DShomshak

I listen to the public radio program Marketplace. Every day, host Kai Ryssdahl ends with a small, random bit of business/economics news. Today, it was that the global supply chain clogs also affect farmers: They cannot obtain all the chemical fertilizer they want, at the time they want, at the time they want it. So farmers are going old-school, substitution natural fertilizer. But that surge in demand results in a secondary shortage... of manure. "You can't make this stuff up," Mr Ryssdahl says. (Insert your own jokes here.) Actually, I suspect there is not really a shortage of poo. (More jokes.) But there might be a shortage of facilities to collect, process and distribute it as field-usable manure. (Still more jokes.) Dean Shomshak .)

I heard about this on the BBC a few days ago. Here's a news story. http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/wide-orbit-gas-giant-b-centauri-10351.html In brief: A planet estimated 10 times larger than Jupiter, found orbiting a massive B-type star (3x hotter than the sun and far more luminous) -- and a binary star as well -- and its distance from its star is 100x Jupiter's distance from the Sun. Oh, and it's directly imaged. It pushes the boundaries of what was thought possible for exoplanets, in multiple ways. Dean Shomshak

Beat me to it. "Little Drummer Boy" is just such a tiresome, monotonous song. Dean Shomshak

Huh. And here I thought the "warp bubble" article was just another case of inept pop-science writing, tarting up obscure and technical results to sound grand and exciting. In this case, it seems the writer of the article accurately reported the tarting-up done by the alleged scientist. Dean Shomshak

I really, really dislike "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." Actually, I dislike most musical attempts at Christmas "humar," but I find this one particularly annoying, in ways I won't bother trying to analyze because life is short. But there's one that's far worse: "Grandma Got Run Over Drinking Rainier." A parody of a parody, and so doubly idiotic in its attempt to be clever. Very much a song to amuse drunken morons. (For those who never lived in the Pacific Northwest, we used to have Rainier Beer. Maybe still do, for all I know. That's Rainier as in Mount Rainier, one of our local volcanic landmarks, not Rainier as in "more rainy.") Dean Shomshak

On a much less amusing note, the latest issue of Atlantic features a review article of the Republican Party's repudiation of democracy, from the flaming rage of its base to the development of, shall we say, novel and creative readings of the Constitution. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/ As Gellman says, it has become clear that the Jan. 6 insurrection was just the dress rehearsal. Dean Shomshak

THE TRUTH IS FINALLY OUT!!!!! https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/technology/birds-arent-real-gen-z-misinformation.html Sometimes you need to laugh. Because the only alternative is screaming, and once you start you might not be able to stop. Dean Shomshak

And for my alternate-history Fantasy Europa campaign, I jotted down a list of exotic substances that could supply points for magic item creation, ranging from the bones of saints to water from the core of a thunder egg or geode. Taking a cue from the grinoires of ceremonial magic, in which rituals must be performed at specific times or places, I also assigned point values to times and places of occult significance. Easy circumstances with low point values: Full moon, thunderstorm, churchyard at least 100 years old. Incredibly difficult, with high point value: "green flash" at sunset, planetary conjunction that happens only once a century, the South Pole. None of this ever got used, as none of the PCs ever wanted to make a magic item. Dean Shomshak

My second "Supermage" playtest campaign included a story arc set on the magic-soaked world of Loezen. As part of designing that setting, I invented various materials that were sometimes used in magic items: power crystals called Wizard Spar, resonant Sonorglass (an impooirtant school of magic relied on musical instruments), green-hued Sunsilver, and pale blue Cerulium. The antigravity metal Ascendium, which supported the flying cities of the long-ago Age of the Cloud Lords, is of course now very rare since mislaid bits fall into the sky. I didn't assign specific point values, though. It was all just "local color." Dean Shomshak

Magical materials are an important part of the Exalted game. Most magic items incorporate at least one of the Five Magical Materials -- jade, orichalcum, moonsilver, starmetal or soulsteel -- which have special affinities to the Terrestrial, Solar, Lunar, Sidereal or Abyssal Exalted. However, there are also other materials that are magical, ranging from the natural but rare, to the supernatural, to things that should be flat-out impossible, except powerful Exalted and certain other creatures can do "impossible" things. The Books of Sorcery: the Black and White Treatises has an extensive discussion with numerous examples. Magic items in Exalted don't cost character points, but you could crib the ideas and assign point values to various materials. Dean Shomshak

Like TJack, I think Strike Force is the best game supplement I've ever seen, with the best advice I've ever seen on running a campaign. Aaron Allston is one of my heroes. dean Shomshak

My bad phrasing, not theirs. "Structure" might be a better word. Dean Shomshak

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8jaq/vast-strands-in-the-cosmic-web-that-connects-the-universe-are-spinning-scientists-find Do galaxies just whiz around at random? Maybe not: This study finds evidence that the immense strands of dark matter that comprise the "cosmic web" are spinning. Or at least the galaxies embedded within the strands are moving in corkscrew paths. What does it mean? The authors aren't sure. But they suspect it's a clue to some deeper order in the plan of the universe. Dean Shomshak

Until recently, I was Googling articles, copying the link from the page of search results, then pasting the link. That stopped working a couple months ago. I don't know why: whether something changed in my computer, AOHell, Google, the forum, or the will of the Great God Oom. Thank you for the suggestion; I'll give that a try. I had indeed never heard of it. Me big tech dummy, and I stopped even looking for "Help" files when so many of them were useless or worse than useless. Dean Shomshak

And now for something completely different. I recommend an article called "The Power of Agroecology" from the November, 2021 Scentific American. Agroecology is about as complete a departure from current commercial agriculture as one can imagine, being developed among the poorest of Third World farmers; the article deals particularly with some villages in northern Malawi. Instead of gigantic fields growing just one variety of just one crop, drenched in fertilizers and pesticides, it's an approach for small farms with crops chosen for local soil and weather conditions, often with multicropping so the crops assist each other -- particularly using legumes such as beans or peanuts to put nitrogen into the soil. Which sounds a lot like "How farming was done before industrial farming was invented," except the farmers have access to varietals from around the world, and have scientific agronomists to help them assess the results of their agricultural experiments. Most of the knowledge gained, though, comes from the experiments of the farmers themselves. The Malawi project has already shown that this approach can enrich soils instead of depleting them, improve locals' nutrition (especially among the young -- Malawi suffers terribly from childhood malnutrition), and create agricultural surplus that can be sold, enhancing the local economy as well as each family. It also uses less water and other resources. So what does this have to do with politics? Everything. Author Raj Patel argues that extreme poverty in Malawi and other Third World countries is created and maintained politically -- particularly by international lenders such as the IMF and World Bank. The money loaned to develop economies must be paid back with interest... and countries are expected to get that money by growing cash crops for export, instead of food for their own people. Any profis are also immediately sucked out by paying for chemical fertilizer and other tools of agribusiness. And demands soon arise for "austerity" in domestic expenditure to make sure the loans get repaid. To be fair, Patel does not specifically and openly call this out as a vicious scam to keep the Third World poor and dependent. He notes in passing a "colonial savior" mentality, that poor brown people cannot possibly be enriched except through integration into the financial and technological infrastructure of the developed world. Now imagine what happens if countries such as Malawi go all in on agroecology, feeding their own people instead of selling cash crops to buy food from abroad. No buying foreign food and fertilizer means more money stays in country, whether for other services or for loan repayment. OTOH, if the people are developing their food supply and the rest of tdheir economy by themselves, they might not need more loans. Might even wonder why they should repay loans already made. And a government might have extra incentive to do this if the village co-ops producing the food surplus start asking what they are getting from the central government. Power relationships could shift from village scale to internationally. The power shifts extend even down to the family level. Agroecology does require more time spent farming. In northern Malawi, women do most of the farming, as well as cooking, child-rearing and other home maintenance. To make more time for farming, first men must take a larger share (i.e., any) of household chores. Traditional patriarchy has been one of the trickiest problems, but Patel says the experimenters have found solutions. One of the participants summarizes thus: Women can teach men, Black people can teach white people, the poopr can teach the rich." The potential goes far beyond just an agricultural revolution. Dean Shomshak

I've been meaning to post this since I heard it, but I hate typing in long URLs. It might be of interest given the recent discussion, since it's about how American gun culture turned so weird -- told by Ryan Busse, a gun company insider who turned against the industry because of said cultural changes. (Though he stresses he still hunts and shoots for sport, and teaches his children likewise.) It was the Nov. 22, 2021 episode of the public radio program Fresh Air. Mr. Busse has written a book about it, called "Gunfight." https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2021/11/22/1057244756/fresh-air-for-nov-22-2021-gunfight-author-ryan-busse?showDate=2021-11-22 In brief: The change was engineered by the NRA and some rather strange fanatics in the gun industry. Dean Shomshak

I remember that some years ago, the Tacoma News Tribune reported on a case of a "good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun." IIRC the case involved a robber with a gun who took a hostage as he tried to get away, and an armed local pastor who ended up shooting and killing the criminal. In the news story, the pastor described how he held back until the robber's increasingly erratic conduct left him convinced the robber would, absolutely definitely, kill the hostage once they reached a car. It was the last resort, by someone with the self-control to know it was the last resort. EDIT: Racking my memory, I think the situation may have been that the robber was waving a gun around but had not yet taken a hostage, until he moved from the mall where he'd attempted the robbery, to a parking lot -- where he tried to hijack a car. He was pointing his gun at a specific person, at close range, threatening to kill them, and acting crazy enough that a reasonable person could suspect the dfriver was about to die no matter what they did. I wish I could post a link to the specific article, but, well, it was years ago. It's also an anecdote, and at best a single event only constitutes a proof that something is possible -- which says nothing about where the balance of competing imperatives may lie, or the likelihood of different outcomes. All I know for sure is that with my bad eyesight, I should never, ever hold a gun. Dean Shomshak

One of the things for which I am thankful is that my family ignores all the post-Thanksgiving sales (which now extend at least a week before Thanksgiving). Bloody Communists, we are. No proper American reverence for retail. Just family getting together for a nice dinner, and remembering how lucky we are to have that dinner, a roof over our heads, and each other. Dean Shomshak

At least All Things Considered said, repeatedly, that police would not speculate about the perp's motives, and did not offer speculations of their own. But even they have, all too often, brought on Expert Guests to pontificate on the mental workings and social meanings of perps that said experts never met. As the son of a journalist who was careful with his sources, I find it irritating. ATC said this afternoon that bail was set at $5 million, IIRC. Dean Shomshak

Hermit, Anne Applebaum's recent article in The Atlantic suggests your nightmare scenario is not unlikely at all. The despots have coalesced into a bloc. They aid each other, from evading sanctions to undermining democratic governments. Like, Balarus' Lukashenko gets aid from both communist Cuba and theocratic Iran. Let's see if I can type in the link: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-autocrats-are-winning/620526/ To add top the gloom, my local paper includes a squib that the Stockholm-based Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance added the US to its list of "democratically backsliding" countries in its Global State of Democracy 2021 report. More than a quarter of the world's population now lives in democratically backsliding countries. Dean Shomshak

Meanwhile, the November '21 issue of Scientific American features a photo essay on prepping the James Webb Space Telescope for launch. I did not expect so much gold foil. Read to find out why. Also a small story about an alternate geological history for Gale Crater and Mount Sharp on Mars, based on the information from the Curiosity rover: not a deep, long-lasting lake but small, brief puddles. Unfortunately, the nearest equipment that could resolve the question is on the Perseverence rover, thousands of kilometers away. Also a short article that links geology, microbiology and astrophysics. An interdisciplinary study suggests connections between changes in the length of Earth's day and the appearance of free oxygen in eary Earth's atmosphere. Possibly worth the attention of SF worldbuilders. Dean Shomshak

NOVA has been showing another astronomy m ini-series, "Universe Revealed," with episodes about Stars, the Milky Way, Alien Worlds, Black Holes, and (upcoming) the Big Bang. The CGI has been pretty. Milky Way and Alien Worlds had some information that was new to me, such as that the GAIA mission found a population of stars that orbit gthe Milky Way in retrograde, from which astronomers infer a galaxy (dubbed GAIA-Enceladus) that the Milky Way absorbed several billion years ago. But the programs are marred by not enough airtime spent explaining why astronomers believe various results are true, and too much airtime on astronomers waving their arms while saying how amazing something is. Plus the usual banalities about Knowing Where We Came From and Why It Matters. (Note to science program writers: We wouldn't be watching if we didn't already think it was cool and it mattered. So don't waste our time selling the subject.) Some attempts to explain things in "common person" terms, such as comparing black holes to waterfalls, were more bizarre than useful. And some information was, if not false, then sufficiently lacking in context that I consider it misleading. Maybe all the background explanations are given in supplemental material online, making the aired program a sort of extended trailer to entice people to the real content. I didn't look to see, because I would still consider that bad writing. All in all, "Universe Revealed" has been a disappointment. Dean Shomshak

Indeed, the game scenarios practically write themselves. Champions, Fantasy Hero, Pulp Hero, Call of Cthulhu... And the article mentioned snakes, for extra fun! Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/ EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name. As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison. Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually. (And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.) Dean Shomshak

Thanks, Opal! I never looked at 4th ed D&D, so I didn't know about that. Indeed, Tasha's presents personalized FX as an option, take it or leave it. I thought the influence might come from Critical Roll, a YouTube channel (I think) that streams the D&D 5e game of a group of Hollywood voice actors. Some of my friends follow it and say it's a very good campaign by any standards; and because the participants are all actors, they portray their characters well. It's become remarkably popular. Anyway, they've been personalizing their spell descriptions for a while now. Dean Shomshak