18. August 2010 by Samldanach.

So, DC is trapped in a never-ending deluge today.  Well, it might end.  But it hasn’t yet.  So, it’s never-ending.  Until it ends.

It comes to mind, especially seeing tweets from some of my local friends this morning, that I have not posted one of my grand theories of the universe:  Mushroom People.

Have you ever noticed that traffic gets really, unreasonably bad when it rains?  It is far worse than the conditions actually warrant.  Have you also noticed the extreme number of cars on the road at that time?  There are more cars out than at any other time (well, possibly excepting the Friday before a long weekend, but that is beyond the scope of this theory).  In fact, I noticed while living in Charlotte that there seemed to actually be more cars on the road than were owned by all the residents of the city!

This mystery had an obvious answer.  Cars were spontaneously appearing when it rained.

What else spontaneously appears when it rains?  Mushrooms.

Hence, the cars are made of, or at least driven by, mushrooms.

(Yes, this logic may also make you think of witches and ducks.  That’s how you know it’s a classic rhetorical device.)

Now, we have a basic problem.  The mushrooms are spontaneously appearing, and are often gone again within hours.  That means that they never have a chance to complete driving school.  The fact that they know to stop at stoplights at all is a miracle.  When they spontaneously decide to perform a U-turn in the middle of a four-lane highway because the other side is going faster (albeit in the wrong direction), we have to be somewhat sympathetic.  Don’t try to be understanding, though.  If Lovecraft taught us anything, it was that understanding is the first step to insanity.

Mushrooms also have another limitation, which creates endless difficulties.  They are red-green colorblind.  Yes, even the females, as unlikely as that sounds.  That’s why mushroom people have a hard time with stoplights.  When the light changes from yellow to red, they think it turned green, and so they accelerate.  When it turns from green to red, they can’t tell the difference, and will sit there until it turns yellow again.  They are trying.  They really are.  They try my patience every damn time.

The final frustration at mushroom people comes from the obvious consequence of spontaneously created people.  They have no homes.  They have no work places.  They aren’t actually going anywhere at all.  They exist solely to drive around.  And to drive people crazy.  People like you.  Unfortunately, mushrooms are themselves immune to insanity.  Or they start out insane, so can’t get any worse.  I guess that’s an obvious result of feeding on nothing but bullshit.  Maybe that’s where the Tea Party comes from.

I am currently working on a proposal for a widespread fungicidal agent that would remove these peripatetic pests from our highways and byways.  Unfortunately, that really requires a lab.  And a degree in biology.  Probably one in chemistry, too.  I need grant money for this.  And donations.  Maybe a telethon?  Anything you can do will help.  I’m hoping to ultimately find a way to kill the mushroom people without harming the cars.  That way I can donate the cars to lots of charities in order to fund my habit.  I mean, research!  Fund my research.  Research is my habit.

Watch this space for my corollary theory:  Toadstool People, the Scourge Under the Full Moon.

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16. August 2010 by Samldanach.

Do you recognize the line in the title?  If so, then you can guess what we went to see this weekend:  Chess. 

My wife introduced me to the soundtrack way back in college.  I can’t say I was instantly hooked.  For one thing, the storyline was a bit hard to tease out of the songs.  Of course, we all know at least one of those songs.  And several numbers really grabbed me.  Pity the Child.  Anthem (in which the Russian defects).  Heaven Help My Heart.  And, my favorite, Nobody’s Side.  But it took several listenings for the show as a whole to grab me.  (Even now, I’ll listen to it and realize that I’d been mis-hearing a lyric that changes some of the shading of the story.)

Many of you probably know some of the history of the show.  Chess was written by the guys from ABBA with lyrics by Tim Rice.  A powerhouse team, without a doubt.  It opened to critical acclaim and an excellent run in London.  When it moved to Broadway, the producer didn’t think the American audience would like that the American was the jerk of the piece (I won’t say villain, but definitely a jerk).  So, the play got re-written, and bombed.  It has struggled ever since.

There are half a dozen different scripts now floating around for Chess.  And, I’m not talking minor variations.  These are radically different plotlines.  Certain elements have to remain intact for the key songs to continue to fit.  But, it’s pretty amazing how radically the frame around those songs can shift.

So, background done, let’s move on to this particular show.  Read the rest of this entry »

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13. August 2010 by Samldanach.

So, that’s the question.  It’s kind of intriguing.  I have no idea if it’s going to work.  But I’m giving it a shot.

I ran across a post on Dice Monkey (http://dicemonkey.net/2010/08/11/twittrp/) about this TwitRPG game.  It sounded intriguing.  I left a comment.  I’m in the game.

It’s a four-color supers game.  There’s four players.  So far, we have a speedster, a brick, and I’m playing a gadgeteer.  You can follow us by watching the #trp hashtag.  Looks like there’s a lot of collision on that hashtag, but I think the point was to not handicap us on characters.  See, each action has to fit into a single tweet.  I sense a lesson in txtspk coming for me…

My character’s name is Dyson.  The intro tweet was ”Dyson smartass 20yo Hisp gadgeteer/hacker w/wearable puter & perm internet Pym+Oracle.”  I’ll unfold that a bit here.  He is a smartass at heart, in the classic “too smart for his own good” sense.  Think Hardison from Leverage, Claudia from Warehouse 13, or any number of similar characters.  He’s only 20 years old, because part of the character arc in my head is that he lacks emotional maturity, perspective, and still hasn’t shaken that teenage sense of immortality.  By the end of the campaign, I hope to see all that tempered.  He is Hispanic, from Miami, though both he and his parents were born in the US.  He’s pretty thoroughly American middle-class, but has dealt with a lot of prejudice and assumptions where he grew up.  His contribution to the team is building, repairing, and improving equipment.  Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Forge, that kind of character.  He is also a pretty talented hacker.  Not world-class, but talented.  Where his abilities really shine, though, is finding information.  He can pull up credit histories, blueprints, police reports, schematics, etc. on just about anyone or anything (excepting the highly classified).

His signature item is his wearable computer.  It is a system that would put most small networks to shame.  Multiple processors, high RAM, 2TB of hard drive space.  His glasses function as a heads-up display.  Over the earpiece on the right side is a camera.  Up one sleeve of his trenchcoat, he has a joystick that he can use in place of a mouse.  Up the other sleeve, a touchpad that can act as a keyboard.  On the collar is a microphone, that is connected to voice recognition software.  It has an always-on cell connection, wifi, and a satellite phone connection.  Various pockets contain other interface options, like barcode readers, fingerprint scanners, etc.  And it’s all contained in a very stylish black leather trenchcoat.

The other signature effect is his custom-built PARIS system.  That stands for Personal Augmented Reality Interface System.  Basically, the camera and heads-up display are connected with various bits of software to allow the computer to recognize portions of his surroundings and overlay information onto it.  For instance, it can perform facial recognition against its internal database and bring up a business card next to each person he sees.  It can talk to Google Maps and identify local businesses.  It can integrate with CAD drawings of the building to overlay structural, electrical, and plumbing indicators (or, at least, where they should be).  In a TV show, this would be a major effect.  In an RPG, it’s pretty much just a note.

He also has a lot of pockets on his uniform, filled with tools and basic supplies (solder, duct tape, etc.).  Unless he’s stripped naked, assume he has at least the function of a Swiss Army knife available.

Finally, he has a pretty cool gun.  It’s a sonic-based stun gun.  It basically uses low-frequency waves to knock people out.  the only problem is that it is still highly experimental, and very unreliable.

You can see what he looks like here.

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2. February 2010 by Samldanach.

From the ever-excellent Rob Donoghue…

Even if you are a crazy person, you need to manage your brand.

ESPECIALLY if you’re a crazy person.

Look, I know that you don’t think you’re crazy, and that this obviously doesn’t apply to you, but just think about how people respond to what you say. It’s not about whether you are crazy, it’s about whether people think you’re crazy. And if they think you’re crazy, they’re not going to listen to the incredibly important truths that you have seen which need to be shared. In this, truth is like craziness - it doesn’t matter if it’s so, it just matters what people think.

So, if you have some Powerful Truths to share, you owe it to yourself and the world to stop and think about how you present them. If you can’t present them in a way that people will listen to, then you have failed. No one will see the truth because you were too proud to learn how to communicate. You will get dismissed as “crazy” by the people who don’t understand the truth. This may not bother you personally because you understand that you are above their petty assessments, but the problem is not a personal one. If you are perceived as a “Crazy Guy,” that creates a barrier to you getting your message out.

The key is that your unique insight comes with a responsibility to learn to communicate in a way that gets people to listen. That might mean less profanity or laying a foundation for you argument before presenting a conclusion or making sure the sources you cite are held in equal esteem by your audience. This may be frustrating: most of the people you’re talking to are clearly not smart enough to understand what you’re telling them, but if you cannot communicate your idea to lesser minds, you’ve just written off most of the world.

If you don’t take that responsibility, they will never understand.

So man up. Communication skills are trivial to learn compared to the things you already grasp. It may feel like you’re hobbling yourself at first, but just remember that most people aren’t ready to handle the full weight of understanding all at once - it would be like trying to drink from a fire hose. But if you can regulate the flow, then you can bring them around to comprehension by offering them truth a sip at a time, until they discover a thirst they didn’t know was there, and start -asking- you for more.

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15. January 2010 by Samldanach.

I haven’t abandoned this blog by any means.  I will be posting the trip wrap-up from Hawaii.  I will be posting a couple short stories I wrote (one needs a rewrite first).  I have a new RPG setting idea to toss out (really a refinement of an older one).  I want to review Avatar and Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (both good, but not great, movies).  I want to talk about some other gaming concepts.  I’ve got other things buzzing in my brain.  I want to do a “state of the union” post.

First, I have to get my job to calm down.

Gah.

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20. November 2009 by Samldanach.

My wife said I needed a post with that title.  Now, I just need to find something to write that lives up to that level of awesome.

Um, nope.  Nothing comes to mind.

I will put a note here, though.  When I started NaBlogWriMo, I totally forgot that I’m going to be out of the country for the rest of the month.  Le sigh.  I am taking my puter with me, and will be attempting to continue to write up posts.  As I am currently behind, I aim to write three posts a day.  One for that day, one to catch up, and one about what we did on vacation that day.  Look for a crazy onslaught around the 29th, when I’m hooked up to the intertubes again.

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7. January 2009 by Samldanach.

Well, that’s the damnedest thing.  I just spent several tries getting that post up, because it kept erroring out.  By doing multiple edits, I was able to narrow it down.

 Wordpress hates the phrase “data into information.”

(Except, of course, in this post….)

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