More Than 12 Months Between Posts.

That may be a record for me.

I was recently diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and have been learning to live with a CPAP machine. It has been a little hit and miss over the last couple months, and have decided to re-purpose this space into a log of my successes and struggles with the machine. Not that anyone cares. Or is reading.

Anyway, it is currently just after 1am and I need to give the machine a second attempt tonight. I'm fairly congested at the moment and when I initially laid down about an hour ago I kept feeling like I wasn't getting enough air, which makes me claustrophobic and panicky. I took an allergy pill and it seems to have kicked in a bit so we're going to give it another shot. I need to talk to the doc about the congestion, which seems more or less chronic.

Will hopefully start posting my numbers here each morning. 

Ambush Interview Defense

Was just listening to an On The Media segment about the history and  uses of the "Ambush Interview" and believe that I've come up with the perfect defense to them. The goal of most modern ambush interviews is not to actually get an interview, but to get the spectacle of someone you've already established to your audience as being the Bad Guy in the narrative being off guard and flustered and not being able to muster coherent responses to your questions. The interviewer wants to see you angry or swearing or running down the block to get away, and if you blow your cool enough to actually attack the camera or the host, well that's just teaser gold. What you need to do when confronted with an ambush interview is give them none of that. Stare as blankly as you can manage straight into the camera. Do not speak and look around as little as possible. Utterly ignore the host, their questions, and anything else. A person staring into a camera with a completely disinterested look on their face is not good video (unless you're Magibon). You turn the confrontation of the interview into a literal staring contest. And as long as you can outlast them, you will win.

Housing Bubble Made Real

We're considering buying the house we live in from our landed lords, so I swung over to the assessor's web site to see what it was appraised at. See if you can spot the where the housing bubble began in this table of valuations:

	Year	Assessed Value
	2009	$146,900
	2008	$160,000
	2007	$151,900
	2006	$123,800
	2005	$109,300
	2004	$103,400
	2003	$84,500
	2002	$81,000
	2001	$78,600
	2000	$70,300

True story

"Nomi?"

"Yeah?"

"How much do you love me?"

"....Why?"

"Cause I left my book in the car and I don't want to have to put on clothes to go get it."

"You want to know if I love you enough to go out into the cold and rain and get your book, which you left there, so you don't have to put on pants?"

"Yes."

......

"What have you done for me lately?"

The Best Video Game Ever!

Had some friends over this evening, and while we were talking I fired up Super Mario World on my Wii's Virtual Console. While I played, one friend asked a question to the effect of, "Do we still play games like this one because it's truly a great game, or is it not actually that great and we just play it for nostalgia? I mean, when your [my] kids [who are 2 and 4] hit that magic video game demographic of 8 or 10 years old, will they look at this and recognize a great game, or will they see a crappy old videogame?"

This lead to an interesting discussion of greatness in videogames, and how if it's even possible, could a game objectively be described as "great" or "the best?" We came up some interesting things:

"The Best" anything is a highly subjective matter; Halo is widely considered to among the best FPSs out there, but one of our impromptu round-table members who is a big fan of the FPS genre cannot stand it, as he hates any FPS played on a console. We decided that "best of" contests would work the best within a given genre. I asked would it possible to come up with a list of criteria for each of the "canonical" video game genres in order to remove as much subjectivity as possible from a "best of" contest, and we decided that it probably would, but it was not a task we were interested in at the moment.

Someone brought up something that they had seen on XPlay, I think, about how one of the hosts was introducing some of the games from his childhood to his kids, and sometimes he could not remember why he liked a particular game so much, but other times he found games that he and his kids both had a lot of fun with. We decided that that was probably the fairest possible method, and the best video games could hope for was a certain level of "timelessness," something that can only be determined until a few more generations of people are exposed to the same game; if it was fun for kids then, and still fun for kids 25 years later, then it's probably a really good game. I suggested that, based on that criteria, SMW is probably more timeless than the original NES Super Mario Brothers and everyone seemed to agree with me.


One thing I've thought of since they all left: Since we probably can't fairly list out the criteria for "the best videogame ever," would it be possible list the criteria of a "great" videogame, either by genre or overall? I mean, not everyone has the same list of "best books of all time" but we could probably agree on certain things that make a book great; the same should be possible for videogames. It might be easier with games to list the things that a "great" game shouldn't have: sluggish controls, slowdown, things like that.

Godwins Law Ends Healthcare Debate

This is what passes for discourse on health care.

Via.

Google Books Snafu

The method that Google uses to scan books for their Google Books project is pretty interesting. Basically, they take a photo of each pair of pages as the book lays open on a table. Then they use software to digitally "unbend" the image so that it looks like a flat scan. Anyway, it looks like sometimes the person doing the scanning doesn't move quite quick enough for the camera. Check out page 492 and 493 of Charles Babbage's autobiography.

Looking around I found a few other examples from Tech Crunch and Mysterious Ways

It's been a while

since I felt this raw hunger for more knowledge.

Scientists Report Pretty Women Get Laid More Often

This just in:

"In a study released last week, Markus Jokela, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, found beautiful women had up to 16% more children than their plainer counterparts."

From; Via

Something Cool From My Buddy

My friend Andrew Goodman just sent me a link to his latest project "Exhumation" - go watch it here.

This piece is particularly well served by reading the abstract/artist's statement, part of which I'll quote here

Exhumation is an interactive piece exploring the role of the image in the creation and perpetuation of scientific racism in the 19th century. Just as a body may be exhumed in order to further a criminal investigation, the text and images in Exhumation represent a body of evidence that has been willfully buried in the hopes of avoiding the persecution of history.

Check it out and visit his his site AndrewLloydGooman.com for more cool stuff.

How to tell if your kid has been using your computer

Me and the kids.

WTF?

I came across the following sentence in this article in the NYT Magazine

In the International Academy of Sex Research, the 35-year-old institution that publishes Archives of Sexual Behavior and that can claim, Bancroft said, most of the field’s leading researchers among its 300 or so members, women make up just over a quarter of the organization.

Not be overly critical (every writer turns a sour sentence once in a while) but what the hell happened here?

Things My 3 Year Old Daughter Will Never See

A physical card-file in a library.

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.

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.

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)

"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.

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.

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.