DShomshak

A rare recurring nova may be preparing to blast again: Explosive star event will create once-in-a-lifetime sight in the sky. Here’s how to see it (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season 3. Not as much pure silliness this time. Some episodes are actually quite dark. But still funny overall, still excellent and recognizable Trek, plus delving deeper into the characters. Rutherford's past explained, Mariner recognizes her commitment to Starfleet, Tendi gets her pirate on, and Boimler gets Bold. Subtler toss-off bit: Boimler and Picard both come from families of vintners. But the Picards make wine in France, while the Boimlers make raisins in California. I wonder if they'll do anything more with this? Once again, though, the funniest "bit" was a toss-off call-back to a past series. "We've got *another* ancient mask situation..." I hope my library gets Season Four soon. Dean Shomshak

All Things Considered tells me that in late February, Horsetail Falls in Yosemite Park sometimes catches the light of the setting sun to glow like golden fire: the Fire Fall. Here's the story: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234996308/the-fickle-golden-magic-of-the-yosemite-fire-fall Here's an image: It happens only a few minutes, weather conditions permitting. What happens if you step into the Fire Fall? Gain super-powers? Transport to another world? Release a powerful spirit? Something beyond getting wet, as it is obviously an intensely magical event. Dean Shomshak

On the flip side, apparently some Democrats are trying to think of last-minute ways to prevent Trump from taking office: How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t (msn.com) Though the article title isn't very accurate. Mostly it quotes Congressional Democrats saying they really, *really* want to take the "insrrection question" off their hands, and off the table. Best, of course, would be SCOTUS ruling that, why yes, Donald Trump's actions on Jan. 6 constituted insurrection and he is disqualified. But that's not likely. Quoted Dems say that if SCOTUS rules the other way, that the 14th Amendment definitely does *not* apply, they'll accept it and move on. It's only if SCOTUS avoids any clear ruling that Congressional action (and constitutional crisis) even becomes possible. I admit: I do think Dems should look into any sort of legal pettifoggery they can use to keep Trump out of office. But they also need to recognize that Republicans are much better at this sort of thing than Democrats. It's probably more important to anticipate the quasi-legal tricks Republicans will attempt, and find ways to forestall them. Dean Shomshak

Likewise. And crocodilians are real survivors, having been around since the Triassic (earlier than the dinosaurs, IIRC). Though I am glad the "drop croc" -- a crocodilian whose skeleton suggests it climbed trees -- probably went extinct more than 10,000 years ago. BTW, I made alligator-men central to an unofficial project I did for White Wolf's game Exalted. https://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/332532-dzibilchan-empire-of-the-alligator-dean-shomshak Dean Shomshak

A description of the especially extreme Evangelical doctrine that shaped the Alabama Chief Justice's concurrent opinion. This has been going on a long time without mainstream media paying much attention, but it's a movement that makes no secret its explicitly antidemocratic plan is to seize the commanding heights of power and force their version of Christian dogma down everyone else's throat. To fight the demons, doncha know. How the Alabama IVF Ruling Was Influenced by Christian Nationalism | On the Media | WNYC Studios Incidentally, this is the doctrine of my character Rev Gil Purdue (from Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies). Except I thought I was pushing the real doctrine of "Dominion Theology" beyond reality to comic-book extremes. Turns out... I wasn't. Or at least not as far as I thought. Dean Shomshak

OTOH the world is a big place, and infrastructures that took a century to build won't be replaced quickly. Stark Industries can be selling and installing arc reactors as fast as they can be built (and, yes, be swimming in money as a result), and replacing fossil fuels would still be the work of decades. Unless, say, someone tries building really humongous arc reactors that can plug into the grid and power multi-state areas or medium-sized countries. Which is a bad idea from a systems engineering POV because it creates massive single points of failure. But a great idea from a comic book POV because it creates massive power sources villains can hold hostage, or hijack for their conquer-the-world superweapons. Massive single points of failure are bad engineering, but very good for stories! (This incidentally illustrates why I think it's better to consider the *potential* economic effects of supers than to ask what the final result would be, as if it was already done. A changing situation works better for generating conflicts and plots than a done deal.) Dean Shomshak

A week ago, I'd never even heard of Zyn, but apparently it's become a Big Thing in some subcultures. A bit of cultural/political analysuis from Vox, about nicotine pouches and attempts to puff up fragile masculine egos. I post it here because, if true, it's nuts. Mascuzynity: How a nicotine pouch explains the new ethos of young conservative men (msn.com) So glad that when I was growing up, I was told in no uncertain terms that I could never have any sort of social status or acceptance, and I believed it. It removed a lot of pressure and left me free in many ways. Dean Shomshak

In the "Millennium Universe" setting for my campaign, I make super-powers and super-tech a new thing so it hasn't had time to change the world economy. People expect it to, though, and know it can because a few supers came back in time from various possible futures in which it did so. Most notably, the time-traveling/precognitive hero Doctor Future recruited the PCs from futures in which one megavillains destroyed the world. Destroying the world is an economic change, yes? The NPC hero Cyberman was accidentally sent back in time from a future in which maimed soldiers were routinely restored and upgraded through bionics. He's responsible for introducing bionic tech to the Millennium Universe. Prosthetics are better than IRL but still very expensive, and actual super-cyborging is only possible for governments and large corporations. Alien tech has even greater potential. When the small starships piloted by the villainous Intruder and the lawman Officer Pax crashed on Earth, smart people realized the most important technology to be reverse-ingineered might be the proton reactors that powered them. Zetrian proton reactors are safe, reliable nuclear reactors that can be made small enough to power, say, a suit ob powered armor or big enough to power a city. However, Zetrian reactors are made using muonic matter, strange matter, and other substances for which it will take decades to build the requisite infrastructure to produce in quantity. Attempts to build proton reactors of mundane materials have had, well, mixed results. (Such as the megavillain Professor Proton.) But it's only a matter of time until proton reactors make fossil fuels as obsolete as horse-drawn buggies... which is why the villain called the Mahdi hijacked a time portal. In his future, the Middle East stuck with oil and gas to the very bitter end and squandered their sovereign wealth funds in wars, leaving the region geopolitically bankrupt and irrelevant. He is determined both the delay the development of proton reactors, and to conquer a new Caliphate that can use its oil wealth to dominate the world. Contact with aliens also lets people know that contemporary economic and environmental problems are solvable because other species have solved them -- though it took clear thinking and good will as well as tech that to humans seems super. "It could, but not yet," gives me maximum dramatic flexibility. Heroes can know they aren't just beating up one bad guy, who's trying to do one bad thing. (Or even trying to force the world into a worse mode.) They can hope that someday, their battles will lead to a better world overall. Dean Shomshak

I built my supplement, Shared Origins: the Dynatron (available through the Hero Store) around this premise. It's a not-uncommon trope in comics that someone invents a way to give themselves super-powers... but somehow, this never spreads very far. The supervillain Red Giant built a power-granting machine, the Dynatron, out of coomercially available tech, some scavenged from junkyards. Other people have successfully used "dynatrons" he built, though no one else seems able to build copies of their own. After a brief and unimpressive career as a super-robber in a team with friends he also empowered, Red Giant realized he could make immensely more money just selling super-powers. If you've got the money, he's got the origin. Though this approach turns out to have problems of its own. As a business, it's still quite smal and hasn't slid over the edge to world-changing. If you want to know more, read the supplement. Dean Shomshak