanith Lee The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz --Dan Simmons Frogskin Cap --Howard Waldrop A Night at the Tarn House --George R R Martin An Invocation of Curiosity --Neil Gaiman (3 Comments |Comment on this)
princejvstin	10:05p	Songs of the Dying Earth! My copy of Songs of the Dying Earth, the Jack Vance Dying Earth Tribute Anthology, has arrived! Let's face it, its news like this that my Bookgasm icon was made! (Comment on this)
immlass	5:08p	Whoniverse thoughts I keep wanting to write a long entry about how the problems of the writers engaging with the fans in the current Whoniverse shows compare to problems of fannish engagement in mid-1990s comics, but the recent spoilers from the new Torchwood miniseries have put me off that train of thought, at least until I'm caught up in Torchwood. As it is, from where I sit (midway through S1 of Torchwoord & Sarah Jane Adventures and S3 of New Who), 75% of the writing and plotting issues I perceive in the shows seem to be related to Russell T Davies' crush on the Doctor and his operating assumption that all of the characters in the universe should share his boner for/romantic fixation on the main character. Based on the spoilers I know, I'm not convinced this understanding of the problems is going to change when I get to the end of his run either. (WARNING: Any comments may contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.) Current Mood: overheated Current Music: silence is golden (4 Comments |Comment on this)
rob_donoghue	1:21p	Digging into the Psion III Question #1: Does the assumption of encounter equivalency hold up? The level 1 abilities sort of held it up (close enough for government work) but what about the most powerful ones? Let's look at level 27 Psion: 2d8 + Stat and target is stunned until the end of your next turn (Close Blast 3, all targets) 3d8 + stat and target is blinded until the end of your next turn (Burst 2 in 20 squares, enemies only) Invoker: 3d8 + Stat and target moves half its speed away from you as safely as possible (Burst 2, range 10, all targets) 2d6 + stat, creates a zone that either does 10 damage to targets in it or targets out of it (Burst 2, range 10, enemies only) 4d10 + stat (Close blast 3, all targets) Wizard: 6d6+stat (Close blast 5, enemies only) 3d10 + Stat, control the target on the next turn (Range 20) 3d10+ stat, Until end of next tun, target is immobilized, grants CA, cannot get line of effect against non-adjacent targets (Range 20) I admit, I would probably say the Psion's set are the _weakest_ of the three, but I would probably categorize them all in the same weight class. Verdict: The assumption stands, more or less. Psion might be a tiny but less. Question #2: How Potent is Minimal Augmentation? The table seems to suggest that minimal augmentation i equivalent to major augment 10 levels lower, and looking at it we have a startling apples to apples comparison with "Sudden Control", the level 23 attack, which has an at-will ability equal to a level 7 ability (Betrayal) with full augmentation. That actually suggests that if there were a level 13 version, it's maximaized version would probably equate to Sudden Control's minimal augmentation. So the ~10 level thing sort of holds up (and it does with a few other examples) but now that I've answered it, I;m not sure that's hugely useful to know. However, it's important to note that minimal augments usually set up the larger augment well, by doing things like adding vulnerabilities. That's very useful, but possibly more situational than some other powers. Question #3: How much to the At Will's improve? This is important because the 7/17/27 attack will never cost more than the 3/13/23 attack, so if the *7 is better, then being able to do it twice is a definite leg up. Having looked through the powers, I honestly don't know. There's definitely escalation between tiers, but within tiers, it's close, and it's muddled by powers like Betrayal and Sudden Control which are hard to compare and are just plain awesome. They're close enough to suggest that this is not quite as much of a leg up as it first appears, but I'm still wary. Conclusion: On paper, Psion's scare me. Final verdict waits on play, to see if it reveals some non-obvious weaknesses, but just from the text, I suspect this class is A) fun to play and B) Scary, maybe a little too scary. Final caveat: It's a controller, so all this comparison may be meaningless. Controllers still have no real benchmarks, so I may be looking at apples and oranges without realizing it. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
the_tall_man	9:19a	Story-thinky So, thinking about the Pyotr thing, and there's a bunch of stuff I'm contemplating.  But here's the thing that actually makes me curious: Which, if any, of the characters do you want to know more about, or hear from more? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
rob_donoghue	9:57a	Digging into the Psion II Ok, so given the previous assumption, let's look at psion powers versus encounter powers on a per level basis. ( Warning, tables ahead ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
get_medieval	6:45a	( 07/03/06 - COMMENTARY ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 10th, 2009
the_tall_man	11:34p	The Transformers 2 has rekindled my love of the original animated series. It did not accomplish this by being good. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
rob_donoghue	11:15p	Digging into the Psion Ok, so I ended up staring at the Psion and pondering the question of how its power point model compares against the standard build. To do this really requires an assumption, and that is that an at-will power with it's maximum augmentation is comparable to an encounter power of the same level. So before anything else, that assumption required some exploration. The psion's Level 1 At-will's, maxed out, get this: 2d6 + stat, plus penalty equal to a secondary stat to enemy's attacks until the end of the next turn (Burst 1, All targets, Range 10) 2d6+Stat damage and you are invisible to the target until the beginning of your next turn (Burst 1, all targets, range 10) 2d10+stat damage and target takes a penalty to defenses equal to secondary stat mod until the end of your next turn (Range 10) Compare this to the level 1 encounter powers of another controller (the Invoker): 1d6 + stat damage, push target 2 squares (Close Burst 3, all enemies) 1d6 + Stat Damage, Each ally in burst gains +2 bonus to AC (Burst 1, range 10, enemies only) 1d10 + stat damage and target is immobilized until the end of your next turn (range 10) 1d6 + Stat damage (or 2d6 is single target) and target is dazed until end of your next turn (Range 10, 1, 2 or 3 targets) And the Wizard: 2d6 + stat damage (Close blast 5, all creatures) 2d8+stat and target is dazed until end of next turn (range 10) 2d8 + stat and secondary attack against all adjacent enemies for 1d10 + stat (Range 20) 1d6 + stat damage and targets knocked prone, plus create difficulty terrain until end of your next turn (burst 1, range 10) 1d10 + stat damage and target is weakened until end of your next turn. (Range 10) I feel like it's safe to call these comparable, or close enough for government work, but before I go any further I want to put that assumption out there for examination. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
marcochacon	3:41p	Arguing Martial Arts on the web Which is the best martial art? Do 90% of fights go to the ground (It seems maybe not that many). Is traditional martial arts the best ever? How should I train to kill a man with my pinky? Well, I went to National Science Institute and searched. It turned out they'd done the research. It took me a while to find it, so I'm sharing it with you here. This is the flow-chart of internet arguments about martial arts ... according to them. ( Click. It's big. ) -Marco (3 Comments |Comment on this)
the_tall_man	12:08p	Pyotr (VIII) Two of these, and fairly long, in the same day. Yeah, LJ-Cut time. The First One - The Previous One ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)

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