firehose

Diane Duane: erlynntheemerald: So I’m sure you recognize this as one of the epic...:

petermorwood:

erlynntheemerald:

So I’m sure you recognize this as one of the epic moments from “The Prince of Egypt” where we see the super majestic whale as they cross through the Red Sea. However I noticed just one little issue: whale tales don’t move from side to side, they move up and down. And…

Sorry hon, definitely a shark rather than a whale, but not Ed.

I’ve always thought he was a great-great-etcetera grandpappy Great White, Carcharodon carcharias or maybe C. megalodon.

Now look how far back the Prince of Egypt shark’s dorsal fin is located.

It’s a Whale Shark. They’re even found in the Red Sea, so someone at Dreamworks was doing their homework!

Hey, smartypants, I’m not going to allow you to use science on me when you’re not even awake.  :)

Talk to me after I come back from my walk. Maybe I’ll let you science on me then if you ask me real pretty. ;)

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image by Stefan

descentintotyranny:

Philippine delegate weeps at UN climate conference

Moved by the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan, Naderev ‘Yeb’ Sano vows to fast until ‘meaningful’ climate outcome

Nov. 11 2013

The devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan cast a gloom over U.N. climate talks that kicked off Monday in Poland as the envoy from the Philippines — where thousands are believed to have died when the cyclone made landfall Friday — broke down in tears and announced he would fast until a “meaningful outcome is in sight.”

Naderev “Yeb” Sano’s emotional appeal was met with a standing ovation at the start of two-week talks in Warsaw where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.

Sano’s tears, which he wiped away with a red handkerchief, made other delegates at the COP19 react emotionally as well.

Officials in the Philippines estimate that as many as 10,000 people died in the hard-hit city of Tacloban alone. As the desperate survivors loot for food and supplies, Filipino authorities have begun trying to recover the bodies of those who perished in Haiyan’s devastating wake. 

Speaking of the link between extreme weather and climate change that scientists have said is wreaking havoc all over the world, Sano urged members of the summit to take action.

"We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here," he told delegates in Warsaw.

Choking on his words, he said he was waiting in agony for news from relatives caught in the massive storm’s path, though he was relieved to hear his brother had survived.

"In the last two days he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands," Sano said.

"In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home … I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate," he added. "This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this (conference) until a meaningful outcome is in sight."

U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres also made reference to the “devastating impact” of the typhoon in her opening speech, and urged delegates to “go that extra mile” in their negotiations.

Still, some scientists say single weather events cannot conclusively be linked to global warming. Also, the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear, though rising sea levels are expected to make low-lying nations more vulnerable to storm surges.

Nevertheless, extreme weather such as hurricanes often prompt calls for urgency at the U.N. talks.

Last year, Hurricane Sandy’s assault on the U.S. East Coast and Typhoon Bopha’s impact on the Philippines were mentioned as examples of disasters the world could see more of unless it limits the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

On the sidelines of the conference, climate activists called on developed countries to step up their emissions cuts and their pledges of financing to help poor countries adapt to rising seas and other impacts of climate change.

Tense discussions also are expected on a proposed “loss and damage” mechanism that would allow vulnerable countries to get compensation for climate impacts that it’s already too late to adapt to.

Asked whether the U.S. had any plans to increase its emissions target in the international talks, U.S. negotiator Trigg Talley said the “focus for us now” is to meet the existing target, of cutting emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020.

"I think that we are on the right track to achieve it," he said, noting President Barack Obama’s plans to cut emissions from power plants, boost renewable energy and other measures.

Though no major decisions are expected at the conference in Warsaw’s National Stadium, the level of progress could be an indicator of the world’s chances of reaching a deal in 2015. That’s the new watershed year in the U.N.-led process after a 2009 summit in Copenhagen ended in discord.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press

its so weird how all these different sites, forums, and social networks just sort of recycle each other’s stuff 

hodad

@jczeck

John Moffit, an American football player for the Denver Broncos, has walked away from a multi-million dollar contract after studying the works of Noam Chomsky and the Dalai Lama.

Moffit was on contract with the Denver Broncos until 2014, where he was expected to make another $1 million dollars for the remainder of his contract. Moffit announced on his Twitter that he was saying goodbye to football for good.

The AP notes that Moffit’s worldview changed after reading the works of the Dalai Lama and Chomsky over the last few years while in school.

While he played football at the University of Wisconsin, Moffit studied sociology. He hopes to become a public figure in philosophy and politics. The AP reports:

Moffitt said he’s looking forward to speaking his mind on the radio and in podcasts he’s going to produce. He said he has plenty of opinions to share on everything from philosophy to politics, although he has less to say about sports.

Noam Chomsky could not be reached for comment (because we didn’t try), but would most likely support Moffit’s decision. The linguist/anarchist has talked in the past about the role sports play in manufacturing consent in society. Back in 1992, Chomsky noted that sports fandom is

 …a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements — in fact, it’s training in irrational jingoism. That’s also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that’s why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.

Original Source

rtoz writes "Sweden is taking steps to close many prisons due to lack of prisoners. This year alone, four prisons and a detention center got closed in Sweden. The percentage of the population in Sweden prison is significantly lower than in most other countries. ... Though the Swedish Government is taking steps to close the prisons, the crime rate in Sweden has increased slightly. It seems they are planning to take steps for preventing crime rather than focusing on jailing people involved in criminal activities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

trenzalorewaits:

Lauren Cooper meets The Queen (x)

THE BALLS THAT WOMAN HAS

Let’s

You know how it's pretty much okay in Portland to drive like a jackass, run down a cyclist waiting patiently at a stop sign and try to claim the other person was at fault?

We're not the only ones with that problem, and it's much more-disturbing than a cabbie mangling my bike. The entire country struggles with how to handle even fatal bike-car accidents—and that push-pull invariably errs on the side of lax penalties for negligent drivers.

But what to do?

That's the question asked by a New York Times contributor this weekend, in an op-ed headlined: Is It O.K. to Kill Cyclists? From the piece:

I began noticing “cyclist killed” news articles, like one about Amelie Le Moullac, 24, pedaling inside a bike lane in San Francisco’s SOMA district when a truck turned right and killed her. In these articles, I found a recurring phrase: to quote from The San Francisco Chronicle story about Ms. Le Moullac, “The truck driver stayed at the scene and was not cited.”

In stories where the driver had been cited, the penalty’s meagerness defied belief, like the teenager in 2011 who drove into the 49-year-old cyclist John Przychodzen from behind on a road just outside Seattle, running over and killing him. The police issued only a $42 ticket for an “unsafe lane change” because the kid hadn’t been drunk and, as they saw it, had not been driving recklessly.

You don’t have to be a lefty pinko cycling activist to find something weird about that. But try a Google search for “cyclist + accident” and you will find countless similar stories: on Nov. 2, for example, on the two-lane coastal highway near Santa Cruz, Calif., a northbound driver lost control and veered clear across southbound traffic, killing Joshua Alper, a 40-year-old librarian cycling in the southbound bike lane. As usual: no charges, no citation. Most online comments fall into two camps: cyclists outraged at inattentive drivers and wondering why cops don’t care; drivers furious at cyclists for clogging roads and flouting traffic laws.

It's a troubling issue, and not quite as clear cut as simply throwing the book at careless drivers. Many juries, the piece notes, aren't willing to put a driver away for years for a lapse in attention, so some states have crafted softer laws that offer more than a mere slap on the wrist—but less than mandatory imprisonment— for bad accidents. Oregon's penalty for careless driving that results in the injury or death of a so-called "vulnerable user"? Up to 200 hours of community service, completion of a traffic safety course, up to a $12,500 fine and license suspension for a year. Worse than a ticket, but probably cold comfort to bereaved family members.

The author's idea for helping minimize chaos on the roads is something I'm always advocating: "Every time you get on a bike, from this moment forward, obey the letter of the law in every traffic exchange everywhere to help drivers (and police officers) view cyclists as predictable users of the road who deserve respect."

I cringe when fellow bicycle commuters blow red lights, because it makes sense to me that—especially in a city with as developed a bike network as Portland—we might foster goodwill by playing by the rules (I admit to being all for an "Idaho stop").

But prolific blogger Eben Weiss over at Bike Snob NYC smacks that notion aside. His point is: Since the vast majority of the road network was designed specifically for cars, and since cars can so efficiently maim and kill cyclists, its unfair to expect bikes to always follow the same rules as cars.

"This op-ed reads like a homophobe defending gay marriage, but saying that homosexuals should 'act less faggy' in order to earn the respect of straight people," Weiss writes.

I'm not sure I agree—in fact, where cycling in close-in Portland is concerned, I flatly disagree—but both the NYT piece and the Bike Snob retort are worth a read.

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Quinns: How is everybody? Are we all well? I'm at least partially recovered from a weekend spent doing laughably badly at Cutthroat Caverns. I've yet to live through a game. It's almost as if everyone knows I'm a walking bag of lies with a will to win. Astounding game, though- expect plenty of coverage in the future.

The news this week that sent air whistling through the teeth of seasoned board gamers the world over was the announcement of Dead of Winter, the debut title in a new series of games from Plaid Hat entitled "Crossroads".

You've got two reasons to be excited about this one, so take your pick: Either you can get all giddy because Crossroads games will all be meta-cooperative experiences with players operating in a fragile alliance, or because Plaid Hat have been going from strength to strength recently, and this is an idea they have enough confidence in to create an entire series.

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Post by: Grant Rodiek

One thing new designers (or really, all designers) have issues with are being focused enough to move forward with their ideas. Many new, undisciplined creative people say “I have an idea!” and are then crippled with indecision about where to go next. Or, they go somewhere next, then somewhere else, and ultimately create a wasteful spiderweb of inane thought.

I just returned from a weekend trip to Texas and I’m about to jump on a plane to visit Thailand and Vietnam. That means I won’t have my computer to work on Mars Rising, As a result, I busted out my legal pad and began working on my next design. I noticed at the end of the weekend that I had 6 fleshed out pages, arranged in a way that was very methodical and useful. I fleshed out many details and answered many questions.

I’m not going to share my notes — it’s a bit premature for that. But, I thought it might be useful for some if I shared the outline of my notes, the order I did things, and why. By sharing processes that work well for me, I hope you might learn something. Then, you can share your successes and we all improve!

1.) The Introductory Paragraph: At the top of the first page I wrote a purely fictional introduction. My goal was to define:

• The role of the players.
• The conflict.
• How the players win.
• The fictional trappings of it all (fantasy, kingdom in danger)

Now, at this phase I didn’t know how players won. I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure. I left that section blank and circled it very noticeably.

2.) Built a components list: This section was revised more than any other, but as I was creating an outline, knowing what tools I had to work with was really important. This included:

• Tentative name of deck and my gut check for the number of cards, so things like “Location (12)” and “Travel (50).”
• General token types, such as coins or good and evil.
• Character pawns.
• Dice.

By listing this out, I know what I need to use and what tools I have at my disposal. Writing things down reinforces its existence in your mind. If you force yourself to remember everything, you’ll tap out your brain and begin forgetting and overlooking things. Once I had this in my notebook, I was able to constantly re-reference it.

3.) Loosely Define Setup: I wanted to get my head around the notion of what my players would see when they sat at the table. I wanted to think about the spatial arrangement of the components and think about the amount of information new players need to procees.

This is very high level and loose, but I wanted to generally think about:

• The number of players.
• How many decks they need to shuffle and arrange.
• The pieces they get to choose.
• How many “choices” they need to make during setup, such as characters and things.

Even at this early stage, you can identify what might be overwhelming for players.

<Quick Aside> Just a quick note. As I’m writing all of this, when I thought of something I didn’t want to forget, I’d quickly jot it down in the margins and box it in so that it was easy to find. For example, my travel mechanic is based on a value on the sides of the location cards. I quickly noted that in a box. I also thought about how you might sell loot back to the game, so I made a note of that.

4.) Define Card Types: My game is very card driven. From step number 2 I generally know how many decks I think I need to satisfy the game. Now, I need to go another level deeper to think about the types of cards within it.

Some of these types have a single mechanic, such as cards with Traveler functionality that move through the world. There are also events, that must be played. Then there are states, which permanently affect a location, at least until removed.

When I think of Loot, a simple bulleted list helps me identify the need for gold, weapons, spells, and gear. Continuing with the note from the Quick Aside above, I jot down that there may be cards with a “when resolved” type note to further modify the world. Or, tie ins to the my dice mechanic.

5.) Define a Basic Turn: In a big box in the center of the page, I wrote down the three steps of a player’s turn. Sometimes this comes early in a process, sometimes later. I think it’s one of the most crucial questions you must answer (and re-answer as you develop).

At this point, return to step 2 and examine the components you have. If a player does A, then B, then C, do you have sufficient cards to provide sufficient variety and strategy? If you know what a player will do every turn, are there new components or features the design might need to be a fully fleshed out loop?

6.) Define Locations: Locations are the core spatial element of the game. They are essentially the board or the map. Before I could define my other content, I needed to know, generally, the parameters of my world. I filled a page with a dozen locations, each with little notes on art and presentation, potential bonuses and mechanics, and so forth. This entire page is very very loose and will all change, but I needed to know the ground on which my players would be standing, so to speak.

7.) Draw Cards: I filled a page with 7 high quality, hand-drawn sketches of cards. I tried to draw one of every card type and define synergies between cards. For example, in one place I had a goblin scout who had a connection with the goblin lords. I made sure to mock this up so that I could see what it would look like if I indeed implemented this functionality.

Over time I began to list icons that would be needed and I began to understand even more how players will hold and play cards. For example, players can equip a hero with a single weapon. This is splayed to the left of the hero. They can also have a single piece of gear, which is splayed to the bottom. I kept the information needed to play the card in the top left (so you can read with a hand of cards), but designed the permanent info of the card based on how it would be played to the table.

This was also useful in that it gave me an idea of how much information I was expecting players to process at every step of the game. On a turn, players will choose a single card to play. That decision concerns the 1-3 pieces of information in the top left corner. Later in the turn, players may need to use information at the bottom of the card. It is key, to prevent players from being overwhelmed and general AP, to understand the parameters I’ll be putting before players.

Doodling helps this.

8.) Define Characters: This exercise is similar to Step 6. Like Locations, I have a small number of characters, one per player. These exist in every game and will be primary drivers of decisions and content, so I decided to list and jot down the general ideas for each character.

I’m taking a very systematic approach with the characters to keep them simple and make the introductory experience a good one. Therefore, defining these 8 characters was quick and painless. I’m also not naming them, because I want players to fill in the blanks themselves. Therefore, I simply defined what it meant to be a character and punched out 8 quickly. Is this final? No, but it’s another layer that helps guide the rest of my process.

9.) Big Deck Break Down: I have a few larger decks of approximately 50-60 cards. That’s the number I feel is necessary to prototype the game. It may be more, may be fewer. For each of these decks, I did rough numbers of the distribution for card type, using the information from Step 4. For example, the Travel Deck (50 cards) might have:

• 6 Travelers
• 3 Merchants
• 25 Enemies
• 6 Events
• 10 Shortcuts/Location Bonuses

This helps me know the importance of every card type. I can also break this down further to think about the distribution within the sorts. For example, if half the deck are enemies, how many of those enemies should be easy? How many difficult? At this stage I’m largely driven by a gut feeling and push for excitement, so it’s easy to define these things based on years of playing games. How right I am is yet to be seen (I wager I’m quite wrong), but I need to start somewhere.

Next Steps: Now, it’s time to build the actual cards. I have my checklist of the number and type of every card. My preferred process is to cut out that many index cards (I split blank cards in half) and then label them. For example, Travel – Event, or Loot – Weapon. I then stack them up and flip through them with a pencil. When I have an idea, I create the card. When I’m stuck, I put them back in my backpack.

Then, we play.

Was this useful? Were any new ideas for your own processes found? Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments below!

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Toys "R" Us. Wrong. An inane commercial like this — in which children are taught that science and the environment are boring — sends the exact wrong message.

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Aeolus was the Greek God of Wind. In the Odyssey, he gives Odysseus a bag filled with winds, but Odysseus' men, greedy and believing the bag to be filled with riches, opened it, and it blew them off course.

The same thing happened in a CFL game to Sean Whyte, kicker for the Montreal Alouettes.

This wasn't just any field goal. This was a playoff game the Alouettes eventually lost, 19-16, in overtime.

Of course, since it was a kick that ended up in the end zone, this did score a point for the Alouettes via rouge. I think I'm going to move to Canada, just for the slightly different rules. Although I'm officially worried about flying there, lest my plane be blown just short of the runway by the 60-trillion mile per hour winds that render all air-based activities impossible. (I believe this is 100 trillion kilometres per hour, for you Northerners.)

The winners, of course, were the Hamilton Tiger-Cats:

HAM PASSING Y'ALL.

And yes, that's Dan LeFevour, who would score the game-winning rushing TD in overtime. The losing QB was Troy Smith. Yes, that Troy Smith. The losing RB was NORTHWESTERN RB TYRELL SUTTON.OMG GIMME A BAG OF MILK I'M MOVING TO CANADA AND EATING POUTINE AND INSERTING THE LETTER "U" INTO EVERYTHING

BackerKit Blog: Introducing BackerKit Labels:

backerkit:

One thing we hear from DIY project creators of all sizes is that making labels for shipping your crowdfunded project is harder than it should be.

BackerKit Labels is the easiest way to generate shipping labels for your backers. You don’t need to have used BackerKit for your project, and…

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!

tedx:

In this gut-wrenching talk, Sergeant Andrew Chambers shares the haunting story of his time in Iraq and the tough transition home that landed him in jail. It’s a powerful testimony to the struggle our soldiers face when they come home, and the tragic ways that they can be denied the help they need. 

For any veterans who need help, you can find a list of resources here. Among them, the Wounded Warrior Project does outstanding work with wounded vets. 

For anyone looking to support a veteran, we encourage you to heed Chambers’s advice: "Find a veteran and listen to his story. A lot of us just need somebody to talk to." 

Watch the full talk here.

Image cropped and lightened from the original, via Bad Newspaper.

As briefly mentioned in Good Morning, News... Ii's not too early to wonder. And Noam Scheiber at The New Republic seems to think she might:

In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.

Let's see what the voters of Blogtown have to say about this.

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muslim heroines of the marvel universe: sooraya qadir, faiza hussain, monet st. croix, monica chang, kamala khan

As reported by Vulture, David Cross has now been added to the cast of the fifth season of Community, the NBC sitcom about a small community college that, like so many community colleges, is always filled to the brim with famous people. While it seems reasonable to expect that at least some of those many guest stars promised this season will have to be relegated to fairly minor roles—say, popping out of a locker to offer a quick one-liner, a la You Can’t Do That On Television—Cross actually plays a fairly major, arguably spoiler-y part, for those sensitive to such things: His episode is a sequel to the beloved “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,” with Cross playing the “bitterly estranged” son of Jonathan Banks’ Professor Hickey, one who joins in on “at the very least, the second most important game of Dungeons & Dragons ever.” As Cross told us last ...

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bbatchs:

Brittania Awards portraits by Andy Gotts (first one)

Could the pose on that second one… possibly be a bit of a visual pun?  It reminds me of something, anyway…

(And of course there’s a similar statue of Zeus holding Nike the same way; but that one’s seated.)

Who knows…

armisael:

mass effect dialog options

Realizing the burden of fostering an open dialogue on race should not be shouldered entirely by Dads, Fox has ordered another animated series from Seth MacFarlane, about “the undergoing cultural shift in America” that forms our country’s diverse melting pot of cartoon stereotypes. In this case, mostly Mexican ones: Bordertown, created by Family Guy writer Mark Hentemann, takes place in a fictitious desert town along the U.S.-Mexico divide, where an old-fashioned Border Patrol agent and family man named Bud Buckwald laments the changes in his neighborhood while clashing with his hard-working Mexican immigrant neighbor, Ernesto Gonzales. As their paths cross and families become intertwined, Bud and Ernesto will forge a tense, occasionally combative relationship reminiscent not only of King Of The Hill’s Hank Hill and Kahn Souphanousinphone, but of our country’s own ongoing dialogue about immigration (i.e. interrupted every 30 seconds by pointless tangents ...

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