Jump to content

DShomshak

HERO Member
  • Posts

    3,195
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    27

DShomshak last won the day on February 12

DShomshak had the most liked content!

2 Followers

Recent Profile Visitors

2,010 profile views

DShomshak's Achievements

  1. This weekend's episode of On the Media discussed the bill to ban TikTok: why it's ridiculous, and how it could backfire. More relevant to my interests, though, was the second segment on the surge in book ban attempts and how Moms for Liberty fits into a long history of attacks on public education. In brief, some conservatives hate public education on first principles, because it's public and therefore socialistic. Other conservatives simply want to control it as a tool of social engineering, to instill the particular forms of patriotism and piety they believe in. (As usual, conservatives accuse liberals of doing what they want to do -- just not in the direction they approve of.) Either way, the goal is to foster suspicion of public education so that it may eventually be abolished. And polls show it's working, at least for the suspicion part. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media Dean Shomshak
  2. Who is Aaron Rodgers? <goes to Wikipedia> Egad. Actually rather frightening that 10% *would* support a ticket with Aaron Rodgers. Though the article did point me to the "Tartarian Architecture" conspiracy theory, which I'd never heard of before. And wow, it's a doozy. Positively baroque. Or maybe Gothic Revival <snerk>. To be fair, I wouldn't automatically discount a retired pro athlete for federal office. IIRC Sen. Bill Bradley also had a distinguished career with the NY Knicks. A friend told me that a local fellow called Marshawn Lynch has mad skills at money management, which the federal government could probably use, and I gather he also played football pretty wall. Dean Shomshak
  3. I'm sure the outlined plot can work, and probably work well. The only advice I'd offer, based on my experience and the other (and better) GMs in my group, is: Don't overplan. Develop the characters, locations, Bases, and other resources you think you'll need, but keep the actual storylines loose so the players can change them through the PCs' actions. Possibly have DEMON, Nimue, or other Big Bad attempting some other villainous plot that the PCs can thwart, but the villains accidentally set something bigger in motion that leads to the Progenitor-related endgame. It's as much a surprising plot twist to the bad guys as to the heroes. Players often miss the plot cues you dangle in front of them, especially when you think you've made them especially obvious. If the players won't proactively follow the leads you've given, or can't decide which villain to pursue first, prep a few villainous plans for the PCs to react to, and hope you can tie them in later. Dean Shomshak
  4. Gods being fickle is a prime reason to build temples. The article's mention of hundreds of miles of pipes reminds me of the NOVA episode about the ruined city of Petra in Jordan, perhaps best known to movie audiences as the setting for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. A poet called it the "rose-red city, half as old as time." Petra was a rich trading city on the frankincense trail from Yemen to the Mediterranean. Its greatest marvel, though, might have been its reservoir and urban pool, fed by an immense system of channels and cisterns built to catch every drop of rain that fell anywhere near the city. IIRC the city fell when a massive earthquake broke the dam of the main reservoir. Hm. More grim foreshadowings for Californians to consider. But it was a wonderful city while it lasted. ...And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. --T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land Though for a contrary view: On their own feet they came, or on shipboard, Camelback, horseback, ass-back, mule-back, Old civilizations put to the sword. They and their wisdom went to rack. No handiwork of Callimichaus, Who handled marble as if it were bronze, Made draperies that seemed to rise When sea-wind swept the corner, stands; His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem Of a slender palm, stood but a day; All things fall and are built again, And those that build them again are gay. --William Butler Yeats, "Lapis Lazuli" (I drew on the water system of Petra when writing the revised and explanded description of the desert city of Gem, for White Wolf's game Exalted. It was a running gag through the game that Gem was always on the verge of being destroyed.) Dean Shomshak
  5. Indeed, Biden didn't actually say, "You want a piece of the old man? Come at me, punks," but that's sort of the impression I got. And past time. Dean Shomshak
  6. "Infinite accumulation of wealth" is not a problem unique to capitalism. As Acemoglu and Robinson note in How Nations Fail, there's evidence that from the moment human societies began generating surpluses, there've been ruling classes to expropriate that surplus and use it to entrench their position. Brutal extraction of wealth from the many for the benefit of a few has been the rule across ages and continents. The only exceptions are hunter/gatherer societies so small and/or poor as to have no significant division of labor. A contrary process is possible: Enough of the population has enough wealth (and therefore power) to resist the rulers' desire to extract ever-larger shares of the society's total wealth and power, and indeed share out more wealth and power more broadly, is possible. It's happened in modern centuries. At every step, though, the ruling class resists -- and sometimes succeeds in reversing the outward division of wealth and power, and restores the vicious cycle of wealth concentration, leading to greater concentration of power, which is used to extract and concentrate wealth still further. I'll argue that capitalism is in many ways a social and moral improvement on what came before, in that it requires a large population of customers. The ruling class of the super-rich need to grant the masses at least enough wealth to buy the products of their own labor, or the money machine stops spinning. It's possible that the super-rich decide they don't care, and they'd rather get bigger shares of a smaller pie, which is why the rest of us have to keep pushing for a more distributive, less extractive, ecponomy and political system. It may be that some other system can be devised that generates even more wealth than capitalism and spreads it more equitably. We don't have it yet. Dean Shomshak
  7. Self-interest is a lot more reliabole than altruism, or at least it's more reliable at motivating people. Anyone who wants to change public policy should certainly work on crafting arguments on how the change will benefit you, yes, you, right now or very soon. Any talk of the common good is to help people feel good about their self-interest. (The common good can still be valid, but it isn't what clinches the deal.) The Alabama SC applied the principle of human life starting at conception. They correctly recognized that it was not relevant whether sperm meets egg in a womb or in a lab. To that extent, I laud their rationality. I can only hope that the Alabama legislature's carvingf out an exception for in vitro highlights the irrationality of the core assumption. But I am often disappointed in people's rationality. Dean Shomshak
  8. Likewise. (Though here in Washington, we vote by mail, so there's no "special day.") My 91-year-old mother, likewise. In other Washingtonian political news, three initiatives pushed by Republicans have cleared our Democrat-dominated legislature. Majorities thought they were good ideas, or at least popular ideas. While we have our right-wing wackadoodles, we do still have a few Republicans who still try to present a somewhat sane alternative to Seattle liberals. Dean Shomshak
  9. According to the ABC News article on my newsfeed, the 9 justices were unanimous in ruling that states can't decide who can appear on ballots for federal office because allowing it would lead to chaos. That's fair. Without a firm definition of insurrection, leaving the states to decide would lead to caprice. Five of the conservatives went further, though, in saying that only Congress can decide 14th Amendment applicability. The three liberals disagreed, saying that SCOTUS should keep its ruling as narrow as possible and leave the door open for other (federal) means of 14th Amendment application. Amy Coney Barret wrote her own concurring opinion similarly arguing for the narrowest possible ruling, but stressing how important it was that all 9 had agreed on the basic issue. Notably, SCOTUS did *not* exonerate Trump. Though the majority ruling would seem to forestall suing in the SCOTUS itself to keep Trump out on 14th Amendment grounds. Dean Shomshak
  10. This was one of many TOS episodes where I wished TNG and other series' in that time period had shown what happened later. What became of the Kelvans-turned-humans? They were still formidable and knew technology beyond that of the Federation. A few others: Balok (Corbomite Maneuver) and the crewman who went off on cultural exchange. The Iotians (A Piece of the Action). Did they ever demand a piece of the Federation's action? (I imagine an Iotian security officer encountering one of those annoying immune-to-phasers monsters. He slaps his comm badge and says, "Computer: Implement program, 'Chicago Way.'" A fedora beams onto his head and a tommygun into his waiting arms. BRATATATAT. Monster go down.) Eminiar and Vendikar (A Taste of Armageddon). Even if Kirk did in fact stop their simulated war (only the casualties were real), what did their people think of the Federation's means of doing so? (Leaders and common folk might have different views._ The Horta! (Devil in the Dark) I would so love to have seen the reborn species join the Federation, just to have more non-humanoids (and on a fairly low budget). One of my friends tells me a Horta junior officer appeared in one of the ST novels. The Organians (Errand of Mercy). The Organian Peace Treaty was alluded to in Trouble with Tribbles, but I wonder what the effe de facto gods ng that there was a whole planet of de facto gods who could, if pushed hard enough, intervene. My guess is that the Organians would take their own "Prime Directive" approach and vanish, along with their whole planet, but I think it's a fair question. (No interest in the Metrons from Arena. They were powerful, sure, but they were just preachy @$$holes. Rewatched it recently, and noticed that Kirk was probably correct about the Gorns planning invasion. The Gorns *faked a signal* to lure in the Enterprise. I'm left with the impression that Kirk sussed what the Metrons wanted to hear and gave it to them. I suspect the creative team for Strange New Worlds thinks the same way.) And most of all, the Talosians (The Cage/The Menagerie). I/, told they reappeared in an ep of ST: Discovery, but I think TNG could have had a cool story arc about the Federation sending Picard to open negotiations with the Talosians, in hope of recruiting them and saving them from their addiction to illusion. The Federation would need some compelling reason to seek contact with such dangerous people (though holodecks show that the Keeper's fear of humans falling prey to living in illusion is, well, that ship has sailed.) I have a few thoughts, but I'll not derail the thread further. I did like Lower Decks making a brief visit to Brekka and Ornara, the junkie and supplier planets from one of TNG's better episodes. But, sorry, TNG didn't introduce many other planets where I wanted to learn "what happened next." Dean Shomshak
  11. well, it's nothing new. I forget whether it was Seneca or Cicero -- somebody Roman, anyway -- who said, more or less, "The philosophers think the gods are false. The common folk think the gods are true. The rulers think the gods are useful." Dean Shomshak
  12. Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas According to a recent episode of the "Today Explained" radio program, the latest fad in Romance fiction is "Romantasy," or as some fans call it, "Fairy Smut." Find Mister Right while saving the kingdom from the Dark Lord, that sort of thing. One of the top current authors in this, they said, is Sarah J. Maas (though her work started in YA and has stayed there apparently through publisher inertia). My library had her first book, Throne of Glass, on audiobook, so I listened to it. Late-teen heroine Celaena Sardothien was raised by an assassin after her parents were murdered and became the most feared assasin in the land before being captured and sent to the salt mines. She's pulled out to participate in a contest to become the champion of the king who has already brutally conquered much of the continent and wants to take the rest, too. The two men behind the plan are the young, hawt, and good-hearted (if irritating) Crown Prince, and the young, hawt, and good-hearted (if dour) Captain of the Guard, who are also best friends. Both are attracted to her, and she to both of them, because, duh. The contest becomes a bit more dangerous when other contestants turn up ripped to shreds, with suggestions of occult ritual. There's also a captive princess from one of the conquered countries, and the ghost of a long-dead queen who warns Celaena that someone is trying to unleash a great supernatural evil, and Celaena must win the contest so she'll be in a position to stop it. The immediate threat is dealt with, but this is the start of a series, so the great evil is yet to be revealed, let alone thwarted, and the love triangle is nowhere near resolved. It is perhaps unfair to judge a writer by her first novel, but I was not impelled to seek the rest of the series. The good guys and gals are blandly likeable. Celaena has some trauma, but a lot less than I'd expect given her past. The plot is fairly predictable. World-building is skimpy, though I assume later books go into why the conqueror king outlawed magic (and what that magic was), and why (and how) he encased the old stone castle of his capital with a bigger castle made of architecturally sound glass. But if I really want to know, I'll just read the summary on Wikipedia. Not recommended. Dean Shomshak
  13. https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234998832/the-space-missions-that-aim-to-explore-distant-moons NASA plans probes to Europa and Titan. Dean Shomshak
  14. Does anyone, anywhere, still take seriously the rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition? Merriam-Webster officially declares it to be bunk. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/01/1235354975/prepositions-are-permissible-now-will-english-language-be-ok Plus, the wit of Winston Churchill, and host Ari Shapiro speed-recites all the English prepositions in alphabetical order. Dean Shomshak
  15. OK, so it's expected to die in committee. Probably just posturing for the base. The description of "contributing to social transition" is also so vague that it's hard to imagine it surviving legal challenge before a non-activist judge. (As we have seen, an activist judge could endorse anything.) I suspect the goal (besides virtue signaling) is to terrorize teachers: You might get in trouble even if you don't ostentatiously oppose a student's social transition... becauswe the next bill might pass. Totalitarian regimes always try to make everyone an informer. They demand active collaboration, not merely acquiescence. Dean Shomshak
×
×
  • Create New...