Not Letting the Dice Decide

While sexual harassment in roleplaying games isn't front page news in the same way that the rags and tatters of Hollywood pretence are, it happens. And, unlike the real world, it can sometimes seek to excuse itself by relying on not having happened in reality. However, I don't think something is automatically acceptable just because …

The Cost of Being Seen

While the web might have started out as excited amateurs building their little corner then sharing it with others, it's now also home to large companies and content professionals. Which has made recouping the cost of running sites and creating the pages on them a major driver of "normal" website structure. The usual models are …

Dogged by Error

An interesting talk, both from the hard science perspective and the softer one of difference being illusion. https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality Whoever perceived a need for an algorithm that adds dogs to a situation was clearly not seeing straight though.

+1 Blade of Universe Slaying

Had an interesting offline debate about adding weapons and armour to Cthulhu Dark. So, continuing my intermittent thoughts and hacks of the system, I thought I'd share a little in case it proved helpful for explaining to players used to equipment bonuses why there aren't any. My interlocutor, brain clearly as fuzzy as his muttonchops, …

Advertising’s a Dirty Business

The postman delivered an Amazon parcel. As I was out at the time, they left it in a secure location. Using the wonders of GIMP and a couple of minutes of my time, I've replicated the most important parts of the sight that met my eyes when I went to recover it. What are your …

Bat(ttered)man

I've recently started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. Overall, it's a great fun game but there's one niggle: saved games - or rather the lack thereof. When playing computer games with character options, I always gravitate toward stealth and cunning over charging around and brute force. However, I play for relaxation not to hone my keyboard …

Obstacles Diminish Enthusiasm

I'm a firm believer in being better than you need to be just because you can. However, sometimes others go out of their way to make it less smooth than it needs to be. While visiting a supermarket this morning, I had cause to use their toilets, during which I discovered the paper holder in …

Psychometric Trigger Locks

As Colleen Hoover writes trigger warnings can be a complex topic. How does one balance protecting people from traumatic reminders without spoiling books for others? Perhaps the answer, and other similar advantages, lie in expanding existing book-site technology. Having known more than one person who's suffered from a species of traumatic stress or phobia, I …

He Knows… But He’s Got Problems

DiVinci-esque savants aside, humans tend not to be great at the total of all tasks. Which makes being good or bad at something a poor indicator of whether a person is competent as a whole. For the last few weeks my computer has been freezing while watching videos or broadcasting podcasts. Which could be many …

A Very Dim Mirror

In one of my favourite scenes from Inspector Morse, Morse tells Lewis a little about his adolescence and how he promised himself that he'd never forget what it felt like; and then he delivered the kicker, that of course he did, that everyone does. There are many reasons I accepted the fallibility of memory, but …