Doctor Bond, Professional Spider-man

James Bond, Doctor Who, and Spider-man. What do these three people have in common? All of them are caucasian, male, and have racist fans. OK, that might seem a little hyperbolic, and it is, but its also mostly true. I bring this up because last week a certain sycophantic, obnoxious, racist ass-hat said that Idris Elba couldn't be Bond because he is black. Not only did he get his facts wrong by claiming James Bond is always supposed to be white and Scottish (despite that he has been played by Scottish, English, Australian, and Welsh actors), but he openly admits to being racist about it.

Look, I get that people who like pop culture tend to want to see more of the same with no changes lest it ruin their show, but grow the fuck up. It doesn't fit with the way you think it "should be" so its automatically ruined? Is James Bond being white (or even male for that matter) that integral to what makes James Bond,  James Bond? I always thought Bond was a badass because he did all the cool spy stuff and was charming and witty while he did it. Race and sex have nothing to do with it.

The same type of thing happened when Peter Capaldi got cast as the current Doctor. In the weeks leading up to the announcement people argued about who should get the part, and a disturbing amount of fans only wanted to see a white, British, male get the part. This is ridiculous, just because it is a change doesn't mean that the show won't be as good. It might be better. Spider-man being biracial also sparked an outcry from people. They all claim to be purists, and I think they are, just not in the way they think.

Basically, what I am saying is that the best part of pop culture artifacts like the Doctor and Spider-man are cool because of what they do and how they do it. Gender and Race have nothing to do with that, and thus don't matter. Spider-man could still swing around and lay out "hilarious" one liners even if they were African American. James Bond could still kill everyone in spectre in cool spy-y ways even if they were Jane Bond. Stop trying to enforce your insecurities on other people.

For the record I think Idris Elba would be a good James Bond. I would also Love to see Chiwetel Ejiofor get the part as well, but thats mostly because I have had a man crush on him since I saw him in Serenity. Natalie Dormer could also do a good job with Bond. Make the casting call on ability, not to fit the character people expect. Hell, maybe they will shake up these over-done characters. The second one of these "white male only" roles gets someone who is not a white or male and does a great job with it, the more people will get over this prejudice. And if they don't, fuck em, the world will turn on despite their hangups.We can't expect to survive (even in a pop culture sense) if we keep pandering to the weak and stupid.

Weakly Cinemeh, Eshi's Top Five

We've been  a bit lax on our movie schedule for a while now, so we haven't had much ammo for a Weekly Cinemeh. I've missed the series (or periodical or whatever you'd call it) so today I'm going lay down my top 5. If you haven't seen these movies, do. Like now.

5. The Maltese Falcon. (Bogey version). This film is the template for American noir. The casting is immaculate, the writing is engaging, and the scenery is spectacular. I'm not usually in the mood for older films so I didn't watch this one until relatively recently at Brian's insistence, but this movie transcends that in a pretty pressing fashion.

4. Die Hard. The first one preferably, but really anything before four. I lump the first three die hard movies here because they aren't terribly different in tone and all three are worthy. Four was fun. Five was insulting. Never make five of a movie. No premise is worth five fucking films. Anyway, Die Hard is the platonic action movie. A strong (but believable), charismatic, protagonist prevailing against superior forces. There is a romantic angle that doesn't overshadow the plot and comes off more as a mutual triumph rather than the standard kill baddy->get nookie trope. Die Hard is also the best Christmas story ever told, so if that's a thing for you this also covers that category.

3. The Big Lebowski. I can't say anything about this movie that hasn't been said. It phenomenal. Fucking watch it.

2.Old Boy. The Korean one, not the shitty Spike Lee rip off.  Old boy has the best hammer violence I've ever seen. Ever. And I'm a huge fan of hammer violence. Also, while we're on the subject, just watch the whole Vengeance Trilogy, it really is a beautiful, fucked up, journey and it is well worth the taking.

1. Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. Alan Tudyk is boss as fuck, just in general. In addition to that, Tucker and Dale is a fun exploration of the slasher movie genre and I love it like orgasms. It's not high cinema, its not a blockbuster, but it is delightful in a way few movies can manage.

See, Gamers Don't HAVE to be Jerks

We have talked about fans on this blog before. I once mentioned that the worst thing about some franchises is the fans that surround them. I was being hyperbolic when I talked about that. Not all fans are bad. Yesterday is a great example of this. Yesterday a bunch of people in the Pokemon community got together and did something nice for new players. In the latest generation of games there is a tool known as "wonder trade" where you can upload a pokemon and trade it for a random pokemon. On Christmas this year a bunch of people started uploading starter pokemon and other rare/nifty pokemon to give the newbies something cool as a Christmas gift when they start their adventures in Honnen. This is a bunch of players going out of their way to be nice to people just starting out.

I have been playing Pokemon since it came out in 1996. I was the perfect age for the target market back then, 10. It was not my first RPG type game, I played a lot of Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy Adventure (which was actually a Dragon Quest game) when I was a kid, but it was my first experience with a game that gave me a ton of control over my party. I got to choose from an impressive list of characters for my party, I could name them, and was forced to think about how to set up a party that would cover all of my bases so I wouldn't get caught unawares. I know what some of you are thinking, "you had to do all of that in Final Fantasy VI too" but FFVI's had a lot less customizability and the story was a little over my head as a stupid ten year old (such as genocide being a thing. Also an implied tentacle rape from one of tho bosses in the opera house scene) I bought Pokemon Red because there was a dragon on the games case and I have always thought dragons were cool (NEEEEEEEEEERRRRRD) and fell instantly in love.They are solid games, despite the dubious premise, and its great to see the community coming together to do something not shitty.

Fans helping new people fall in love with a good game is a great cause. Being nice is something that a disturbingly large amount gamers have a lot of trouble with, so its good to see a bunch of people get together and help kids feel good about a game. Especially in the face of general crappy behavior yesterday too.

A couple things that made the last week slightly better than normal.

So I want to talk about two things today, The finale of The Legend of Korra and Miracle Berries. I don't have a lot to say on either front, but together they could make a full post, so lets do this.

If you have not seen Korra, Spoilers be ahead. Also, watch it, its great.

Korra ended this last week and the finale was great. It had everything. Giant robot fights, badass bending fights, giant badger-mole musicals and two great couples finally getting together for reals. Varrick and Zhu Li do the thing, and Korra and Asami get together at the very end. Good stuff. People still got up in arms about it, but that's OK, because they are wrong, and we don't have to listen to them. Its nice to see a romance that was sort of there be confirmed to be 100% true. I say sort of, because it was obvious by the fourth season that Korrasami was a thing but I didn't know if Nickelodeon would have the guts to green-light something that would have made an unfortunately large amount of people upset. But hey, they did, so good on them. It was a beautiful scene that showed genuine love between two people, and I am sure that we can all agree that this is good thing, and if not, fuck you trollpants.

The Second thing I wanted to talk about was Miracle Berries. Eshi got some in the mail from the Cards Against Humanity people's annual Holiday gift package. For the past couple of years you can have given them like $10 and they send you a bunch of random stuff and holiday themed cards. This year one of the gifts was a package of pills made from the Miracle Berry. So you take the pill, and mull it around in your mouth for a few minutes, coating your tounge, and when it is dissolved you eat limes or some other similarly sour/bitter food. We ended up trying some stuff we had around the house like limes, lemons, dark chocolate, orange juice and coffee. Its fucking awesome. These aptly named berries made limes and lemons taste like candy. Seriously, candy. I legitimately thought that lemons are too sweet. Of the stuff we tried, Limes were the best. Its amazing, I would suggest that people try them out at least once just for the experience.

Jesus Christ Not Again

So, ugh, we've talked about shitty police stuff before. I can't describe how much I want to not have to do this, but I can't help it at this point. I've been trying to hold my tongue for a while here, hoping it would get better, but my hopes are often vain and counter to the impulses of human nature. So I'm just going to say it.

If you choose (and in our culture it is fucking always a choice) to go into law enforcement you need to understand that you aren't a person while you're wearing your uniform. Police officers are servants, says it right there in the oft repeated, usually disregarded motto, protect and serve. Any system of policing that values the safety and comfort of officers over the safety of absolutely all civilians, criminal and casual observer alike, is despotism. You went into a field where a certain (astronomically low) percentage of the population feels the need to kill you, don't fucking antagonize people. The role of a police force is to protect the populace and ensure that those who commit crimes against that populace are processed by the legal system arbitrated by the society. It is absolutely fucking never okay for a police officer to kill. It doesn't matter if your life is in jeopardy. It doesn't matter if you feel entitled or justified. You are not a person. You, as a police officer,  are a construct manifested by our society to make sure that due process is maintained. Any law that protects you above a citizen is tyrannic, and system that allows you to kill is, at best, catastrophically unjust. Police officers are representatives of justice, as the society they serve defines it. No extra privileges, no special treatment. They are mechanisms as long as they are acting in an official capacity, and civilians the second they aren't.

We Negotiate With Terrorists....Wait.

I am currently kind of cranky at Sony right now. North Korea (according to the FBI) or some other group of hackers hacked Sony a while back, and in the resulting chaos, threatened to attack movie theaters if they showed the movie "The Interview". Showing their commitment to the art of film making and integrity as a company, Sony immediately acquiesced to the threats and pulled the movie from all theaters. This was a terrible decision that will only lead to more problems in the future.

The second you give in to people who threaten you, they win. It shows them that all they have to do to get what they want is make threats against people. Also there is no guarantee that giving them what they want will stop them from hurting people or releasing your sensitive data that they stole. CNN reported that they are still threatening Sony. So there you go, it didn't do anything to stop them. And if integrity isn't your thing, maybe greed is. How much money does Sony lose on this? $44 Million according to wikipedia's page on the film. Because the movie will probably never go to theaters or be released for sale at all, all of that budget gets lost.

Look, I get it. If people got hurt it would look bad for your company. If you are worried about people being hurt make a statement explaining the situation. Informed consent is a thing, and if people are worried about being hurt they won't go to the theater. I bet they would have sold a bunch of tickets due to the "Lets show those terrorists a giant middle finger by all watching the thing they don't want us to see" stance that a lot of people take around these types of situations. And if the threats still had people worried, I am sure that the police would have posted guards around major theaters. In all honesty I thought that this might have been a marketing scheme until Sony actually pulled the film. Get a bunch of people to see a movie just because it is controversial.

Acquiescence does nothing good in this situation. Terrorism's goal is to enforce change by making the other side afraid. The second you do anything out of fear, they win.

Also, we hit 100 Posts. Yay or whatever. =p

Seasonal Disa-fuckthis Disorder

I loathe people this time of year. Its not entirely a christmas thing or a holiday thing, or even a rabid consumerism thing, though my issue is related. I hate people in the winter because american culture apparently demands that, what is for me, the most beautiful, comfortable, and peaceful time of year has to be fucking terrible.

Between the narcissistic, masturbatory rage of the evangelicals bitching about how their monopoly on a season is slipping, to the tragic slide of joyous celebrations into vile obligations as progressively more distant and abusive families bludgeon each other with politics and forced proximity, society fails this season completely.

Additionally, this season means enough cooking to rival the feast of Tantalus, and though I love to cook, it means that I have neither the patience nor the inclination to write more on this subject than this. So I'll just say that if its cold outside and you're an asshole, fuck you. Viciously. With the pointiest, most horrific, seasonally appropriate prop you can find.

Carl Sagan Is My Spirit Animal

I don't believe in a specific god or a specific pantheon of gods/goddesses/spirits or whatever. I have made this clear in the past. But I am also definitely not an atheist in the more modern sense of the term. I call myself an atheist when people ask what I believe only when I don't feel like describing what I am.

Apathetic agnostic would be the least offensive term to describe me. I don't know if any form of divinity definitely exists, but I am not opposed to the idea. I don't think that anyone has gotten it right yet, and really, I don't care. We don't have a way of proving the subject either way, so I propose we table the subject in any discussion of broad spectrum legislation/debate and instead focus on what we can do. Explore the world.

Every time I call myself an agnostic people will have basically one or both of these responses: contempt because I can't/won't pick a side and/or they will try to convert me to their cause. This pisses me off, because it makes the assumption that I have not thought about it. "If you had thought about it, you would come to a decision" I hear some of them say. This is bullshit. There is no definitive proof in support of either side so picking one seems irresponsible at best to me.

To that end, as I mentioned above, instead of wasting our time trying to arguing about it/legislate it/eliminate religion, lets just explore the universe as is. Its amazing, and the more we explore it the more we understand about it and the more questions pop up.


"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

Carl Sagan

Dragons are Great and All, But Dungeons?

I've talked a bit about pen and paper gaming in previous posts, how ridiculously awesome it is, how disappointed I tend to be with newer systems. I think its about time to actually discuss how I run a game.

I've been told I'm a strange creature as far as GM's go; I'll let my players do damn near anything that doesn't kill immersion or outright violate the laws of common sense, I tend to build my worlds from whole cloth instead of utilizing existing settings, and I don't give my players a storyline. That last one seems to be the most unusual from what I've heard. I run my games open world, there are things happening, monsters to slay, maidens to rescue, machinations of the foulest sorts guiding forces of various descriptions, but I leave it largely to my players to explore the world I've created. Its not that I don't want to tell a story, its that there is more to a world, and therefore a game, than any one series of loosely connected quest lines. I run my games open because that's how the world is, your growth is determined by your conviction, your path is shaped by your interests. Sure, another story about a sinister lich/cleric/warlord/ruler trying to conquer/destroy/enslave the world can be a lot of fun, but there's more going on than that. What happens if you misjudge where your party is at mentally? What happens if the story you set up doesn't have the punch you thought it would?

By setting up a world, with individual characters, with factions interacting and forces influencing events on various scales, some of which directly effect the party, some of which will have effects later, some who'll never directly influence the party at all, I can create a world where something will always be happening. I can run a game that isn't done until we want to be done. And by letting players flex their creative muscles and bend rules that don't make sense or justify actions that fall beyond the normal scope of the game, they can shape the world in new and interesting ways, creating their own story lines and dealing with unforeseen consequences.

I love to run a living world because it forces me to be creative and active on a much higher level and it lets my players decide not only what stories they want to tell, but how far they want to pursue them. It's hard, admittedly; you either have to be able to work with a shit-ton of world level events simultaneously or improvise at blinding speed, but its incredibly rewarding if you can pull it off.

We Can Be Heroes

I am feeling kind of crappy so this will be a shortish post, but I would like to talk about hero worship. Its something that happens a lot when a person becomes famous for doing something great. We put them on a pedestal because we like what they did and after a while we tend to forget that they were people too.

Its not bad to have heroes. To aspire to do great things, and look to others for inspiration, is a great way to go about your life. The bad part is when people attempt to use heroes as a symbol. This does a couple of things that harms them/the people who follow them. First, it dehumanizes them, which not only fucks up living heroes, but also turns people who did great things into inviolate paragons. It might not change the good things they did, but its important to remember that Gandhi liked giving little girls enemas. Its important to remember that for all the spiritual significance assigned to her, Mother Teresa allowed and encouraged ailing people to slowly die in agony in dark rooms of her design. Not saying they didn't do great things, but context matters. My second point is along the lines of the first point but it is focused on the people who perceive them. Turning people into symbols makes them seem superhuman, which is harmful to people who look up to them because they make progress seem impossible. If you work for a long time and don't see much progress it can be disheartening, and looking at people who achieved something can inspire you, but it can also make you feel as if you aren't accomplishing anything worthwhile.

All the people in history that have ever done anything good have all stumbled along the way. Einstein didn't sprout forth from the womb fully formed and having created the theory of relativity. There was a long process, some of which involved fucking his cousin. Really, any time you compare your work to other people's accomplishments, it can make you feel bad, but people who are heroes are the worst in that regard, because its clearly not just your own perspective that they are good at what they did. Everyone agrees that Martin Luther King Jr. is the best, and wow, you are totally not as accomplished as him. You suck.


All I can say is, look up to people but keep in mind that neither they, nor you, are perfect. Take your time, do the work, and you will succeed at whatever you are working on.

SPAAAAAAAAACEEEEEE! I'mma Go To Space.

Brian and I have expressed our general approval of scientific progress on several occasions around these parts. One of our biggest interests along those lines is space travel. The exploration of planets outside our own, the possible revelations waiting for us in the Deep Black, its the stuff nerd boners are made of. I think most people are probably on board with us on this, space is exciting, I mean seriously, kids wanting to grow up to be astronauts is cliche` common. So why aren't we out there? Why has the biggest intellectual resource for space exploration been whittled down to a bunch of politicians grumbling at each other?

The most common excuse I've seen sited in regards to why we shouldn't bother, you know, exploring the universe, is that it isn't a worthwhile expense. There are no words to express how absolutely, fundamentally fucking wrong that is, nor am I possessed of the patience to describe how many levels this argument fucks up on. Of course, that's never stopped me from trying before and its certainly not going to stop me here.

Point 1: Ugh, Fuck You. We live in a world where economic worth is entirely the product of (usually enforced) scarcity and perceived advantage. If the powers that be wanted the money made available it would be.

Point 2: You know what? Fuck you some more. Even if we're buying into the "market factors" bullshit as a stumbling block to scientific progress, that progress is its own reward. There is no such thing as a "worthless" scientific discovery. Even the weird penis ratio studies that we keep throwing money at (but exploring the infinite bounty of space is just not worth it) tell us things about the human body, psychology, how hormones do and don't effect development. These studies are functionally one step below naval gazing but they still inform us of new things, confirm or deny old things, and lead us to further inquiry. Failure to recognize the value of scientific progress to the level that denies space exploration represents a complete failure as a modern human.

Point 3: Na uh! Lets talk about the fact of extra terrestrial life. Its out there. See the period? There is no room for argument on that subject. I'm not saying that little grey men abduct red necks for sodomy experiments. I am saying that the universe is unimaginably vast, assuming that we are unique in that universe represents a degree of hubris that ought to be terminal. Absolutely any contact with extraterrestrial life would explode the limits of modern science, open up entire new fields of inquiry on every front, and give us opportunities we can't even fully conceive of. Even if that life develops exactly as we have, that says so very much about how reality works its staggering.

Point 4: Bite Me. Let's give the nay sayers as much charity as I can bare. If the questions to be answered mean nothing. If the progress to be made is meaningless. If science for science sake is of no value to their tiny, malformed brains. Even if all of that is true, space is just fucking full of resources. There are compounds found in asteroids that can't be found anywhere on earth. There are exoplanets that rain fucking diamond, carbon arrangements that can't occur naturally on our planet. Asteroids litter our solar system just fucking lousy with raw material begging to be mined. From an economic perspective even the colossal expenditures involved in space flight can just be passed onto consumers as our fears of finite resources fade ever farther away. sure it means we can't be gutted as badly for the resources themselves, but the cost of acquisition would more than cover it if they're really insistent about being an avaricious cuntbag about it.

So next time you read a newsfeed about some senator or wrong-heaed media mouthpiece bitching about how much NASA is costing us and how worthless space programs are, take a minute to write them. Tell them what an ignorant, shortsighted shit-licker they are. I suppose you could be more politic about it than that, but I don't see the point in mincing words with the enemy.

A Bad Policy

I hate it when people try to talk about things in terms of black and white. It is a very rare that something will ever be so clear cut that there is never any mitigating circumstance that might have an effect on outcome. Let me give you an example that happened to me a while ago, but has stayed with me.

I once had a job working for a company that had a high level management person come in to talk to us about an "incident". The company I was working for was an event planning group that worked for a big corporation, we'll call them Macrohard, back when they were releasing the Wall 8 OS. In our contract we had a requirement of at least a 30 minute delay between events in rooms so that we could clean them up and reorganize seating as was usually required. This seemed like a clear cut agreement and while I worked there it had never been broken until this point. We had to switch a room from circular tables to theater style seating for round about 350 people in 15 minutes. This would only be doable if we got all of our staff to work on it at the same time. As this was against the terms stipulated in the contract, and since we had other events happening in that day so we wouldn't have had the manpower, my boss had words with the people who set up the schedule.

A few days later, said corporate manager showed up to tell us that we fucked up. We should have done this the way the client had wanted, and that this might end up costing us a contract. He said, and I quote, "I don't believe in a grey world in the service industry. The service industry is black and white. You either get it done, or you don't." This boggled my mind. They broke a contract and it was somehow our fault. What the fuck! I quit fairly soon after that, along with at least five other people.

I will admit, we didn't get the job done, but it was because they asked us to do something impossible with our (then) current staffing. The corporate manager kept telling us about stories in which he had bent over backwards to help clients in the hotel industry when he worked in it, and how this was to be our goal. To do what the clients ask us to do, regardless of how unfeasible, legal, or appropriate the whole situation was. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but people got fired over this. One of them was my manager who was just trying to make sure that our contract was held up. Its ridiculous. I would be willing to bet that if this was a smaller client, the corporate office wouldn't have cared as much.

I understand why corporations take this route. The main goal of a corporation is to maximize profit, and not doing so is a failure in that goal. Not being flexible/understanding to at least some degree though hurts the people who work for you, which seems like a self destructive behavior. Seeing the world via this black and white only perspective limits your options, which could very well doom a company, especially in today's economy. That company I worked for? Lost most of their employees over this (several people quit due to not liking the management's decisions) and no longer has the contract they fucked themselves so hard to maintain.

Appeal to Authority

So, it has been a while since I have talked about a fallacy on here, so I wanted to talk about one that happens a little to often for comfort. Appeal to authority on its most base principal goes something like this:

A says X about subject matter Y.
A should be trusted about subject matter Y due to them holding some form of sway in the field of Y.
Therefore, X is correct.

This all falls apart in step two. Unless a person displays competence in a field and has evidence to back up their claim, believing their claim based on the fact that they are perceived as an authority alone is fallacious. This is not to say that you shouldn't accept information from a person who holds authority, it just needs to be accompanied by proof.

A big example of this in popular culture is with evolution. If you watch most news reports/debates about evolution you will see a representative from both sides of the argument given equal airtime and voice based on them both being experts in their fields, despite the evidence being mostly one sided (that is about global warming, but I think it still makes a good point). Creationists/Intelligent designers don't show a good knowledge of how things work so taking that half formed knowledge and using it as a place of authority is wrong.

Aristotelians had this problems as well. Aristotle was taken as a genius and that everything he said was the truth. The problem with this is that he was often wrong. Because he was considered an authority for so long a lot of his statements were accepted with no thought for a long time, until people decided to check on his facts. One of which was that because women have a smaller jaw than men they have less teeth. Despite this being observably false with just a little effort people accepted it for a long time.

There are a couple of off shoots of this argument that are used fairly commonly.

Dismissal of evidence 

A says X about Y with Evidence Z
B, an authority, says X is false.
Therefore A is wrong.

Once again, without evidence of how X is false B's claim is fallacious. This might just be a disagreement in how the evidence was interpreted, but that doesn't discount A.

The last variation of this that I want to talk about is Argumentum ad verecundiam, which means argument from authority. This is basically a person of authority shutting down someone because they are not an authority on a subject. Without supporting evidence of why the person without authority is wrong this argument is fallacious.

Eshi had this happen to him when he was talking to a professor about the aesthetic nature of morality. Eshi claimed that at its core morality was an aesthetic subject, while the professor claimed that morality was based on absolutes. Their argument went on for a while and ended when the professor said something akin to "well I have a doctorate, so there is no way that I am wrong on this." This is clearly a shitty thing to do.

So there you have it, the appeal to authority fallacy. Its all to common, but knowing what it is takes away its power. So, unless someone has evidence to backup their claims, don't accept them offhand.

Gygax is My Spirit Animal

I'm late, I know. I'm bad at things and my heart is made of smelly cheese. Rather than self-flagellate over my established failings in punctuality I'm going to ramble about gaming some more.

I've written about my possibly unhealthy obsession with pen and paper gaming before, and none of that has changed. I fucking love tabletop gaming, rolling dice might as well be an aphrodisiac. That said some aspects do run afoul of my pickier sensibilities from time to time. As I've mentioned before, I game for the high degree of customization and adaptability available in a pen and paper situation. I dig the complexity of options and versatility of interactions; which makes it troublesome to me how many systems are trying so hard to become video games. When a system goes from versatile feats based on the development of skills and abilities to a series of powers or maneuvers dependent on level I see a problem. I will admit that its largely an issue of nuance but its a little difference that matters. One option encourages the growth and development of an interesting and at least relatively unique character and the other rewards you for your numbers going up by making your numbers go up.

I'm probably being a bit of a fuddy-duddy about this but I don't really care. I understand that there are perceived market factors in play, the new generations of gamers like a simplified system or whatever. I understand the desire to streamline what can be kind of ridiculously convoluted systems. Seriously, just the licensed books for D&D 3.5 numbers in the high sixties. But the effort to streamline also seems to act as a restrictive measure on the flexibility of the system. While I understand that nobody, especially me, wants to pay a thousand bucks to get a nice, relatively complete set of books; the methods used to clarify the system also demand a higher degree of specificity in the use of power. Classes that once stood as starting points in the development of a character and bases for roleplay options have started shifting into the MMO vernacular. You don't talk about the paladin in terms of her dedication and righteousness, you talk about her capacity as a tank and the control value of her powers. We don't talk about the sorcerer in terms of what his innate connection to magic does to his mind or what his draconic heritage means for his future, we talk about his DPS. I'm not saying the trend in the new systems makes this kind of roleplay impossible, but it is so much easier to ignore the story-potential of a character when more and more the only thing we're given rules for is how that character is equipped to kill shit. I know I'm picking on D&D pretty hard, and they are by no means the only perpetrators, but I feel like they lead the way, I mean D&D has been The Big Name in tabletop for a lot of years.

I feel like an old man yelling at these damn kids for their newfangled power cards and skilltrees, why back in my day you had to pass a tumble check just to get your armor on or whatever. I'm not saying that there aren't any good things to be had from the new breed (13th age has some interesting showings in the mechanics department) but I'm always left wanting more, and not in a good way. Give me some real skills, give me a chance to love my character for more than their ability to one shot a group of mooks, for fucks sake give me more control over my character than I'm liable to find in a Bioware game and we can talk. Until then I can't see myself spending money on, much less running, the new wave. I can't imagine I represent much of a loss in their profits but that's fine, I'm plenty capable of enjoying myself with some 3rd ed D&D or homebrew oWoD. Maybe I'm not alone. Hopefully, I'm not alone. If so, good luck out there. I hope to see you all at the table someday.

Adventures in Capitalism

As Eshi pointed out in his post yesterday, we have had some troubles getting internet in the new place. Before we moved here we had talked to our internet provider and got them to switch our coverage to the new place and we would originally just have been without internet for a couple of days. That's not so bad. We could use the time away to do productive things like unpack and get setup in the new place. When the day came that we were supposed to get internet the guy came from the internet company and told us two things, that they were not here for us, but our neighbor,  that they would be with us the next day, and that they would need to lay cable for us to get internet because the place wasn't wired up for it. Two or three days tops though, annoying, but not a deal breaker. It ended up in the end taking two weeks because they didn't submit the work order and they didn't provide us with any information that we could use to follow up the order with.

I know, I know: First world problems, but it is something that is a symptom of a larger problem. Two weeks without internet kinda sucked, but it wasn't as soul destroying as I thought it would be. The worst part about it was that we had no other choice. Here in Seattle you have basically two choices of internet providers if you don't live in a swanky apartment complex or Condo, Comcast or Century Link. Neither of these companies scores well on yelp, and both have some very shitty policies when it comes to how they treat customers. They are always late to appointments, they charge a lot for services, and they both support anti-net neutrality bills.

We have zero other options.

Capitalism is great on paper. Companies compete, forcing themselves to innovate, charge competitively, and provide good customer service. This is great for the consumer (and for encouraging progress), but kinda crappy for the companies. In this system companies have to spend money on R&D, constantly keep fresh new ideas coming, and the constant competition forces them to constantly reevaluate situations in order for them to survive. Companies fail on a regular basis because they fail the balancing act of how much money to spend to make the most money. This can be stressful, so companies try to do things like completely erase competition in order to not have to do it. When this happens the winner can set prices to whatever they want, stop innovating because there is no need, and treat employees and customers badly because who else are they going to go to? Nobody, that's who. They are the only game in town. This is shitty. Its an example of winning at the expense of others, and as we have discussed before, that's fucking bad.

This is why anti-trust laws exist. They say that people cannot have a monopoly in an industry because its terrible for the economy and more importantly, the people. Competition is healthy because it forces companies to act better towards the countries they reside in and in turn, the consumers who buy from them. Its also illegal for companies to collude and carve out markets for themselves and just not compete with each other, but its hard to prove so companies still do it. A perfect example of this is from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver when talking about Comcast and Time Warner and their collusion. Watch the clip here. Also, if you have not seen the series, watch it. John Oliver is hilarious, and he doesn't need to pull punches like he did on The Daily Show.

Companies try to do whatever they can to eliminate competition and while that is good for them, it fucks people over. The internet business is only one example of where this happens, and this came to light when we decided to try to find internet from another company. We have two to choose from, and they are both terrible. Access to the internet is a human right, according to the UN, but companies can still get away with being shitty when it comes to providing it because there is no real competition. Sure we have two choices, but neither are any good, and because they don't need to compete very hard they don't need to provide a good service.

This stagnation also means that there is no innovation or drive to produce something better. The US is 31st in the world when it comes to internet speeds. 31st! We are behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and Uruguay. It is also way more expensive here than in any of the countries higher than us in speed. This is all because we don't have a choice in the matter. There are 3-4 major internet companies and they are the only place to get it from. Competition is something that keeps economies from stagnating. I don't know how to fix this problem other than instituting harsher regulations on companies that collude but it is a hard thing to prove in court.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

Alright folks, we're back, relocated, recaffeinated, and (after entirely too fucking long) possessed of internet fit to shake the heavens or something. As is tradition, we're gonna leap right back into it with me ranting. The topic of the day is something close to my heart in several, possibly dangerous, ways. Today I'm going to discuss anger. My anger specifically. Its not that I don't care about the righteous indignation of others or the mindless, squalling, rage that some partake of. It isn't even that my anger is shiny and pretty and made of magical hats, though that may bare discussion at a later date.

I'm going to talk about my anger, and the joys and pitfalls therein, because its the only anger I can effectively describe. As some of the more observant readers may have noticed I'm a bit prone to aggression. Rage comes to me with an ease that has been rightfully described as hopeless. I'm pretty good at keeping it in hand enough to avoid actually injuring someone. Unfortunately that doesn't counter the fact that I regularly get the sort of scorched-earth, damn-the-family-line-forever kind of mad that is largely reserved for doomed anti-heroes and relatable villains. Now, I can't say that was never really a problem, mostly because I never really bothered to examine it, but it was something that I never felt I could really do anything about. I mean reactive catharsis tends to be a dopamine loop of the worst kind, and suppressing anger just seems like a great way to snap your fucking brain and wake up in the ward.

Being angry feels really, really good. Dangerously good. It makes me feel powerful, active, motivated in ways that have been unavailable to me in any other state. Its also caused me to hurt people I care about, lose opportunities that I needed to take, and lose arguments that I couldn't afford to lose, not because I was wrong or not thinking clearly, but because I was mad and so my audience was incapable of receiving my point. I've been trying to let go of my anger recently. Not bottle it up or let it out, just let it go. Stop myself and consider the rage itself. Is it productive? Is it meaningful? Or is it just a fire in my chest waiting for the rest of me to catch. It helps, and it is getting better. Do I still get mad enough I feel like I'm going to pass out from the headache it gives me, yes, but only when a succession of idiotic, incompetent cunts absolutely and continuously fails at their one and only job for two weeks despite proper preparation and constant direction. (Later there will be a link here to Brian's post about our adventures in internet acquisition.) I just try and let the useless anger go, go cook something until I calm down, take a few deep breaths and watch a movie, whatever. This is a troublesome process but it is helping. I'm pretty sure I'll always be a wrathful, hate-ridden person; but I refuse to let that hate run roughshod over my life anymore.