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)