All But Malice

Informed Correction

The fourth link in the big post two down from this deserves note of a correction, thanks to the highly intelligent and worth-reading Lindsay.

I find it interesting that the 21st commentor revises her main post, from a true correction into indeterminacy. Her refutation of some of the background to the original scare article remains sound; what impresses me is the level of thought that she gets in those comments, and her more-than-willingness to listen to them.

Nonetheless both the post and the comments are unanimous that Canadian vaccines have been 'safe' from this for longer than my readers have been alive. Whether this is justified or not is certainly worth studying... but it's nice to be able to relax. This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 10:46 AM

Last Supper Reviewed

As part of an effort to get peer reviews done on all the entries to the IGC, the first review of The Last Supper has finally been posted. Emily Care's review is glowing, and I am indeed damn proud. In return, for those who haven't seen it, I recommend all my readers (especially the ladies of our crowd) to go check out Breaking The Ice... not so much as a thank-you to Emily, but because it deserves the attention in its own right. (I'm not sure whether the version at that link is the most current, or not. Perhaps someone can enlighten me about this in the comments.)

To the Edmonton crowd... I think I will try and organize a Last Supper evening for either Canada Day or the day after (Saturday 2nd). Many of you have mentioned interest... email me or leave a comment if you're actually willing to put out. This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 4:18 PM

Four Important Things

...and much ado about things that matter. And then some gravy.

Most of my readers are news unjunkies, so much of this will be, well, news to them. That's what this post is for. Note that the links provided should not be taken to imply that a single source is ever a smart way to look into an issue; these are simply jumping-off points with good punch, with a viewpoint that's a decent match to my own.

Number one: The Downing Street Hearings.
"Very slowly, and after an embarrassing gap of silence from the news media, the American people have come to hear about the Downing Street Minutes. This document, once confidential but leaked by a British version of Deep Throat, describes in plain language the manner in which the Bush and Blair administrations planned to manipulate their way into an invasion of Iraq. The Minutes describe how intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of invasion, and that a pretense for war had to be manufactured in order to paint a veneer of legitimacy over what everyone involved knew was a patently illegal military action."

Finally it begins.

Number two: The Supreme Court of Canada on healthcare.
When you visit this link, read the whole thing - including all of the comments, and if interested some of the supporting links provided therein. It showcases some excellent cross-political discussion about the outcomes of the SCOC's recent decision to strike down a Quebec law forbidding private health insurance, on the grounds that the deficiencies of the public system made it a rights violation to deny any other alternative. The short-sighted and the political right are seeing this as a green light to private medicine in Canada. King Ralph will certainly do so.

The data say this is a fucking stupid idea. Follow those links in the comments, guys; they're pure gold for convincing people who might be wobbly about privatization issues. Peer-reviewed hard data from nonpolitical medical journals, collated into summary form.

Number three: Debt Relief for the third world.
"Instead of this self-congratulatory Lady Bountiful act, how about some real debt relief? That means unconditional, mass repudiation of debt, the sacking of the World Bank and IMF headquarters, and Paul Wolfowitz's bleeding head on a pike."

Anyone with a libertarian streak, once you follow the link above, go read all of the favorite posts linked down the left of Kevin Carson's blog. Fantastic stuff. Libertarianism isn't actually short-sighted and imbecilic; it's just that so many libertarians are.

Number four: Vaccines, Autism and Silence
Normally one would prefer to dismiss such things as the ravings of the tin-hat crowd. One really, really would. And in ninety-nine percent of such stories, one probably can. This is important, intensely relevant, and I very much fear it's one of the one percent. I will do some further research on this with respect to Canadian usage, but something tells me the outcome is unlikely to be pretty.

Other news worth noting includes the crisis in Bolivia, the Conservatives and the Liberals and the contempt they deserve, Microsoft and China, and a June 21 launch date for Cosmos 1.

And here's a little amusing gravy for you all to enjoy when you can take no more of this nonsense.

Enjoy! This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 1:26 PM

And it's done.

With less than ten minutes to spare before the 11:59PM EST deadline, c'est fait. I'm very, very pleased with how this baby turned out; this may be no Dogs in the Vineyard, but I reckon I've got a shot at the title.

Among other things, where you needed to pick at least one of six rules limitations, The Last Supper ends up using five of the six. I'm betting that's a record, especially because IMO none of them is forced; the use of colour was one I hadn't planned to use, but ended up implementing because it turned out to be necessary to solve one of the needs of the design.

The game can be found here in its current form, including some fonts which you'll need to install before opening it. PDF and so forth can come later. (Edit - the zip file at that link now contains PDF versions kindly converted by Iron Chef Mischka. Enjoy.)

Who's up to helping with a playtest? This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 12:33 PM

Destroying or Reworking

Been pretty quiet here; my thanks to those who haven't completely given up on me. It's been a rough few weeks in our house, for some reason; everyone has been stressed (for me it's mostly work stress and mild depression) and nobody's got the steam to support the others properly. Self-reinforcing phenomenon of the worst kind.

However, I'm (wobblily) on the move upward, with oscillations. So far so good, apart from the hacking cough I've been suffering for the last week-plus.

For your delectation, and as a reward for tuning in, you get two grandiose links. One of them is my own work, for the Iron Game Chef competition: The Last Supper. So far I'm pretty happy with it, though I need to work on that endgame. Screw the math, run with absolutes and privileges, man.

The other is simply cool. Top Ten Ways To Destroy The Earth. No kidding. This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 10:30 AM

(Low whistle) Ow!

Steal, if you must. But steal smart. And bear in mind that the benchmark for smarts is very high. This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 9:57 AM

Gaming-ey goodness

Wahoo!

Star and Myrna and I had a lovely night out together yesterday. We went to see Born Into Brothels, which was fascinating, then supper & BP's.

At BP's I had Brian talk to me about a game he and Levi had been talking about, and (after cringing at some of the things he was talking about doing therein) got to give him the lowdown on why conflict resolution is good, and developed with him (actually, mostly at him) a variant on Dogs in the Vineyard's core mechanic adapted for LARP play involving assorted spirits and figures from myth. And it not only sounds workable, but has some neat elegances to it which come from the adaptation. For instance, in place of dice the instruction to players is likely to be "Bring a deck of playing cards for yourself. Build it however you like, so long as it includes one complete suit and is at least X cards. You could fill the rest with assorted copies of the eight of clubs if you really want." Neat stuff. I'll be trying to write that up for Brian at some point soon.

Then, I get not one but two scrumptious new RPGs within the last nine hours or so. Huzzah! First, last night when we got home from a lovely night out (), I got to unwrap my shiny new copy of Primetime Adventures. Yum. Not a game I'd have bought on my own, from the cover blurb... but one which people I highly respect have done absolutely amazing things with, containing some nuggets of serious genius.

Then this morning Ben Lehmann sent me a sparkly copy of the new edition of Polaris, which is marked, Rough Draft Just Especially for Eric. Apr 16/05. If you aren’t Eric Finley, why are you reading this? I mean, maybe you’re in his group. Thanks, Ben! I'll treasure this. Any of the Friday crew who may read this in the course of their blog-reading today, I'm running this tonight come hell or high water. If you want in, call it. Spots are limited. This is a long post - Read the rest.

posted by Harlequin @ 8:43 AM