Brain Dump
I have a lot of things I wanted to post about, but not as much time as I'd like. So I'm going to give the overview, and maybe I'll follow this up with more detail later. Edit - yeah, that mostly worked. I'm not so good at skipping detail sometimes.
Books: I just finished Cauldron by Jack McDevitt, the last of the 6 books in his Academy of Science and Technology series.
The series as a whole is incredible. McDevitt presents a universe much like the real one: big, mostly empty, and heartbreakingly beautiful. After humans develop a means of faster than light travel, they begin to explore the local "neighborhood" and find a lot of nothing - a few planets with various stages of life, a few more with the ruins of long-dead civilizations. What they don't find is another living, technological civilization to talk to. This book tries to wrap up the central mystery of the series, as well as touching on some of the other hanging threads. I've got mixed feelings about it - part of what made the series so good is his ability to leave questions unanswered. The characters don't end up knowing everything, and that's a lot like life. I thought his answer to the central mystery that runs through most of the books was good, and mostly made sense, but I think it may have been better left unanswered. Pinning it down and saying "this is what's going on" removes some of the sense of wonder and replaces it with "oh...ok." Still, worth reading and overall if you haven't read this series and life science fiction, pick up the first book, The Engines of God.
Gaming: We started playing a D&D 4th edition campaign last week, and will be continuing tonight. I'm really liking it so far. It fixes a lot of things I disliked about 3rd edition, but I'm sure after some more time to play it, I'll find things I don't like about this edition as well. It does feel a whole lot more "together" than the last edition and a half. I made up some power cards for the players, so we'll see how that goes - should smooth things over. We're also trying Gametable plus Teamspeak tonight to get one of the players in remotely. I'll definitely post my thoughts on that later. Our group of friends is spreading out, and it's impossible to game together as a group - one's in New Jersey, one just moved to Seattle, and the rest of us are spread across eastern Mass. We're hoping that this sort of shared game table can bring us all back together once a week or so.
Politics: Ron Paul is officially out of the race, and I'm not sure what to do now. I don't like either of the two remaining candidates, but I also don't want to not vote... McCain scares me - another 4 years (sorry, make that 100 years) of tearing down civil liberties and fighting wars that are both unconstitutional and devastating to our economy? Yeah, no. But Obama still hasn't proven to me that he's got more than good oratorical skills going for him. I hope he can prove me wrong on that point, I really do. But hearing him talk about how we should be upholding the constitution is a joke. He's not supporting any of the measures that are trying to reign in our government from its current unconstitutional excesses. It's just a way to get the vast majority of Americans who don't really understand what the constitution says or means to jump on his bandwagon, and that's pretty disgusting. It's also probably aimed at snagging some Ron Paul supporters now that he's out of the race, since I haven't heard him talk about this until recently.
Check out The Campaign for Liberty. Read the statement of principles on that page. I'm incredibly happy and excited that the energy and conviction of Ron Paul's presidential campaign isn't going away. I'm thinking about going to the rally in DC next month - just flying down for the day, really. I lost a lot of faith in this country when I realized how far from the constitution we've wandered, and how little anyone cares or understands why that's a bad thing. But some people do care - over 1 million of them voted for Ron Paul in the primaries, and there's a lot more (like myself) who couldn't, since only registered Republicans could do so.
Anyone who doesn't like Ron Paul on the basis that he's a Republican hasn't looked at the man's record enough. He's nothing like the typical Republicans that give the party such a bad name. Yeah, I'm looking at you, McCain.
Books: I just finished Cauldron by Jack McDevitt, the last of the 6 books in his Academy of Science and Technology series.
The series as a whole is incredible. McDevitt presents a universe much like the real one: big, mostly empty, and heartbreakingly beautiful. After humans develop a means of faster than light travel, they begin to explore the local "neighborhood" and find a lot of nothing - a few planets with various stages of life, a few more with the ruins of long-dead civilizations. What they don't find is another living, technological civilization to talk to. This book tries to wrap up the central mystery of the series, as well as touching on some of the other hanging threads. I've got mixed feelings about it - part of what made the series so good is his ability to leave questions unanswered. The characters don't end up knowing everything, and that's a lot like life. I thought his answer to the central mystery that runs through most of the books was good, and mostly made sense, but I think it may have been better left unanswered. Pinning it down and saying "this is what's going on" removes some of the sense of wonder and replaces it with "oh...ok." Still, worth reading and overall if you haven't read this series and life science fiction, pick up the first book, The Engines of God.
Gaming: We started playing a D&D 4th edition campaign last week, and will be continuing tonight. I'm really liking it so far. It fixes a lot of things I disliked about 3rd edition, but I'm sure after some more time to play it, I'll find things I don't like about this edition as well. It does feel a whole lot more "together" than the last edition and a half. I made up some power cards for the players, so we'll see how that goes - should smooth things over. We're also trying Gametable plus Teamspeak tonight to get one of the players in remotely. I'll definitely post my thoughts on that later. Our group of friends is spreading out, and it's impossible to game together as a group - one's in New Jersey, one just moved to Seattle, and the rest of us are spread across eastern Mass. We're hoping that this sort of shared game table can bring us all back together once a week or so.
Politics: Ron Paul is officially out of the race, and I'm not sure what to do now. I don't like either of the two remaining candidates, but I also don't want to not vote... McCain scares me - another 4 years (sorry, make that 100 years) of tearing down civil liberties and fighting wars that are both unconstitutional and devastating to our economy? Yeah, no. But Obama still hasn't proven to me that he's got more than good oratorical skills going for him. I hope he can prove me wrong on that point, I really do. But hearing him talk about how we should be upholding the constitution is a joke. He's not supporting any of the measures that are trying to reign in our government from its current unconstitutional excesses. It's just a way to get the vast majority of Americans who don't really understand what the constitution says or means to jump on his bandwagon, and that's pretty disgusting. It's also probably aimed at snagging some Ron Paul supporters now that he's out of the race, since I haven't heard him talk about this until recently.
Check out The Campaign for Liberty. Read the statement of principles on that page. I'm incredibly happy and excited that the energy and conviction of Ron Paul's presidential campaign isn't going away. I'm thinking about going to the rally in DC next month - just flying down for the day, really. I lost a lot of faith in this country when I realized how far from the constitution we've wandered, and how little anyone cares or understands why that's a bad thing. But some people do care - over 1 million of them voted for Ron Paul in the primaries, and there's a lot more (like myself) who couldn't, since only registered Republicans could do so.
Anyone who doesn't like Ron Paul on the basis that he's a Republican hasn't looked at the man's record enough. He's nothing like the typical Republicans that give the party such a bad name. Yeah, I'm looking at you, McCain.