Every so often, I have minor epiphanies about the stories I’ve cooked up. They’ll fundamentally alter some underlying aspect of the story, giving it greater depth or more meaning. I love it when moments like this happen. I did not have such a moment today. Today, instead, brought a major epiphany that stitched together dozens of plot threads and ( Read more... )

Wait, what?

A friend of mine is restructuring the 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons rules to be more to his liking. He’s calling it D&D 3.75. Though he and I disagree on some fundamental RPG theory stuff, I wish him the best in doing so and look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

On Facebook, he mentioned having recently finished setting up ( Read more... )

I’m upset.

This happens when people exhibit kneejerk reactions without first trying to understand the details. In this case, I’m referring to LCROSS and the moon impactor study.

I value science and the pursuit of knowledge. As such, I’m going to make a point-by-point rebuttal of one of the more egregious reactionary articles I’ve read ( Read more... )

Chirality describes a state in which something cannot be superimposed on its mirror.  It’s often used in chemistry, but the human hand is a good example as well.  Chirality is the reason you have to use the same hand as the other person when shaking hands.  The “opposite” hand cannot clasp.

This word popped into my head while in the shower this ( Read more... )

It’s an old cliché that aspiring writers* will often ask established writers where their ideas come from. The equally cliché answer is that their ideas come from all over, which leaves the poor aspiring writer wondering why they are so defective, since they do not appear to have the same wealth of ideas from which to pick and choose. The truth is ( Read more... )

Seems my crazy notion of a political podcast will have to wait...for my microphone is crappy. I did some tests last night, and the damn thing just refuses to pick up a loud enough audio signal. It also has a lot of distortion when I normalize it so that it is loud enough. I tried swapping out the battery to see if that made a difference, but no ( Read more... )

I just had a nutty idea. The seed of it was planted by Brian several days ago, when he suggested he and I start a podcast show. The idea came more into focus just now, while reading OneGoodMove. A politically-oriented podcast. Not that that hasn't been done, or anything, but it'd be a neat outlet and (most likely) either educate people or get ( Read more... )