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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 |
wickedthought
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10:24a |
He does not drink!
 A photo taken when Jessie, Chris and I were last together. Now, it's not true. These days, I do have an occasional drink. On my birthday, on Paddy's Day. But that night, I was not drinking. And so, Chris and Jessie started the battle cry... He is Wick! He does not drink! So we drink for him! Ah, what a weekend. |
bluegargantua
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12:05p |
Hedgerow Hell
Hi, So over this past weekend, I finally got a chance to play Fields of Fire by GMT Games. Fields of Fire is a unique game in a couple of ways. First, it's solitaire. You deal out a grid of terrain cards and that becomes the board you move your pieces over. As you move onto new cards, you trigger potential contacts with the enemy and a second deck of action cards tells you what you find and where it's at. The other unique feature is that the game focuses specifically on the historical battles of the 9th Infantry Division (the Fighting Manchus). The game has a slate of missions set in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam so there's a lot of variety. Also, the game is hard. It's not Advanced Squad Leader hard, or Starfleet Battles hard, but it is a wargame and there's a lot of fiddly bits. It doesn't help that the rulebook has required an extensive errata file and a number of the counters were mis-marked. Luckily, GMT provides significant on-line help and they sent me free replacement counters -- still for such a novel game, I'm disappointed that the game wasn't better put together (and GMT games are usually pretty high-quality affairs). That said, the game puts in you in charge of an infantry rifle company in the 9th and it's your job to accomplish whatever mission is laid out before you. I think this is my sweet spot for wargames -- I don't want to track every single man and round fired, but I don't want to point at a tank and go "that's 50 tanks". Platoon or Company level games seem close enough to the action, yet abstracted enough that I can feel like I'm leading troops and not micromanaging every guy. I think it's why Charlie Company really clicked with me (more likely Charlie Company crystallized my interest in these kinds of games). Anyway, I got everything set up and played out the first mission over the course of a couple days. I want to say it took 3-4 hours total, but it might have been longer. I had to look up a bunch of stuff and I was keeping fairly detailed notes about what went on so I could post a session report. You can check it out here if you're interested (and if you game/have gamed with me, you might be part of the officer staff...shame about Lt. Caprio). The short version, we were supposed to capture a couple of farms. We got pounded by mortars and later by artillery. When the Germans appeared they were in range of the .50 cal which basically chewed them up. We achieved our objectives and all of our casualties were successfully evacuated before the end of the game (which gives you bonus XP in addition to being a point of pride). All the officers learned valuable lessons and are no longer Green while 1st Platoon (which took the brunt of the incoming) is now a battle-hardened lot. I liked it. I messed up on a few rules here and there, but I think I grokked how it was supposed to work. It definitely had the right "feel" where I try and execute a simple plan and then have to deal with all the complications. I think I prefer social games over solitaire ones, but this scratches an itch and I can set it up (in a cat-free area) and just play it as I go along. later Tom |
fionacat
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5:01p |
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meguey
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11:02a |
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makinglight
|
3:34p |
The new new TSA regulations
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012060.html From the rather good KLM blog, the latest, to the best of my knowledge, on what those new TSA policies actually are. Short version: they're ditching the stuff about not letting people get up to pee during the last hour of the flight, and also that business about not being able to have blankets, books, laptops, or other objects in your lap.
Abi posted this in comment #1 to my post yesterday. But a day later I'm still seeing people all over the internet talking about that nutty last-hour stuff as if it were still indefinitely in effect. Maybe putting the link here on the front page will help.
There's plenty left to criticize about the TSA's overall approach--see Bruce Schneier's appearance on Maddow last night for some of the basic points--but we should probably be discussing the current stupidity rather than yesterday's stupidity. |
immlass
|
9:54a |
Sherlock Holmes
We went out to the Alamo to see the new Sherlock Holmes last night. I know we're supposed to wait for this one on DVD and see Avatar in the theaters, probably in 3D, but the idea of seeing "Dances with Blue People" was about as appealing as a trip to the dentist, so it was Holmes instead. ( Here be some spoilers. )Someone on Twitter said that they thought this was the film League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been and wasn't. I don't know about that, and I'm not sure it was a great Sherlock Holmes movie, but I'm eagerly anticipating the sequel. Current Mood:  rainyCurrent Music: Garbage, You Look So Fine |
gillan
|
9:54a |
Last night I dreamed about a reality television show/game show. It involved people swimming in shark-infested waters while carrying kittens and wearing Pat Sajak shirts. The goal was to keep as many kittens as possible from being eaten by the sharks. |
gillan
|
9:43a |
Resolution #3: Finish The Final Girl.There, that's enough. |
gillan
|
8:16a |
Audio-Based Video Games
Have you guys tried Audiosurf? It's a racer/blockbuster where the track is generated based on an mp3 you provide it with. You then race through it trying to get the high score while ROCKING OUT to your FAVORITE TUNES. It's really enjoyable to compete against other people to get the high score in your favorite song. I predict a shoot'em up or Final Fight-esque action game in the near future where the spawning of enemies and tempo of the fight is based on an mp3 you provide. |
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marcochacon
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7:55a |
Knee Update
I got my MRI results back for my left knee. The good news is that I have three partial tears: two to the ACL ligament and one to the meniscus. The bad news is that the meniscus has a category III out of IV fissure and a possible cyst. This is, again, no /big/ deal--but it could mean that the advised course of action is laproscopic. I am currently advised: 1. See a sports doctor and get a 2nd opinion. Come back in 2wks after taking anti-inflammatory medicine and 2. Stay in a leg-immobilizer brace for that time. That leg immobilizer brace sucks. It pretty much means no Hapkido (I can go--but I'm super limited) and no elliptical bike. Oh: and one other thing: they freaking injected stuff into my knees (cortisone and other stuff). Getting multiple shots (in both knees for some reason) is not nearly as painful as it sounds. That is because it sounds like what they try after waterbording fails to produce the infection! -Marco |
toddalcott
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4:54a |
Put on a happy face
   Old-timers like me can remember back to the dark ages of 1990, when Ivan Reitman's Kindergarten Cop came out. The posters for Kindergarten Cop featured star Arnold Schwarzenegger enduring the enthusiastic attention of a bunch of five-year-olds. The joke was clear: the Terminator can travel through time and walk through explosions, but a bunch of five-year-olds was a little too much for him. Then something strange happened: a few weeks into the run of Kindergarten Cop, the posters suddenly changed -- the "overwhelmed" Arnold became the "beaming" Arnold. I remember clearly, I was living in New York, and all through the subways the Kindergarten Cop posters suddenly went from funny to not-funny. Arnold overwhelmed by children is funny, Arnold proudly hoisting kids is not. ( Read more... ) |
monstro_draw
|
3:54a |
CAT RACKHAM CAN'T SLEEP (ETC.)
 The lines between me and Cat Rackham continue to blur. Also, I really appreciate the comments on the last post but things got nutty this weekend and I haven't responded to any of them. I will though, I swear. I'm pretty terrible at the internet sometimes! |
marrog
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10:20a |
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makinglight
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1:53a |
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| Monday, December 28th, 2009 |
masterae
|
7:43p |
Greetings and Salutations
So, the father of the would-be Christmas-bomber, a banker in Nigeria, warned the US government that his son was radicalized and a security risk. Some people are saying the government screwed up. Myself, I'm pretty sanguine about it. After all, doesn't everyone delete emails from Nigerian bankers? |
| Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 |
gbsteve
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12:02a |
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| Monday, December 28th, 2009 |
masterae
|
5:43p |
Music makes the world go 'round.
I think I have finished sorting out all of my extra music and videos and pictures, even some of the extra documents. The result is that I have deleted at least 80 gigabytes from my hard drives. This means that I had more than 80 gigs worth of duplicate music files. Also, there are probably additional duplicate files out there. |
lxndr
|
4:39p |
Imkerin
So, I wrote this back in 2000. I'm not a big fan of the invented words I came up with. But apart from that, does it make as much sense as my older self thought? I've read through it too many times to be able to be objective anymore. I've been thinking of using these for Winter's Body. ---- Imkerin look something like a bear or a dog, with a thick coat of fur (usually a single coat of white, brown, black or red) and long snouts ending in black noses reminiscent of a dog. Their eyes are set farther back, however, like a rabbit or a parrot, and are constantly moving, updating their picture of their surroundings. Imkerin's front paws each consist of two fingers, two opposable thumbs, and on the bottom of their palm, a long 3" claw which is both useful while fighting, and for additional balance when walking (the Imkerin are semi-quadrupeds, standing only when necessary to use their front paws). The Imkerin's most noticeable feature is their crest. Stretching from the nape of their neck to the small of their back, the silicate crest reaches 4 to 8 inches high like a small dimetrodon fin, and glitters in the sunlight. The crest is a source of pride amongst Imkerin of all genders, and its shape, size and appearance are one of the benchmarks of the Imkerin physical ideal. The crest is made up of a material something like chitin, only silicate in nature, and continually grows throughout the Imkerin's life, like hair or fingernails. Beyond being a source of pride, the crest serves a more practical function: it is protection for the spine, which took up much of the higher functions of the nervous system and is extremely complex (an Imkerin's brain is in their skull, and consists of what amounts to a large cerebellum and medulla oblongata, and gray matter called mnebrum which does nothing but record memories). The crest also is the home for a group of sense organs which are extremely sensitive to air pressure changes and vibration -- like a human ear, theshape of the crest is an important factor in allowing the Imkerin to determine the direction of the change that is being sensed. Imkerin hearing is as sharp as a dog's, and they can track by scent almost as well as a bloodhound. Their eyes, however, as wideset as they are, are not well suited for hunting and pursuing prey and though their eyes are as good as human's, they are all but unable to focus on a single point. This is theorized to be one of the reasons the mnebrum was evolved - to compensate for the sight. Imkerin's eyes constantly dart around, as to a lesser extent do their heads, twisting and turning to effectively film their surroundings. This information is constantly dumped into the mnebrum, which allows the Imkerin to visualize a near-total picture of the area, which is constantly being updated by the changing angles of the twitching eyes and head. This means, however, that the picture of the area always has outdated info, as the eye cannot point everywhere at once -- sight for the Imkerin is for long range and/or liesurely activity, and is only tertiary in hunting. Along each side of the crest, following the spine, there are matching pairs of sockets, evolved to hold the Stones that form the lifeblood of Imkerin mental development. These Stones are basically a network of synapses and other neural material (each Stone has a different neural configuration, which helps to make each one unique) surrounded by a conducting substance that is similar in texture to amber, but darker. Stones are about the size of a child's fist. These Stones are repositories of personality, creativity and potential intellect that are available for the Imkerin to use. The average Imkerin has ten sockets available for use, though that number can vary from as little as six, to as much as 14, in an average population. As children, Imkerin cannot hold Stones -- their sockets are tightly shut until they are large enough to hold a Stone, and then they open. Until they get their first Stones, Imkerin children are highly curious beings with the intelligence of the average dog and an eidetic memory (using the mnebrum, pure memory storage) -- as such they have to be watched carefully by the mother and the community. When a child's sockets open, parents rejoice, for that means the next summer they will become a full-fledged individual with all the rights and responsibilities that brings. Though their first Stone is traditionally harvested nubile, grown by allowing a honeyfly to nest, the majority of a child's first Stones tend to be given by family and other well-meaning souls, imbued with their taste, their touch, their personality, and even a few of their memories. An Imkerin's personality begins as a muddled descendant of the bits and pieces of its Stone contributors, combined with an bit of novelty and interpreted throughthe forces that have shaped it so far. The Imkerin have domesticated some species, but not many -- they are mostly content to graze and hunt. Honeyflies, of course, are a notable exception, though the insects have as much as domesticated the Imerkin as vice versa, More than half the grubs of the Imkerin honeyflies wind up in Imkerin dishes, and honeyfly syrup is considered a wonderful ingredient for food, the all-purpose spice [the honeyflies also provide the neural network of the Stones in the refuse of their chrysalis]. The fruit of choice among Imkerin tends to be the umberkain, which is harvested in the fall from the deciduous umbelrune trees (named as such after the intricate patterns in the bark, which look like ambling runes). The Imkerin tend the umbelrunes in something closer to a forest than a grove, interspersed with other trees and plants and with animals running wild, and the Imkerin make their homes among the trees. They also collect and eat umblerune leaves as they start to turn brown. Umbleberries, which come from a domesticated offshoot of the umbelrune called an ankherune, are a very common item -- EVERY Imkerin hearth sports a few ankherune, and sometimes more. Commonly referred to as a bonsai umbelrune, the ankherune is the result of millennia of aggressive domestication, and grows to a mere two feet tall. Each ankherune has the space for a single Stone in the center of its trunk, a far cry from the scores of pockets the umbelrune has lining its walls. Furthermore, the ankherune has been bred to actively nourish the Stone. Umbelrune trees, along with the honeyflies, are a necessary part of the Imkerin lifecycle. Not only do they provide nourishing food in the form of fruit and leaves, but their summer blooms are one of the main sources of honeyfly syrup, and they are lined with pockets similar to the Imkerin sockets, providing honeyfly workers with places to spin their cocoon and grow into females instead of the males they become when cocooning in an Imkerin socket (as there are more trees than Imkerin, and more sockets per tree than sockets per Imkerin, it's obvious that females far outnumber males in the average breeding season). Umbelrunes don't make Stones, though -- instead, they use the cocoon refuse to nourish themselves much like Venus fly traps gather insects to eat. During the winter months the umbelrune sockets are also occasional victims of foraging from small animals or the occasional starving Imkerin (the taste is very unappetizing, but it provides ample nourishment and hunger suppression). Q&A: >> > > So these things end up with stones all imbedded in their body? I'm not >> > > understanding the socket thing. Stones. Capital S. Think of a "socket" like a marsupial's pouch, that the honeyflies use like a shell while they weave their cocoon. The Stone is a combination of what's left behind after the honeyfly molts and escapes its cocoon and a substance like tree sap which dries like amber and effectively plugs the rest of the hole. That amber substance conducts nerve signals pretty well, and the honeyfly's cocoon stuff acts like brain matter. So a Stone is like part of a brain, only removable and replaceable. Every Stone is like a miniature motherboard, complete with processor and RAM and internal zip drive (the mnebrum is the Hard Drive). The more an Imkerin has installed, the more versatile and adaptable he can be, and the more consciousness he has access to. It's smarts, in a way, but it's also creativity and flexibility. When an Imkerin is a child (they don't get Stones until puberty) they're more like dolphins or smart dogs than humans. Imkerin only have a certain # of sockets, and once those are full there's nothing you can do about it except store extras in ankherunes or a spare umbelrune tree pocket. The average Imkerin has 10 slots, though they can have as few as 6 or as many as 14. And these Stones can (and are) transferred between people. After a child collects its first Stone (i.e. the first honeyfly nests its cocoon) the rest of its sockets are filled with a Stone from each of its caretakers along with Stones given by connections of the family -- some families have passed along the same Stone for generations. Those who contribute one of their Stones are able to gather a new Stone of their own, if they so choose -- an open socket is fair game to honeyfly workers ready to cocoon. Or they can simply choose to replace it with another Stone they already have. >> > > SO--you can trade Stones around? Do different stones give you different >> > > capabilities? Are certain ones better than others? And so children who >> > > can't have their own yet, "borrow" them from a family member? Yes you can trade them around. Each Stone is different because of the way the cocoon settles in the amber, and the constituency of the product, and how it is used early in life. Also, every Stone is different because of how it interacts with the makeup of the individual, so a Stone could be one thing to one person, and a different thing to another person. If any particular Stone is "better" than another depends on which Imkerin you talk to. And children who can't have their own can't borrow either -- their sockets are closed until they get big enough. Technically once the first socket opens a parent can start shoving Stones in them but it's custom to let the child gather the first stone himself. That way he has something that's all his, and doesn't get flooded with bits and pieces of other people. >> > > What happens to a Stone that's not in some form of socket/pocket? It eventually goes bad. Not immediately, but eventually. It doesn't really rot or anything, but everything inside it slowly fades to black in about the course of a week, and the Stone-amber weakens until it crumbles to dust. >> > > How do honeyflies work? Honeyflies work on four genders: workers, females, broodmothers, and the males who are the most recognized form of honeyfly [males and females can be seen outside the hive, but only males have a recognizable pattern -- every honeyfly female has a different design on her wings]. Grubs always turn into workers in the hive, and don't leave the hive until soon after they sprout their first wings, at which point they go out and find a place to spin a cocoon -- their choice dictates whether they become males or females. After chrysalis, females adopt a hive and stay with it for life -- usually the hive they came from but not always, going out and gathering pollen to be made into honey and all that. Males, on the other hand, travel between the various hives independently, impregnating any females they come across and sleeping on the branches of umbelrune trees -- they have a short time in which to live as they die in the wintertime, unprotected by the insulation that keeps workers, females, and broodmothers war. Broodmothers find pregnant females almost irresistibly tasty, and eat them whenever they get a chance; this happens often as pregnant females have a craving to eat the broodmother as well as other pregnant females, which requires them to get close enough to the sessile broodmother to be able to be eaten. A new broodmother is created once a female successfully eats enough other pregnant females, though this is rare as the broodmother tends to eat her competition. Any pregnant female who is eaten has her eggs birthed by the broodmother after incubation. A female who somehow comes to term without being eaten by a broodmother or gathering enough mass to become one herself winds up being eaten by her young as they claw their way out. New grubs are born in the winter, and are workers by spring. Through the summer, the workers of the previous year begin sprouting wings and flying off to cocoon themselves -- perhaps a quarter of these make it. They hatch between 20 and 30 days after they cocoon -- those who nest in umblerunes wind up female, those who nest in Imkerin wind up male. Males spend the rest of the summer and fall haranguing females, breeding with them when they can, until they finally die as winter sets in. Females collect pollen for the honeyfly syrup, and get pregnant and eaten by the broodmother -- those who don't get pregnant become food for the grubs and the workers during the long winter. Through the winter, the broodmothers continaully birth, the cycle starts over again. |
nedroidcomics
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4:30p |
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amnesiack
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1:23p |
New Podcast Episode
I put up a new podcast episode a week ago: Best of the Grn Strp Haus (Part 2). This is another music-focused episode. Here's the tracklist: * 0:41 - "True Story" by The Pillowfights, from Round One* 1:30 - "Identity Confused" by Down We Go, from From Up New Sleeves* 4:10 - "Slow Car Crash" by Classics of Love from Walking In Shadows* 6:49 - "Galloping Gurdy" by Smooth Sailing, from 2009 demo * 10:51 - "Exploding Houses, Dirty Floors" by Smokejumper from 2009 demo * 13:11 - "Southbound 280" by Mike Park from For The Love Of Music* 17:13 - "The Sickness" by The Hollowpoints, from The Black Spot* 21:31 - "Adventures, Baby" by Breaker Breaker One Niner, from their recent demo Current Mood:  tiredCurrent Music: Good Luck - "Man On Fire" |
immlass
|
2:49p |
NKL Interleague Wild Card prep
We just got the Highball's song list for the interleague competition on January 10 and are starting to look at songs. Our team still has room (and we would love one or two more members) but I think we can handle it with the numbers we have. Whitney says that we should get our song choices in early since no two teams can sing the same song. Even with the more limited song list at the Highball (they don't have the song ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mcroft is looking at for a solo), somehow I don't think we'll be in competition for the same song. Also, I'm not sorry to have the Highball's song list, if only to see what we can sing the next time we go to the Highball. And we will! Current Mood:  excitedCurrent Music: Coverville Media LLC, Coverville Bonus Tracks 010: More from the Coldplay and Philadelphia Cover |
roleplayers
[ jagash ]
|
3:21p |
Teaching RPG?
I am a start up Indie publisher and I realized a particular niche that may not be presently occupied. Do any of you know if there is an RPG specifically designed to teach roleplaying games? Not a basic version of a full system, but rather one that teaches _how_ to play games in general, shows the basic structures, explains how they can get run and the like. For those of you with programming experience, I am thinking of a Pascal analogue. A teachig game. Does such a thing exist to the best of your knowledge? Current Mood:  curious |
ethan_greer
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3:14p |
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seanpatfannon
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1:54p |
Soooo...
Yeah, in case anyone's still reading this at all, please accept my humble apologies. I've pretty much abandoned LiveJournal. All I have time for is Facebook, and it's doing what I need for the most part. Combine that with my (hopefully) upcoming radio show and the accompanying video blog that I'll be doing through Livestream, and that's about all the social networking I can manage anymore. My Shaintar muse is kicking my ass, and I am getting a lot of writing done. The day job with OneBookShelf continues to be the dominating force of my days. And I am building my new life with my new family as we enter 2010. So, yeah. I'm not shutting this down, but I really don't expect to be doing much posting here. Come find me on Facebook, gang. Cheers! |
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makinglight
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6:45p |
The Worldchanging Power of International Terror Klutzes
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012054.html John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey has been posting "reruns" during the holiday break, and this one, from 2006, is particularly appropriate to the Now.
I am absolutely buffaloed by the people who insist I man up and take it in the teeth for the great Clash of Civilizations--"Come ON, people, this is the EPIC LAST WAR!! You just don't have the stones to face that fact head-on!"--who at the whiff of an actual terror plot will, with no apparent sense of irony, transform and run around shrieking, eyes rolling and Hello Kitty panties flashing like Japanese schoolgirls who have just realized that the call is coming from inside the house!
I may have shared too much there.
To be honest, it's not like I'm a brave man. I'm not. At all. It just, well, it doesn't take that much strength of will not to be scared. Who the hell am I supposed to be scared of? Joseph Padilla, dirty bomber who didn't actually know how to build a bomb, had no allies or supplies, and against whom the government case is so weak they're now shuffling him from court to court to avoid the public embarassment of a trial? The fuckwits who were going to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches? Richard Reid, the Zeppo of suicide bombers? The great Canadian plot that had organized over the internet, was penetrated by the Mounties on day one, and we were told had a TRUCK FULL OF EXPLOSIVES...which they had bought from the Mounties in a sting operation but hey let's skip right over that. Or how about the "compound" of Christian cultists in Florida who were planning on blowing up the Sears Tower with...kung fu?
Despite which, for now at least, it appears we'll be spending the last hour of flights into the US, and randomly-selected domestic flights as well, confined to our seats and forbidden to use the bathroom. Good thing the international terror masterminds will never think to blow up their underwear fully
65 minutes before landing!
(Rogers is, among other things, co-creator and showrunner of the amusing TNT series Leverage. In further proof that there are only 15,000 people in the world, my brother Benjamin was a props-and-sets guy on that show during the production of its most recent season.) |
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