I bought a couple of short and fat Dominican cigars -- Excaliburs -- to try out. They aren't the specific cigar that substitute recommended, but they were thick, dark, and expensive. It turns out they are also kind of finicky.

First, it's a lovely cigar. The band is very decorative and the foot is fat, tapering to a much thinner sucking bit. This baffled me and ruined the first one. It lit easily and burned evenly and prettily but for the life of me I could not get a draw through my punched hole. I then tried to clip it and mutilated then end. Despite this mutilation it never gave up any useful amount of smoke which was very frustrating. Worse, it smelled great and was gorgeous to watch burn -- the ash was a thick white pillowy affair that struck the ground with an audible clomp. Very satisfying.

The second one I figured out. I punched it and lit it and tried to get a draw from it (just in case I had one bad cigar) but still no go. I found, though, that if I squeezed and rotated the mouth end a little it loosened up hugely and suddenly the draw was quite good. Never great, mind you, and that manipulation had to be repeated a couple of times as the mouth end got moist, but satisfying finally. It was an expensive lesson, but now if I'm ever handed an Excalibur I'll know what to do with it.

My cigar shop has ordered in a raft of Hemingway Short Storys for me (the original recommendation). Looking forward to those.

It's fucking hot. Two industrial fans are keeping up the airflow, but it's still hot. I'm drinking ice cold San Pelligrino Limonata with gin (Hendrick's, like you need to ask) but it's still hot. I cannot think. It's hot.

Tonight we ran our first 4th ed. session. We spent a good fraction of it creating several characters to get a feel for what was possible. We only have two players and a GM, so we were not going to get role coverage and we resolved to run strict rules with open rolls in order to see the gears mesh, as it were. We wound up with a paladin and a ranger.

Some fun role-playing opened up our session, introducing some NPCs that will be relevant to the broader story arc I have in mind, but soon got down to the nitty-gritty: the archaeology dig is beset by kobolds. Go root them out! Straight dungeon crawl: an excuse to test the combat system and little more, really.

( Yes I am that much of a nerd )

I read some intriguing material about this since its release so I bought a set of books and reconstituted my old campaign world a few thousand years into its own future. First game is tonight and I will report afterwards, but my first impressions on reading it are:

- it hearkens way back to the beginning when this game hooked me for real
- it appeals to my software design sense
- it's going to be really fun to teach to kids

Jack and I are now man and wife, complete with bulkhead-defeating rings and a swell dinner with friends and family. To those of you that joined us today, thank you for a wonderful time. You are all among the best there is. And so, specific thanks:

Tim Dyke
Karen Dyke
Marylin Fraser (Jack's mother)
Tom Fraser
Toph Marshall
Hallie Marshall
David Middleton
Jono Moore
Lynda Murray (my mother)
Hugh Murray (my father)
Linda Richards
Robin Winskell (my aunt)

...and, of course, my wife, Jack Webb and now Jack Murray. I hope my uncle Jack Murray can manage the inevitable confusion.

My current experiment in hedonism is cigars. Previous experiments include sex (works), scotch (works), skipping school (works), skipping work (doesn't work), and gin (jury's out). Basically most of these are a kind of one-way potlatch -- a demonstration of power by destroying wealth except, unless you display brands, the display is only to yourself. Anyway, my premise going in is that there's something to it and not a "my kid could paint that" cynicism. Scotch certainly has the complexity and interestingosity that brings me back for more. And you get drunk, so, yay.

Cigars are a different ball of wax because I don't really smoke. I don't much like the bite and I find inhaling obnoxious in the extreme. Anyway, in the interest of science, I compared a couple of cigars to see what they had to offer and what the differences were. Or, really, if the differences were detectable to me.

( Cigar babbling )

I recently read an article about dangerous books. Well, it's not really about dangerous books, per se, but rather a list of books that the author considers dangerous. It's immediately suspect at the most facile level as it lacks any religious texts whatsoever and at the same time includes Darwin's, Descent of Man, which is a neon sign pointing to an ugly agenda. What's interesting about the idea of the list, however, is that it assumes that there is such a thing as a dangerous book without question. Now, some of the books on there are flat out wrong and represent some evil thinking, but are the books themselves dangerous? I'll look at what might seem to be uncontroversial choices from the list.

Mein Kampf represents some odious thought that leads directly to a call for patently evil action. But does it actually generate any? It seems to me that the German fascist movement of the early twentieth century was not intellectual (that is, not really borne from the book and its analysis) but rather charismatic. The evils of that period stemmed from the man, Adolph Hitler, and not really from widespread adoption of ideas from his book absent the author's speeches and political savvy. While the book is not a highlight in our global cultural history, it's hard to see it as evil. Having read it, the arguments are not particularly compelling and it's hard to image anyone swayed by it without vigorous external forces. I can't see the book as dangerous, frankly, because it's ineffective. If Hitler had not gained power, the book would be well below our radar.

The Communist Manifesto is a more interesting case. Here's a book that has intellectual traction -- without charismatic support it contains ideas that are compelling. The essential ethical argument that, if persons have equal rights then they ought to share equally, does not need a great orator to sell. In fact the ideas spread like wildfire through Europe and the Americas without a central figure selling it. It spread so effectively, in fact, that laissez faire capitalist countries were forced to revise policies in order to survive and sidestep revolution. In this sense the central thesis of the book -- that capitalism must fail because of the inequity it requires -- was refuted by governments filing the pointy parts off their capitalism, damping the inequities and providing sufficient fairness (not total fairness) to quiet the working classes (assuming classes exist, of course). In other places the book was taken to heart and largely misread resulting in some very serious humanitarian disasters though, frankly, in countries that were not exactly models of freedom of thought to begin with. It's not clear that Russia, for example, would be a better place today without the book.

In any case, here we have a book that contains compelling ideas that can cause serious harm, but have also demonstrably caused greater good. In fact, it seems to me that the well publicised fall of communism (despite 20% of the population of the planet still living under it, albeit modified) has allowed us to dismiss the book as irrelevant, the direct result of which is a steady return to the disparity we experienced prior to it. The assumption now seems to be that because communism didn't work (despite having never really been implemented) there are no good ideas in the book. When the new disparity reaches a breaking point and the workers again intellectualise their roles, it remains to be seen how they will resolve their dissatisfaction. It seems likely that it could be a lot worse than it was the last time around. Maybe we need another dangerous idea here.

Others have spoken at length about the lack of religious texts, so I won't bother. The Koran, the Bible, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are all absent. All have done great disservice to the stability, peace, and prosperity of human beings but I think a cogent argument could be put forth for their benefits as well. Perhaps not the last -- I'm hard pressed to think of a believable redeeming quality -- but even there it was swiftly debunked and in the end becomes a kind of icon -- a flag to wave -- rather than a genuine intellectual source of danger.

So I'm not sure there are dangerous books and, by extension, dangerous ideas. When examined seriously they all either fall apart or provide more value than they cost. The very fact that the ideas are so completely and finally (you can't really retract or revise a physical book; you can only issue another) expressed actually exposes the idea to valuable criticism and disempowers it if it's defective.

Okay not so zany.

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
My phone bill. I never use the phone.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
Denny's.

3. Do you regret losing your virginity to who you lost it to?
No, I don't mysticise virginity, so it doesn't matter who was there first.

4. If you could go back and change one thing what would it be ?
I can't think of anything I'd change. I might have looked harder for an apartment last time around.

5. What do you want to be doing right now?
Sleeping.

6. If you had a choice of either living with very little money with a person you truely love, or being alone for the rest of your life with $100 million. Which would you choose, love or money?
Love.

7. What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A scientist.

8. How many colleges did you attend?
One.

9. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It's cheap and grey and clean.

10. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
Never use the stuff.

11. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you where would it be?
Jack and I would live downtown.

12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
Already?

13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
Goddammit I will never fall asleep.

14. Do you miss being a child?
No.

15. What is your favorite Adam Sandler movie?
I have never seen an Adam Sandler movie that I would admit to in public.

16. What errand/chore do you despise?
Laundry.

17. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer?
Yes.

18. Get up early, or sleep in?
Sleep if I can.

19. What is your favorite cartoon/comic character?
Fred Flintstone. Or maybe Popeye. Possibly Bugs Bunny. Could be Pogo. Ignatz Mouse?

21. Have you found real love yet?
Yes.

22. When did you first start feeling old?
When my baby sister turned 30.

24. Your favorite lunch meat?
Hot sopressato.

25. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
I have never been in a Wal-Mart.

26. Beach or lake?
Lake.

27. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
Yes.

28. Do you own property?
Nope.

29. Favorite Guilty pleasure?
World of Warcraft.

30. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?
Starship Troopers. Actually I don't mind if people find out. I'd probably even mention it on the internet.

31. What's your drink?
Single malt, cask strength where possible. The Laphroaig 18 is wicked and the Aberlour A'bunadh is a stalwart companion.

32. Cowboys or Indians?
Cowboys.

36. Norm or Cliff?
Coach.

37. Grey's or 'The Office?
Never seen either.

38. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?
Dumping someone callously.

39. Do you like the person that sits directly across from you at work?
Yes.

40. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
Daniel Dennett.

41. Indoors or Outdoors?
Indoors.

42. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
Never. Of course, I have no vehicle.

43. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
Once.

44. Last book you read?
Lapham's Quarterly. Technically a periodical but enough meat in it to qualify. If you must have a book, "Holding Juno", by Mark Zuehlke.

45. Do you have a teddy bear?
No.

46. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
The bathroom.

47. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?
The desert, to shoot skeet.

48. Do you go to church?
No.

49. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
Career.

50. How old are you?
42

Well, the deluge of false, feigned, real, and imagined sentiment has begun: E. Gary Gygax, one of the original creators of Dungeons & Dragons is dead and now every gamer on the planet suddenly feels a real and deep connection to this man that most of them never met. He wrote some games most of us played.

Sentimentality over death really bugs me for some reason, which is part of why I'm no fun at funerals. If I'm close to the family, I can feel their pain -- they lost someone that was a part of their life and their loss is real. If I was close to the person who died, I can feel my own pain for my own loss. But it's all a very personal thing and it just flat out doesn't exist for me if it's even one step removed. It might sound cold, but Gygax didn't write anything I cared to read in over twenty years. He stirred up some shit online, but so did a million other people. He wrote a game I enjoyed as a youngster and he did it with the help of a bunch of other guys, some alive and some not. I never met him and he never heard my name.

I can't miss something I never had.

So, currently we have drafts of three books that are going through varying stages of editing. Book 1 is looking for copy edit and advice on layout. Book 2 is still being assembled and needs organizational attention. Book 3 is in the same boat as Book 2. We have a letter-sized character sheet up and a mailing list for anyone interested.

Everything is linked from the Spirit of the Far Future wiki.

I started my coding career generating visualisations. I didn't know what to call them back then -- at the time I was getting heaps of data (multi-element geochemical analyses on thousands of samples) and making amusing "certificates" by generating Postscript output for our printers. So I was wedging code between data and layout to create nifty. Also, handily enough, useful. And pretty.

So now when confronted with a problem of statistical analysis I usually write code and generate my graphics out of whole cloth. I have a bunch of software around to do it for me but none of it does exactly what I want, so while it's handy for doing prototypes and experimenting, in the end I write code. Postscript, however, is no longer my output format of choice. It's just so bloody easy to crank out SVG (which has a remarkably legible standards document), and there's great software to manipulate it and convert it after the fact.

So I also play some role-playing games. One of these has rules by which you can generate star systems. That's a natural to code, so I did. Next, of course, you want to map those systems out. So I wrote some code to make maps. Naturally, the output of the first is the input to the second. The end result is pretty. I'm in love.

That's a little hyperbolic, sure.

( RPG geeks only need apply )

After reading a great little article by rob_donoghue about software designed for getting down and writing, I gathered up all the disparate pieces of our Spirit of the Far Future wiki project and started work on a real document. By that I mean something that's designed to be read from start to finish (as opposed to flitted around in -- the wiki's cool for collaboration and reference but it hasn't got the linear structure a book needs) and something that's designed to actually describe how to play the game. The software, Scrivener, fucking rocks. I've burned out thousands of words, edited heavily, re-structured (and re-re-structured for that matter) and am verging on a document that might actually be useful. The current rev is always linked to at the top of the SotFF page.

Why do you care? Odds are you don't.

You might though -- if you've ever played Traveller and loved it but wished there was something just a little more modern to play it with, that's what we built. We tried to stay as true to Traveller as possible but with the far more flexible Fate v3 system (as embodied in the awesome game, Spirit of the Far Future) as its engine. The result is pretty awesome in playtest so far -- there are two significant sub-games as with Traveller and they are both fun as stand-alone wargames which is a target we very much wanted to hit. The man-to-man combat rules are a fun boardgame whether doing ship boarding exercises or military maneuvers and the ship combat is different enough to warrant being separate and captures specific aspects of that sort of combat (and the sort of stories we generally want to tell with it in Traveller) like pretty much nothing else I've played. And we have an excuse to use all those nifty Star Wars starship miniatures in a game that's actually fun!

It's all still a work in progress but as it stands it's pretty damned fun. I am interested, however, in whether anyone else can actually play any of it using what we've written. It's not clear to me just how opaque our game is.

At Studio Daily you will find a most amazing animation entitled Cellular Visions: The Inner Life of a Cell. This is stunning work, showing cellular operations at a molecular level (subtracting a lot of elements that would cloud the awesome visuals, like water molecules and Brownian motion on every surface). You will see machines churning out the stuff of life, but machines not so much like clockwork as like our most fantastic cartoons. There's drama, comedy, and sex (after a fashion). Go watch.

Technically it's old news (January of 2006) but it recently came up again as the Discovery Institute has apparently re-packaged it as an ad for God. Clipping the credits off, of course, and adding comical music.

We lost Stig (also known as pig, the pig, mister pig, la cochone du mystere, stigwig, pigpigpigpigpig, and many other things ending in -ig) today. That's the end of a cat era for us -- the three brothers have all moved on. He was the best cat I ever knew.

Noodling around in the waiting room at the doctor winds up as a whimsical teen Jedi.

I've been playing around, off and on, with Inkscape and with machine generating SVG for automated map generation and it has all got me inspired to start doing some more real drawing -- you know, putting pen to paper. Well as it was recently my birthday (today even) I decided to get some kit needed for a technique I was playing around with at work -- so I got myself some basic art supplies (sketch books, pencils, erasers, pens) and a decent scanner.

What I've been playing with is pretty simple and I'm sure it's "discovered" a couple hundred times an hour around the world (usually by intarweb comic artists), but it works and it's cool. I whip up a sketch in pencil and then ink it (or just go straight to ink, which is more my style). Then I scan the ink work and import it into Inkscape. Inkscape has a very cool feature that can generate a vector "outline" from a bitmap, which happens to work extremely well on basic black ink on white paper. So I do that, delete the bitmap, and set the inkwork as its own layer. Tidy that up a bit (mostly deleting nodes on the linework) and then create a layer underneath for colour, and add colour as simple polygons with a fill.

Here's a quick sketch I did for a game a friend of mine is running:



Pretty nifty, huh?

The Reign section of our gaming wiki is starting to shape up now that we have a good session of actual play to post. There are links there also to my reviews of the game and first supplement. There's a relationship map for the current scenario but I'm keeping it to myself.

Awesome is thrown around pretty readily these days and used to mean "nifty" more often than not. I am not using it this way. I am using it in the way that one might when describing seeing God. At my lover's behest I went across town to our amazing cheese shop, Les Amis du Fromage and purchased a big slab of each of two cheeses.

Now a lot of people put down the lowly cheddar. I think they may be thinking of a different cheese. Each of my two treasures was a cheddar and if you made a grilled cheese sandwich out of either you would instantly ascend to heaven. I will risk this later, but to begin with I just cut a chunk of each and ate it with a delicious but mild potato bread.

My first stop was a cheddar from the Isle of Mull in Scotland. When the nearby Tobermory distillery junks some of its grains, the cows that start this incredible cheese do so by eating these cast offs. This is an exquisite sharp sharp cheddar, pale and a little soft. It crumbles under pressure, just like me. It's strong, salty, and wickedly delicious yet nothing to fear for any fan of more pedestrian cheddars.

My second was the true source of awesome -- a Montgomery cheddar aged in a cave and made from real milk untouched by Louis Pasteur and his cronies. This is a hard (almost parmesan hard) cheddar with a pale brown colour that sports a seam of mold throough it. It blew my socks off. A piece without the mold in it is nutty and sharp with a sweet almost mapley finish. The range of flavours varies so much over the period of time you can taste it that it is a crime to eat or drink anything before your tongue is finished with it. Just let it linger. A piece with a little stripe of mold is similar but with a dusty sharpness that hits the upper palate and changes everything. Better or worse? No. Different again. This cheese just has so much complexity in it that it defies a simple description. Calling it a cheddar lifts all other cheddars out of the cheese ghetto. It comes in 56 pound wheels. I will find out how much shipping costs for 56 pounds of cheese from Britain.