DShomshak

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

Since you ask... https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232527478/with-trade-in-the-red-sea-disrupted-tea-has-a-longer-journey-to-british-mugs Dean Shomshak

Well, this is more than I ever thought I'd want to know about the economics of fast food. But thank you, one and all. I am at least persuaded that making drastic changes in just one part of a complex, interconnected business environment is flipping insane. Dean Shomhak

Season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks came in at the library. I've only just started watching (not a binger, me) but I'll note the first episode snarkily inverted one of the overused tropes of, well, many dramas with young protagonists: The People in Charge Are Idiots, So The Kids Must Save The Day. Mariner believes this, all the more because everyone tells her to "trust the system." And for once, she's wrong. Whaddaya know, the people running Starfleet turn out *not* to be idiots, they see as clearly as she does that her mother is being framed, and how (the Original Series episode "Courtmartial" had this), and deal with it competently. As they were supposed to. Wow. Now that's satire. Dean Shomshak

When I try reading the article, a subscription "offer" pops up with no apparent way out except close the tab or agree to subscribe, so I haven't read it. But I'd lay good odds alcohol was involved, too. Tempers fraying, alcohol reducing judgment and inhibitions, lethal force at hand... homicide used to be a lot more common. All those Norse sagas about murder in the mead-hall. As Stephen Pinker argued in Better Angels of Our Nature, the long "pacification project" to suppress mass violence has been supplemented in recent centuries by a "civilizing project" to train people that violence is unseemly and to seek alternate means of conflict resolution. But the civilizing project is still uneven, as shown by homicide rates in different countries, different parts of countries, and different subcultures. The US is more violent than most developed countries; but there are wide regional variations; and even in cities often deemed "violent"" the homicides are concentrated in certain neighborhoods where gangs are strong and the rule of law is weak. Unfortunately, civilization remains a thin screen to hold back savagery -- and recent decades have seen concerted attempts, some with malice aforethought, to fray that screen. Knuckleheads pulling guns over petty disputes or perceived disrespect show humanity at its most natural. And it could get much worse. Dean Shomshak

A recent The Daily episode dealt with Biden's supposed senility. The reporter noted that Biden has a very long history of mixing up names and sentences that wander off into unexpected territory. Also addressed the cognitive advantages of old age: less glib, but better judgment. Slower speed, but better aim, so to speak. I am reminded here of the assessment of someone who knows former House Speaker Newt Gingrich well. In ten minutes the man can be relied on to come out with ten startling, original, and superficially brilliant ideas... half of which contradict the other half, and nine out of ten of which turn out to be batsh*t insane once you look at them closely. Really, not someone I would want with his hand on The Big Red Button. As I grow older myself, I place greater value on temperament than cleverness. I trust Biden to at least try to do the right thing, even if I may disagree with him about what the right thing is. Dean Shomshak

"Insidiously mundane" -- that's a good phrase I'll have to remember. Dean Shomshak

I try to resist clickbait, but this was just too funny when it turned up in my front-page newsfeed. You wanna talk reclaiming historic territories of your great, great empire? Mongolia has a comment or two. Mongolia's former president mocks Putin with a map showing how big the Mongol empire used to be, and how small Russia was (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

From the February 2024 issue of Scientific American: The world uses enormous quantities of sand, construction to silicon chips. This makes illegal sand mining one of the biggest rackets in the world, far exceeding other forms of illegal mining. Since this is Scientific American, much of the concern is about the resulting environmental damage -- but the big money in sand mining can corrupt governments at every level and fund other unsavory activities. Googling "sand mafia" turns up many other articles for further research. Illegal sand mining might be difficult to work into the usual urban vigilante Dark Champions game, but you might fit it into an international espionage game. Imagine a James Bond-style mastermind who uses sand mining to fund his terrorist scheme, coup plot or diabolical weapon. The death trap for captured agents should be obvious. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sand-mafias-are-plundering-the-earth/ Dean Shomshak

From The Economist: The bad news is that climate change is forecast to reduce the area where current favored coffee spe ies can grosw. The good news is that there are losts of other species of coffee, with other favored climate ranges. Agronomists are hard at work studying them, with an eye to replacing/supplementing coffea arabica and coffea robusta, or crossbreeding to create a hardier plant. Your morning cuppa joe can be saved -- BY SCIENCE! https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/01/23/can-scientists-save-your-morning-cup-of-coffee Dean Shomshak

The largest crime a villain ever attempted in play in any of my Champions campaigns was Doctor Thame's attempt to destroy the universe. There's a hypothesis in physics called the "decay of the false vacuum": in brief, that space itself has an intrinsic level of energy, but this could be lower; and if something happened to convert even the tiniest speck of the universe to this lower energy state, the rest of the universe would nigh-instantaneously drop to this lower energy level as well. This would of course destroy all matter in the current universe, as there would be entirely new laws of physics. Or none, if the new energy state was in fact zero, meaning no matter or energy at all. Thane wanted to test the hypothesis by inducing such a phase shift. He was highly confident his dimensional force field would keep him alive for at least several seconds, long enough to observe the result of the experiment if it succeeded. No, he did not have someplace else to go afterward: He fully expected success to kill him, but at least he would know. Anything for Science! The PCs of Avant Guard got their first clue what Doctor Thane was attempting when their precognitive leader, Doctor Future, made a routine look into the future and saw there wasn't one. So the universe was saved, apparently at cost of the life of Doctor Thane and Doctor Future. Both were time travelers, though, so either of them might reappear in the campaign. (I admit, LL's plan for Xarriel does top Doctor Thane's.) Dean Shomshak

I rewrote Nebula and Duress for one of my relatively recent Champions games. I made Nebula an Arcturan (alien race in our galaxy, notably advanced technology), who was transporting a criminal past Earth when a space-time kerflooey dragged in her spaceship and spit the criminal out of Earth. (The villain Nightfall, whose 5e character sheet I posted some time ago). Her chameleon implant was damaged in the kerflooey, so she managed human form but the colors were off. For my rewrite, I expanded her capabilities a bit -- including giving her some more Skills that would actually be useful for a cop. My version of the Duress gauntlets created a pocket dimension about 100 meyters wide, a separate dimension for each prisoner. The pocket dimension has no light, air, or other matter, so unless prisoners has suitable Life Support they will of course start dying immediately -- but the field pervading the dimension makes death impossible. Prisoners experience dying in the vacuum of space, all alone in darkness, until other machines are used to pull them out. Nebula herself could not do this, a hedge against Arcturan cops being forced to release prisoners. If the Proper Authorities deem a captive was not guilty of a crime, the memory of being in Duress is erased. Arcturans figure that if you don't remember the suffering, it didn't happen, so no real harm done. If the gauntlets that created each pocket universe are destroyed, well, oops, the prisoners can't be retrieved and suffer forever. Dean Shomshak

So a couple right-wingers finally suffered consequences for climate change denial with malice aforethought, but I admit the details of the verdict and judgment seem... odd. At least as this story reports them. Famed climate scientist wins million-dollar verdict against right-wing bloggers (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

Explosive outrage would be my guess. But it's important to remember -- this would not be hypocritical, given the axioms of conservatism. As political scientist Corey Robin says on the video that Pattern Ghost posted, one of the fundamental assumptions of conservatism is inequality. People are *not* morally equal, and those of greater worth should rule over those of lesser worth. For an Evangelical, burning LGBTQ-inclusive books defends the righteous order ordained by God; burning Bibles defies that order. And suggesting equivalence between the two cases also constitutes such defiance. It's pointless arguing with people about axioms. ADDENDUM: Reading the article, I also noticed that Ms Gomez appears to have no freaking clue what job she's running for. Unless the office of Secretary of State is *very* different in Missouri than in Washington, I'm pretty sure they don't decide what goes in school libraries. Dean Shomshak

I like Mr. Zahorulko's art very much. Excellent, clean style. Thank you for sharing. Dean Shomshak