Fucking Role-Playing Games

A friend of mine and I had a chat (email) about gaming.  It started roughly two days ago, and since then, I have been thinking of little else.

Role-playing has been a very strange obsession of mine, for my entire life. At once I find role-playing the best possible use of one's creativity, the ultimate hobby, and a waste of time in the grand scheme of things: it never really meets expectations, too many things can go wrong.

I'm also an unusual person, with very (very) particular tastes.  I want a role-playing game that's a compelling story, but not bogged down in either emotion or detail. I want epic combat, but not a risk of having my character killed.  I want variety in setting, but setting that meet my particular preferences. I want a system that facilitates good story-telling, not "realism", but at the same time, bars people from taking actions that are clearly impossible.

Worse, I want the other players in the group to have similar goals.  I want to play with a group of people who don't mind their characters being bested now and again, who realize that "character growth" can sometimes entail great loss (be that followers, favorite items, limbs or levels).  I want a party that occasionally runs from danger.  I want players to seriously consider the ramifications of attacking the duke because he's insulted them. I want players who aren't going to decide it's "in character" for them to leave the party because of a difference in opinion.  I want players who are willing to try different gaming systems, to find their strengths and discover what kinds of different stories they are capable of telling.

Role-playing could be such an ideal activity.  If I found the right group of people with the right attitude, I could easily do it three nights a week and not feel I were wasting my time.  But as I've ever experienced it, it's like mediocre sex: while you're kinda glad you did it, you can't help but feel like it could have been so much better. ...And you feel a little guilty about it, too.  : )

Economic Stats

I found a nice site with some economic charts.  I recommend perusing it.

But I didn't find what I was looking for.  Namely, a histogram of American income.

Ever seen one?

Scottish Percussionist

So, I was zipping around TED today, listening to the musical offerings, and stumbled on this lecture by a Scottish percussionist who went mostly deaf at the age of 12, but continued to pursue her life as a musician.



A) She's hot.
B) Her accent makes me hot...
C) Her skills are awesome, and
D) Her message is a good one.


Well worth the 30 minute playtime.  (The last 10 are her performing a piece.)

America's Financial Situation via Surfing

I don't "surf" much anymore. I read the stuff in my aggregator, and when I need to answer a particular question, I use the little search bar in Firefox to ping Google, Google Images, IMDB, or Wikipedia.

That's about all I do with the web, these days.

Occassionally... very occasionally, I'll see something interesting "advertised" on one of the sites I get to through the above means.  Today, it was that "Fungus Cannon" article, which pointed me to the most brilliant explanation of American financial crisis I've ever read. It is a very long article (I had to read it over the course of several spats), but it's great: detailed but explains everything in very clear terms.

And while I generally loathe long conversations in comments, I happened to catch a phrase about three comments down that really summed everything up for me:

I’m continually amazed at how much imaginary money exists in our economy.

Space-X: Coolest Video on the Web Right Now

Space-X has released a video of their first successful rocket launch.

While I have some mild trepidations about the commercialization of space, I think this is, overall, a positive thing.

Plus, the video is just really cool.

Fungus Cannon

[via Skepchick]

Storytellers

"You're a story-teller."

A friend of mine said that to me.  ...Quite some time ago, actually (a year, perhaps?), but it still sticks with me.  I'd never really made the connection before she said it, so it was important to me.

If you remember me from my youth, you'll know that I grew up convinced that I was going to be a fiction author: that I would have some lousy day-job as a crappy architect, but my real effort would go into after-hours authorship.  You'll also know that I abandoned that dream of writing somewhere mid-way through college, when I realized that writers have to read.  A lot. And I didn't have the stomach for it.

That may have been where it started, but lately my story-telling nature manifests itself in very different ways. ...And often, when it does, I think back to that friend of mine telling me I was story-teller.

For example, just moments ago I called my wife to ask her to pick up dog treats while she was out.  Simple enough.  ...But I turned it into a story, explaining how I'd found her chewing on one of our son's toys and how it occurred to me that perhaps some treats would be useful to have on-hand while she (my wife) was out of state this weekend.

Not "could you please pick up some dog-treats."

And there it is.  A subtle manifestation, perhaps, but indicative of a larger trend.

Electoral Battle-scars

I haven't been paying much attention to this presidential race.

I didn't vote in the primaries. I didn't watch the news around it, and still don't: I get enough from friends talking about it. I didn't watch the debates. I don't even really know who the Green candidate is (I believe it's a woman--I think she's black--and that she's supposedly pretty cool): I just haven't bothered looking.

I'm not entirely sure I want to.

I'm sorry, but I still have scars from four years ago.  I was devastated after the election. Out-and-out depressed. Came close to tears. Walked around in a funk for weeks.  I hadn't had an emotional blow that strong since 9/11. I just couldn't understand how anyone with a good conscience would support a regime like Bush's. I didn't think those results were possible in our "open society". It created, in my mind, an "us" and a "them", right here in my own country. It was frustrating enough that people were willing to ignore what was going on: many people actively supported it. So, part of me doesn't even want to look, doesn't want to get emotionally invested again. I felt betrayed by my countrymen.

Another part of me realizes that my vote is a foregone conclusion.  I'm not voting Obama, I'm voting Democrat.  I don't care who's on the local ticket, I'm voting Green there (where possible). The person is not as important to me as the political repercussions that come with the party the person is attached to. ...So why bother watching?

And another part of me, as I've addressed in previous posts, is disenchanted with American politics in its entirety.

Yes, I'll vote.  It won't mean much, but I would be loathe not to.  You've got petitions to sign?  Count on my name being on it, if the issue makes sense.

But I'm afraid that's about all the energy I have to give the election this year.

Optically Elusive: Rotating Grid

(Take two.)

Found on TED, here's a neat opitical illusion. When a solid grid is rotated rapidly, we perceive several small areas of rotating grids.

If you look closely, however, you will find that this is one solid, continuous grid.

Always remember the human mind is flawed.

Pressure of Polls

I got polled yesterday.  Two young people came up to my door, supporting "ACORN", and wanted to know whether I support affirmative action (I do, strongly).  Then they asked what I thought the two biggest problems facing America are.  ...No prompting other than that, free-form answer allowed.

I choked!  Instead of answering what I really think (loss of civil liberties and allowing a probable war criminal to lead our country), I answered that "I thought was right", namely: "The economy and Iraq".


One more reason why polls suck great big sweaty donkey balls.

I was pretty disappointed with myself, afterward.

Caption Me

This image of Biden was on a BBC article I happened to read while surfing:

...Choosing to refrain* from the easy question ("why the flattering picture of Palin and this horrible shot of Biden?"), I wondered: how should this be captioned?

Here are some suggestions:

• Pull my finger!  OH!!!  Too late.
• This... Is... SPARTA!!!
• Look!  Russian Paratroopers!
  

* Okay, not so much "refrain" as "not focus on".  Heh.

Science! (Clinical Trials)

You know I'm a 100% "science guy".

Part of that, in my opinion, is being able to self-assess.  To say "nope, this isn't working", evaluate alternatives, and change... even if it's a deep, core change.

I see a problem with clinical trials.  (And, more broadly, the same logic could be applied to general science, but I leave that to the reader.)

There are a lot of possible therapies out there.  Billions of compounds, biological and otherwise, that have yet to be tested against tens of thousands of human (and livestock, and agriculture) ailments.

As we sciencey (that should SO be a word) people know, in order to conduct a trial with any kind of legitimacy, it must be done double-blind, randomized, and must have a sufficient sample size (depending on the rarity and uniformity of the condition, this should mean between several dozen and several thousand subjects).  Proper clinical trials are complex* and expensive. They are slow to start, difficult to recruit for, take a long time to run, take much longer for proper followups, and--perhaps worse than all of these things--are mired in political motivations and opinions.

There is no way to systematically and categorically test every drug for every potential use.  ...Even if you hone out the clear losers, there are still billions of possible trials today, and as we learn more, that number can only increase.

Thus, there needs to be discussion about which therapies get priority over others.  ...This is where the system is flawed: it is largely dictated by the superior capital of giant drug companies.  What they want to bring to market will surely get undue focus.  This is also to the detriment of "cheap" solutions (think exercise, relaxation techniques, dietary changes): there is nothing to "gain" (monitarily) from these trials, so there is a lack of funding for them.

Compounding the problem is the small trials that take place before the larger ones: they are doomed to failure if they don't produce positive results, so are particularly prone to fudging of numbers, or less rigorous techniques, or poor randomization.

In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that the selection process for the scientific method governing clinical trials is anything but objective, and much less than effective.  This is not an area where "free market mechanics" is properly applied: it's science, and there needs to be methodology to it.



* Not to appeal to authority, but I worked three years on programming software for clinical trials.