I spent some time roleplaying with my nephew Sparky the last time he visited and again this weekend. He’s 12; it was an interesting experience. I gave octaNe (original) a try, on the principle that the mechanics wouldn’t be too complicated and it’d be good for him to get his feet wet with some storytelling techniques. However, I think I was wrong — he was pretty clearly looking for more structure while we were playing, although he certainly had fun. I’d been hoping that his experience with spy flicks (we were doing a James Bondian scenario) would be enough but it wasn’t really. Also, 12 year olds are not good at saying “Hm, I could do anything I want but I will restrict myself for the sake of the story.” Next time I’ll try D20 Modern or Feng Shui. ...

The NY Times ran a great article today about economic disparities between China and India. The gist of it: China and India’s economies were on a par 20 years ago, but China is pulling way ahead. The available resources are more or less similar. The Times implies that it’s largely due to China’s unfettered capitalism experiments, which is no doubt a big part of it; on the other hand, blaming India’s copious local regulations without examining the consequences of China’s lack of regulation is a bit shaky. They do touch on the cheap labor available in China, but they don’t ask why American companies aren’t as eager to develop the Indian markets. Maybe they’re seen as already developed, not sure. ...

Albeit I’m not much of an action figure guy, these Stikfas things are pretty darned cool. They’re basically stripped down articulated action figures, that come unassembled. You snap ‘em together and if such is your wont, you customize ‘em (original). My fearless prediction: these are going to sell like hotcakes, particularly because they’ll tap into that need for customization I’ve talked about before. Reskinning your action figures? Sure, that’s cool.

They build giant letters on mountaintops. Innocuous activity, but fraught with potential.

This disaster is why I wouldn’t ever work at a hospital. I get sufficiently stressed worrying about my company losing money. Losing lives — no. I respect hospital sysadmins immensely. It’s not a very technical article, but still interesting. The point about the importance of the network in disaster recovery planning is essential. slashdot claims the problem was due to a spanning tree fault, although this more technical article (original) seems to indicate a congestion problem. Hard to say.

Generally, I am not too thrilled about the proliferation (original) of government agencies (original). The FVZA, however, is the sort of thing we need much more of. Good work, men.

I’m very sad to hear that Hogshead Publishing is going out of business (original). It’s not that they’re bankrupt or any such; apparently it’s just not fun any more, and I can certainly understand that. Still a shame. Hogshead and its founder James Wallis have provided high quality gaming for the last decade. They started out as the holders of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG license. WFRPG has been an important alternative to D&D in the fantasy RPG genre in both mechanics and style. I believe the prestige class system in D&D 3E owes a lot to Warhammer’s career system, and the Warhammer world beats 7th Sea all hollow as far as alternate Europes go. ...

Sound Bites was a very good breakfast, but the memory is somewhat tainted by the tainted pizza I had for dinner. I liked their mashed potatoes, and I liked the corned beef hash very much, but I will probably not go for the poached eggs again just in case they were at fault. I have a mini-essay about the necessity to rethink the way governments interact with relevant non-governmental organizations, which I will write when I am feeling somewhat better.

n o w h e r e g i r l is a pretty tasty online comic. The protagonist is perhaps a little whiny, but the art is just lovely.

The author of the infamous “ The Eye of Argon” has been found. Descending from his perch, Grignr was startled by a faintly muffled scream of horrified desperation. His hair prickled yawkishly in disorganized clumps along his scalp. As a cold danced along the length of his spinal cord. No moral/mortal barrier, human or otherwise, was capable of arousing the numbing sensation of fear inside of Grignr’s smoldering soul. However, he was overwrought by the forces of the barbarians’ instinctive fear of the supernatural. His mighty thews had always served to adequately conquer any tangible foe., but the intangible was something distant and terrible. Dim horrifying tales passed by word of mouth over glimmering camp fires and skins of wine had more than once served the purpose of chilling the marrowed core of his sturdy limbed bones. ...