Originally shared by Ed Christian

Originally shared by Andreas Schou

Here is the kind of day it is: female assassins just killed Kim Jong-Un’s half-brother in Malaysia using poison needles, and it isn’t even the second-weirdest or most distressing story in the news today.

Adventure Time’s Demon Cat strikes again.

Originally shared by null

This is some crazy shit.

I want Drew Brown to write my biography. And maybe rewrite my academic book.

Originally shared by Teo Morgan

“Imagine the scene as you open that door. Outside your car is Donald fucking Trump and he wants to shake your hand.”

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/the-definitive-analysis-of-the-handshake-between-donald-trump-and-justin-trudeau?utm_source=vicefbca//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Early draft of Ylvis’s one hit.

Originally shared by The Public Domain Review

“The Duck quaketh” — from the very first picture book for children, published in 1658: http://buff.ly/2l6xWxJ

whatever -punk you come up with, I’drather have -funk.

I won’t have time to follow this up seriously until Monday at least, but something about your more recent line of questioning has been bothering me, and I finally figured out what it is.

I was thinking “why is he so intent on the per-capita question? That’s really nothing to do with “how likely am I to get attacked.” What does that give us?”

Oh, right. The answer to that is “how dangerous are Muslims as a category?” or to put it another way “how justifiable is Islamophobia? How evil are Muslim Americans, in general?”

So. I’m not in favour of ignorance, I’m not planning to avoid looking it up in order to maintain my current opinions or anything like that, but agreeing to participate in this as a public exercise looks sketchy to me, something like a Stanley Milgram experiment: first you get agreement about the figures, then you get people to say out loud “yes I should be more scared of Muslims than anyone else,” then that there should be more surveillance maybe just of one small group……

And that is not a game I’m willing to play.

Tired and annoyed at the end of an unproductive week full of sick wife and snow days for the kids and fun projects I have to hurry up and finish and making noises like disgruntled Muttley…

Kingston Negroni, made with Cocchi Vermouth di Torino.

Equilibrium restored.

…the Cocchi is pretty similar to Carpano in character but less sweet and a bit nuttier, like a sherry. I think I actually prefer it in the Kingston Negroni, planning to try it in a regular Negroni next… I’ve got a couple of vermouths to audition and I’m planning to have another go at the Martinez.

Last one I promise – a possible cover for either Counter-colonial Heistcrawl or The Arabian Nights Don Juan – Escapade at Night (attributed to Chokha, 1799–ca. 1826)

….all these from the Met’s copyright-free collection:

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection

favourite thing today: “The Elephant Clock”, from al-Jazari’s 12th century Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (illo. 1315)

Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889): Preliminary Drawings of Demons

….I would love to see a line of minis based on this guy’s drawings.

“Fighting Arjuna, Susarma Unleashes the Suparna Weapon which Invokes Garuda”

weapons that summon divine creatures. I hadn’t thought of that.

When I first ran across this book in 2006 or so the argument seemed to me clumsy, over-broad and essentialist – that the story told by anti-Western Islamists about their enemy was that the West prefers the sinful city to the virtuous countryside; the West destroys heroism and replaces it with trading; the West thinks only of matter and not of spirit; the West worships evil. And that in fact these were all “cross-contamination” of European (mostly Romantic-era) ideas transplanted into Eastern master narratives.

Now this basic complex – city vs countryside, pure-soul heroism vs capitalism and religious good vs evil (found everywhere, issuing from all social groups other than one’s own) – seems to be fronted everywhere, to explain Extreme Islamic Terror ™, Trumpism, anti-liberalism, race politics etc etc etc.

So. I thought it was a bad book, but maybe it’s the right book to read this year.

https://www.amazon.com/Occidentalism-West-Eyes-Its-Enemies/dp/0143034871//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

screw Bond, who would you have play Andrew Hale in the film of Declare?

I kind of want to do an adaptation that mixes Declare with Fitzroy MacLean’s Eastern Approaches and Robert Byron’s Road to Oxiana. So who would play MacLean and Byron?

….and before Adam Thornton asks, yes, Robert was “distantly related” to Lord Byron. In any event he was sent down from Merton College, Oxford for “wildness.” Should’ve gone to Magdalen.

Back in the 90s I thought GURPS supplements were a shining example of good line editing. Then I stopped gaming until about 2010, so I missed a lot – including apparently a big downturn in popularity for GURPS.

ANYWAY my question is: why don’t you like GURPS settings/supplements? Why do I never see anyone talk about them?

….asking b/c I might be writing something non-GURPS and I wouldn’t want to fall into the traps that are obvious to everyone else…

Obviously tell me all about your own reasons that I’ve totally missed here.

Boris Stremlin I can’t think why I’ve never taken a close look at your campaign!

Paolo Greco there is gold in here. I particularly like these classes:

Bogatyr’/Богатырь

A knight-errant who performs feats of superhuman strength

Durak/Дурак

A lucky good-for-nothing fool with wondrous powers

http://bardichesandbathhouses.blogspot.com/search/label/Classes//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

oh hey. This is my argument in a quick cartoon. So much better than me ranting it. Thanks, cartoonist!

Originally shared by null

Stupid over-tired brain.

…do Italian Discordians throw tomatoes? That actually seems like it makes sense.

…types of speech not protected by the first amendment: going to a crowded theater and shouting “fire!” Since 2016, going to a Trump rally and shouting “Donald Duck!”

Must nap now.

Thoroughly gameable in all its impenetrable glory.

Or, in other words, you find this written on a torn piece of paper, clutched in the headless scientist’s hand:

Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is generally thought to be unacceptable, although opinions differ. I argue that such theories are indeed unacceptable: the real problem is with fluctuations into observers who are locally identical to ordinary observers, and their existence cannot be swept under the rug by a choice of probability distributions over observers. The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed.

randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath will henceforth appear on all my wandering monster tables.

h/t Winchell Chung

Originally shared by Winchell Chung

https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.00850//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Cogent, reasonable analysis. The post Iwould have written if I were more hopeful.

Originally shared by Faith Garland

They voted for everything they hated most about Clinton.

Originally shared by Alex Scrivener

Homemade Crème de Cacao

9 oz. cacao nibs

16. oz. demerara sugar

½ tsp. salt

25 oz. aged rum

Tools: Baking sheet, One-gallon zip-close plastic bag, 2 large bowls, spoon, chinois or fine strainer and cheesecloth, jar or bottle

Toast the cacao nibs in a 350-degree F oven until aromatic, about 5 minutes, taking care not to burn. Combine the hot cacao nibs with the rum in a zip-close plastic bag and place in a large bowl. Submerge the bag in boiling water and let it soak until the water comes to room temperature.

Using a chinois or a mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth, strain the infused rum into a large bowl. Discard the solids. Add the sugar and salt, then stir until fully dissolved. Pour into a jar or other airtight container, seal and store at room temperature.

http://imbibemagazine.com/homemade-creme-de-cacao/

I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this, I just want you to know that even Noodles is forward goats to you now.

Originally shared by Cindern Block

For Paolo.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/01/17/goat-yoga-workout-trend-hln.hln

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/01/17/goat-yoga-workout-trend-hln.hln//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

and while I’m at it, a Japanese world map from 1883, useful for all your Meiji spy adventures. The Suez Canal and the Korea-Kamchatka region seem a little exaggerated. I like the Guinness Records epistemology of wanting lists of the longest rivers and tallest mountains – that seems less common today in the US than it was when I was a kid in Britain.

Player-facing map for your medieval Italian campaign, courtesy of Abraham Cresques

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55002481n/f8.item.zoom//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

binge-watched the first 4 episodes of Taboo. Now when I make creaking, growling noises in the morning I imagine it makes me sound like a badass.

Paolo Greco has got me rereading Bakhtin.

Not everyone responds to this sort of meditation but… his piece on chronotopes gets me thinking about what I’m doing when I’m putting a setting or an adventure together. What the fundamental point might be… or at least what kinds of hooks various players might want to see dangling.

When we talk about city or hexcrawl or lost island adventures we’re talking about chronotopes – ways the space and time of the setting align to support certain genres of action. The environments are powerful players in setting the mood and goals, they change the meanings of the actions in particular ways, import different aesthetics/ethics.

When we complain about a dungeon that’s just a succession of encounter rooms we’re complaining about a mismatch in chronotopes – the physical space of the dungeon is poorly suited to the “walking the earth” story that’s being sold there – reskin the rooms as A-Team episodes and suddenly it all works just fine.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WalkingTheEarth

https://monoskop.org/images/c/c4/Bakhtin_Mikhail_The_Dialogic_Imagination_Four_Essays_1981.pdf//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

I have a really simple rule:

don’t threaten anybody.

Especially over games, especially over the internet.

Lots of people say stuff I just cannot believe. And I talk to them and they’re rude and they double down on the ridiculous thing that goes against all my values and beliefs. And I think “what an asshole.” Then I have 3 simple remedies:

1. uncircle,

2. block,

3. report if I think they’re actually dangerous. If Nazis show up in my feed trying to convert/harass people, I’ll say “everyone watch out: this person is an actual Nazi” and show the evidence that made me think that.

I have no reason to threaten them. Ever.

Sometimes they say stuff I find really upsetting.

Still no reason to threaten them.

If I see evidence (and can independently corroborate it*) of you threatening someone, I will tell everyone I know and treat you as if you were a Nazi, above.

*yeah, there’s a load of wiggle room in there, I know. I also don’t want to defame anyone or get recruited into a lynch mob. I have no interest in becoming the bully. But if I see you bullying, I will report it – to Google (who probably don’t care) and to everyone I know, who might.

I don’t know Kate Bullock or her history – I just started following her. Nor do I know Anna Kreider. Neither individual is especially important to this statement, except as a catalyst.

Originally shared by Anna Kreider

Time for a rare public post.

Yesterday, one of the bravest, most amazing people that I know – Kate Bullock – got a rape threat, because Reddit got butthurt about her being a woman who has opinions about games. And if you think I’m saying, go express sympathy at Kate, or even go support Kate’s Patreon (which you should, because she’s awesome), YOU ARE WRONG.

What I am saying that right here, right now, WE CAN NO LONGER BE SILENT.

Kate rightly makes the point that marginalized people CANNOT be the sole arbiters of justice, because we are marginalized. I’M TALKING TO YOU, MEN. If hearing that a woman got rape threats for having opinions makes you angry, then DO SOMETHING. SAY. SOMETHING. STOP. BEING. SILENT.

In October 2016, I shut down my blog because the accumulated trauma and fatigue of five years of sexist harassment got to be too poisonous to my mental health. And despite the fact that my blog was read and followed by some pretty big names in the industry, and that I have personal connections with A LOT of men who are Big Names in our community, the silence was overwhelming. A few men did speak out in response, but most of the men that I have connected with over the years said nothing. And in that silence I heard indifference. I heard vindication for my decision to walk away, because most men will still always choose their emotional comfort over solidarity with the suffering of women. And it fucking broke my heart. It still does.

A few contacted me privately in the weeks following, and their expressions of sympathy were important and welcome. But private sympathy is NOT ENOUGH.

If we are to prevent the rising tide of injustice, we can no longer afford to indulge in privileged silence. We can no longer afford the sorts of justifications that have kept us silent before, the excuses that I have heard time and time and TIME again: “he’s a jerk but he makes good work” or “I’d agree with her if she wasn’t so angry” or “I don’t see why she has to be such a bitch about it”.

The time has come to pick sides, and those of you who choose to stay silent? WE. SEE. YOU. Especially those of you who talk real good game about supporting diversity and inclusion in the industry and who never show up when actual action is needed.

So from now on, if you see a woman like Kate talk about injustice that she’s experienced, take a moment to ask exactly what are you doing to effect change? And if the answer is nothing, then keep your mouth shut, because we’re tired of empty platitudes with no real action.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/sexism-abuse-7945512?utm_campaign=postshare&utm_medium=social&utm_source=googleplus//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Hitler needed only five months to establish his power. By the summer of 1933, fundamental rights and the constitution had been suspended, the states had been forced into conformity, the unions crushed, the political parties banned or dissolved, press and radio brought into line and the Jews stripped of their equality under the law

….how did he do it?

1. nobody stopped him;

2. purges of the Cabinet and high government positions (see 1);

3. continuous populist distraction, while he removed the individuals who held real power so that there would be no alternative to his voice;

4. the Reichstag fire – somebody burned down the German equivalent of the Capitol. Immediately afterward Hitler passed the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, the secrecy of the post and telephone. All in the name of counter-terrorism. He had opposition papers shut down. And he bombarded the people with images of his opponents as criminals.

Originally shared by Jürgen Hubert

“They argued he would grow more reasonable once in office and that his cabinet would tame him.”

http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2017-02/adolf-hitler-chancellor-appointment-anniversary/komplettansicht//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

The point of modern propaganda is to get you to believe nothing.

…and it has been at least since Hannah Arendt wrote about it.

Originally shared by Laura Manach

De l’origine des Fake News

( English version below )

Le but de la propagande moderne est de ne faire croire en rien. Un peu comme abaisser les défenses du système immunitaire. Dès le moment où le lecteur ne croit plus en rien, alors n’importe quelle pièce de propagande rédigée par un média d’état étranger ou n’importe quel éditorial non-sourcé rédigé avec une truelle par l’idiot du village se retrouvent sur un pied d’égalité avec le journalisme d’investigation.

Le discours est soigneusement adapté à chaque public. Aux convertis, ils disent que tout est faux. A ceux qui sont sur le point de se convertir, ils indiquent “ne croyez qu’en ces sources là”. A ceux qui sont susceptibles de douter, ils font appel à l’insinuation : “n’est il pas bizarre que les médias soient des entreprises capitalistes ?” [ou la version française “regarde bien, qui détient les parts du Monde, de Libé ?”, NDT].

Hannah Arendt (qui a travaillé sur l’étude des mouvements fascistes) a écrit:

Dans un monde en changement constant, un monde difficile à appréhender, les masses atteignent un point où elles croient tout à la fois en tout et en rien, elles pensent que tout est possible, et que rien n’est vrai. Les leaders des masses totalitaires basent leur propagande sur l’hypothèse psychologique correcte selon laquelle, dans ces conditions, l’on peut faire croire aux gens des informations fantaisistes un jour, et avoir confiance en ce que si le lendemain on leur amène la preuve irréfutable de la fausseté de ces information, ils se réfugieront dans le cynisme – au lieu de fuir les leaders qui leur ont menti, ils protesteront qu’ils ont toujours su que c’était un mensonge, et admireront les leaders pour la supériorité de leur intelligence tactique.

Le philosophe Sartre a dit à propos de la futilité de discuter à certains groupes en son temps. Voyons si quelque chose ne parait pas familier :

ont choisi la haine parce que la haine est une croyance pour eux ; dès le départ ils ont choisi de dévaluer les mots et la raison. Cela les rend incroyablement plus sereins. La discussion leur apparait infiniment futile et frivole. Si par courtoisie ils acceptent pour quelques instants de défendre leur point de vue, ils se prêtent mais ne se donnent pas. Ils essaient simplement de projeter leurs certitudes intuitives sur le plan du discours.

Ne croyez jamais que sont complètement ignorants de l’absurdité de leurs réponses. Ils savent que leurs remarques sont futiles, et ouvertes à la remise en question. Ils s’amusent du fait que leurs contradicteurs soient obligés d’utiliser les mots de manière responsable, leurs contradicteurs croyant en les mots. Les ont le droit de jouer. Ils aiment même jouer à discuter car ils peuvent, avec des raisons ridicules, discréditer la gravité de leurs interlocuteurs.

Ils se plaisent à agir de mauvaise foi, puisqu’ils cherchent à ne pas persuader par des arguments solides, mais à intimider, et à déconcerter. Si vous les pressez trop étroitement, ils se tairont brusquement, indiquant en quelques mots que le temps de l’argumentation est passé. Si donc, comme nous l’avons observé, les sont étanches à la raison et à l’expérience, ce n’est pas parce que leur conviction est forte. C’est plutôt que leur conviction est forte, parce qu’ils ont fait le choix dès le départ d’être étanches.

Il parlait de la difficulté de débattre avec les antisémites et les Vichystes dans les années 40. Ce type de débat est familier à tous ceux qui ont constaté ce qu’il se passe sur Reddit ces deux dernières années alors que l’on se fait brigader par Stormfront et 4chan [et plus particulièrement sur r/france ces derniers mois, NDT]. C’est le cas lorsque quelqu’un soumet un contenu parfaitement faux, une deuxième va venir en débattre avec un long commentaire sourcé, juste pour se voir répondre “top kek, larmes de gauchos”. Un côté tente de débattre avec des faits, tandis que l’autre côté ne fait que jouer un jeu.

Il suffit de voir ce qui est arrivé avec le terme de “Fake News”.

C’est un terme qui est né il y a quelques mois. Il a vécu pendant plusieurs semaines comme un terme authentique en anglais, qui signifiait “les titres fabriqués pour obtenir des clics sur Facebook, conçus par des magiciens du SEO [Référencement de sites Internet, NDT] qui n’étaient même pas américains, juste pour polariser le débat avant la vague d’élections”. Quelques exemples :

“Vous ne croirez jamais quel est le plan d’Obama pour instaurer la loi martiale !”

“Hillary Clinton a un cancer des poumons, du cerveau, de l’estomac et des fesses – ELLE N’A PLUS QUE 6 SEMAINES A VIVRE”

Pendant quelques temps, il semblait que tout le monde était d’accord sur le fait que ce terme existait, qu’il avait du sens, et une définition. Puis le terme a été promptement assassiné. Maintenant, comme nous le voyons bien, quiconque est en désaccord avec une information – y compris lorsqu’il s’agit de FAITS et non d’opinions – se permet de la taxer de “Fake News”. Trump lui même appelle CNN “fake news”.

C’est un processus en deux étapes qui mène à cette dégénérescence. Tout d’abord, on se débrouille pour que le public croit que toute information fait partie d’un agenda et est éditoriale (cela a été fait il y a longtemps). Dans un deuxième temps, on peut désormais déclarer pour chaque information embarrassante qu’elle a été éditorialisée et/ou forgée de toutes pièces.

Alors à qui la faute ? Qui a assassiné la notion de “Fake News” ? Un groupe de gens qui ne se soucient pas de ce que les mots signifient. L’idée que des informations peuvent être fausses et d’autres non leur est intolérable – comme est intolérable toute distinction entre ceux qui agissent de bonne foi mais font des erreurs, et ceux qui agissent de mauvaise foi et n’ont jamais eu l’intention de faire le bien – intolérable encore toute distinction entre la pratique traditionnelle de sourcer de l’information avec du “off” – et la pratique nouvelle consistant à dire tous les mensonges auxquels on peut penser en espérant que l’un d’entre eux sera adopté. Ces gens dont je parle ne peuvent tolérer toutes ces distinctions. Leur vision du monde est unitaire. Ils travaillent à ce que tous les mots signifient “mal” et à ce que tous les mots signifient “l’ennemi”. A la fin, ils n’auront besoin que d’un seul mot.

English :

The tl;dr of both sources is that modern propaganda works by getting you to believe nothing. It’s like lowering the defenses of your immune system. If they can get you to believe that all the news is propaganda, then all of a sudden propaganda from foreign-controlled state media or sourceless loony toon rants from domestic kooks, are all on an equal playing field with real investigative journalism. If everything is fake, your news consumption is just a dietary choice. And it’s different messages for different audiences – carefully tailored. To one audience they say all news is fake, to those who are on their way to conversion they say “Trust only these sources.” To those who might be open to skepticism, they just say “Hey isn’t it troubling that the media is a business?”

Hannah Arendt, who studied all the different fascist movements (not just the Nazis) noted that:

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

Does that remind you of any subreddits?

The philosopher Sartre said this about the futility of arguing with a certain group in his time. See if any of this sounds familiar to you

__ have chosen hate because hate is a faith to them; at the outset they have chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease they feel as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions appear to them. If out of courtesy they consent for a moment to defend their point of view, they lend themselves but do not give themselves. They try simply to project their intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse.

Never believe that ____ are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The __ have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors.

They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. If then, as we have been able to observe, the __ is impervious to reason and to experience, it is not because his conviction is strong. Rather his conviction is strong because he has chosen first of all to be impervious.

He was talking about arguing with anti-Semites and Vichyists in the 1940s.

This style of arguing is familiar to anyone who has seen what has happened to Reddit over the past 2 years as we got brigaded by Stormfront and 4chan.

Ever see someone post something that is quite completely false, with a second person posting a long reply with sources, only to have the original poster respond “top kek, libcuck tears”? One side is talking about facts but the other is playing a game.

Just look at what happened to “Fake News.”

This is a word that was born about 9 weeks ago. It lived for about 2 weeks as a genuine English word, meaning headlines fabricated to get clicks on Facebook, engineered by SEO wizards who weren’t even American, just taking advantage of the election news wave:

“You Won’t Believe Obama’s Plan To Declare Martial Law!”

“Hillary Has Lung, Brain, Stomach, And Ass Cancer – SIX WEEKS TO LIVE!”

For a while, it seemed like the real world could agree that a word existed and had meaning, that it referred to a thing. Then the word was promptly murdered. Now, as we can clearly see, anyone who disagrees with a piece of news – even if it is NEWS, not an editorial – feels free to call it “Fake News.” Trump calls CNN fake news.

There is a two step process to this degeneration. First, one gets an audience to believe that all news is agenda-driven and editorial (this was already achieved long ago). Second, now one says that all news that is embarrassing to your side must be editorial and fabricated.

So who is the culprit? Who murdered the definition of fake news? A group of people who don’t care what words mean. The concept that some news is fake and some news is not was intolerable, as was any distinction between those who act in good faith and sometimes screw up, vs those who act in bad faith and never intended to do any good – a distinction between the traditional practice of off-the-record sourcing and the novel practice of saying every lie you can think of in the hope one sticks. The group of people I’m talking about cannot tolerate these distinctions. Their worldview is unitary. They make all words mean “bad” and they make all words mean “the enemy.”. In the end they will only need one word.

Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/5qtzpg/de_lorigine_des_fake_news_par_udeggit/

just in case there are 3 or 4 people who haven’t seen this yet

Originally shared by Lamentations of the Flame Princess

just finished Sherlock season 3 (after years of resisting, the whole family is hooked).

It’s the one where Rupert Murdoch is played by the actor who does Putin on House of Cards.

…why would the villain do that? The obvious vulnerability is obvious and he basically tells the heroes to fix it. “Go on” he says, “this is the only way to be free.”

So they do. I mean it’s very satisfying, but it’s a bit… Joker.

GUYZ this is a Cthulhu campaign right here.

Originally shared by Vladimir Pecha

True! 🙂

https://xkcd.com/1791/

So apart from the Mexico wall, apparently Trump’s supposed to sign an executive order to “suspend the entry of any immigrants from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and African countries Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen while permanent rules are studied.”

1. this is horrific – any such collective punishment of people based on their nationality is horrific, especially people fleeing for their lives.

2. Good luck with that Arab Spring/resisting extremist governments in the Middle East. Fuck you is the official position.

3. Note that Saudi Arabia is absent from that list. Also Russia, even though Trump “accepts the fact” that Russia interfered in the recent election.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-cyber-idUSKBN14S0O6

…I am not suggesting the suspension be extended – it should be stopped before it can start. But (a) this is clearly not about security, or Saudi Arabia would be included; (b) there is no practical need for the language “Muslim-majority” in the draft order, but there it is. In fact, wouldn’t excluding immigrants on the basis of religion be a violation of the 1st Amendment?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-idUSKBN1591HP//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

one thing about this situation: I’m enjoying the general air of resistance (right now, today – I’ll stop enjoying it when the violence starts) and the new phrases I’m learning.

Today, from the internet:

Are you Judge Judy? …Don’t question me about that REPtilian with the biscuit.. Don’t all of you get it? He’s rowing with one oar!!

This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.

Really, genuinely the worst.

Truly they are the Hell Blues Choir. This is the special hell they’ve prepared for Tom Waits fans.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EWmRH0HLONA//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Would you have any interest in these elderly refillable pens?

I’ve had them since the 80s, I think they should still be in good condition, although I haven’t tried to use them since maybe 1992. Honestly I don’t know if there’s still any call for them, now that the disposable ones are supposed to be good.

writing prompt

Imagine if Richard Spencer were allowed to form a sovereign “white homeland” on a disused oil rig or artificial island or something – some place where nobody else’s land would have to be given up for the purpose. It is not allowed to extend more than 100 yards in any direction, plus 100 yards offshore. As many white people may live there as choose to. As conditions of its establishment:

– it has no other name than “white homeland,”

– no exclaves or embassies,

– no say or status in international politics,

– all UN states have rights of extradition over anyone inside “white homeland.” Its sovereignty of action stops exactly 100 yards from its shores – if anything crosses that boundary it becomes the property of whatever neighbouring nations or is covered under stipulations for “international waters” as defined by UNCLOS.

What could go wrong?

just spent half an hour playing Fantastic Contraption on a Vive.

Now all these floating windows on G+ look like they’re not quite lying parallel. I can suddenly excuse the terrible information density because my brain is telling me these are all virtual objects and they really shouldn’t be planes for text at all.

…the smooth scrolling of the post windows over the background is spooking me out. How do they manage not to crash into the grey field?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx-esx_KbJE//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

saw Hobbit 3 with the kids.

Had to explain to them why I couldn’t stop laughing the minute Billy Connolly showed up.

…among other things, he’s who I always do an impersonation of when I have to do a Scottish accent.

please don’t try to reach me via Hangouts. I do not intend to download or run the application.

Hi James

I’ve been dumped in the new G+ and belatedly realize this means no more hangouts without downloading a special app.

Do you need me to get it, or shall we just always talk through posts or email?

so is the chat hangout thing just gone, now? No more of that?

What about old chats, like about GaryCon? Is there no way to access those now either?

…that would make my life less complex – I never used to get notifications of hangout chats, so I’d miss stuff all the time.

ETA ok I’ve found the hangouts app. Do I need to download it or are we done with the whole hangouts thing? I hear the video chat is now super unstable.

Airship Italia vs. The Diabolical Damien Hirst, a Tragedy in Seven Slices.

Actually, the fate of the airship wasn’t very different from the picture – it crashed on an expedition to the North Pole in 1928 “with one confirmed fatality from the crash, one fatality from exposure while awaiting rescue, and the disappearance (and presumed death) of six crew members who were trapped in the still-airborne envelope.”

The account of the crash on Wikipedia is harrowing with moments of grim humour, like an LotFP adventure:

“Almost immediately the survivors were buoyed by the discovery of a waterproof bag containing chocolate, pemmican, a Colt revolver, ammunition and a flaregun… Malmgren, in pain, and suffering from guilt about his role in the crash announced he would drown himself and began walking away from the crash site, only stopping when sharply ordered to return by the General. Later the same day, Mariano had to disarm Malmgren after he started to walk away from the crash site with the loaded Colt revolver.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_Italia#Polar_flights

Full scale pic: http://www.stephenbiesty.co.uk/jpegs/bigAirshipItalia.jpg

Joseph Manola I’m in the middle of writing a little Central Asian caravanserais supplement attempting to explain the social and practical aspects of silk road trawling… would you like/would you mind casting an eye over it? It’s less than 5000 words, will be illustrated.

YOUR QUEST:

assemble the seven herbs of spring. Other green vegetables may be substituted but no guarantees are given as to efficacy.

Bill proposed to withdraw the US from the UN.

It begins.

Originally shared by Leonard Balsera

Huh.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/193//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Louis Premier

2 gin (Botanist)

1 bar spoon green chartreuse

2 dashes Angostura bitters

2 dashes Absinthe (St. George)

Light, clean, martini type drink. Not sweet at all, like its model.

Chris Kutalik not sure who else to ask… do you know of any specifically Jewish quests that could take a person across medieval central Asia? I’m thinking of Gentlemen of the Road and if there are traditions that require long travel.

Paolo Greco what if Scoundrels and Scholars of the Silk Road winds up being 3000 words?

Handy Haversack I’m r i c ha rd j oh n g u y {at} google’s mail service

morning: stream flooded with kawaiiized gamers

afternoon: security/privacy alarm from app

Originally shared by Sandy J-T

Um, some pretty savvy infosec people are taking a look at the Meitu app and finding out some disappointing things. Mea maxima culpa for spreading potential sneaky data sniffer apps, I’ve uninstalled mine.

https://twitter.com/FourOctets/status/821987457520369664//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

This Kawaii filter thing seems to work differently for me than for other people.

….now tempted to run an RPG based on sausagey porcelain people or wooden figures from Paul Spooner’s automata. “You can play anyone in these minis.”

…..which leads me to the sad news that Peter Markey was another victim of 2016. http://www.cabaret.co.uk/peter-markey-1930-2016/

http://www.cabaret.co.uk/store/automata/limited-editions/peter-markey-kissing-couple/

He was both brilliant and kind. He taught me ceramics (very briefly) when I was a kid. And he pretty much revived the hand-cranked automata business in Britain. I lived round the corner from Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in the 70s.

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/a-curious-turn/

Goodbye, Peter.

so… is DTRPG safe to order from? My computer says it sends over an unsecure connection.

thinking about this Jesus/MLK didn’t give in to anger mantra…

…we all realise that’s because they were resisting occupying powers, right? These were asymmetric imperial conflicts where armed resistance was suicide.

Peaceful insistence may be better for all of us in the end, but it’s slow and difficult and tends only to be tried when other methods have failed.

continuing the Tim Powers Processional, I’ve started his latest, Medusa’s Web.

….there’s often a point in Powers’s books where I think we’re going Lovecraftian – and then it veers off somewhere else. This time it’s right up front in chapter one – a dehumanizing, discombobulating vision where the protagonist sees Usabo.

I suspect Azathoth. I’m nearly certain that I’ll know better by page 100, but for now my cosmic antennae are quivering.

Guise

thinking about the ConTessa stuff and the invisibility of non white, cis, male viewpoints and so on… I kinda feel a bit funny that I haven’t crowed to all the world that my wife got the Women of Color Technologist of the Year Award. I am, in fact, very proud.

OTOH, I use G+ for gaming and I maintain a light and comfy pseudo-anonymity around here, and telling everyone this would totally torpedo that situation.

OTFOH maybe telling some women who game that, you know, some gamers actually value the women in their lives and think it’s good when they achieve things… might not be bad. Maybe it could lift Stacy Dellorfano’s mood a bit.

OTBNWHOH* telling this personal non-gaming thing to, y’know, 800 gamers I don’t know all that well does seem like a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, I’m quietly proud.

Winchell Chung Saw Hidden Figures… trying to figure out if there’s a way to complain about all the white NASA people being invented, composite, rather symbolic characters without coming off as a racist douchebag – you know, “why are the white voices being silenced?!” kind of foolishness.

Wondering if this in fact makes me a racist douchebag and my supposed concern for history is just a figleaf.

…….some actual person must’ve made the decisions to promote these black mathematicians and engineers, though. It seems a bit rough to obscure how that really happened.

ETA: OK I’ve figured out what actually bothers me here: watching the film you think “it’s a good job NASA hired that benevolent commander, Al Harrison – he’s a tough but fair, all-American meritocrat, and by extension, NASA itself must hold the same egalitarian attitudes.” And then you find out he’s made up after the fact.

Man In The High Castle update: finished Season 1.

The final 2 episodes take a massive sidestep from where it’s been leading so far. Conclusion: all looking a bit Lost.

…I thought it was shaping up into a tight, tense drama about life in resistance to a violent hegemon – what are the costs, how can you keep going, who can you trust?

Nope. It’s a soap opera about the 3 lead characters, plus some abrupt speculative fiction flourishes. Probably not bothering with Season 2.

yeah, yeah everyone’s already shared this link.

I thought “I bet this doesnt tell me anything new” but then I read it and it made one thing clearer to me:

Back in 80s and 90s Britain, a sex scandal was career OVER. And I could never figure out why. “So he has a mistress, maybe even some kinks” I thought, “does that mean he can’t do a good job?”

Now it occurs to me that the scandal itself wasn’t what prompted the resignation of one Tory minister after another. It was that the scandal signaled that the establishment had withdrawn its favour. What the public thought was unimportant – there was another, closer gatekeeper. The scandal was (ironically) a fig leaf.

Putin seems to operate the same way. Trump is not vulnerable in the same way because he has already made an enemy of the party establishment. The question is, how much pain, embarrassment and annoyance will Congress put up with before they impeach him?

Just how much is the status quo worth?

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/kompromat-trump-dossier/512891///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

you saw it here first

Originally shared by null

Schlocky horror films and political scientists agree – if you’re an evil ventriloquist, your main problem is keeping your puppet under control.

And if you can’t rely on their loyalty or rationality, then the next best thing is to keep them weak and isolated.

It’s a choice between discreet and discrete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Werner von Argau’s baby

Originally shared by Mike Evans

are you going to Garycon? It’d be great to meet up if you are.

another modest proposal:

since it seems that jerrymandering guarantees Republican majorities in the House and Senate for the foreseeable future, why not run as a Republican and vote like a Democrat once in office?

If you could organize a group of, say, 10 senators and 20 members of the House to “vote their conscience” against their party only on specific issues I reckon 3 things might happen:

1. you’d tip the scale in a bunch of important votes

2. you’d get all the attention and all the power – nobody remembers the party faithful guys who don’t need to open their mouths for you to know their positions. Think Ginsburg: unpredictability is power is glory

3. seeing the power opportunity, other Congresspeople might follow your example. 

The trick is to be ready to empty seats and live wherever it’s advantageous. You’d probably have to pull some rise of Stalin type stunts to get the seats… but you’d only be fighting against the party machine, which is looking pretty vulnerable right now, because the votes are foregone conclusions. The best seats to go for here are the anti-battlegrounds, the sleepiest, safest constituencies in the Union.

Reynaldo Madriñan does the Sheng appear in the equipment lists for Break!!?

Originally shared by Cindern Block

Ancient Taiwanese Philharmonic used for its correct purpose.

https://youtu.be/qM9hH3suOpo//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Cindern Block 

Originally shared by Farhan S

This is everything!