Monday, December 29, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
You know what pisses me off about Tom Cruise?
He always has to be the good guy.
Always.
Even when he's playing a fucking Nazi, he has to be the good guy.
Always.
Even when he's playing a fucking Nazi, he has to be the good guy.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Wikipedia
Occasionally I come across articles about some person or organization trashing Wikipedia, particularly its appropriateness in an educational settings. I used to be sort of in line with these people, thinking that Wikipedia was fine for casual research and for getting a start on a topic or finding your way to better sources. I feel like my position on that subject is changing or softening, and I think I understand why so many people, particularly educators, really dislike or even hate Wikipedia:
Wikipedia runs completely counter to and, to a certain extent, undermines our Western notions of knowledge and learning.
In Western-style academia, capital-k Knowledge is perceived as authoritative, unchanging (or at least slow-changing), and "out there" to be gathered by interested people. Learning is to be a largely solitary effort, guided by an authoritative mentor. You might complete some group projects, or study as a team, but at the end of the semester it's up to you to pass the test or write the paper.
Wikipedia, by it's very nature, postulates Knowledge as collaborative, constructed, malleable and subject to debate. According to the Wikipedia epistemology , "knowledge" is something people have, and it's not generic or quantifiable, and it's not necessarily "out there" to be gathered. Knowledge can be created by an individual or group deciding on what they consider to be true, which may or may not be what another group considers true.
Imagine the Encyclopedia Britannica as a model for traditional Western-style knowledge, and that it represents the whole of human understanding. If you were to look at it from one day to the next, nothing at all would change. Even if you were to look at over the course of several editions, that is from one decade to the next, things would be changing but not that fast or dramatically. Articles would be edited and refined, some new topics might be introduced, but all in all a very stable way of knowing.
Now consider Wikipedia as a the sum of all human understanding. It can change rapidly from one moment to the next, and one years edition may be radically and dramatically different from the next. Wikipedia also has a conversation about it's knowledge that a traditional encyclopedia lacks. People are discussing nearly every article there, debating about weather or not this citation should be added, or that point of view be considered, challenging assumptions made and questioning biases; the knowledge in the EB just sort of sits there.
I think the Wikipedia take on what knowledge is is more useful, and closer to the (metaphysical) reality of knowledge. Rarely in my adult/semi-professional life have I been called upon to be as self sufficient in my knowledge as I have been in school. Multiple times per day (at least hourly, on an average day) I consult various fonts of knowledge to do my job: we have a knowledge base of symptoms and resolutions that I search, I've saved emails that have good information, printed off various documents that I use often and am constantly asking questions of my co-workers and superiors. If I was required to "know" my job in the same way I am required to "know" algebra on a final, then I would be fired within a day.
The thing I "know" about my job almost better than almost anything else is where to look for answers.
Wikipedia runs completely counter to and, to a certain extent, undermines our Western notions of knowledge and learning.
In Western-style academia, capital-k Knowledge is perceived as authoritative, unchanging (or at least slow-changing), and "out there" to be gathered by interested people. Learning is to be a largely solitary effort, guided by an authoritative mentor. You might complete some group projects, or study as a team, but at the end of the semester it's up to you to pass the test or write the paper.
Wikipedia, by it's very nature, postulates Knowledge as collaborative, constructed, malleable and subject to debate. According to the Wikipedia epistemology , "knowledge" is something people have, and it's not generic or quantifiable, and it's not necessarily "out there" to be gathered. Knowledge can be created by an individual or group deciding on what they consider to be true, which may or may not be what another group considers true.
Imagine the Encyclopedia Britannica as a model for traditional Western-style knowledge, and that it represents the whole of human understanding. If you were to look at it from one day to the next, nothing at all would change. Even if you were to look at over the course of several editions, that is from one decade to the next, things would be changing but not that fast or dramatically. Articles would be edited and refined, some new topics might be introduced, but all in all a very stable way of knowing.
Now consider Wikipedia as a the sum of all human understanding. It can change rapidly from one moment to the next, and one years edition may be radically and dramatically different from the next. Wikipedia also has a conversation about it's knowledge that a traditional encyclopedia lacks. People are discussing nearly every article there, debating about weather or not this citation should be added, or that point of view be considered, challenging assumptions made and questioning biases; the knowledge in the EB just sort of sits there.
I think the Wikipedia take on what knowledge is is more useful, and closer to the (metaphysical) reality of knowledge. Rarely in my adult/semi-professional life have I been called upon to be as self sufficient in my knowledge as I have been in school. Multiple times per day (at least hourly, on an average day) I consult various fonts of knowledge to do my job: we have a knowledge base of symptoms and resolutions that I search, I've saved emails that have good information, printed off various documents that I use often and am constantly asking questions of my co-workers and superiors. If I was required to "know" my job in the same way I am required to "know" algebra on a final, then I would be fired within a day.
The thing I "know" about my job almost better than almost anything else is where to look for answers.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Supplement Review: Adventurer's Vault
I picked up the Adventurer's Vault for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons the other day and finally got my first good look at it.
I must say I am impressed. It is packed full of goodies, mundane and magical (tho mostly magical) and has a very impressive variety, with something for every class (including a few that haven't been released yet), every level and every style of play.
It kicks off with a selection of new mundane weapons and masterwork armors. Thanks to this book, I now understand what masterwork armor is for; maybe I'm just dense but I did not get the point of masterwork armor as presented in the PHB. Weapons get a couple of new properties: Brutal: a minimum number on the damage dice and Defensive: a +1 to AC as long as you're wielding it and are proficient.
Then comes a selection of mounts and my 2 favorite sections: Vehicles and Alchemy.
Vehicles are handled much better than in 3rd edition, particularly vehicles in combat. It clarifies the fact each vehicle requires a driver/pilot (and in the case of large, complex vehicles, a certain amount of crew) and that character is required to spend actions during combat to maneuver and keep the vehicle under control. It also has info on what happens to vehicles as they take damage, if they loose too many crewmen, or if the driver is unable to control it for some reason.
Alchemy is a feat now (heroic tier) and can be taken in place of Ritual Caster if you get that as a bonus feat from your class. Alchemy works a little like rituals in that you need to acquire the formula (buy or find one) then spend some time and GP for component costs.
Alchemy seems to be a little more utilitarian and flexible than rituals. All the alchemical formulas can be scaled to different levels with bigger attack bonuses and more damage, and unlike most of the rituals, don't have a duration. Alchemy creates permanent, physical items so you can spend a long weekend making Alchemist's Fire in preparation for your showdown with that troll.
Alchemy is much more combat oriented than rituals. I don't think there are any rituals that deal damage, and they're the types of things that you do after an encounter. "OK, that monster is dead, let's camp here, cast Raise Dead on the fighter again, then Observe Creature to see what that evil archmage is up to." Alchemy, on the other hand, mostly creates dangerous little trinkets to throw at your enemies or to booby trap a room, the kinds of things you usually prepare before a battle. A nice touch is that many of the dangerous, thrown trinkets can be converted (for a little extra gold) into dangerous ammunition for a ranged weapon.
Then comes about 160 pages of magic item descriptions, the meat of the book. All the categories from the PHB are here (armor, weapons, etc.) plus a few new ones that I want to point out.
First up are Companion Slot items. According to the sidebar, animal companions and mounts have a single magic item slot that you can equip an item in. It mentions the (as-yet-still-in-development) Beastmaster Ranger build and other new classes and builds will have animal companions.
Next up is Battle Standards, magical banners that, when deployed by planting in your square or an adjacent square, create a magical zone giving your allies a boost. One example is the Battle Standard of Tactics, which gives all the allies in the zone telepathy with each other and they always have line of sight to each other.
Under the broad category of Consumables, we have Whetstones and Reagents. When applied to a weapon, Whetstones give that weapon extra typed damage (fire, poison, etc) until the end of the encounter. Reagents are used in conjunction with powers that have specific keywords that increase the effectiveness of that power. For example, Dark Clover can be used with a power that has the necrotic keyword to give the target vulnerability to necrotic attacks. As their name implies, consumables are gone once their used.
I haven't read all the item descriptions (that's tedious and will take weeks) but have read some here and there and like what I've read. I do wish there was more in the book about creating items. We have the Alchemist feat for alchemy items, the Brew Potion ritual for potions and elixirs and the Enchant Magic item feat for. . . everything else I guess? I can appreciate the simplicity of that over 3rd edition where, to make magic items you had to have one of several feats (one for every category of item), know certain specific spells (the list was specific to each individual item), spend time, gold and xp. But having a single level 4 ritual that's good for everything from a +1 dagger to a mummified hand to an Ioun stone seems kind of weak. And there are some things that it's not quite certain the Enchant Magic Item ritual covers. Whetstones? Sure, probably. Reagents? Not so certain. They're listed in the magic items chapter, but are discussed like they're naturally occurring (tho rare) things: Black Cave Pearl, Creeping Gatevine, Dragon Bile. An Apparatus of Kwalish? Even less certain. It's described as a mixture of magic and engineering, but shows up in the vehicles section of the (mundane) equipment chapter. I also miss the a la carte build your own magic weapon and armor tables from 3e. Tho that did lead to abuses; I once built a bow so expensive, a 30th level character couldn't afford it even if it was the only thing they bought with epic starting gold.
Those quibbles aside, I do think it's a useful supplement, particularly if you're a DM who likes to build his own campaigns. As a final note there is an appendix that talks about how to deal with magic items in a campaign and has useful new ritual: Transfer Enchantment. It allows you to move the entire enchantment from one item to another, provided the target item is valid for the enchantment type (in other words: no vorpal robes)
I must say I am impressed. It is packed full of goodies, mundane and magical (tho mostly magical) and has a very impressive variety, with something for every class (including a few that haven't been released yet), every level and every style of play.
It kicks off with a selection of new mundane weapons and masterwork armors. Thanks to this book, I now understand what masterwork armor is for; maybe I'm just dense but I did not get the point of masterwork armor as presented in the PHB. Weapons get a couple of new properties: Brutal: a minimum number on the damage dice and Defensive: a +1 to AC as long as you're wielding it and are proficient.
Then comes a selection of mounts and my 2 favorite sections: Vehicles and Alchemy.
Vehicles are handled much better than in 3rd edition, particularly vehicles in combat. It clarifies the fact each vehicle requires a driver/pilot (and in the case of large, complex vehicles, a certain amount of crew) and that character is required to spend actions during combat to maneuver and keep the vehicle under control. It also has info on what happens to vehicles as they take damage, if they loose too many crewmen, or if the driver is unable to control it for some reason.
Alchemy is a feat now (heroic tier) and can be taken in place of Ritual Caster if you get that as a bonus feat from your class. Alchemy works a little like rituals in that you need to acquire the formula (buy or find one) then spend some time and GP for component costs.
Alchemy seems to be a little more utilitarian and flexible than rituals. All the alchemical formulas can be scaled to different levels with bigger attack bonuses and more damage, and unlike most of the rituals, don't have a duration. Alchemy creates permanent, physical items so you can spend a long weekend making Alchemist's Fire in preparation for your showdown with that troll.
Alchemy is much more combat oriented than rituals. I don't think there are any rituals that deal damage, and they're the types of things that you do after an encounter. "OK, that monster is dead, let's camp here, cast Raise Dead on the fighter again, then Observe Creature to see what that evil archmage is up to." Alchemy, on the other hand, mostly creates dangerous little trinkets to throw at your enemies or to booby trap a room, the kinds of things you usually prepare before a battle. A nice touch is that many of the dangerous, thrown trinkets can be converted (for a little extra gold) into dangerous ammunition for a ranged weapon.
Then comes about 160 pages of magic item descriptions, the meat of the book. All the categories from the PHB are here (armor, weapons, etc.) plus a few new ones that I want to point out.
First up are Companion Slot items. According to the sidebar, animal companions and mounts have a single magic item slot that you can equip an item in. It mentions the (as-yet-still-in-development) Beastmaster Ranger build and other new classes and builds will have animal companions.
Next up is Battle Standards, magical banners that, when deployed by planting in your square or an adjacent square, create a magical zone giving your allies a boost. One example is the Battle Standard of Tactics, which gives all the allies in the zone telepathy with each other and they always have line of sight to each other.
Under the broad category of Consumables, we have Whetstones and Reagents. When applied to a weapon, Whetstones give that weapon extra typed damage (fire, poison, etc) until the end of the encounter. Reagents are used in conjunction with powers that have specific keywords that increase the effectiveness of that power. For example, Dark Clover can be used with a power that has the necrotic keyword to give the target vulnerability to necrotic attacks. As their name implies, consumables are gone once their used.
I haven't read all the item descriptions (that's tedious and will take weeks) but have read some here and there and like what I've read. I do wish there was more in the book about creating items. We have the Alchemist feat for alchemy items, the Brew Potion ritual for potions and elixirs and the Enchant Magic item feat for. . . everything else I guess? I can appreciate the simplicity of that over 3rd edition where, to make magic items you had to have one of several feats (one for every category of item), know certain specific spells (the list was specific to each individual item), spend time, gold and xp. But having a single level 4 ritual that's good for everything from a +1 dagger to a mummified hand to an Ioun stone seems kind of weak. And there are some things that it's not quite certain the Enchant Magic Item ritual covers. Whetstones? Sure, probably. Reagents? Not so certain. They're listed in the magic items chapter, but are discussed like they're naturally occurring (tho rare) things: Black Cave Pearl, Creeping Gatevine, Dragon Bile. An Apparatus of Kwalish? Even less certain. It's described as a mixture of magic and engineering, but shows up in the vehicles section of the (mundane) equipment chapter. I also miss the a la carte build your own magic weapon and armor tables from 3e. Tho that did lead to abuses; I once built a bow so expensive, a 30th level character couldn't afford it even if it was the only thing they bought with epic starting gold.
Those quibbles aside, I do think it's a useful supplement, particularly if you're a DM who likes to build his own campaigns. As a final note there is an appendix that talks about how to deal with magic items in a campaign and has useful new ritual: Transfer Enchantment. It allows you to move the entire enchantment from one item to another, provided the target item is valid for the enchantment type (in other words: no vorpal robes)
"Tuhlader"
My 3 year old daughter has a word that uses often in place of "later." She'll say things like, "We're going to Gran-ma Shari's tuhlader" or I don't want to go to sleep now, I want to go tuhlader"
I've been wondering about that and I've come up with 2 explanations.
1. She's blending the phrase "until later." I'll have to listen for it, but I suspect we often tell her that she can't do something "until later" and, if that's true, we almost certainly clip it to "till later."
2. I think this is more likely - She's using prepositional "to" in the same sense as today, tonight, and tomorrow. All of those words usually refer to something happening in the future (like later) and it just makes sense to continue the pattern.
I've been wondering about that and I've come up with 2 explanations.
1. She's blending the phrase "until later." I'll have to listen for it, but I suspect we often tell her that she can't do something "until later" and, if that's true, we almost certainly clip it to "till later."
2. I think this is more likely - She's using prepositional "to" in the same sense as today, tonight, and tomorrow. All of those words usually refer to something happening in the future (like later) and it just makes sense to continue the pattern.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Beastie Boys and the OED
The OED is the Oxford English Dictionary, a dictionary unlike any other in any language. Most dictionaries catalog the most common words and their most common uses, spellings and pronunciations. As languages change, new words arise, old words fall out of common use and the dictionary updates to reflect these changes.
The OED is different in that once a word goes into the OED, it never comes out. The OED (attempts to) chronicles the entire history of every word in the language, including words that haven't really been used for decades, maybe centuries. It also provides quotations for every word, illustrating the various meanings and showing the earliest date that the word has been recorded. The authors and people cited in these quotations include the most revered, influential, foundational and august authors our language has ever known. Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and many, many, many more are quoted, either as the first person to record a particular word, or has having written something that illustrates one of a words meanings.
It also quotes the Beastie Boys. Six times. The B-Boys are credited with contributing to the meaning of 'back' as an adverb (as in "back in the day / there was this girl around the way" (actual quote)), 'drop:' to impart knowledge or wisdom, freq. about social issues, esp. through the medium of rap or hip-hop music ("now here we go dropping science"), 'ill:' as an intransitive verb meaning to behave badly ("License to Ill"), 'mellow' (a noun meaning a close friend), 'peace' as in "peace out," and 'mullet,' referring to the infamous hair style.
The most interesting thing is that they are cited as the first people to use the word 'mullet' in reference to hair. They probably didn't coin it, and with some digging, you could probably find an earlier citation, but for now they are the oldest.
If you don't believe me, here's a link, but you have to subscribe to the OED to get in, or access it from an institution (library, university) that subscribes.
The OED is different in that once a word goes into the OED, it never comes out. The OED (attempts to) chronicles the entire history of every word in the language, including words that haven't really been used for decades, maybe centuries. It also provides quotations for every word, illustrating the various meanings and showing the earliest date that the word has been recorded. The authors and people cited in these quotations include the most revered, influential, foundational and august authors our language has ever known. Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and many, many, many more are quoted, either as the first person to record a particular word, or has having written something that illustrates one of a words meanings.
It also quotes the Beastie Boys. Six times. The B-Boys are credited with contributing to the meaning of 'back' as an adverb (as in "back in the day / there was this girl around the way" (actual quote)), 'drop:' to impart knowledge or wisdom, freq. about social issues, esp. through the medium of rap or hip-hop music ("now here we go dropping science"), 'ill:' as an intransitive verb meaning to behave badly ("License to Ill"), 'mellow' (a noun meaning a close friend), 'peace' as in "peace out," and 'mullet,' referring to the infamous hair style.
The most interesting thing is that they are cited as the first people to use the word 'mullet' in reference to hair. They probably didn't coin it, and with some digging, you could probably find an earlier citation, but for now they are the oldest.
If you don't believe me, here's a link, but you have to subscribe to the OED to get in, or access it from an institution (library, university) that subscribes.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
An Observation On Comment Spam
Check this out. This is what happens when you don't have some kind of filter on your comments. I counted more than 375 spam comments to about 15 legit ones, and most of those legit comments were comments on the spam itself.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Linguistic Reinterpretation
There are lots of words that we say and hear everyday, but don't necessarily find an opportunity to write down or see in print. With words and phrases like this, people apply what they know about the patterns and structures of their language to come to an interpretation of the word to be able to continue to use it. Occasionally, this kind of interpretation is very different from what could be called a standard interpretation and linguists refer to this as 'reinterpretation.' An example that was given in class was people mistaking 'notary public' for 'noter republic.' They sound pretty much the same, and if you're not familiar with the word and concept of a notary, a noter republic makes about as much sense as a notary public for talking about someone you pay $15.00 to put an official stamp on a document.
(As an aside, the phrase notary public sort of implies that it's a specific kind of notary, and that others are out there. Just plain notary? Notary private?)
This is an interesting to talk about in class, but it's always exciting (for me, anyway) to see the things talked about in class actually happen in the wild, so to speak. In my other life I work for a computer help desk where our customers have the option of typing up and submitting a trouble ticket online, and in the subject line of one of these tickets, a coworker of mine came across a really interesting (again, for me, they didn't seem to care about it all that much) reinterpretation: "The peddle stool is broken."
We weren't sure what a peddle stool was, or if it was even out responsibility to fix until he opened the ticket and read the first line of the body: "The peddle stool that holds up the keyboard is broken." What the customer was looking for was pedestal, and I think I can see how they got there. First of all, they sound very nearly or maybe even completely identical. Second, a stool, or footstool, is something you stand on that supports you and the keyboard was 'standing' or at least being supported by this thing that is now broken. The 'peddle' part might have looked a little odd once it was all typed out, but really no more opaque than many other aspects of English.
(As an aside, the phrase notary public sort of implies that it's a specific kind of notary, and that others are out there. Just plain notary? Notary private?)
This is an interesting to talk about in class, but it's always exciting (for me, anyway) to see the things talked about in class actually happen in the wild, so to speak. In my other life I work for a computer help desk where our customers have the option of typing up and submitting a trouble ticket online, and in the subject line of one of these tickets, a coworker of mine came across a really interesting (again, for me, they didn't seem to care about it all that much) reinterpretation: "The peddle stool is broken."
We weren't sure what a peddle stool was, or if it was even out responsibility to fix until he opened the ticket and read the first line of the body: "The peddle stool that holds up the keyboard is broken." What the customer was looking for was pedestal, and I think I can see how they got there. First of all, they sound very nearly or maybe even completely identical. Second, a stool, or footstool, is something you stand on that supports you and the keyboard was 'standing' or at least being supported by this thing that is now broken. The 'peddle' part might have looked a little odd once it was all typed out, but really no more opaque than many other aspects of English.
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