Plane of Knowledge: The Weekend Conundrum

Remember how I said I'd be posting the answers to every PoK the day after? Yeah, I should clarify - that's Business Day. That way you'll get a new one every time you get one answered. I simply can't be counted on to blog on the weekends. Of course, this post proves that it is possible; I'm just reluctant to set up the precedent. So, if you haven't already looked to find out the conifer answers, you'll see'm Monday.

The Geographer's Library

Reading The Geographer's Library makes me wish I had a big old alchemist's laboratory all to my self to play with.

The Plane of Knowledge: Know Your Conifers

Know your Conifers:
For each of the following types of conifers, tell how they are distinguished from other types of conifers. In general, this will involve talking about needle shape and grouping, cone disposition, and tree shape. List an example of each.
1) Spruces
2) Firs
3) Pines

Bonus: List 2 edible parts of conifers. They don't have to be edible on every conifer, just 2 things that come from conifers you can eat.

Bonus: List 2 types of conifers not mentioned here.




Answer's to yesterday's PoK: THE WAR OF 1812:
1) Who declared war on whom, and what were the reasons?

Well, Brian's right, we declared war on them, and there was a trade issue, specifically that the British were interfering with our trade with France (who they were at war with on the European continent). Davey was also right about them stealing people for their armed forces, although it was the impressment of American sailors rather than soldiers that was the main problem there. Additionally, the British were funding & supplying Native American tribes (such as the Shawnee under Tecumseh) in what was then the northwest frontier, and those tribes were preventing settlement in lands the US had obtained by treaty after the Revolutionary War.

2) How long did the war last?

Until 1815. The Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814. After the treaty was signed, the Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815 (Jackson & his troops were unaware of the peace). The treaty was ratified by the US in February.

3) Who was President at the time?

James Madison is correct.

4) What is that President's wife famous for during the war?

Brian's right again - she's famous for staying behind after basically everybody else, including her bodyguards, had left. She saved, among other things, a famous portrait of George Washington.

5) What American commander later became President?

Davey's right - it was Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans.

Bonus: What battle or battles is the 1812 Overture written to comemmorate?

Davey is right - this is a trick question. It was written about the French invasion of Russia in 1812. Specifically, the Battle of Borodino, if you must know.

The Plane of Knowledge: War of 1812

So, at work for the last several months we've had a feature on my friend Rob's whiteboard called the Plane of Knowledge. It's a box drawn on the board wherein every day (usually but not always before Rob arrives) it's my responsibility to fill the box with a few related questions about some topic. Sometimes we have guests do the PoK, but it usually falls to me. It's Rob's job to figure out the answers or his best guesses and we talk about the subject for a few minutes. He's not supposed to use the internet to look up answers, and neither are you. I'm supposed to stay at or near things I already knew - its not cool for me to go research some esoteric thing just to put it on the PoK. I can stretch that rule a little.

In the past, we've covered everything from alcohol to cryptolects to mythology to word definitions to geography to soup to nuts. I kinda wish I'd been putting them here all along.

So, I thought I might start putting them here, because I don't blog much (oh, you hadn't noticed?) and it'll give the rest of you a chance to play along at home. You can post guesses in the comments, or email them to me at my usual address. Ready?

THE WAR OF 1812:
1) Who declared war on whom, and what were the reasons?
2) How long did the war last?
3) Who was President at the time?
4) What is that President's wife famous for during the war?
5) What American commander later became President?
Bonus: What battle or battles is the 1812 Overture written to comemmorate?

Answers will be posted tomorrow. No cheating.

Calling all Gaiman Fans

So, Neil wrote a book called Stardust, which I have a signed copy of. At its release party at the local Borders, they were giving away or selling signed copies, and I found one that Neil had drawn a face in, so I snatched it up. Never got more than 50 pages in.

Then, They came out with an illustrated version. Great! I thought. Now it'll be like a graphic novel & I'll totally read it. It sits up on the comic shelf, unloved.

But today I saw the trailer for Stardust, and I'm ready to go see it. Now.

Because we're dorks

A directional graph representation of the relationships in Heroes.

Best. Heroes. Ever.

No Brain-Damaged Mohinder. No Overacting Nicky/DL. No Creepy Sylar. No Sucky Mohinder-Narration.

Just crunchy conflict, revelations as fast as you can take them, and the best writing we've seen so far on the show. Bravo, NBC.

Also, I stuck around and watched Black Donnellys, which I liked equally well. And not just because Olivia Wilde is the hotness.

Interesting new data visualizaton toolset

Manyeyes is a new web application from IBM that allows you to upload datasets and view the resultant data in well-thought out visualizations. There's some fascinating stuff already there and I think this kind of tool has lots of potential.

Because I couldn't resist.

Also not surprising:

Which B-Movie Badass Are You?

Big Boo-tay! Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Its no wonder...

You scored as Odin. Odin 70% Loki 60% Balder 50% Freya 50% Njord 50% Thor 50% Sif 50% Freyr 50% Hel 40% Tyr 40% Frigg 20% Bragi 20% Skadi 10% Heimdall 10% Which Norse God or Goddess are you most like?

Abulafia + Relationship Maps = FUN

I am thinking of a new RPG web-toy.

I put together Abulafia, which is doing pretty well. Recent successes and attention included getting listed on BoingBoing for remixing a Cory Doctorow short story, and some major attention from the City of Heroes/Villains community for the Superhero name generator. So I feel good about that.

But I want a random generator that handles Relationship Maps. I tell it how many people and how interlinked they are, and it spits back a webby diagram of how they're connected. If I don't like it, generate again. Relationship maps are exactly what they sound like - a diagram of a bunch of people (nodes) connected by lines with labels as to the nature of the relationship (edges). In computer science we call that kind of data structure a 'graph', and there are a few tools out there to deal with such things.

It looks like the best way to approach this is by using graphviz, which has a mediawiki extension that might allow me to just plug it straight into Abulafia, which would rock. Getting graphviz onto the server is going to be a bit of a headache if it's possible at all, as I'll have to compile it for Debian linux (along with all its dependencies, which are legion) and get it all happy on my hosting. I'm not all that good at stuff like that, so that may not work out in the end.

Another possiblity is to generate .xml for the relationship map and feed it into a flash web thingy, like this one currently undergoing development. That might end up being both prettier and easier, although not being able to tap into name & personality generators residing on Abu is a downside to this approach.

There are several tools that somebody who already has a map in mind can use to put it on the web - that's not really what I'm after. Those are great tools - this will be a toy. I want to be able to hit it for idea inspiration the same way I use Abulafia - not necessarily taking exactly what it gives me but using it as a starting point.

Invisible Cities and Forgotten Gods

I had quite the vivid Dreaming this morning.

My life being what it is, I didn't have time to record it when I was awakened - children to attend to and all that. I've been meaning to write it down all day, but its long and, as with all of my dreams, rambling and nonsensical. Here's how it all went down:

Overview:
An Affordable Apartment (Italians)->Game Store->Restaurant->Trespassing->The Machine->Cranberry Juice with the Warden->Odin's Secret->Assassin's Butter

Everybody Ready?

Act I

Scene One: In which an Affordable Apartment is Discovered.

So often in my dreams the city is alive, bizarre, and sort of 'Amalfi Coast'-like. I blame this on Neil Gaiman, Italo Calvino, and M.C. Escher circa 1930, respectively. So it was last night, and the first thing I remember is being in a car, ascending a steep hilly road encompassed about on both sides with buildings on top of buildings, and headed towards an overpass near the top of the hill which is itself more buildings. Instead of finishing my ascent, I pull off to a shoulder and park the car on the hill. There are stairs there, which I ascend. Everything is made of stone, or maybe well-disguised cement. No, it's my dream-city, and I decide it must all be stone. My friend Jeff is there, and he wants to show me this new apartment he's just rented. It's all one big room right now, but he has plans to subdivide it with cubicle dividers and make different spaces out of it. From where we go in the front door, it's maybe 30 feet on the side we're on, we're halfway up its 30 feet in height (small stairs lead down to the ground level, and it extends perhaps 60 feet back to the other wall. At the moment, it is entirely bare, and painted sky blue from floor to ceiling. Jeff (who is not Italian, but who went to Italy last year and so passes for an authority on these types of things in dreams) informs me that he's only paying for it what the average Italian worker makes in a day - $1.75 or some nonsense. I consider getting such an apartment too at such a price, but I can't be bothered too just now - there's other places to go in this dream.

Scene Two: A game store.

We pass through columned hallways on the overpass and over to the other side of the street, where there is a Game Store. I'm alone for the moment (but for the other customers). I poke through the shelves, but there's nothing I want - it's all the same old schlocky game supplements for games I don't play, or for older editions of things I do. I note that people have been careless in reshelving; some of the books are crammed down inbetween bookshelves or otherwise uncared for. I am a little sad there's nothing here I want, for I love it when there's new goodies to be had at my FLGS (that's Friendly Local Game Store, see?).

Scene Three: a Restaurant.

I am hungry, and I wanted to try out the Greek place next door to the game store, but as I'm going over there, they're closing up for the night - it's 7PM and that's when they close (bad business sense, I know). So I'm out of luck. I decide to ask one of the other customers from the game store where the best places are around to eat. She points out a seafood place and another place whose name I can't recall. We decide against the seafood and sit down at the other place. She is thin, dark haired, and pretty - a little Eva Green-esque come to think of it, but it's all innocent and I notice in the dream that I'm wearing my wedding ring, so I know there'll be no shenanigans. The place has excellent food that I wish I could remember - suffice it to say that the chef, a portly lady, comes out to consult with us and make recommendations for dishes I've never heard of, each more delicious sounding than the last.


Act II

Scene One: Trespassing

Did I say entirely innocent? Well the bad news is I wake up next to her the following morning. The good news is we're both clothed, and actually I'm not really me - this is all third-person perspective here and I'm actually Jeff. (Jeff - next time I'm on a date with Eva, don't you be stealing her away to your little italian-wage palace, eh?). They (or we) decide to see some places, a little outside the city. In particular, it's time to go see the haunts of the rich and famous. Still third person perspective as Jeff and the girl hike up seaside gravel road hairpin turns and look out at the bird-filled shore.

Now we enter the most vivid parts of the dream. There is a whole group of us now, and sometimes we're just wandering friends and sometimes we seem to be some sort of team with a goal I don't really know about. Anyway we're busy looking about on some rich dude's property, and it's gorgeous - like tall well spaced oak tree forest entirely carpeted in moss, or more tropical looking forest venues with enormous stone pillar ruins. The ground is enormous slabs of granite - its all perfectly designed. That's when we come to...

Scene Two: The Machine

Or maybe it's just a large kinetic sculpture. Anyway there's this towerey sort of thing, with well-stained wood and cord and large wooden spheres of various colors, and it moves, and we wonder what its all about. I decide to go into the heart of the beast to try to figger it out. I make my way in and am just having a look around, and there's hustle and bustle out where the others are - I can't see them anymore - its all cords and spheres and whatnot. I make my way out and discover that a representative of the property owner has arrived and we're to leave. This was sort of expected eventually, so we're not surprised or angry, and neither is he. We go to the nearest building where this employee resides so we can make phone calls or something.

Scene Three: Cranberry Juice with the Warden

So we go to his little run-down house and he offers us cranberry juice in old coffee mugs, which I accept. Our little group now includes Clive Owen, who's somehow in charge, and he's trying to get people all organized and what not. But then the property owner shows up, and he wants me to come out of the house and talk to him. So I do.

Scene Four: Odin

The property owner only has one eye. The other one is a sealed socket, and over the course of our conversation it occurs to me that 1) I'm dreaming, 2) this is the 'Wise Old Man' scene, and therefore 3) the only Wise Old Man with one eye is Odin. So I'm talking to Odin and haven't let on that I know who he is yet. He wants to tell me about this other place within his domain (property is now a tenous term) that I didn't get to see. In fact, he's never seen it. It can't be gotten too - it's the wild heart of the place. Over that way, past all the columns and forests - he shows me on a map and it looks like maybe its an enormous crater or something. It is dark, and wild, and he wanted to make sure this place would be preserved. I make a comment (trust me, it wasn't gauche or anything) about whether he'd be willing to have ravens peck out the other eye, and he corrects me - the Ravens didn't peck it out and eat it: He was made to eat his eye with the help of the Ravens, and its clear that in doing so he actually created the place he's telling me about - the place that man cannot conquer, or something like that. Anyway, now he's told me about it, and its time for us to go.

We are evacuated by helicopter. The man hanging off the skids when it touches down is named Philip, and he has a swordbelt on. Don't ask how I know that. I don't ask any questions.

Scene Five: Assassin's Butter

This part is just an image. No wait, first, the term Assassin's Butter is a made-up poison in one of my RPG books. Totally irrelevant to this scene, but that's how the term is in my subconscious. It's here in the dream because Jeff and I have a long-standing idea about something called the Punk Assassin which is an idea, a character, a fake tattoo, and nothing of note, all-at-once. Nevermind, that made no sense whatsoever. Anyway, the parting image of the dream is Jeff, again, opening the doors to his new restaurant, the name of which is The Assassin's Butter. The doors are large, wooden, and gilt with spiraling designs. Jeff is now sporting a large pointy mustache and tiny goatee, musketeer-style. It's never said, but I somehow understand that my encounter with the wealthy former-Norse-God has somehow led to the financing of this operation, and I'm proud. The food here's going to be even better than that other place.

All you crackpot amateur dream interpreters are welcome to post your various interpretations, provided of course that none of them make me out to be any crazier than I happen to know that I already am.

From one Nerdly to another

wow, i'm a slacker. Uh, sorry?

So one of the few things I have blogged about here is Camp Nerdly - now we're doing another, bigger one in May. I'm helping out, but someone else is taking the lead on the finances and everything (Thanks, Jason!). This time, I think we're doing a lot more things right the first time. Not that anything went particularly Wrong last time or anything, but I have a good feeling about this.

For one, lots of people are helping organize it, and it has a wiki to help facilitate that (I'm all about the wikis, seriously).

Speaking of the wiki, today drove not quite an hour down to the park to take some pictures of the site. It's closed for the winter, but one of the rangers went around with me unlocking doors so I could take pics. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a series of my very happy son going down the slide. What you won't see is how very angry he was at me when I picked him up and told him we were all done with the slide a little while later.

For the first one, it was like 35 degrees at night in October. Now, in January, it was maybe 65 degrees today. I'm just hoping by the time May 4-6 rolls around it won't be 40 degrees and pouring rain.

The Slightly-Late Camp Nerdly Zero Writeup

Had a blast at Camp Nerdly. Here's the quick gaming journal:

Friday: Got Joe McDonald from the airport, then went food shopping and headed down to camp in Prince William Forest NP in Triangle, VA, right next to the FBI Academy and Marine Corps Base. Jason Morningstar and Remi Treuer were just arriving too, so first we played Memoir '44, a WWII board game while we waited for others to arrive (Jason and I beat those Nazis at Pegasus Bridge). It was still just us four, so we made Joe demo his game, Perfect, for us. It's sort of Uber-Victorian meets a Clockwork Orange - you play criminals who for whatever reason are rebelling against the constraints of this society and who have a pretty good chance of getting caught at it by the vicious Inspectors on every corner. I played Gerard Bongo-Shaftsbury, a bulky former opera singer whose goal was to preserve (especially musical) works of art from being destroyed under the new regime. That was fun, and I bought a copy, but I don't think I know anyone here who'll play that with me.

People arrived and I got in on a game of Agon, where I was Praxis, son of Ajax the Smaller, who, with my companions Stentor and Kallias, took on the island of Ithaca, including a nasty encounter with a now-mad Odysseus. Remi did a gread job running the game, and despite the fact that it was quite cold in the cabin we were in (someone, maybe Jason, called it "the Valley Forge of gaming"). By the time that was over I was more than ready for the warmth of my sleeping bag.

Saturday: rose to chile and oatmeal from crockpots, and while I wouldn't normally eat either for breakfast (or at all, in the case of oatmeal), they were warm, and that was all that mattered. Later that morning I played a game in development, Misery Bubblegum, run by its creator, Tony. It's meant to be a quick-play high-school story game, so we decided to set ours during the 1950s Red Scare at Joseph McCarthy School for American Correctness. I was Jack Chaucer: spoiled rich kid and charming bastard (based more than a little on Logan from Veronica Mars). Tony was Mr. Weston the Civics teacher, and Joe was Mickey, the new kid. My traits: "I don't deserve happiness" and "Why am I so irresponsible." Joe and I were in competition over Betty, the bookish girl Jack has secretly liked and Mickey lives next door to. It played fast and memorable - very much looking forward to some more Misery Bubblegum either when it comes out, or while its still in playtest (Tony lives in Alexandria).

Saturday Afternoon: Jason ran an amazing Aztec version of The Shadow of Yesterday where I was Lord Bird, the Sacred Drunk. Me and the other 5 players were commanded by an Aztec goddess to kill the three gods who had ever been with her. Lord Bird is a total coward, so while the others did most of the fighting I did my part by hiding under the table throwing slippery overripe tropical fruit for the baddies to slip on.

Saturday Evening: I prepped the game I was going to run Sunday (see below), while some of the others played a zombie invasion game nearby. Turned in early.

Sunday Morn: Ran a version of Dogs in the Vineyard for Jason, Frank, and Kevin. Dogs is inspired by Deseret-era Utah, and characters go from town to town rooting out sin among the faithful. In the game, its a sort-of fantasy/supernatural setting, but for this game I drifted it fully back into historical Utah, 1857. Set during the events of the Utah War, the players were now members of the Nauvoo Legion sent North to Fort Bridger, WY, in advance of the arrival of the Federal troops. I gave them all historical figures from the era and explained a little about Mormon theology at the time, and they all surprised me with how quickly and effectively they took to emulating Latter-Day Saints of that particular time and place. Eventually there's supposed to be an Actual Play thread (Kevin, I'm looking at you!), which I'll link to here. But I had a great time running it even if I did screw up the final conflict. I might refine it a little and have it ready for me or others to run at gaming conventions in the future, if I think there's interest.

Sunday Afternoon people were headed out, so we cleaned up the campsite and I had a couple of really good talks with Jason, Andy, Mark, and others about what we might do the same and differently the next time around. First off, we instituted a policy that nobody can be the same organizer twice in a row, so Jason's taking the next one (tentatively in May '07) and is already hard at work putting it together.

If I haven't already bored you to tears, you can read more feedback here.

29

Aaannd, Happy Birthday to Me