The Brain in a Vat

At some point in the recent past I thought a lot about LARPing and roleplaying games and decided, perhaps foolishly, that others will never accept this hobby of mine if I am afraid to talk about it openly, myself. This is partly an attempt to be principled about it, and also because I suspect part of the reason it is looked down in some circles is because nobody from within the gamer "subculture" expresses positive examples to counter the negative stereotypes.

Also, yes I think it's a subculture, and lets not forget blame where its due: the biggest reason is the part of human nature that likes "hammering down errant nails" so to speak, especially when putting down others is an easy way to raise one's own status. However this is a topic worthy of another post and I digress.

I haven't made a habit of it, but I brought up LARPing among non-gamers when the topic came up, with no attempt to cushion it by calling it an "interactive improvisational theatre game" or anything like that. I'm sure it will surprise absolutely no one reading this, but the first several comments that came up were "do you cast lightning bolt at people?" and "what's your secret larper name?", as well as something related to furry sex.

I wouldn't make too much of it, because the two people who made those comments are frankly jerks, and also overly concerned with status. However if the original premise behind this is true, obviously instant gratification is not a result.

I have more to say about it, but I've been surprisingly busy since I got back from Gencon. Thus for this first part I'll rely on mostly pictures to tell the tale. Whether there is a part 2 will remain to be seen.

If you haven't realized by now, this post will be picture heavy beneath the cut.

( Indianapolis )



( Gencon )

Remember this XKCD?



(original page is here.)

Apparently Madison Square Garden is implementing it for real: link

(hopefully this will be in a different vein from yesterday's post)

What tabletop RPG system/settings would you say are the best you've ever experience or played in? Interpret this question however you wish.

A completely separate question, which system/setting do you think is the most accessible to someone new to roleplaying/gaming in general? For example I get the feeling games like Nobilis or Fair Folk may be excellent games but are probably too much for new players.

Feel free to explain your choices, or just to go ahead and list them.

( I don't normally do this, but... )

Today I was taking the Airport shuttle bus back to my place when I noticed a massive traffic jam on Wilshire Blvd, and some commotion in front of the Federal building. Though traffic on Wilshire can be bad, it's never this bad on a Sunday evening, so as soon as I got back I grabbed my camera and ran to the scene.

Apparently the local Iranian/Iranian-American community has been staging protests in front of the Federal building all weekend. It was really orderly, in fact. The crowd was peaceful and didn't block traffic, and mostly ended 30-45 minutes after I got there as apparently that's when their protest permit ended (the jam was probably because of the massive number of people crossing the street combined with the overenthusiastic supporters driving around in cars honking their horns).

Through chatting with some of the people, I was interested by the fact that a few of the protesters went above merely protesting election fraud, and were protesting the entire political system in Iran, which isn't very democratic at all. This seems to go beyond the protests in Iran, which I think only calls for the elections to be redone.

In any case, a mostly unedited sample of my photos can be found below. I discovered that I don't know my D40x as well as I should, and so wasn't able to really adapt to nighttime conditions.
http://picasaweb.google.com/publius314/IranianProtests#

It's been far too long since I had an update.

The new Star Trek movie is really well done. I was worried about whether or not it would be any good, but it has the approval of this old trekker. I think like other "reboots" recently (of which the new Bond/Batman movies and the Battlestar Galactica series come to mind) the setting has to be updated considerably from the originals, which in some cases date back to the sixties, or in the case of Batman the thirties. However I think such updating is easily forgivable as long as the final product is of high quality and as long as they retain some amount of faithfulness to the originals, which isn't always the case with Hollywood. In any event, given by the critical acclaim and the amount the theatre was packed, J. J. Abrams is going to have ridiculously huge clout in the movie business now.

I do think that I may be taking too many space physics courses because ( possible spoilers )

Finally, people who talk at the theatre are going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and executives who cancel critically acclaimed TV shows really early on.

I have a lot of thoughts on why I wax and wane in livejournal activity. I have many thoughts to write down rather than too few. Probably that has something to do with the problem, as the anxiety over the mounting list of things to write about makes me avoid it even more, and yes I do realize the irony as I don't "have" to write about anything. Nevertheless I have considered doing something like troglodyteking is doing and forcing myself to post a lot in succession as a way of forcing myself back into the habit.

In addition to my rather random musings I do mean to talk about atmospheric/climate science related stuff, and also gaming and travel posts (the latter of which may degenerate into food blogging), so we'll see if I muster the willpower to do so.

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I've talked about the OCO in the past, albeit briefly, but this is relatively big news. The launch happened early this morning and it ended quickly and not well. I have a number of coworkers who were involved with it they are understandably quite bummed by the news. There's some talk of maybe rebuilding, as because a lot of the groundwork is already done the second time around the cost should be considerably large. A lot of people feel like it's big enough to warrant a second try, and hopefully this time around the people in charge of the launch rocket will have *ahem* fixed the problem with their payload launch bays.

I was going to have my next entry begin with a somewhat repetitive self-deprecating apology for the lack of activity on this blog, followed by a summary of and musings on the events of the past several months, and I still intend to, but I'll write the following while it is fresh in my mind.

I'm currently in Hong Kong as of today. How and why I'm here is kind of a long story, but it's my second time here and I'm enjoying it as much as I did the first time, which is quite a lot. I was wandering through the central district today when I noticed one of the bookstores would be having a book signing for Thomas Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded in a couple of hours.

Those of you who know me know that I'm something of a fan of his, because his writing is pretty good and his ideas usually make a lot of sense, and also because he's one of the few people in journalism today who take climate change seriously, a subject I've become really interested in from my line of work. Anyways, I considered it a stroke of luck (after all how often is one in Hong Kong, much less walking by that very bookstore), so I "made sure" I was walking by the bookstore at the right time, and sure enough he was there.

I really wanted to talk to him, but I already had a copy of Hot, Flat, and Crowded (thanks sabournine!), and it would be pretty gauche to get in line without intending to purchase a book. Thus I settled for asking him to autograph a copy for my dad, who had expressed interest in the book, and soon enough I was face to face with him. I didn't think at the time about how I was jet-lagged and sleep deprived (still am), or how I hadn't really showered since getting off a 14 hour plane flight and wandering around Hong Kong, but in retrospect I hope I wasn't too much of a mess.

I couldn't help but mention to him, "I saw you speak twice." He looked interested and said "Oh really, when?" I told him that I had heard him once while an undergrad at Stanford and once while at Caltech, and he seemed happy to hear that (or so I hope). He then asked me what I was doing now and I told him that I was a grad student at UCLA and that "a lot of us study climate and we all love your columns."

As he looked like he had to sign a ton of books, and I was getting worried that someone behind me would throttle me if I took any more time of his time, I said goodbye and walked off, feeling rather pleased. Also I recommend the book to anybody reading it, it's really well written and well suited for anyone with an interest in either climate or energy policy.

( Read more... )

If I start doing quotes a lot, it's not a sign that I've run out of things. On the contrary I usually experience the "I have so many things I want to talk about, I don't know which one to do first." However given the date I thought it fitting.

"Who are the thousand–that is to say, who are 'the country?' In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nations shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and your country–hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of."

- Mark Twain, taken from The Bible According to Mark Twain

Of course I think the passage is at least ten times better when being recited by Captain America

I'm not going to apologize for my lack of posts of late, as my life has been sufficiently busy as of late. However that doesn't mean I don't have thoughts in my head.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Pasadena, CA, I realized that my upper body strength was actually pretty abysmally poor. My memory of this time is sort of hazy as I believe I was suffering from post-graduation stress syndrome, but of you who know me know that I'm one to try something new for absolutely no reason at all. As such I started trying to see how many pushups I could do at once. Because I forced myself to do "real" push-ups, and not cheat in the myriad of ways that one can do so, I think I originally was able to do 3 before stopping.

"This would not do!" I told myself. Clearly my overall fitness was vital to my ability to maintain an unhealthily inflated ego a good self-esteem, so I sought to do as much as I could each day, until after about a week or two I could do about ten pushups non-stop, and a little after that two sets of 10 pushups, with a rest in between.

Then I forgot about it and went on with my life, and after I left Caltech my future employers had the astounding policy that I should have to pay to use the exercise facilities (the nerve!) and I stopped doing a lot of physical stuff. So it goes. Then about two months ago when I was playing a game with sabournine and her friends (it's a long story involving a bastardized drinking game version of "1000 blank white cards" with dares involved) a pushup challenge came up and I did a respectable 18 pushups in one sitting, only cheating on the last 3 or so (oops). While chatting afterwards, Amy then brought up the hundred pushups challenge.

I don't know if she knew how much this is perfect fodder for someone like me, but naturally I was intrigued, and wondering if it works. I actually started doing it once just to see how far I could get but I think I had previously slightly pulled one of my shoulder tendons, so I stopped to be on the safe side. However it's been weeks since then and I'm thinking of starting again, say next week. If anyone is crazy enough to want to join me, you're more than welcome. There appear to be different starting brackets, so that even the completely unfit (i.e. people able to do less than five pushups at a time) can try.

I haven't done anything political in a long time, which is probably good for my sanity, but I have been watching the whole William Ayers/Obama is a Muslim business with an "I can't believe they're still talking about this" attitude.

"And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?"

- Colin Powell, Meet the Press, October 19, 2008

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Also just because:

I remember when I was much younger I had a pretty strong aversion to the concept of transhumanism. I don't exactly remember why, but I suspect part of it was due to those recurring fears in our society of how "Scientific invention X is going to start a plague/set the atmosphere on fire/open a miniature black hole/cause aliens to invade Earth and wipe out all life! OH NOES!!!1!", fears that are usually based more on lack of knowledge than anything else, and fueled by overzealous reporters and bad science fiction movies.

I won't say that all such fears of scientific progress are unfounded, and I am loathe to perpetuate the "naive scientist completely lacking any sense of ethics" stereotype which is abundant in our popular culture (I've noticed them particularly recently in the Incredible Hulk movie and The Sarah Connor Chronicles). However, as one may guess from the above, I was thinking more about the transhumanism and wondering what in particular was so bad about it?

Perhaps one can make an argument about the sacredness of the human body but, when one thinks about it, nature really doesn't have any "right" way of designing the human body. In fact when considering how it developed, a lot of people have noted that the human body is really poorly designed for doing what it does. For example, I remember someone in a lecture on optical illusions talking about how the human eye doesn't focus correctly and is blurry and constantly shifting, and that the human brain has to go through a lot of image correction for us to see what we do through our eyes. I also remember during one of Stephen Hawking's annual lectures at Caltech where in response to a question from the audience he said something like, "The human body is really poorly designed. It uses the same passage for breathing as it does the swallowing of food, and thus it can choke. If there is an intelligent designer, he's really stupid." Plus this is only talking about fixing mistakes, not improving the potential of the human body.

I do think that there will be a number of profound consequences on society should this become big. As the 2008 Olympics have just finished I'm wondering how it would be affected, for example. I also admit I'd still feel squeamish if I were to, say, have Shadowrun-style cyberware installed in my body. However I do have to wonder if my initial aversion to the idea was based on some sort of unreasoned worship of the idea of the "natural human body."



Completely unrelated, has anyone ever noticed that the "naive scientist completely lacking any sense of ethics" usually tends to die in some gruesome manner by their creation which they let loose, much in the way that the female who is in any way sexually promiscuous usually dies violently in horror movies? Yay for Hollywood's subtle pushing of society's values.



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Also, for reasons I don't fully understand, I've been thinking of the phrase, "Only Nixon could go to China", a lot. No, I'm not thinking about Klingons. Really.

1. Is it just me, or are drivers more tame up in NorCal than they are in SoCal?

2. I refuse to accept that I am getting older. Clearly I am staying the same age and the undergrads are getting smaller and younger-looking.

When searching for Comic-con tickets and places to stay overnight, do not wait until three weeks before the event.

*sigh*

For the past two days I've been helping out my group with carrying out field measurements of methane in Santa Barbara Channel. Yesterday I drove to Santa Barbara Harbor to help them load the equipment onto the boat. Being a cheap bastard I was reluctant to pay the $1.50 for the parking lot, I decided to park on the sidewalk, which is free for the first 90 minutes as I wasn't planning on taking that long.

As usual, complications arose and the quick 1.5 hour job turned into a 4-hour session in which we had to find a way to haul a 50-foot tall aluminum tower onto a boat in the middle of a crowded marina. I returned to my car, somewhat worried, but it had not been towed or ticketed in my absence.

A sane normal person's typical reaction: Wow, I'm lucky nothing happened! I better make sure I don't do so again in the future.

My reaction: Wow, I'm lucky nothing happened! I wonder if nothing will happen if I keep doing this.

Yeah, I'm going to hell. Anyways, the next day I was running late, and so I decided to risk everything for the sake of science! I parked on the sidewalk again and ran off to the boat and international waters for the next six hours. When I returned, there was a ticket for $40 on my windshield.

I can conclude several things:

1. I'm a jerk who doesn't care about paying my dues to the city, and about the poor rich tourists who came all this way to Santa Barbara for vacation only to not be able to find parking along the beach.

2. I also need to get my priorities sorted out.

3. The parking police here are not omniscient, but they're pretty good. Or, alternatively, police in parts of the country where there is absolutely no crime usually have nothing better to do but give out parking tickets.

4. The city ended up getting more money out of me than if I had just paid for parking.

5. Santa Barbara Channel is actually pretty awesome. I saw numerous schools of fish, several herds of harbor seals (they swim right up to the side of the boat), and I think a couple of dolphins as well. Plus, there were several methane seeps, which look like a column of bubbles coming up to the surface of the ocean in the middle of an oil slick. No one I asked knows if anyone has ever tried to light up a methane plume before, though.

Recently there has been a trend in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k line towards larger battles and gigantic armies, with Apocalypse being perhaps the best example. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of this, and I remember the 5000 point 40k game years ago back in SGS fondly. Also, I understand why they'd push for larger games, and as such more miniatures scales.

However, I was just thinking about the hobby and of all the miniatures that I collected, and realized that what would really get me to break my moratorium on GW purchases and collect again would be the reintroduction of well-written and balanced rules for smaller squad-sized games, on the scale of rival miniatures games like Confrontation or Warmachine, or SGS's own home-brewed Steamfight game. In fact I would imagine it would look sort of like a 2nd-edition Warhammer 40k ruleset that didn't suck.

There is, after all, a certain appeal to having your armies be smaller and have character, and squad-based games in general allow more complex rules when larger games have to streamline for efficiency. Plus, it would be easier for Games Workshop to attract new players since their games currently require people to dish out several hundred dollars at the very start, as well as attract people like me who can start new armies really impulsively, and people whose lives are busy enough that they can't really afford to paint 100+ miniatures.

I doubt that this will happen, given some of GW management's recent actions of questionable wisdom, but it's fun to think about.

About a week ago I took a taxi to Santa Barbara Airport from the Lucky Cab taxi company, whose fleet consists purely of Toyota Priuses. It was a pleasant trip, as the cab was new, the trip was quick and pretty inexpensive, and the driver was friendly and fun to talk to. We chatted about such things as his world travels and past careers as a Hollywood art director and set designer, and I left thinking that here was a person who clearly has had an interesting life, and who seemed to be driving a taxi just for the hell of it (he looked old enough to be retired).

Today I took a taxi back from the airport, but from a different taxi company. I immediately noticed that the fare meter was rising alarmingly quickly, and I asked the driver about it. He responded, "Oh, we had to up the fare, because gas prices are rising so quickly. Take a look." He then pointed at a passing gas station sign, where the "Premium" gas had just exceeded $5 a gallon (this is California after all). The total trip fare ended up being twice what it took to get to the airport in the first place.

I think Lucky Cabs gets the last laugh here. I doubt we can really blame anybody but ourselves for this, as experts had been saying for years that relying on gasoline was folly as the supply is finite and gas prices would inevitably rise. However I also understand that it's pretty easy to imagine that gas prices would stay low forever through boom times, what with federal subsidies staying as much as they are and with the most visible effects of global warming decades into the future.

Also, if I'm not mistaken our current gas prices are still nowhere near what Europe's have been for years. Maybe we'll finally get better public transportation/high speed rails here?

My LJ has lain fallow for some time now, though certainly not for lack of things to write about. I've formed a nasty habit of starting but not finishing entries lately, for one reason or another. Perhaps this will break the mold.

Most of you know me from college, and if so chances are good that you've have heard my rant about the woes and problems with Los Angeles and how I'd never ever live there if I ever had the choice. If you want to feel really surreal, try to picture me making this rant as you read on.


( A tale of rather unimpressive proportions )

...while being driven through Seattle:

"Whoa, that place totally isn't like it is in Shadowrun!"