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January 2, 2009: NieceTube - Nesya Loses at Fencing

You can't win, Adiv. If you strike her down, she shall grow more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Posted by Evan Goer on Jan. 02, 2009 at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2008: In Which Mur Lafferty and I Singlehandedly Save the Publishing Industry

As everyone knows, the publishing industry is in trouble. Like a drunken author stumbling across a campus quad, groping for enough saucy anecdotes about teen co-eds to fill out one last priapic literary novel, so too is the publishing industry groping for solutions to shrinking margins and an increasingly distracted public.

Well, fear not, publishing industry! I bring you... the future. Publishing 3.0! Publishing for Teh Internets generation! Publishing with Rounded Corners and Pastel Colors!

Afternoon of the CyberMonkeys: An Interactive Collaborative Twitterfic Publication (with special guest star: Mur Lafferty)

Note that this new super-advanced format has some drawbacks:

• The posts are in reverse time order. This means that the best way to read Afternoon of the CyberMonkeys is to click the link, immediately scroll down, and start reading from bottom to top.
• If at some point in the future I decide to change my Twitter favorites for any reason, the story will be destroyed.
• Unlike works of fiction on physical paper, Twitterfic works are subject to "Failwhales" and other Web 2.0-style mishaps.
• The story isn't very good.
• There is still no revenue model.

But these are minor bugs that I'm sure we can all work around.

Posted by Evan Goer on Dec. 29, 2008 at 5:20 PM | Comments (3)

December 22, 2008: JudahTube: The Hebrew Hammer

Dave admits he's been "a little bit lax with yuletube postings" recently. Well, I guess someone has to pick up the slack. Who's out there hard at work while you're busy with Christmas? The Jews, that's who!

From one of the more successful Chanukah/Christmas crossover movies ever made, The Hebrew Hammer. I chose this scene because as far as I can tell, it was designed by a focus group specifically to appeal to Dave Thompson. Dave might argue that it would have been better if the Nazis were also zombies, but you can't have everything.

Posted by Evan Goer on Dec. 22, 2008 at 8:51 AM | Comments (6)

December 18, 2008: Bad Timing, Joe

From: Joe Biden <info@barackobama.com>
Subject: A big misconception
Date: December 18, 2008 9:33:44 AM PST
To: Evan Goer
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com

Evan —

A lot of people think the work of a campaign ends when the election is over.

Well, not if you win.

In fact, folks are working around the clock to prepare our team to hit the ground running on January 20th. At the same time, supporters all across the country are busy defining the role this grassroots movement will play in the administration.

It's a new and unprecedented set of challenges, and Barack and I still need your support. I know we've asked a lot of you recently -- but that's because we're continuing to do things differently.

Past transition teams have taken donations from corporations and lobbyists. Our team will not accept any donations from Washington lobbyists, and individual contributions will be limited to $5,000.

So while half of our funding comes from a government grant, the second half is in your hands.

Will you make a donation of $250 or more to support the presidential transition team?

...

Dear Joe,

You picked a really bad day to beg me for yet more money.

I suspect from now on, most days won't be much better.

Best regards,

Evan

Posted by Evan Goer on Dec. 18, 2008 at 8:51 PM | Comments (14)

November 9, 2008: Hoisted from Comments: Quiet Authority (or, Lookit! I Pooped!)

A few months ago, I posted about the Transcriptase and suggested that the issue boiled down to improving professional norms in SF:

In the SF writing profession, the norms are different yet again. Unlike being a cubicle worker, unlike being a steamfitter, in SF it seems the penalty for being an unsocialized loon is pretty close to zero.

Recently in comments, Carl suggests that perhaps we're forgetting about the "anarchic elan part of the geek appeal and street cred? Don't need no stinkin' badges and all that?" I responded,

SF fans do embrace the weird and the anarchic. That doesn't mean we should run to embrace people who poop in the middle of the street and point proudly, "Lookit! I pooped!"

To which Carl said,

... The problem, if it is one, is that an anarchic ethic gives very little traction for authoritative sanctioning of poopers. I admire the thoughtful reaching for consensus community standards at Transcriptase, but note also that doing so on the basis of individual statements of conscience or appeals to universal standards that obviously aren't universal or there'd be no issue is also a bit diffuse. Point being that communities constituted on such bases are uniquely vulnerable to poops - a cost of doing business in this fine way perhaps.

Which at first I thought I could respond to with a quick, "well of course they're vulnerable to poops, they don't have the kind of centralized authority you get from being a steamfitters foreman or an HR manager." But after re-reading Carl's comment, I think he was pointing out something more subtle, something worthy of a more complex response.

So back to poops! Let's compare how our three different organizations deal with these kinds of messes:

• The steamfitters: the foreman gets in your face, screams obscenities at you, and orders you to clean up the poop.
• A large high tech company: your manager cleans up your poop for you. Several weeks later, the HR department puts on a Performance Improvement Plan, which means that for the next 12-18 months, the company starts building up a case for firing you. During this awkward time period, you, your boss, and the HR department begin rooting for a merger or layoff. That way everyone gets what they want: you still get a severance package, and HR can get rid of you quietly.
• Transcriptase: a bunch of writers point at the poop and say, "Hey, that's not very punk."

Unlike the steamfitters foreman or the HR department, the SF community is completely decentralized, so all Transcriptase can do is attempt to appeal to community standards. Transcriptase's goal is to raise the penalty for being an unsocialized loon from zero to... something. (Of course I say "unsocialized loon" because I agree with Transcriptase. Naturally the unsocialized loons would argue that they're totally not unsocialized and that help! help! they're being oppressed, you know the drill.)

I'm guessing that Carl is keenly aware of these issues because he works in academia. As You Know Bob, in academia there are all sorts of groups trying to exercise power by appealing to community standards. And from what I remember from my academic experience in the mid-1990s, these groups could be incredibly annoying even when you almost entirely agreed with them. You could understand why people might poop on their lawn just to rile them up.

Furthermore, the strategy of appealing to community standards is... less broadly useful than it first appears. If the subject is controversial and the community is split 50/50, appealing to community standards will fail — there are no community standards to appeal to. If the subject is utterly uncontroversial, then there's no point in appealing to community standards — we don't have to thoughtfully consider the views of the crazy lady shrieking that Barack Obama is Malcolm X's illegitimate child, we can just ignore her. Or as Carl might put it, if we really are talking about a universal standard, then there's no real issue in the first place. The lesson here is that appealing to community standards can be a useful strategy, but only in a certain narrow range of the Overton Window.

So how to avoid becoming uniquely vulnerable to poops? First, only go with the community standards approach if you're in the right range of public opinion: "acceptable" or "sensible". You have to be popular, but not too popular (or why bother). Second, you must assert your authority with quiet confidence. Radicals can gain traction by stirring the pot, flinging some poop. However, if you're winning and just need to convince the last thirty or twenty or ten percent, you're not a radical anymore. You're arguing from a position of (implicit) authority and strength... which forces you to act like a winner, an Alpha. Radical action can be a great strategy, and it's also more fun and exciting. But it's not a great strategy when you're already (mostly) winning.

With all that in mind, I believe that Transcriptase is doing the right thing and is reasonably protected from poops. On the issue of quietly exercising authority, Transcriptase isn't panicking or running around like when the Parents Television Council finds a new fleeting obscenity on TV. They're basically saying, "we think this behavior is uncool" and leaving it at that. This is an approach tailor-made for the anarchic world of SF readers and writers. Now where Transcriptase might end up failing is on the first issue of whether they actually do have community consensus. I mean, I think they do, and I hope they do. But who knows? John Ringo sells a poopload of books.

Posted by Evan Goer on Nov. 09, 2008 at 8:08 AM | Comments (5)

October 30, 2008: Notes on Disneyland

Last weekend Sarah and I zipped down to LA to spend two days at Disneyland. Last time I was there, the Indiana Jones ride was brand new. My, how time flies...

• People complain about the ticket prices, but honestly, they're not bad. A single day ticket is $69, which is comparable to Great America at $55, and I think we can all stipulate that Disneyland is easily more than 25.4% cooler than Great America.
• On the other hand, the food isn't very good. And the Blue Bayou is up to $30 at lunch, and $50 at dinner, which is insane.
• The best time of year to go to Disneyland is probably October. The weather's cooler (but still warm), rain is still pretty unlikely, and the crowds are smaller.
• The best time of day to be at Disneyland is 11pm-midnight.
• Sign #1 that I'm no longer a teenager: It is now impossible to do Disneyland without taking a nap in the early afternoon.
• Somehow in all my previous visits, I had missed the Tiki-tiki-tiki-tiki-tiki Room. I'll have to ask my folks whether this was intentional.
• Sarah: "This is how Buzz Lightyear works. First, you sit down in the car. Then, you try to shoot all the targets. Then, I kick your ass." Final score: Evan - 14,000, Sarah, 450,000.
• Little kids at Disneyland are even cuter than you would think they would be.
• The "wildlife" that you see during the Mark Twain riverboat ride are looking a little dilapidated. Also, if you want to force the nap issue, there's nothing like sitting on the front deck of the riverboat in full sun.
• Space Mountain is nearly the same, but the beginning part (the space warp) is a little more 21st century. Well done.
• I totally did not look at the Eye in the Indiana Jones ride, but we ended up flying through the cursed temple anyway. Man, I hate when people do that.
• While we're on the subject of Indiana Jones, a Public Service Announcement. Tickling the back of your boyfriend's neck when the car is going through the tunnel of creepy-crawlies: NOT FUNNY.
• The Haunted Mansion is all tricked out with Nightmare Before Christmas decorations. I like Nightmare Before Christmas, but the Haunted Mansion is definitely less scary.
• Pirates of the Caribbean is not improved with multiple Johnny Depps.
• Park employee: "So what ride did you all just come from?" Sarah: "The bathroom ride." Park employee: "Ah, that's one of our most popular rides."
• California Adventure is... actually pretty good!
• But the main entrance is all decked out with candy corn and ... there was no candy corn for sale. I don't get it.
• Sign #2 that I'm no longer a teenager: The California Screamin' roller coaster looked too damn big and fast to ride. I haven't actually been afraid of any roller coaster in over twenty years. This was a sad epiphany for me.
• Nonetheless, one can admire California Screamin' from afar -- it's pretty impressive how it can launch people almost immediately up to 55 mph. I hear it's some kind of super-advanced maglev system. No word on whether the super-advanced brain-upload + clone backup facilities are up and running too, which frankly is the only way I'm ever getting on this thing.
• Toy Story is better than Buzz Lightyear, and not just because I almost beat Sarah.
• You're much better off buying wine in Real California than Fake California.
• Hidden gem of the park: Turtle Talk with Crush the Turtle.
• Characters seen: not too many. Aladdin, Harvest Goofy, and Harvest Minnie (cute). But the best was saved for last: the Wicked Queen from Snow White! She's no Maleficent, but she'll do.

Posted by Evan Goer on Oct. 30, 2008 at 8:11 PM | Comments (8)

October 6, 2008: Life Is Sometimes Better Explained By Pink Laminated Cards

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) — Aided by the Democrats and Republicans, the Federal Reserve today launched an all-out assault on the main control arm of the Gnomes of Zurich. Over a hundred Megabucks evaporated from the world's economy in mere minutes as the Dow Industrial Average plunged hundreds of points, New York was completely destroyed, and groups ranging from the International Cocaine Smugglers to the Boy Sprouts became uncontrolled.

Reports indicate that the attack was well-planned and well-coordinated by various shadowy organizations. According to spokesman Hans Lieber of The Bavarian Illuminati, "The situation had grown completely untenable. Hidden under mountains of complex financial derivatives, default credit swaps... we had no idea how the Gnomes were really doing. Although we took a serious financial hit aiding this attack, it was clear that had to act quickly and make the best of a bad situation."

ADA-912 of The Network agreed. "Stochaistic models indicated that the Gnomes's probability of victory was approaching 1 - epsilon. In this scenario, activating our Orbital Mind Control Lasers to assist in the assault was the only viable option."

While initially there were some fears that The Discordian Society would sit out the attack, they eventually joined in as well. A representative of the Discordians that would only describe himself as "Peaches" stated, "At first we were like, 'whoa, dudes, chill out, they don't even have that many cards.' But then we heard how the Gnomes probably just needed one more turn to get 150 Megabucks, and that they might even have a Slush Fund waiting to play. That just totally harshed our mellow."

Not surprisingly, the Gnomes of Zurich have shed little light on how recent events have unfolded, let alone the current state of their finances. "This really sucks," said Winky Beeblebrox, head financier and spokesgnome. "I go to the bathroom for five frickin' minutes, and when I come back, these guys have completely gone behind my back and planned out a full attack. It's not fair. Besides, the Bavarians are winning anyway. Fine, blow up the world's economy, see if we care."

As for the actual instigator of the attack, The Servants of Cthulhu had not issued a statement by the time this article went to press.

Posted by Evan Goer on Oct. 06, 2008 at 8:00 PM | Comments (4)

September 30, 2008: Decluttering for Geeks: Roleplaying Games

Welcome to Decluttering for Geeks. This is Part II of a four-part series:

1. Part I: Computer Components
2. Part II: RPGs
3. Part III: Books
4. Part IV: Media

A couple months ago, I was eating Korean BBQ with a bunch of software engineer friends from work. Someone asked, "So what are you guys up to this weekend", and everyone chimed in with whatever geeky (or non-geeky) thing they had on their calendar. I said, "Oh, I've got you all beat. This Saturday night, I'm going to be kicking the tires of the new 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons rules with my buddies." Lots of chuckles around the table, a few calls of "Nerd!", etc. Mind you, being called "Nerd" by a bunch of software guys can sting a little, but nothing unexpected.

Except for one fellow who sat bolt upright. "Oh, oh! Can I play?!" The Geek Hierarchy works in mysterious ways.

Anyway, on to Roleplaying Games and Decluttering! Anyone think I can get through this post without making a lame "Bag of Holding" joke? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

The Psychological

As with all decluttering problems, the core question is, "How much of this stuff do I really need?" Most RPG stuff falls into the following categories:

• Core rulebooks. Keep, but only if you are currently playing. Be ruthless about this. If you don't have a current gaming group, but you "want" to play, put your core rulebooks in a box. If after six months you haven't played at least one game, declutter it all.
• Core rulebooks from editions you are not playing. Declutter. Yes, I know these books can tug at the at heartstrings. Wow, a 1st edition Deities and Demigods — remember reading that in the third grade? Unfortunately, it's worthless (unless it's one of the rare, semi-illegal editions that include the Cthulhu/Melnibonean mythos). Unless you really like reading through Deities and Demigods on a daily basis so that you can memorize the hit points of the gods (SPOILER: Zeus has 400 HP), it's best to let these books go. There's someone else out there who can make use of them.
• Supplementary and third-party rulebooks of all sorts. Declutter. If there's a particular rule, campaign setting, or adventure seed that you'd like to use, Xerox it and get it out of the house.
• Magazines. See "Supplementary rulebooks" above. Magazines often have wonderful tidbits and adventure seeds — clip & save the best, discard the rest.
• Modules. Keep, if A) they match the game and edition you're currently playing and B) your group hasn't played it yet. Otherwise, declutter. Note that like rulebooks, the resale value for modules is often depressingly low. You might think that your classic S3-Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is worth a mint... come on, this one had vegepygmies! But nope, you can easily score one on eBay for just a few bucks.
• Handmade adventures. Declutter.
• Old character sheets. Seriously? Declutter. Both character sheets and adventures should be on the computer at this point.
• Campaign material. If the material is still useful, transfer it to the computer and declutter. Otherwise, just declutter.
• Dice. Keep, as long as 100% of your dice fit in a conveniently portable box.
• Miniatures. A tricky one, because miniatures are useful and reusable, but they take up a lot of space. Try keeping miniatures only for the PCs; print out images for NPCs and bad guys on 1" squares of cardstock, or use coins or other tokens. Lego men work great too. Note that I'm coming at this from the perspective of an RPGer — if you're a wargamer, you probably need an entirely different decluttering article.

Note that as Michael Harrison suggests below, you can always declutter your physical products and then rebuy your favorites in electronic form at DriveThruRPG.com.

The Practical

Like computer components, most RPG material depreciates quickly, and perhaps for much the same reason. Unless the game is A) out of print and B) still very popular, used game material doesn't hold its value very well.

• Well, most used game material doesn't hold its value very well, but it can't hurt to look for the odd gem that's worth separating out. The original Temple of Elemental Evil? It's a classic, but pretty easy to get, not particularly valuable. Apparently there are a lot of copies still floating around, or not that many people playing 1st Edition, or both. But Monte Cook's excellent Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil? Worth at least thirty bucks, maybe fifty or sixty. So you never know. Sell these separately on Craigslist, eBay, etc.
• For the bulk of your game material, the best option is to go to your Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS). Many FLGSes sell used games, and they might be willing to take your stuff off your hands for store credit or possibly even cash. In the Bay Area, I like Gator Games for this. Note that they're not going to give you very much store credit or cash. Old gaming material takes up a lot of space on the shelf and might not sell. You're not there to make a pile of cash, but to get your old game material into the hands of a fellow geek, someone who's actually going to use and enjoy that material again.
• If you can't find a good FLGS, try a second hand bookstore.
• Do not make the mistake of trying to sell the bulk of your stuff individually. You'll get bogged down in trying to maximize your profit, your decluttering efforts will fall by the wayside, and at the end of the day, the extra dollars won't add up to much.
• Donate your material to a charity, library, or a local gaming club attached to a school. When it comes to helping create the next generation of gamer geeks, there's no better authority than Tom Lehrer in The Old Dope Peddler:

He gives the kids free samples
because he knows full well
that today's young innocent faces
will be tomorrow's... clientele

RPG Decluttering. Because somewhere out there, there's a 10x10' room, waiting for someone new to kick down the door, kill the orc inside, and take his treasure.

Next time: Books, Comic and Otherwise!

Posted by Evan Goer on Sep. 30, 2008 at 8:44 PM | Comments (8)

August 3, 2008: Professional Norms in SF

In her post about the Helix racist email / copyright kerfuffle, Mur talks about professionalism:

I can’t see the executives of IBM or Coke sending out a racist email, or changing their websites to throw a third-grade insult (or, if they do, keeping their jobs afterward).

Which I guess answers the question of why there’s so much unprofessional action in this field even at the “pro” level: People don’t have to be professional. Readers seem to still be buying SF no matter how much asshattery some writers (and editors?) spew outside of their work.

I think Mur has her finger on it — it's all about industry norms. In a corporate environment, the Helix editor's behavior would be totally unacceptable. HR would get involved, he'd be put on a Performance Improvement Plan, etc. At any large corporation there will be people who think the way the Helix editor does, but they know better than to do what he did, spew their views in business correspondence.

Other industries have different norms. If you're a union steamfitter, you might end up exchanging words with someone else on the job site, and on rare occasions, someone might get popped in the jaw. The foreman generally handles these incidents on a case-by-case basis. Contrast this with the corporate Fortune 500 environment: it's actually pretty hard to fire an individual in most large companies, even if they're really, really incompetent. But if you physically strike a coworker, you'll be out of there that same day.

In the SF writing profession, the norms are different yet again. Unlike being a cubicle worker, unlike being a steamfitter, in SF it seems the penalty for being an unsocialized loon is pretty close to zero.

As for why readers buy SF from "asshat" writers and editors, that's because industry norms flow from industry workers, not the industry's customers. When Intel calls the steamfitters in to help build a fab, Intel couldn't care less that Joe Smith got into a fight at the last site. It's up to the foreman and the other steamfitters to get the job done, with or without Joe. Likewise, readers don't care that some editor might be a jerk — they don't even know who that editor is.

Unfortunately, SF editors and writers can't enforce their norms the steamfitters' way. But transcriptase.org seems like a good start.

Posted by Evan Goer on Aug. 03, 2008 at 11:04 PM | Comments (15)

July 27, 2008: Captain Hammer Physicists

A day after posting about the innumeracy of intellectuals, Chad Orzel asks about the reverse perspective — does the arrogance flow both ways?

This immediately reminded me of a couple years back, when D^2 and the rest of the Crooked Timber crowd got rather annoyed with physicists. Apparently, bored physicists have a habit of diving other fields with shiny new mathematical models — nothing wrong with that, cross-pollination is great — but the kicker is that they tend to do this without first bothering to read any of the previous research in that area.

This tends to A) irritate the hell out of existing scholars in the field and B) generate papers that at best reinvent the wheel, at worst end up being Not Even Wrong. See:

• Isolated social networkers
• Physicists in action, latest in an occasional series

I'm not sure whether this disease is confined just to physicists, or whether the other hard scientists play this game too. Given my brief experience in the discipline, I suspect it's the former. In any case, I hereby dub this mentality the "Captain Hammer" approach to cross-discipline research:

Stand back everyone
nothing here to see!
A brand new field of research
in the middle of it — me!
Yes, Captain Hammer's here
hair blowing in the breeze
This data needs my modeling expertise...

"When... you're the best / you can't rest, there's no use / There's ass... needs kickin' / some ticking bomb to defuse" ... you get the idea.

Posted by Evan Goer on Jul. 27, 2008 at 9:30 AM | Comments (0)