Hello from a foggy and chilly morning from 53.5° north latitude. As with last week, this week was consumed by work, and while that was interesting and exciting, there really isn't much from that to report here. One new beer, one article, an RPG book, a sojourn with nature, and a couple new words. Let's get on with it, shall we? Reading Pile: I did read a bit this week, but not nearly as much as I was earlier in the summer or the spring. I will probably have a couple books finished by next week, but nothing for this week. The reading rate has decreased in the last few weeks, but I am still on pace to finish 56 books which is by far the most I have read in a single year. Federal Election: Maclean's released an article by 338Canada summarizing recent polls for the upcoming federal election. As of today there are only 50 days until the election, and there is a good possibility that voters have already decided who they are going to vote for. If that is the case, analysis of the polls at this time might be a good predictor of the result in October. According to 338Canada's analysis, the Liberals won the most seats in 57% of their simulations with a majority in 30%. A minority result for the Liberals would have to be deeply disturbing for every party. That result for the Liberals after their big win in the last election is an indictment on Trudeau's inability to deliver and likely highlights his constant parade of gaffes. Anything other than a majority for the Conservatives would show that Scheer is less effective than Harper, especially with the gift of the SNC-Lavalin fiasco and the ethics commissioner's report that was laid on his lap, In the simulations, the NDP get hammered, with less seats even than they won under Mulcair, making supporters likely want to question Singh as their leader. I suppose the Bloc might be okay with 13 seats as at least they still have their base. The Greens are predicted to win 4 seats, and I can't imagine that number could be spun into anything positive, but you never know what May is going to say. The only scenario to make any party happy is a majority, and that looks increasingly unlikely. Kayaking at Elk Island: Elk Island National Park is roughly 75 km from my driveway. I can leave the house and be out there in about an hour. As I found out today, I can be on the water in a rented kayak in less than 90 minutes after I leave the house. Haskin Canoe has a rental shack right on Astotin Lake, which is super convenient. I was able to capture a couple great shots from the water of the lake islands and some waterfowl on the lake. However, the nearly ancient camera I used to take the pictures uses an SD card, and I don't have a single SD card reader in the house. Maybe I'll find some tech in the next week and will be able to salvage those pictures. In the meantime, here are pictures of a bison and a few deer I grabbed with my phone. RPG Goodness: After several months of waiting, my copy of "Strongholds and Followers" arrived a few days ago. This is the D&D 5e supplement written by Matt Colville and produced by his company, MCDM Productions. Strongholds and Followers provides guidance on how to take a mid-level character through the process of creating a base of operations and having it populated with relevant NPCs. The idea is fantastic for people that want to explore how their characters influence their world through more than dungeon crawls and fighting. I really hope I get into a campaign where I can use this supplement. A friend of my brother said back in the university era that Bono could fart into a microphone for 60 minutes and he would still buy the album. I am like that with Colville. I love his style and thought process for how he approaches be a better Dungeon Master, and he seems like the kind of person that would be great to hang out with. After hearing Colville talk about this project on his YouTube channel, his Kickstarter campaign raised over $2 million Canada with over 28,000 backers. That implies that it isn't just me who feels that way about Colville. New Beers: This week was pretty limited on the new beer front. There were a few beers from Common Crown in my fridge, but alas, they were not new. The only new beer was a double-hopped 8.2% ABV from Brewsters, the Mad Hops Double IPA 2019. Nice taste, not too bitter, with a high ABV without a whole lot of booziness. Good stuff from Brewsters once again (3.75 / 5). This one gave me the 2X (Level 5) badge from Untapped, for 25 beers with Double or Imperial in the name. New Words:
Not a lot of reading this week, so not a lot of words. widdershins [ˈwidərˌSHinz] ADVERB (SCOTTISH)
steatite [ˈstēəˌtīt] NOUN
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It was a pretty tame week at 53.5° north, at least for matters outside of work. Probably the best metric for how focused the week was on work is that there are no new words to share this week. As of today (August 11), we are 85 days - a mere 2040 hours - until we launch the first wave of our new clinical information system. There is no time, budget, or oxygen for anything beyond that deployment. The first meeting of the day is regularly starting at 07:00, and for some of my co-workers the start of the day is 06:00. The fact that I finished anything beyond work items is a fairly significant accomplishment this week. But even so, there were still a few things worth sharing. New Beers: Three new beers this week, and three badges on Untappd. The first was a local beer, the Session Ale from Sea Change Brewing. Good stuff but seemed stronger than 4.0% ABV, which makes it hard to see as a Session. Stil, well worth searching it out if you can get it in your area. Second was a forgettable pale ale from Wildrose, the Industrial Park Ale. Quite a shame, since I really like Wild Rose and was hoping for more from this beer. Third was a collaboration between Parallel 49 and Luppolo. The We've Got it Going On saison was fermented with wine yeast, which was a new experience for me. The beer had a nice sweetness that I assume was from the wine yeast. That one gave me the Middle of the Road (Level 56), Beer Together (Level 2), and The Great White North (Level 84) badges on Untappd. Reading Pile and Podcasts: I didn't finish any books this week, and only listened to one podcast. That was the Planet Money episode, "Twins". The key point from that episode is understanding what can be learned from studying twins to gain a better understanding of the nature versus nurture influences which can then influence and guide public policy. However, the episode does caution about how easy it is to slip into the morally bankrupt investigation of eugenics. This episode had limited hooks into economics, but was still a good use of 22 minutes. Movie - Blackkklansman I watched the trailer for Blackkklansman and seriously thought it was going to be a light, easy-going move. My first hint that I was mistaken was seconds in when "A Spike Lee Joint" popped on the screen. I also didn't realize it was based on a true story (or at least based on a book that was based on a true story). This was a serious movie, and was filled with intense scenes. The resurgence of neo-Nazi groups across the US and Canada makes this movie incredibly relevant. Violence, real and threatened, pulsed through most scenes fueled by open racism and hatred. If I ever get a chance to talk to Spike Lee, I want to ask him about the scene near the end of the movie where Harry Belafonte relays a horrific incident from his youth that is interposed with scenes from a Klan baptism. "Black Power" chants echo from one scene, followed by chants of "White Power" in the next. I would ask Lee if he was trying to show how any group grasping for power is bad, or whether the point was to remind the viewer of how few years ago the black power chants were relegated to the fringes of society while the white power chants are becoming more common. BYDTWD:
(Reminder: BYDTWD = Bring Your Dice To Work Day) Even though the work week is remarkably intense and getting longer each week, we still find time to play D&D over the lunch hour each Wednesday. Our DM is throwing a bevy of Gelatinous Cubes at us, which we have managed to escape so far through a combination of luck and strategy. However, some garbage-pile-looking brute (no idea what the creature it was) hammered our cleric, who promptly rolled a Natural 1 on his first death save, so we are one turn away from losing a player and our healer. If you are so inclined, here is a link to my character, and my first attempt at creating a homebrew item on D&D Beyond. The cloak is something that our DM provided each of our characters and in order to make sure we all got the +3 AC bonus, I thought I would create and share a homebrew item. I have to say that D&D Beyond has a lot of really great features. The homebrew items are great, as is the ability for one person to share access to resources such as the Dungeon Master's Guide or Player's Handbook. However, the PDF export functionality of the player character sheet sucks. The output is ugly, the text in the boxes is truncated, and there is no ability to customize what gets exported. Nothing is perfect, but for those of us that still want to have a paper character sheet while we play, the PDF export is a real problem. That's it for this week. Hopefully this upcoming week will provide some opportunity for interesting notes to share. Hello from 53.5° north latitude. It was a fairly quiet week with most of the effort this week channeled towards preparing for a bit of time off work. Hypersonic Missiles: A new arms race is underway, bringing with it the threat of a new Cold War. This article in the New York Times describes what the US is doing to develop a hypersonic missile system. Hypersonic is apparently defined at any speed over Mach 5, with some of the systems described in the article operating at Mach 10, 15, even 20. The weapons travel at "mile-per-second" velocity and are largely unstoppable. They operate too low for one defense system, too high for another, and could take out missile bunkers, seats of power, individual leaders, or even the US aircraft carriers.
This technology is not limited in scope to the American or Russian militaries. The Chinese, Indians, French, Japanese, EU, and Australians are also investing in the technology, according to the article. Interesting, scary, fascinating, and unbelievable, all rolled into one topic. Roosevelt quote on "The Man in the Arena": I came across this quote in a meeting this week. It is from Theodore Roosevelt in 1910: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt Reading Pile: Reading this week was focused one book, "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson. This was the easiest Gibson novel I have read to date, with fairly limited new concepts to have to assimilate. It was also his first novel after 9/11, and so I found it interesting to read a novel written a year after 9/11 depicting a time a decade or so after the fact, and how the characters processed and were still affected by what happened. Clearly the events of September 11, 2001 were fresh in Gibson's mind as he wrote the novel. As far as a story goes, it was good. Not great though. I was hoping for some sort of Wintermute meets Putin meets Versace-clone, but that didn't happen. It did have some memorable characters, but not ones that were memorable enough to feature in other interrelated stories. I suppose that might be too much to expect again from his novels, but I would love to see it. On a lighter note, Gibson penned a new acronym that I love: LOMBARD - lots of money but a real dick. Other reading started at the end of the week: the aforementioned "Command and Control" and a re-read of "On Basilisk Station" by David Weber. New beer: Only one new beer this week, and that was the Ebony Dragon from Alley Kat. I didn't really like it too much but I wasn't sure why. I read a few reviews on Untappd and "resin" came up a few times. I wonder if that is indicative from the Denali hops. Something to explore. (3.25 / 5) I also unlocked Level 14 of the Beer Explorer badge on Untapped. I don't know what is the difference between the 25 countries unlocked last week and the 70 regions unlocked this week, and unfortunately the stats in Untappd are a bit lacking. I am contemplating becoming a Supporter again to figure out if I can parse that sort of detail out of the stats provided to Supporters. Speaking of stats, I hit 600 beers with 563 unique entries since March 23, 2015, which means a net new beer every 2.77 days. New words:
at·a·vis·tic [ˌadəˈvistik] ADJECTIVE
lan·guid [ˈlaNGɡwəd] ADJECTIVE
apophenia [ap·o·phe·nia] NOUN
pri·a·pism [ˈprīəˌpizəm] NOUN medicine
Oc·ci·dent [ˈäksidənt] NOUN
vi·cis·si·tude [vəˈsisəˌt(y)o͞od] NOUN (vicissitudes)
lim·i·nal [ˈlimənl] ADJECTIVE technical
ci·bo·ri·um [səˈbôrēəm] NOUN
Hello from 53.5° north latitude as I sit in my basement on a 20°C day. Many times I feel that being outdoors is essential, and absolutely needed. Other days, like today, I'm happy to be in front of my monitor listening to the new album by The Raconteurs on Tidal. But I am getting ahead of myself. MH370: There have been several disasters in my lifetime that were so significant to have singular names: 9/11 of course; Challenger; Columbia, Air India, Columbine. MH370, the lost Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared in March, 2014 is also on that list. As that mystery unfolded, I was stunned by how little I knew about that part of the world. For example, that India was totally north of the equator, and just how unimaginably vast the Indian Ocean is. Reading the article on MH370 released on The Atlantic this week brought back a lot of those thoughts. No wonder authorities didn't know where to look. And no wonder they didn't find any debris for years. But I also had little appreciation for the level of cover-up and incompetence on the investigation. Bitchy flight attendants and extra charges for checking luggage on North American domestic carriers don't seem so bad all of a sudden. Getting back to MH370, the article supports the theory that the senior pilot acted alone and killed all souls on board with apparent ease before plunging the aircraft into the ocean. The fact that a single actor, a trusted actor at that, could doom all of those people is frightening and it is easy to see how calls might be made for computer overrides or remote interactions. However, thinking about the computerized corrections made on the flight trajectory on the Boeing 737 Max aircraft quickly highlights how reliance on a single control is not feasible. Checks and balances are important. If the pilot was depressed and was harboring suicidal thoughts, the checks and balances in the system needed to identify the risk and get the pilot help before being allowed to fly again. But it appears that the system was flawed, and the culture in Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian government stifles any willingness or ability to learn from that mistake to prevent future similar disasters. The article is a long read, but it worth the time. More on Capitalism: The reading pile has contained much on capitalism lately. To be more accurate, the general thesis seems to be that capitalism can and could be a force for good across the world, but that neoliberalism is a failed idea that needs to be replaced. Click on "capitalism" in the Categories section of this blog for the full reading list. The most recent read on this theme was "The Future of Capitalism" by Paul Collier. Keeping with the idea that neoliberalism was flawed, Collier highlighted point solutions that have had limited or local success. I suppose these were ideas that the reader was supposed to derive inspiration from. However, the book was not particularly giving of solutions, and certainly didn't provide a blueprint for going forward and these point solutions were not presented as an actionable whole. The book did have merit though. One idea that really struck with me were the two scenarios to describe the concept of agglomeration (see definition below). Collier provided two thought experiments - one in which the people in a metropolis have different skills and different needs for housing, and a second where there is a metropolis that needs to rule of law. The punchline is that in both cases there are people that are wholly convinced they uniquely deserve their status and wealth. However, Collier's argument is that everyone, including the most productive, benefit greatly from agglomeration, i.e. the benefits of the critical mass provided to the whole. This might be the largest scale dismantling of the self-made man fallacy. Collier also proposed that shared reciprocity is the key to a civilized world. We do not need Economic Man, Collier posits, but a form of maternal concern for others. Specifically, he says "shared identity becomes the foundation for farsighted reciprocity". There are of course detractors and opposition. A quick search shows this article that calls Collier's ideas as "wrong" and "perplexing" and calls for more capitalism and even less of a role for the state in the market, and that there is a "false promise" of centrism. There are that many voices in the business community that act as a powerful lobby to demand unfettered access to the market. Collier tried to show how some state intervention is good and necessary. This is not the nanny state paternalism we have today, but again the maternal intervention borne out of a common desire to see everyone get the help they need. Collier's book wasn't great; in fact, it was a fairly tedious read. I do think though that it was an important read, and coupled with voices such as Ray Dalio who commented on the need to reform capitalism on 60 Minutes, and Bill Gates who recommended Collier's book on his Summer 2019 Reading list, it will be interesting to see if the voices promoting something other than raw capitalism will gain any momentum with their ideas. (3.0 / 5) Speaking of capitalism ... One of the books I read this week was actually one I started in 2007. How do I know that? Well, I was using the receipt for the book as a bookmark. Simon Winchester's "A Crack in the Edge of the World" was a great read on the 1906 Earthquake in San Francisco. Or maybe more appropriately, the 1906 San Francisco Fire, which some people in the day were trying to promote as the true menace. This was an attempt to tell the world that San Francisco would be fine in the future, because the devastation was due to human carelessness and poor planning which caused the fire to spread so far and fast. This was a direct attempt to make the earthquake - the natural and completely unknowable element - a minor triviality. If the earthquake was only a minor element in the destruction of San Francisco, that meant that people could plan for fire fighting and building codes and quality construction, and voilà, money and people would continue to flow into the great city. What does this have to do with capitalism? As fate would have it, there was a presentation for a grand urban plan prepared and presented to San Francisco City Council literally the day before the earthquake. The plan called for fountains, and parks, and places to live and meet. As San Francisco regrouped and turned its focus on rebuilding, the businessmen, who were quite literally called the Downtown Business Men's Association, decried the plan, calling for "business" and not "parks and boulevards" to spark the city's rebirth. Who needs niceties and places for leisure? Business is all we need! Et cetera. This was a good enough book to keep it in the personal library. 4.5 / 5 As an added bonus, the book had a great graphic outlining the various geological eras in the last 545 million years. Reading Pile: I finished three other books in this last week. The first was "Infinite Detail" by Tim Maughan. This was a book about the end of the Internet era as we know it and what comes after. I really enjoyed this story, and was particularly impressed by how Maughan weaved between the Before and After story lines, and then how he ultimately brought them together. I think this is one of those books that are worth re-reading. 4.0 / 5 The next book finished this week was the third book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, "Equal Rites". This was an enjoyable and easy read, but wasn't quite as enjoyable for me as the first two in the series. Maybe that was because Luggage didn't make an appearance in this book. (3.0 / 5) The other "book" I read this week was "The Butcher of Anderson Station", the first short story of the Expanse series. Good stuff. Really short. It provided some nice background of who Fred Anderson is and how he came to the OPA. Really short stories like this are hard to rate, as their re-readability is pretty limited, but let's give it a 4.0 / 5. Total for the year is now 27 books, which for the first time in my life brings my forecast for the year to be over 50. That would be quite an accomplishment. Let's see how the rest of the year goes and if I can keep up the pace. The best Star Wars movie ever: Darth Vader always had the potential to be the scariest villain of all time. However, he seems more frustrated and conflicted than truly evil in the movies. That is absolutely not the case in the recently released unofficial short scene of the battle between Vader and Obi-Wan. The hatred and evil from Vader is palpable, and his power with the force makes the entire concept of Vader to be truly terrifying. New music: In the intro, I mentioned the new album by The Raconteurs called "Help Us Stranger". This is a pretty good album, with the sort-of title track "Help Me Stranger" being quite awesome. I've listened to it a few times and I think it will grow on me. New beers: Big week for beer with four new brews this week. Well, technically three new with the fourth actually imbibed last Sunday after last week's post was posted. The beer from last week was the Volfas Engelman Premium Pilsner out of Lithuania. I quite enjoyed this one. (3.75 / 5) Then I had two beers from Banded Peak out of Calgary. The Mt. Crushmore pilsner was pretty good, but not as good as the pilsner from Volfas Engelman. (3.25 / 5). Their Plainsbreaker Hopped Wheat Ale was much better and was one of my favorite beers in the last few months. (4.0 / 5) Last on the list was the Lazy Days sour from Alley Kat. This one was made with passionfruit so it was somewhat sweet as well as quite sour. Good stuff again from Alley Kat. (3.75 / 5) A noteworthy stat from Untappd is the achievement I received for hitting Level 5 on Beer Connoiseur, meaning that I have logged in beers from 25 different countries. That means there are still have 171 countries that I have not had a beer from. It's good to have goals. New words:
Lots of reading this week, and therefore lots of new words. be·guine [bəˈɡēn] NOUN
ag·glom·er·a·tion [əˌɡläməˈrāSH(ə)n] NOUN
sa·lu·bri·ous [səˈlo͞obrēəs] ADJECTIVE
po·et·as·ter [ˈpōəˌtastər] NOUN
se·mi·ot·ics [ˌsemēˈädiks] NOUN
ful·some [ˈfo͝olsəm] ADJECTIVE
syn·co·pate [ˈsiNGkəˌpāt] VERB
cor·us·cate [ˈkôrəˌskāt, ˈkärəˌskāt] VERB literary
in·cu·nab·u·lum [ˌinkyəˈnabyələm] NOUN
de·port·ment [dəˈpôrtmənt] NOUN
a·poth·e·o·sis [əˌpäTHēˈōsəs] NOUN
an·o·dyne [ˈanəˌdīn] ADJECTIVE
pse·phol·o·gy [sēˈfäləjē] NOUN
e·lide [ēˈlīd] VERB
ma·ter [ˈmādər] NOUN BRITISH, informal, dated
pro·bi·ty [ˈprōbədē] NOUN formal
Blame Canada!: The wisdom of South Park is relevant once again, this time as I resurrected the "Blame Canada" scene while listening to an episode of the Indicator podcast from Planet Money. The episode in particular was from May 23 and was titled "Canada's Tariff Hangover". The episode was about the ending of the trade war and tariffs imposed by the US on Canada and vice versa, and in particular about a small business in Ottawa that was particularly impacted by the tariffs imposed on Magic: The Gathering cards coming in from the US. Near the end of the episode, the hosts drawing the conclusion that the small business owner should be upset with the Canadian government for imposing the retaliatory tariffs. To quote from the transcript: ... the Canadian government is what ended up causing Dave all this harm, if you think about it, because it was Canada's retaliation that imposed those tariffs on Magic cards in the first place. So it kind of shows you that when a country's government retaliates, it can end up really hurting some of its own people." Trade wars are damaging to both sides. That's why they are called trade wars, and not trade parties, or trade fun-things. And yes, there were damages to Canadian business by the increased tariffs. However, to call out the Canadian government for the particular damage to this one store conveniently omits the fact that the Canadian tariffs were retaliations, meaning of course that they were in response to the opening tariff salvo imposed on Canada by the US. Blame Canada, indeed. BYDTWD, or How Much Meta is Too Much Meta?: In our weekly D&D lunch hour session this week, our PCs encountered some weird elf-spider hybrid who was clearly thousands of years old. In talking to the DM after the session, his inspiration for a lot of this setting is a riff on the drow spider queen, Lolth. However, it isn't the same Lolth that we would see in the Drizzt books or in other canon material in books, game supplements or in computer RPGs. This is something that is hard for me to wrap my head around. How much should I read about Forgotten Realms if the DM is not going to adhere to what I have read? Sure there is a Nashkel, but it isn't exactly the same as the Nashkel I know from Baldur's Gate. Does the information I know from the game help or hinder me as a player? Am I going to make a bad decision because Quinemin the PC knows a different world from Robert the player? Understanding the world the PC is in is important so that role playing is better, and so that better decisions are made. I just don't know if I am actually going to make better decisions because my context is inconsistent with the actual environment. Or maybe the DM doesn't have the world completely figured out and therefore my knowledge will help guide the game in a good way. Or maybe I should just stop thinking so hard and just play the game.
New Words:
pom·ace [ˈpəməs] NOUN
ten·den·tious [tenˈdenSHəs] ADJECTIVE
ex·u·date [ˈeksədāt, ˈeksyo͞oˌdāt] NOUN
sin·ter [ˈsin(t)ər] NOUN
li·bra·tion [līˈbrāSHən] NOUN astronomy
la·cu·na [ləˈk(y)o͞onə] NOUN
con·viv·i·al·i·ty [kənˌvivēˈalədē] NOUN
More on Capitalism: It seems most everything I read lately has to do with the failures of capitalism and what might and should replace it. When I mentioned that to my friend Mark, he sent me a link to a Boing Boing article quoting Joe Stiglitz calling neoliberalism a "failed ideology". This analysis is similar to my recent readings from Lapham, Fleming, and the 60 Minutes episode, as well as the Paul Collier book I am currently reading (more on that next week). Select the "Capitalism" category to find those articles. Stiglitz has an impressive number of books in his bibliography, if his message resonates. Speaking of Wealth: At a casual dinner this week for a retiring co-worker, he commented that the luxury of time to explore new ideas on one's own time frame is true wealth. Sage words.
The U.S. Has a Fleet of 300 Electric Buses. China Has 421,000: Is there much else to be said after a stat like that? Well maybe that the rest of the world combined has a total of 4,000 electric buses, so less than 1% of China. Crazy. The stats are from a May article in Bloomberg that I just read this week. On a local scale, ETS is in the process of purchasing up to 50 electric buses, which makes transit in Edmonton a player on the world stage if you exclude China. Reading pile: My consumption of books continues, with two more finished this week, and one I forgot to mention last week. First up on the list is "Red Queen" by Victoria Ayeyard, a fairly involved young adult-fantasy-adults are evil-only I can save the world novel. I started reading it to the younger daughter, but she lost interest, so after a number of weeks, I picked it up again and finished it off. Completely enjoyable, somewhat novel in concept, and good enough to read the next one in the series (because don't all of these type of books come in a series?). Second is Michio Kaku's "The Future of Humanity". Kaku is clearly intelligent and is able to convey complex ideas fairly simply. I guess I was hoping for more from this book given his pedigree. This book was interesting in parts, and it did present some suggestions on how humans could move from Earth to Mars and beyond, but there was little in the way of enthralling narrative or vision. The best part of this book was Kaku's description of a T. Rex as a walking mouth. Third is "Drive: Volume 2" by Dave Kellett. I love Kellet's work, and especially with Drive which allows his to tell a complex and interesting story and intersperse it with his oddball humor. I picked up Volume 1 and 2 via two of his Kickstarters, and am looking forward to Volume 3. The entire Drive comic can be read online on Kellet's site.
New words:
Surprisingly few new words this week, even though I read a ton. pil·lion [ˈpilyən] NOUN
towheaded [ˈtōˌhedəd] ADJECTIVE
twee [twē] ADJECTIVE BRITISH
Accomplishments?: FWIW, I did all of the daily challenges in both Wordament and Solitaire this month. Tell my parents that when they tell you that I never amounted to anything. BYDTWD: In our weekly lunch hour session, I was back to playing as my stint as a guest DM is now over. I have to tell you that I really prefer DMing. All you have to do is show up when you are a player, so the level of engagement just isn't there for me. That was one change in perspective that I had. The other is how much weird the players seem to want. Our regular DM developed a campaign in a low magic world, but people seem to want to jump in with high magic, exotic characters. Our newest player came in with a Tiefling Bard. Wait, what? Yeah, exactly. I watched the first forty or so episodes of the second campaign of Critical Role, and now that I look back at those episodes, I notice the same. A goblin, a tiefling, a half-orc (admittedly pretty low magic), an Aasimar, a furlbog played a person who previously played a Tiefling, and two humans. Every single one of the players behind those characters are great actors, but for my money, the best character in the lot is one of the humans. (You can argue about which one in the comments.) When Matt Colville was ramping up for The Chain of Acheron, he told his players that the preponderance of the characters needed to be humans, even though the campaign is very high magic. Even so, within the first few episodes, one character gets turned into a pink mist and the player wants to play a githyanki. So much for the players adhering to the guide posts. What does this mean for the DM? I'm not sure to be honest. Maybe the lure of the unknown and the magical is too strong, and the DM just needs to build that into the campaign. Maybe it is reasonable to expect players to want to stray from the mundane in a fictional setting. Playing a character that is essentially your neighbor in real life does seem less enticing than a githyanki that has never eaten a caramel sausage, for example.
My world's on fire, how about yours? The wild fires in Northern Alberta are terrifying. The thought that out of control fires in the spring are the new normal is even more terrifying. The northern half of the province needs a Noah's Ark scale deluge in the short term, and we need to figure out how we can fix the planet in the long term. I don't ever recall hearing about the Air Quality Health Index before last year, but now with all of the fires, our local schools keep kids inside for recess when the air quality is too poor. New beers: Just one new beer this week. It was the Red 8.6 from Royal Swinkels Family Brewers in the Netherlands. Red 8.6 seems like a strange name since the beer is only 7.9% ABV (only!), even though it is a red. But I digress. I'm not a big red fan, and this was okay, but it was quite a mouthful with the alcohol taste. Not great, but good enough that I will try out their other beers, like the Gold 8.6 for example. (3.0 / 5) New words:
su·per·ses·sion [ˌso͞opərˈseSH(ə)n] NOUN
pred·i·ca·tion pre-də-ˈkā-shən \ NOUN archaic a : an act of proclaiming or preaching b : sermon in·a·ni·tion [ˌinəˈniSHən] NOUN formal
mid·den [ˈmidn] NOUN
Related to "Lemon Juice": Following up on my comment two weeks ago about opinion, entitlement, and how some people are unskilled and unaware of that fact, here is a quote from "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson. They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain they were right." Quote about Inspiration and Motivation: This came from Freakanomics, specifically the third episode in their series on creativity: And there is a quote from Chuck Close that I’ve heard many people quote, which is “Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work.” And I think that that’s really true. You sort of have to just be ready so that when you kind of encounter that magic moment, you’ve got the muscle memory and the experience and the instincts to let you grab that opportunity." New beers: A disappointing week for new beers. I had two from the latest Big Rock sampler. Their "craft" lager was void of anything craft, as far as I could tell (2.25 / 5). Their Jackrabbit light American ale was better, but that's not saying much (2.5 / 5). Finally, I had the collaboration between Blindman and Troubled Monk, but I think the keg at the Wine and Beyond was flat. Quite disappointing. (2.75 / 5). New words:
ab·la·tive [ˈablədiv] ADJECTIVE
chi·a·ro·scu·ro [kyärəˈsk(y)o͝orō] NOUN
sans-cu·lotte [ˌsanzk(y)o͝oˈlät] NOUN sans-culottes (plural noun)
chal·ced·o·ny [kalˈsednē, CHalˈsednē, ˈkalsəˌdōnē, ˈCHalsəˌdōnē] NOUN
cop·pice [ˈkäpəs] NOUN
o·give [ōˈjīv] NOUN
pan·jan·drum [panˈjandrəm] NOUN
ser·aph [ˈserəf] NOUN
Books, books, and more books: I have been reading a lot lately, which is directly related to my mental and emotional inability to force myself to work in the evenings anymore. What was previously part of my daily routine is now just beyond comprehension. Eight to nine hours during the work day is so draining that I have nothing left to give in the evening. My evenings are now spent with a good book. Or a so-so book as I'll explain shortly. Life is better with books, even the so-so ones. "Here, There Be Dragons" by James Owen was the first book completed this week. I read this with my older daughter, so this book was not read all in one week. This was an enjoyable story set in the later days of The Great War (WWI) that weaves together many of the literary myths of Western culture. The central artifact that binds the myths is a book called the Imaginarium Geographica which has been handed down through the centuries from some of the greatest figures in Western history. Losing the book means losing the world, and our trio of heroes do exactly that. There have been other books that taught me history while I have read them, such as The Baroque Cycle, but this was probably the first one that was consumable by a teen / Young Adult audience. Definitely worth a read, and definitely worth reading the second in the series. The next book completed this week was Petroski's "The Evolution of Useful Things" that I quoted from last week. This was a disappointment overall, and I'm not sure I would recommend it. The history of the paper clip and the stapler were interesting, and the first discussions on the US patent system were interesting, but repeated quotes from patent applications throughout the 20th century did little but bore me. However, there were two more quotes that are worth sharing. The first is an informal definition of engineering: … it is rather the art of not constructing: or, to define it rudely, but not inaptly, it is the art of doing well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion." The second quote from Petroski comes from the final pages, and is a good summary of one of the book's key points, namely, that perfection is a myth, and any assumption of perfection is completely subjective and strictly time limited. The real or perceived failings of product or process in the mind of a particular inventor are the genesis of the next idea or evolution of the current idea. What constitutes failure and what improvement is not totally objective, for in the final analysis a considerable list of criteria, ranging from the functional to the aesthetic, from the economic to the moral, can come into play." Moving on, the next book was "The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home" by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger Henderson. This book was full of interesting tidbits and things to try, from a two sentence description of how to make homemade gnocchi, to a detailed description of sewing various articles of clothing. Plus, I learned that vinegar is really just sour wine, which in French is vin aigre. Mind. Blown. Finally, I read "The Worst is Yet to Come: A Post-Capitalist Survival Guide" by Peter Fleming. This was a quick read, clocking in at a bit over 100 pages, with fairly small pages at that. Fleming has nothing good to say about neoliberalism, but his "Survival Tips" at the end of each section are more summations than actual action steps. For example, saying that Donald Trump eating hamburgers naked in bed might be the antithesis of the path forward, but he does not provide any way of getting beyond that image. If Fleming is to be believed, the next generation is in for a historically oppressive shitshow, meaning that any preparation coming out of this book would be for the long game. Happy Birthday. Your gift is a messed up world heading for oblivion: The house was filled with pre-teens one afternoon this week in celebration of our older daughter's birthday. The collection of strong, confident, and intelligent young people coincided with me reading Fleming's dire predictions for the future. I could have, maybe even should have, been depressed for their future, and wallowed in my guilt over the waste of potential and promise. But one of the themes in Fleming's book stuck was the need to prepare, to find alternatives while we still can, and that stuck in my head as I watched the next generation laugh and interact. All of a sudden my job, my role, my reason for being became obvious. I need to do everything I can to hold on to the world and the values that we hold true so that we can hand them as much of a contiguous whole as we can. We have to hand them our values, our mistakes and learning, our histories, and our dreams for the future, along with the tools and supports they need so they can unfuck the world when they are ready. My generation isn't capable of unfucking anything, but maybe we can help our children's generation become the saviors we need. Bring Your Dice To Work Day (BYDTWD): My last day of guest DM'ing for our weekly at work lunch hour D&D session was this week. Matt Colville talks about how D&D is the perfect hobby because no matter what your creative impulse is, you can express it in the game. Writing. Crafting. Drawing. Hell, probably even knitting for that matter. For me, it is the writing and the acting. My thoughts now move on to curating my own group. Age, gender, background are all irrelevant for the group, but mindset is essential. More RP than min-max. Combat is only a part of the game. Ability to commit to email sessions, and long sessions preferably in person. Consistent play times. Supportive of others. Interested in the story more than the loot. But how do I find these people? Advertise on Kijiji? This is something that will need more thinking. Idiot? Me?! I suppose I brought it on myself to an extent. I don't change into crappy jeans and a t-shirt if I have to go to a place like the Lawnmower Hospital. I understand that I don't fit it there, but I needed a mulching blade for our mower and they don't sell those at the bookstores, comic shops, Henry Singer, Eddie Bauer, or anywhere else I typically shop. So excuse me all to hell for buying such a lightweight blade, which really should be excuse me all to hell for buying an electric mower in the first place. But really, did that guy need to mutter "Idiot" to me as I walked by? I can handle the comment, as I can ignore small-minded people. My concern is whether or not the comment was directed at me because he felt empowered to do so with the current political climate. If a white, middle-aged male can get trash talked, imagine the abuse an immigrant, a women, a person of color, a gay person, will have to endure as we hurtle into the abyss. Throwaway Text: She was friendly, fun to be with, energetic. Pretty, if I was being honest. I liked her and whenever our shifts matched up, I contrived to leave the fulfillment center with her. We would walk to the bus stop and wait in the dusk for our buses. 46 for her, and then the 95 ten minutes later for me. Sometimes we would skip the first buses that came by just so we could talk longer. After, I would sit on the bus and think about her all the way home. On the days I got to spend those precious few minutes with her, I wouldn't even notice the grime in my flat or smell the piss-filled alley it emptied onto. The world was just better on those days. That all changed the day she became a liability. It was clear that it was her third strike, but I never knew what exactly it was. Maybe too long in the bathroom. Maybe she broke something. Maybe they just didn't like how she hummed while she compiled the boxes of useless shit that the customers ordered. Whatever it was, she hit her third strike, and there was nothing we could do but watch. Third strikers were a liability to everyone around them, and I couldn't afford to have her take me down as well. They always made us watch when a third striker was escorted out. The hysteria, the crying, the near epileptic fits of panic. We saw it all. We knew what it meant. When the only job you could find was in a fulfillment center, losing that job probably meant you were going to be homeless. Or dead. Or worse. I looked into her eyes as she was pushed past the gathered crowd. Past me. Out the door. When she looked at me, I saw the pain and fear, but I also saw an understanding. She didn't blame me for not reaching out or helping her. She knew there was no point in me condemning myself as well. I had never felt so hollow, so pathetic. That night after work, I watched the 46 come and go. The 95 came and took me home. I noticed the grime and smell much more clearly that night. New beers: Five new beers this week, after none last week. First was Screaming Viking Lager from Odin Brewing in Tukwila, Washington. I liked it a lot, which says a lot since it is a lager. (3.5 / 5) Second was Odin's Gift Red, another offering from Odin. Good stuff again in a style I don't typically like. I'll have to search out more from Odin. (3.5 / 5) Third was the Millionaire Stout from Wild Beer Co. in Somerset, England. Really nice stuff, with the dense brown foam that I am fond of in this style. (3.75 / 5). Fourth was Fish Bone New England IPA from Alley Kay, a surprisingly high IBU beer without a huge amount of hops. (3.75 / 5). Finally, the Oldman Watershed Collective benefit brew from Phillips. That was a surprising kolsch variant with a lot of haziness. (3.75 / 5). All in all, a good week for new beers. New words:
Lots of new words this week, but that is to be expected when reading a book by a UK professor and another by Neal Stephenson. nixtamalization n ɪ ʃ t ə m əl aɪ ˈ z eɪ ʃ ən a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes wood ash lye), washed, and then hulled. pu·ru·lent [ˈpyo͝or(y)ələnt] ADJECTIVE
a·poth·e·o·sis [əˌpäTHēˈōsəs] NOUN
prof·li·gate [ˈpräfləɡət] ADJECTIVE
mon·ad [ˈmōˌnad] NOUN
e·qui·poise [ˈekwəˌpoiz] NOUN
in·ter a·li·a [ˌintər ˈālēə, ˌintər ˈälēə] ADVERB
jer·e·mi·ad [ˌjerəˈmīəd] NOUN
sat·ur·nine [ˈsadərˌnīn] ADJECTIVE
di·a·lec·tic [ˌdīəˈlektik] NOUN
in·vid·i·ous [inˈvidēəs] ADJECTIVE
or·rer·y [ˈôrərē] NOUN
di·er·e·sis [dīˈerəsəs] NOUN
in·ef·fa·ble [inˈefəb(ə)l] ADJECTIVE
tau·tol·o·gy [tôˈtäləjē] NOUN
con·com·i·tant [kənˈkämədənt] ADJECTIVE
in·vet·er·ate [inˈvedərət] ADJECTIVE
per·ni·cious [pərˈniSHəs] ADJECTIVE
bod·kin NOUN
pri·va·tion NOUN
man·sard [ˈmanˌsärd] NOUN
with·ers [ˈwiT͟Hərz] NOUN
om·ni·um gath·er·um [ˌämnēəm ˈɡaT͟Hərəm] NOUN
pro·lix ADJECTIVE
Longplayer Trust: And by long, I mean long, as in a musical composition able to last an entire millennium. Longplayer has created exactly that, with a composition that will last through the entire 2xxx's. From their overview on longplayer.org: Longplayer is a one thousand year long musical composition. It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again.
Accenture sued over website redesign so bad it Hertz: Not my line, but I wish it was. Hat tip to The Register for the bon mot for their coverage of how badly Accenture performed on a website redesign for Hertz. The article quotes from the lawsuit Hertz filed, noting ignored specs, ignored standards, and ignored best practices. But let's face it, the best part of the article was the headline. Bring Your Dice To Work Day: The latest section of the dungeon crawl that I am guest DM-ing in our weekly Wednesday lunch hour D&D session has a lot for the players to encounter:
New words: pro·pin·qui·ty [prəˈpiNGkwədē] NOUN
grav·id [ˈɡravəd] ADJECTIVE
fe·cund ADJECTIVE
lim·i·nal [ˈlimənl] ADJECTIVE technical
Krav Ma·ga [ˌkräv məˈɡä] NOUN
ru·gose [ˈro͞oˌɡōs] ADJECTIVE biology
New beers:
It was a quiet week on the beer front with only one entry. Buzzsaw Mead from Tamarack Jack's was good, but not quite as good as their Sawyer Hopped Mead that I had last week. (3.5 / 5) |
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