Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Gizelnort's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
12:29 pm	Train Games :) So this weekend was pretty nice, I got to enjoy two rounds of train games, a three player 1861 with M and B on Saturday and then on Monday did two half four hand games with M, 1861 again in which both of us played two positions each.  I was spanked on Saturday (with a vengeance) and on Monday one of my hands came in second on the second game, thanks to a trick M pointed out with one of the railroads.  Last night I read a strategy guide on 1861 and noted that most of the tricks M used are well developed, knowing them know I'll do better in 1861. But it got me thinking about 18xx and my other favorite train game, Railroad Tycoon, both of which have elements I really enjoy and elements that I don't enjoy. Railroad Tycoon is fun due to its simple track laying, easy to grasp rules, and emphasis on expanding a railroad for fun and profit, in particular I like its system of goals that players attempt to achieve.  (Even though the common goals lead to a strategy to boosting ones starting position through specific choices.)  I also enjoy the simplified stock market concept from Railroad Tycoon.  However I am not such a huge fan of the high amount of random in Railroad Tycoon. 18xx has no random in it but it is also far more prone to clever tricks and has many artificial elements in each game to move it forward.  (Caps on amount of stock owned, caps on train ownership by companies, forced obsolescence of trains, etc.)  I wonder if an 18xx type of game could be made in which market forces did the work rather then external game forces. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
11:33 am	The Expendables - a chub fest of a movie So this weekend past I saw The Expendables and allow me to say that film was a massive chub fest that was highly enjoyable in its action and goodness - one of the major claims for fun on this film is that no two extras or characters died the same way, each attack was unique.  Does this make the film a mindless explosion of action and violence?  Yes, yes it does.  But it is a fun mindless explosion of action and I look forward to future releases of film goodness in the same series, plus the rumor is that a graphic novel will be coming out as well.  This is a film that I'll probably actually see again in theaters this weekend, it was that much fun. It also featured prominently several loving scenes in which the Atchisson Assault Shotgun was in use - as this is a military bit of hardware I know I shall never likely be able to own one - but I'll be honest watching it in action in the film made me think simply this - "even with non-lethal rounds that thing would shut down any attempt to rob someone."  The gun was fed with some sort of massive drum fed system (or just Hollywood magic) but it did one hell of a lot of damage in the film at several points. This film also re-enforced my urge, someday, to do at least a one-shot film award show like The Smithees which I will call The Chubbies - for the sole purpose of rating cheesy action films of bygone years.  Really there is something about the muy-macho fun of these films. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
10:32 am	Bad dreams and a bit of a news feed... So last night was interesting, I crashed when I got home and got a three hour nap, then ate dinner and curled up for the night, so overall I got an excellent nights sleep.  Unfortunately this translated into vivid dreams that I actually remembered, usually these are not that wonderful an addition to my nighttime rest retinue.  The first dream was a nightmare of high oddity in which I, along with several other people, had been kidnapped by some sort of evil villain who was seeking to squeeze the life essence out of us using some sort of rolling press.  This dream was  magical reality sort of dream because when a person's body is rolled over with a heavy thick rubber wheel said body does not "dimple" with a neat pattern that matches the wheel, one's body suffers crushing or other damage.  In any case this dream ended on a lovely note - said evil villain was having those of us not being pressed work in her kitchen - when she got within grabbing range I manged to grab her, shove her under a running tap, and attempt to kill her by stabbing her with a kitchen knife.  Sadly though her nearby guards ended that attempt with a meat cleaver assault on yours truly, I woke up just before the cleaver took off my dream fingers. Ah, good times in dream land. That was followed shortly by a dream fragment in which I was attending a play and, for some reason, had submitted an essay to the play company to win a prize.  I was summoned to join one of the play producers in the back room to get a commission to write a short bit for the company to put on - what stood out was the comment of the producer "You are a brilliant writer" said in a trilling voice.  Immediately after that a voice over, I kid you not, a voice over appeared in my own voice saying "Actually you realize you really are not - this is just a dream."  Sort of ruined the moment but such is dreams. I've been following, lightly, the apparent rising controversy over the issue of building a mosque/community center/monument to Islamic fundamentalism in New York, covered in summary by this neat posting from Time magazine.  What strikes me in particular is that the land in question is apparently legally owned by the group that wants to build this community center, the local authorities in charge of zoning/land use in the city have approved this construction, call me deliberately obtuse but why is this becoming an issue upon which national political figures are commenting?  I understand the President giving a rallying message of support - sadly such statements have become the purview of this office as much as any other national "cheer leading/motivational speaking" duties - but why use this as a lightening rod for popular opinion?  It has many nasty threads through it - issues of racism, religious prejudice, and xenophobia.  I would honestly have figured a better tactic for the right would have been to wage an ideological effort to win control over the memory of 9/11 and how it is memorialized - not wage a bitter war to keep "the outsider" away from those memories. I was also intrigued to read about financial shortfalls that are affecting "for profit" universities - apparently due to defaults on federal educational loans these institutions are proving to be a bit of a money sink for federal dollars.  What strikes me about this is the odd nature of this problem - students are borrowing money to get college education, which should elevate them into the realm of skilled labor, and yet they are then not able to find jobs in the US that pay wages to allow them to service their loans.  (Perhaps it is also a matter of being unwilling to pay off their loans but that is a separate matter and still carries negative long-term ramifications to your future ability to borrow.)  In any case though this current bubble of college educated and unemployed is an interesting phenomenon - it makes me wonder if perhaps there will be a space in the future for lower-cost four year and two year degree granting institutions?  Perhaps the future lies in creating a university that offers a four year degree or a two year degree under the same roof and using a lecturer/faculty model - sort of a lower cost blending of what is currently done in the US. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
12:59 pm	Thinking about drinking the Kool-Aid (rpg wise) So as anyone who has read this journal for more then a couple of entries has probably guessed by now - I enjoy gaming, more critically I am usually focusing my energy on the topic of either writing adventures for role playing games OR on my most recent concept for a board game.  I've posted rules up here, I've laid out design notes for adventures, and posted plenty of "Darn that would be nifty if..." concepts.  About two weekends ago though I was talking with Gabe about role playing games and about my frustrations after vetting yet another game system, specifically about the failings of that system.  (In this case it was Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes which failed when I got to the experience point system - anything highly complicated is just not my cup of tea.)  I was commenting to Gabe about how one of the things I lament about fantasy role playing games that are out there is that most of them are tightly wedded to the concept of fantasy from Tolkien and other sources (magic!  elves!  dwarfs!  dragons!) and how there are also no nice "dice pool" systems that deal with a fantasy setting.  Add to that my personal love of Sword and Sandal fantasy, Conan level fantasy, and Gabe got a full belly full of my complaining.  Finally though I closed by saying "What I should do is write my own role playing setting and game so it can have exactly what I want in it."  Gabe then informed me that was a fabulous idea and one she really thought I should get down to doing - not just because I'd been fussing mind you but also because I'd been playing RPGs for well over a decade plus, I've read tons of system books, and I've gotten a really solid grounding in what I like and what I don't like in an role playing game. She has now officially tempted me into strongly considering what sort of a role playing game I'd actually enjoy writing and what sort of setting would capture the semi-Conan feel that I am looking for.  (Semi-Conan feel or just Ed's wacky-tacky vision of fantasy, a game in which you could comfortably run Zardoz has a certain appeal to it, creation and challenge wise.)  The problem though is that writing a full RPG is a HELL of a lot of work, prone to its own problems, and no matter what I created there are already tons of role playing systems and settings out there.  Plus to be honest it would likely show its DNA from other systems quite clearly.  However it would, in theory at least, create a system out there that had all the elements in it that I enjoyed most in a well made role playing game. So I'm torn on the issue - try and create something new and highly simple or keep poking around at other systems trying to find something that I personally find highly fascinating.  (For those wondering my goals would be: simple character design, simple universal rules systems, simple combat system, and enough flexibility to allow characters to create whatever they wished to create in the game, just the design goals of every writer of a role playing game ever. :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
2:17 pm	Daily Show - a bit misdirective :) So thanks to the magic of Facebook I was steered to a link to yesterdays edition of the Daily Show (episode for 08/11/10) and the lead-in was a story about how Republicans on the one hand are arguing about the dangers of the rising federal deficit and, on the other hand, how it is critical to renew the "Bush tax cuts" that are set to expire in 2010.  The Daily Show even included a clip of an economics talking head/expert from another station who argued that removing the Bush tax cuts would decrease federal deficit spending by 30%.  Stewart throughout the presentation though played the angle that the Republicans seem to be at a mental division - supporting cutting taxes while also calling for deficit spending reductions, Stewart even went on to hint that this represents a schism in Republican thinking politically. Which honestly is not entirely honest of the Daily Show in this regard - Republican thinking on this matter has actually been pretty firmly consistent since Reagan was in office, granted implementation has not been consistent but Republican thinking has been, as I understand it the Republican plan of action boils down to this: keep federal taxes on all sources of revenue at the lowest level possible that would allow for a stable, non-deficit inducing budget; maintain government spending on national infrastructure, research, and defense projects, the narrowly defined purview of the federal government; drastically cut or remove all spending on a national level for human/social net programs and move those initiatives to a state level.  Many "classic" Republicans have argued for decades for a narrow view on federal authority and activity and pushing more of the laws that provide for welfare, social services, and human support to the state level, I believe ideologically on the grounds of decentralizing government authority to make it more reactive to local needs and also to put these programs directly under the approval or disapproval of the citizen body of each state. To put it more bluntly, if the people of Texas don't want to have a Medicare program and the people of New York do, for classic Republican philosophy both people, through their state legislature, should be able to express this view.  Personally not a view I hold myself, I hold to the view expressed by Jackson and Lincoln about the role and position of the federal government (plus I'm a long standing Federalist myself, to go in the way-back machine) but for Republican ideology since the 1920s this has been a pretty consistent drive. Bush himself while in office expressed this view under the policy descriptor, rumored, of "starve the beast" - using drastic cuts in funding to defacto end certain federal social welfare and human services programs.  So I have to hold the Daily Show to task - lambasting the Republicans for this view point and presenting it as a split-personality outlook is not fair nor proper - the Republican policy is a consistent one and has been a consistent one for many decades now on this matter.  As well, honestly, although I disagree with it I also see the value of it for the Republic as a whole, the Jeffersonian position presented by Republicans, or conservatives in general in the US, is a vital counterweight towards the tendency of Federalists such as me to increase the power and authority of the federal government.  The tension in our nation between state authority and federal authority, and the compromise between these forces, is a dynamic element in our nation that I personally consider vital to our longevity as a nation and our overall historic success.  Both forces are vital and both forces have played key roles in shaping the fairly unique development path our nation has followed since 1789.  (Two hundred and eleven years of growth, social change, and dynamic movement is an impressive run to date.) All that said the closing quote by New Gingrich about China and capital gains taxes - incredibly laughable and amusing.  I just checked around online and found several websites (example given) that confirm China does have a capital gains tax - in fact if you compare it to US capital gains tax our tax code pars the Chinese on long term capital gains when looking at the Chinese domestic company capital gains tax.  Note China does give foreign companies a capital gains tax break of 10% - something the US does not do.  But I do agree with John Stewart, China is still a Communist nation and, honestly, no free market state at its heart.  Yet China is also an incredibly free-wheeling country economically as well, allowing foreign corporations a great deal of economic freedom and low taxes.  (Although to give Newt his credit his actual argument shows more nuance, I took the liberty of reading it online.)  I'll have to ponder his arguments for myself, this only re-enforces that I need more training in economics though.  :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
4:37 pm	Fabulous article today on new developments in nukes One of the truly wonderful things I get to bump into sometimes at work are technical magazines I can actually read and follow the articles in, IEEE Spectrum is an example with its lovely illustrations and short summaries of developments in technology and engineering.  The August 2010 edition of this magazine had an article in it titled Wave of the Future? Generation Four Reactors and it actually made me squeal with happiness (inside, it was a small squeal, but none the less a real one) because it described three new nuclear reactors under development which hold significant promise to advance the technology of nuclear energy - on the standards of making reactor design simpler, safer, and able to actually burn some of the waste produced in the core during fission to extend the lifespan of the reactor.  Two of the designs are completely sealed reactor cores that operate for a fixed span of time and then, when exhausted, are buried/disposed of as is and the other is a mostly sealed design that can be refueled.  I'm particularly thrilled that these new designs are using sealed liquid sodium systems for coolant purposes and electromagnetic pumps, by doing so they vastly increase the odds of the reactor not suffering a LOCA as easily as a solely water based coolant system can. Of course, before anyone asks, I am a huge fan of nuclear power, both its research and expanded deployment.  Do I strongly support alternative energy sources being developed first and foremost?  Certainly, expand our capacity to use renewable energy resources, wind, water, solar, geothermal, expand our capacity as a society to get power from sources we can reuse.  But when that falls short of the expected goals people set for it, I would rather that we have the research in place already to make better nuclear reactors using fission (fusion is a cute toy and will remain as such for a while to my eye) in place so that, barring some miracle changing our energy needs and our energy production capacity, we are able to build nuclear power generation facilities that are smaller, safer, longer lasting, and using the most recent technology we have at our disposal, not some last minute slapped together work that we hope holds up.  For those wondering I am also concerned about the long term impacts of using nuclear power on the environment and on humanity, I'm seriously concerned about the huge amount of damage nuclear power can inflict on a region if a plant goes badly, and I endorse efforts to reduce our energy and resource use footprint. But I also see a few other factors as well - Developing nations expanding their infrastructure and economic base and not being willing to cut back even though the rules have changed Expanding uses for energy in every region of the globe Resistance by most humans to accept a lesser standard of living then what they currently have lightly or easily Increasing costs of petroleum as peak oil production is reached and passed Nuclear power is waiting, quietly, to fill in that power gap as we shift where petroleum is allocated and how we use it.  The future is coming and our children and grandchildren, I'm betting, are going to grow up in a world in which the local friendly nuclear plant, along with the wind farm and the solar farm, are as familiar to them as the coal plant and natural gas plant are to us. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 5th, 2010
10:24 am	Writer's Block: Bye bye life! If you could choose the manner in which you would ultimately die, would you? How would you want to depart this world? First question listed was submitted by phoenixspirit8. (Follow-up questions, if any, may have been added by LiveJournal.) View 1213 Answers Death in the nuclear apocalypse would be nice - preferably while getting to actually watch the blast with those cool blast goggles on so I can see the mushroom cloud just before vaporization. Barring the entire end of humanity I think rather then death I'd like to slip through a gap into a parallel universe where I end up some mysterious old man who no longer ages and cannot die and yet longs to understand the mysteries that brought such a change upon him. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
9:15 am	Bring forth the screaming geek! So yesterday while watching The Daily Show I learned of the current tempest in a teapot in Washington, the issue of "Anchor Babies" being used by illegal immigrants to attempt to improve their chances of staying within the United States.  As far as I can tell from websites such as this one the issue stems off the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the open-ended number of possible "family reunification visas" that can be requested by newly arrived immigrants in the United States.  The debate appears to stem off a call to amend or modify the 14th amendment to contain this "problem" - this call invoked my wrath on two fronts.  First off the Constitution, although a living document, should not be modified lightly or for transient passions, any changes to the founding document of the United States should be done carefully, after measured thought, and with due consideration for its impact upon the fabric of the nation as a whole.  The Constitution, lest people on the right or left forget, represents the covenant between the governed and the government, ultimately it is the agreement from which the authority of the federal government is derived, it is fundamentally our contract with ourselves on how we wish to be governed.   It rules over all of us and therefore should be handled delicately. More critically though the people calling for a change to the 14th amendment are just a new resurgence of old prejudices and fears, the Nativist movements of the 19th century once more rearing their ugly heads on the US political landscape.  For those curious a version of this was the Know-Nothing Party that was sharply anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and for the idea of 100% Americanism, whatever the hell that was.  The people at the time period could only define it by what was not 100% American which, basically, translated to "was not born here."  We are a mongrel nation and we as a people should be damn proud of our mongrel roots - the US is a nation that at its finest welcomes other cultures into its mix, learns from them, they learn from us, and a new stronger synergy of culture appears.  Call me crazy but our nation draws strength from blending ideas, peoples, and heritages into a collective stew, it is a time of pain and change but it is also a time of growth and progress.  I have stood behind the idea of increasing immigration quotas for years (immigrants = new happy consumers who want the good life promised by the US) and for bringing in poor and lightly educated individuals who are in good health and willing to work hard.  The under-educated immigrant today is often the parent or grandparent of highly educated and highly acculturated future citizens of our nation - if that involves investing in seeing them off to a good start through government programs and aid, then so be it. The US is a power house today in part because of the past investments made by our predecessors in the nation by allowing open immigration, it was painful in parts but it also damn well made this nation stronger by making surplus labor, new demands, and also by continually feeding the population base with hungry, aggressive new citizens.  The US was not allowed to grow fat and complacent because new immigrants were lean, eager, and demanding - each new wave putting pressure on the one before it.  Today the US tries to skim just the cream with its immigration policies and that is well and good but the US should be a land of opportunity for all who are willing to work. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
2:07 pm	The History Geekness 9000! So last night I sat down to watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a fine film, and I enjoyed the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery once more, that film is simply made of victory and sheet cake, to quote Patton Oswalt.  However it also sparked several potent historical geek moments as I watched the film, some of which you will get to enjoy now: 1. During the scene in which Indiana Jones is pushed by the crowd in Berlin outwards and he bumps into Adolph Hitler, the individuals surrounding Adolph Hitler and serving as his personal body guard appear to be in the uniforms of the SA (or Sturmabteilung, the Storm Troopers.)  This is potentially somewhat irregular as the SA had been effectively neutralized politically in 1935 with the Night of the Long Knives and Hitler's personal security at that point fell under the control of the SS (or Schutzstaffel) instead.  However I'm not sure if Hitler might have appeared next to individuals simply wearing the SA uniforms for political theater reasons. 2.  Every time the movie mentions the Republic of Hatay near the end, while showing a picture of Hagia Sophia in the background, makes me want to hit things with a rage that is fully and complete.  However as it turns out there actually was a temporary political entity known as the Republic of Hatay and it did control Alexandretta, so the movie gained some historical points for that.  The region though was in 1939 undergoing a period of dual political control between France and Turkey as part of an intricate and highly fascinating diplomatic and political dance over the amount of influence Turkey would wield in the Middle East/in its former holdings as the Ottoman Empire.  (Fascinating if you are an interwar history geek learning a new nugget of happiness, not so fascinating if you are a normal human being.)  That said though everything else in the film dealing with the Republic of Hatay is wrong, complete with the Germans asking for the permission of its ruler (King/Sultan) for right of transit.  The King/Sultan is obviously a play on the actual Sultan of Turkey during the Young Turks period (1908 - 1919) from his outfit and the troops surrounding him in the film, by 1939 said Sultan was long a memory of history alone. 3. The Afrika Corps operating in Alexandretta, which is just freaky and wrong.  In 1939 there was no Afrika Corps and it did not operate, at all, in that portion of the Middle East during its entire operational history.  Of course in several Indiana Jones films the Afrika Corps shows up all over North Africa, including Egypt, so I'm inclined to agree with the view expressed online that Indiana Jones is not operating in a historically accurate 1930s but instead is operating in some sort of parallel time line.  (Of course in that case I'd love to know HOW Germany got control of Egypt from Great Britain, that would make a cool story in and of itself.)  (To history geeks that is.) 4.  Italy - now Italy is interesting in this film as our heroes spend some serious time in Venice, a Venice that the film makers worked very hard to scrub of any evidence of Fascism and its presence in Italy during this period.  Mussolini went for a great number of symbols of his new regime, monument building, public banners, statues, posters, as well as the uniformed Black Shirts which were operating as quasi-police units throughout all of Italy.  Indiana Jones and his compatriots could not have trucked around Venice without bumping into any symbols of Fascism in Italy in any realistic context, yet there were none apparent anywhere in Italy.  But I thought about the overall Indiana Jones films and I realized in both the first and third installment, that deal with Europe during the Fascist period, there is no Fascist Italy anywhere.  The German army is present in Egypt during the digs in the first movie and on the island in the Mediterranean, no Italian forces, navy, or influence despite the fact in the mid-1930s Italy had far more African presence then Germany.  Third film, no Italian troops in Egypt or the Middle East, no Fascist images, nothing - which made me wonder why the film makers worked to scrub Italy's Fascist history from their film record. I also bumped into this article today through Facebook, on the subject of the current US economic crunch, I found its call to return to the Bretton Woods agreement (US dollar and other currencies based, for international trading, on a firm gold standard) as well as calling for the need to reduce federal spending, diminish the impact of the financial sector, and increase good paying US domestic jobs highly irritating.  The author of this piece, David Stockman, served Regan from 1981 - 1985 as had of the Office of Management and Budget, in which he was a central figure in the effort to end the so-called welfare state of the United States.  I'll spare you the comment I made to describe this to a co-worker, needless to say it was not kind. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
12:07 pm	RPG Geekry explosion So I'm nearly finished reading the core rule book for a role playing game I purchased, Hollow Earth Expedition (HEX) and I might get a chance to run it in around two weeks time, give or take, as a single shot introduction with a small crew.  (I'm also strongly considering buying the first expansion that goes with it, Secrets of the Surface World, for bonus coolness.)  My geeky joy for a good pulp system is huge - I have have a neat lead-in concept/teaser for the first adventure too: Players are called to help investigate a mysterious death in the Alps in the Swiss/Austrian border region, a dead hiker was found in the spring melt, the death is being investigated because the hiker died of two bullet wounds inflicted in his back.  The medical examiner as part of the investigation examined the stomach contents and happens to be a bit of a botany buff, the remains though were odd to his eye, strange seeds and leaves.  So the ME worked with a couple of friends who were experts and found that the seeds were berries not found in that region for a long time (geological time) as well as the leaves are also out of place, the ME along with his colleges are excited to go into that region and hunt around where the body was found for possibly exotic holdouts from the past, such living fossils have been found before.  This will lead the group on the beginning of a trail of mystery involving Nazi's, secret locations, and items out of time.  Squee! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
9:19 am	Couple of alternate history novel ideas :) Recently I've been pondering on some 20th century historical topics and it inspired a couple of exciting alternative history novel concepts - if I was feeling playful this November: Mr. Zimmerman's Note: set during World War I this novel would focus on an alternate historical moment in which instead of Germany working to embroil Mexico in a war with the United States instead starting in 1915 and moving forwards Germany sent shipments of arms, technical experts, and worked to focus Mexico into modernizing its armed forces and focusing towards territories towards its south.  Upon the US declaring war on Germany, Germany in turn encourages and succeeds in convincing Mexico to launch a series of rapid wars to its south, to gain additional territory, sparking in turn concerns about the "revolutionary contamination" of Mexico spreading south, Wilson is forced to balance calls for US troops to be sent to aid the nations of Central America under assault, distracting the US potentially from its commitments to the Allies. Los Angeles Burning:  Set during World War II this novel would focus upon an alternate "hidden history" and political intrigue angle, aiming mainly at the Battle of Los Angeles.  What if German and Japanese agents working in Mexico had cultivated connections with the Mexican military and pro-Fascist elements in Mexico (of which apparently there was a strong sentiment, around 30% of the population was pro-Fascist or strong right-wing government) and got a group of Mexican airmen to launch an unauthorized air attack against Los Angeles.  I did some reading and apparently as late as 1938 there were major uprisings historically in Mexico against the central government, the one in 1938 resulted in a full third of the office corp and 30,000 soldiers taking up arms against the Mexican government.  So the United States government would have probably accepted the idea of a rogue group of Mexican airmen attacking Los Angeles, the goal of the raid would be for the airmen not to hit the city successfully but to make the effort, drop some ordinance, and either bail out or get shot down.  The resulting conspiracy would be revealed, complete with Japanese and German influence, and it was hoped push the US population into demanding that the federal government secure Amercia's "southern flank" first - a distraction that could have redirected valuable US military resources for several months into Mexico rather then the efforts in the Pacific and the Atlantic.  This would be a "history maintained" novel with the air raid getting off the ground but the US successfully preventing any bombs from hitting Los Angeles (or maybe some did get through and were blamed on falling anti-aircraft shells) and a subsequent successful cover-up to hide what happened.  I'd close it with a cute effort by the US government to coyly deny that it was a UFO sighting while secretly feeding stories about aliens to the press. A bonus concept that also occurred to me just now: Red Mexico:  What if rather then staying in Europe and working towards revolution there Lenin and his revolutionary cohorts had moved west and taken part in helping shape the Mexican revolution instead, a new peoples revolution, resulting in Lenin and/or other revolutionary leaders having a strong hand in creating a new Communist principled government in Mexico, perhaps a greater victory by Zapata and other land reformers, with a subsequent much sharper US intervention. I think for alternate US/North American history Mexico is an overlooked region in which many interesting stories could be spread, plus it is a chunk of history most US citizens are really not aware of. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
10:55 am	Updates and a PhD dilemma I need to ponder So first off, feeling bad for their neglected state, a new post in Dungeon Monkey and also in Fist of History, the second a short book review but getting into the habit of writing in my blogs again is key.  I need to do something a bit more in-depth for Fist pretty soon, considering that not only is it my trade but history gets me all wiggly inside when I play with it. Sort of an ultimate version of people watching in many ways, to link to my previous post.  Which brings me to my current PhD dilemma. One of the schools I sent out a tentative email of interest to was Michigan State University but not to their European history program, instead to their specialization leader in US Labor history.  I did not hear back from her and figured my rather passionate email on the subject had been ignored, however I heard back from her yesterday - she would be interested in my project and would greatly appreciate my coming out to East Lansing to meet with her and other figures in the department prior to my submitting my application.  This would represent the first university actually...courting me a bit or sizing me up if you prefer..prior to my dropping an application.  (Well actually three universities by email have been dancing with me, the professors in each case took a more focused interest in my application process then other schools who are blandly interested.) I have avoided approaching US history at all because, frankly, the market for US history PhD people sucks - schools mint US history PhDs at a rate of, I think, five or six to each job opening.  Competition for any teaching post in US history is incredibly harsh and landing a post is incredibly hard, doubly so if you are doing "novelty act" history such as labor history.  However I have never aimed to get into a history PhD solely for the purpose of getting an academic job, it would be a nice perk but if that was my sole concern I would not be looking at some of the schools I've applied to at this point - there are few I'm applying to because they seem like okay programs AND I would feel comfortable borrowing the capital to attend them for a PhD if I had to do so.  (These schools would cost me around $25k to $30k TOTAL for a five year PhD run, if I had to finance the entire thing out of hand, I could nearly afford that stripping out my retirement plan and I certainly feel comfortable with my earning power to be able to borrow that money from the Fed and repay it over time.)  My dream of a PhD is not worth $250k in debt but it is worth $25k in debt.  But I digress... The dilemma I am having with labor history, at its core, is my own passion for labor history and unions, I am fiercely pro-union in my outlook and highly prone to argue in defense of the role of organized labor and its value in US history.  The plight of labor from the industrial age onwards in this nation is something that makes my blood boil and brings out some of my most eloquent wrath and most violent arguments, a litmus test of if I like you as a person is if you debate with me on organized labor in person.  If I'm nice about it or decline to argue with you, congrats, I like you.  If I don't like you I hope you like debating because I will worry your arguments like a rabid dog on a bit of choice meat, labor unions is the one topic I won't yield a debate and I become...unreasonable in my arguments on occasion.  Which is fine for an advocate but highly undesirable for a historian in my eye, history requires detachment and on labor history I don't know if I could achieve that professional distance. For example - I was thinking of doing my PhD work on corporate unions that cropped up in the mining country out west as a reaction to labor agitation and as a PR move after several striking miners died in a confrontation (not my words, that is from the company records.)  There is one book on this topic written by an American historian recently at the University of New Mexico and he argues that these corporate unions were not just window dressing, they did things, they had an impact, they were not just "management suck-ups."  My reaction was immediate - I want to read your book sir, review its sources, dig into the archives, and check your work.  If I concur with your assessment then I shall be the first to write verifying your finds and what that would mean for labor history would intrigue me deeply. But if you are wrong or I disagree with your findings - it would be my intention to destroy your book with hard evidence, not refute it, not challenge it, crush it without an ounce of mercy - the phrase "tear him a new hole" would not cover my wrath, closer would be "make him eat his book, shove it back through the other way, and force him to eat it again" if that was possible.  Wrath like that though does not make for a good historian. My plan is to meet with this professor and possibly drop an application, per Gabe's suggestion, but I intend to mention my concerns to her and, honestly, if I landed a funded position at MSU to do labor history I would probably need to get away from things for a few days for a serious soul searching moment.  Working on labor history as a historian is not something I can be sure I could do to a degree that would be a credit to history - but on the other hand it would be work I'd be proud to point to on my death bed and say "I did that, I documented this, I made people see this history, it will live on because of my hand." To be blunt this issue cuts to the heart of why I want to study history and, as such, raises many questions which I need to wrestle with ethically at the moment.  (Which of course could all be easily made moot, MSU is a fine school and odds are high they'd politely send me on my way when they see my application. :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
10:36 am	Writer's Block: Star struck Do you think celebrities deserve as much recognition, attention, and money as we, as a society, give them? What do you think it says about our cultural values? First question listed was submitted by thatspicegirl. (Follow-up questions, if any, may have been added by LiveJournal.) View 669 Answers Usually I don't answer the daily questions that pop up but this one caught my eye upon logging in, I have to say that I consider the consumer support given to celebrity culture as one of the finest testimonies to our free market economy.  The pull an individual celebrity has, their worth on the consumer market, is a direct reaction to the entertainment value of their work and their personal life.  Historically though this is a trend that has been around at least as long as we have had the technology to produce visual records of celebrities and a mass media capable of providing information on their lives and activities to the general public.  With the rise of modern Hollywood in the 1920s this really appeared on the scene in the US (leaving aside earlier roots for this cultural tick) and it has remained with us since the 1920s.  People need distraction and celebrity culture provides a powerful form of amusement and distraction, as well as escapism. As for our cultural values - it reflects our core humanity, humans are wired to worry about, look at, track, and be interested in other humans.  Culture and biology, to my understanding, drive us towards being social animals.  What amuses me is this question seems to wonder if perhaps there was some higher period in human history when this had less impact, to which I must reply - no, human society has pretty much focused on other humans and are individual peccadilloes for as long as we've been clustered. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 16th, 2010
11:36 am	Shiny shiny goodness - gaming geekery So today I was going to run for the Friday group but due to low potential turnout I canceled out on them and instead will go home and get some much needed sleep. I confess I was feeling a bit frumpy about running today but then I looked up this image and it perked me up: Zardoz.  Truly an epically horrid film that's horrid badness flips around and makes it into something awesome.  (The IMDB link is provided for those unfamiliar.)  You see when most people see something like Sean in a red diaper and thigh high boots with two bandoleers of ammo strapped across his chest their reaction is not to think "Wow, that is such a cool setting, I bet I could do an RPG campaign around that." So for those curious, as I'm tired and that takes the leash off my inner weird, I present the teaser tag line that came to mind for a D&D RPG inspired by Zardoz (note this setting has little to nothing to do with the movie, I just want to see a character in thigh high boots): "A thousand thousand after the great disaster the scattered tribes of man now begin to come together to rebuild, with the remaining gifts of those who came before them and the achievements of a new age before them these brave individuals seek out a new future, facing the living horrors of the past with steel and courage.  But opposed to their progress from barbarism are many who have come to rely on their passive nature and willingness to do what they are told - including the dark wizards who eternally crave the ever living flesh of the fallen elves to sustain their lives for an eternity.  The dark dragons take wing and horrid specters rise to block the return of man to civilization, but man will rise and re-raise the old towers to praise the long forgotten gods."  Imagine lost tech mixed with magic mixed with creepy wizards and you've got about half of what I had in mind. See now a teaser like that - probably not something the Friday group would go for, but who knows. Oh and on a side note - just so people realize the oddness is not only linked to being tired - when I was at my well slept peak I thought of combining the White Wolf Martial Arts game Street Fighter with the American Revolution.  Helping America win its freedom through fists and feet!  The odd thing is you can actually see it potentially - Ben Franklin would have probably been a member of a dojo in Philadelphia, I can see him doing Tai Chi.  From that I see some powerful Japanese or Chinese general serving with Washington and helping teach martial discipline to the army at Valley Forge.   (Comment on this)
Monday, July 12th, 2010
4:42 pm	Total Geek Moment of alternate history I was thinking about the game Shattered States, an old classic, and I could not help but think about what fun it would be to have an RPG or novel built around a blending of the Gun Powder plot of England and the Constitutional Convention of 1788.  What if the brightest minds gathered to reform the Constitution were killed in a conspiracy and instead three or four different Leagues of States were what became of the American colonies instead? Go go geeky goodness! (Comment on this)
10:43 am	Personal Best this weekend - of sorts Currently I'm nearly finished reading a book I've had on my "to read" pile for a while - Earth Abides - and it has got me thinking about how life for each of us is often filled with small personal triumphs and failings rather then the larger events that sweep over communities.  So I'm pleased to record a minor personal triumph from this weekend at the annual Ann Arbor fair at Pioneer High - I rode the "swinging boat" ride for the first time in years.  In this case the particular ride is called "Pharoh's Fury" but it is one of those massive boat rides that swing back and forth at high speed.  It is a personal triumph because those rides scare me greatly - carnival rides in general scare me but that one has a particular terror, I have an irrational fear of flying out of the seat.  But on Sunday I did manage to get a ride in and even rode without clutching the safety bar in a death grip. Small personal bests - Gabe was very pleased with me.  She got to ride the double Ferris wheel they have at the fair, a rare ride and she got to spin on it twice.  I've yet to conquer that one but that might have to be on the "to do" list for next year.  Perhaps I'll even manage to get together some friends next summer and give Gabe the other major event she wanted while we are in Michigan - a trip to Ceder Point. I saw Toy Story 3 this weekend - Pixar did a wonderful job once more - even with scenes that got me teared up.  Of course being the weird lad that I am wiring wise there was one scene in particular that made me think of the events tied up in World War II.  For those who haven't seen the film I hope that comment gives no spoilers, but for those who have seen the film I think you'll be able to guess the scene I'm thinking of.  To which, on a side note, I give Pixar incredible points - like in Up they are good at capturing very human moments with minimal saccharine. On a personal note in today's news I was amused at the links to the past regarding the capture of the Barefoot Bandit, the popular fan group does not surprise me at all, we are not that different from our peers in social status of the past and Dillinger was quite the popular hero for a while in the early 1930s.  The story of the Barefoot Bandit has quite a bit of the same DNA as Dillinger - robber, cunning, an escape, fleeing the authorities for a while, even the sense of humor in some of the taunting left behind for the authorities.  People like the occasional figure who is able to flee the system and defy the rules but does so in a manner that doesn't get anyone physically injured or killed. Finally an academic happiness point - minor at this point but the seed for greater things - one of the reasons why my adviser back at EMU got excited about my MA thesis topic was, as she put it - "You found the holy grail of the interwar years, a topic that no one else has written about."  At the time I was excited about this as well personally but the topic, naval treaties, does not exactly inspire huge volumes of happiness in the historical field.  But if that was a holy grail I recently found the damn Ark of the Covenant in 20th century European history - an aspect of World War II that has had only minimal research on it AND it is an important part of World War II. What is this mysterious event of which I speak?  Well in a rare moment of hiding information for my own benefit I'm afraid I'm not going to share it with the world at large via LJ - not that I believe my ideas are good enough to warrant theft but because history is a competitive field and if my hunch is right this idea might actually get my name out to the wider historical world.  I'll say this though - only three books have been written on this part of WWII and only seven academic articles, it involves the major participants, was not a side show, and in the three books has received a pretty through examination.  But the last general book on it was written in the 1960s and the last major article in 1988 and both, as far as I can tell, have upheld the original outlook on these events.  An outlook which might be valid, might not be valid, but as an interpretation of the events I think is incredibly overly harsh on the Allied powers. If any of my fellow history geeks wants to guess what it is - send me a message on here and I'll tell you if you are right.  :) Oh yes and it also completes one of my goals as a historian - to battle, where ever it appears, the chest beating by historians that says "If only X and Y had happened right, Adolph sooner would have lost the fight!" (Comment on this)
Friday, July 9th, 2010
10:51 am	Follow-up: Why boomers with cruise missiles make me squee! The other fun article I had sent to me by sorcycat was here, a piece on how the US has deployed three nuclear submarines (boomers) to the Pacific equipped with cruise missiles on-board and also space for live-in special forces teams that can be rapidly deployed.  The reason this makes me so pleased is first it re-enforces my faith in our political and military leadership, on a general principle, because it first shows that our political leadership is aware of future trends and is anticipating the ensuing possible conflict in the Pacific region.  (Which I personally doubt will actually spat into real honest to god war but will be point of balance, challenge, demonstration, and rally for quite a few years to come.)  Barring a reappearance of Japanese militarism or nationalism or a serious push by China to regain Taiwan through brute force (both possible but not highly likely at the moment) I believe that region will be tense but not an area of heavy active US involvement.  (Although India and its growth as an economic power is going to make things quite interesting in the next two decades, believe me, highly interesting.) Second though it shows a wonderful flexibility in our military leaderships strategic planning - the nuclear arsenal of the Cold War including our nuclear subs which were a force for strategic warfare - massive nuclear strikes that could be used either as a retaliatory blow to an attack on the US or as a sudden strike force in the event the US launched an initial blow at an enemy.  (Despite our government stating first-strike was not an option the US would use I consider that as binding as our agreements not to deploy nuclear weapons outside the US in non-proliferation treaties that we signed - right after signing the US flatly said "Of course - in the event of a nuclear war appearing imminent, we'll be deploying nukes around the world to strike.")  But this floating force of doom and death although a potent deterrent was an expensive piece of pragmatically unusable military hardware, to my eye it is like a private citizen owning a machine gun.  Sure it is great for personal defense but you can't hunt with it. But boomers with cruise missiles - now that is a force that can actually be used to cause strategic changes in reaction to events and situations.  Cruise missile boomers are still stealthy, can still lurk, but can be used to blunt a conventional force assault, neutralize a dangerous tactical situation, destroy a threat to US position or security - but without the pesky risk of mass escalation to nuclear response.  The US will be able to actually use its strategic submarine forces for local force deployment - the tactical and strategic possibilities are dizzying.  It also in theory greatly reduces the risk of reprisal strikes and losses to US forces by the engaged enemy - subs are fast surface, fast launch, fast dive technology. A simple example of why this makes me giddy, let us say China goes batfuck crazy and attempts a cross straits invasion of Taiwan, previously US force response options were: use ground based missiles in Taiwan and other regions to destroy these forces, engage China's forces with US conventional forces (and take losses), or retaliate with tactical or strategic nuclear weapons, an option that would certainly provoke response in kind.  Now missiles are nice because they are cheaper to maintain in the field and also are much harder to stop then conventional forces - plus the use of missiles politically makes the US population less uneasy then conventional forces.  (No one mourns the destroyed cruise missile after all but a dead soldier is a cause for sadness, and rightly so.)  But cruise missiles are short ranged beasts, as are conventional forces, on a strategic scale and having them in place to respond to something previously meant tipping your hand to the enemy of your intentions.  But now the US has mobile missile bases that can be moved with stealth as needed - in theory we can put a massive armed response anywhere in the Pacific with relative quickness and without potentially invoking retaliatory political or military buildup by our opponents. Brilliant - sadly it might provoke our government to a more rapid use of force then in the past with the concurrent suffering and material damage inflicted on other nations - but if you accept such is bound to happen when states collide (which I do after much consideration over the years, although current cultural and breeding habits in humans might yet change my outlook) then this plan is an incredible stroke of genius, high value, high flexibility, minimal risks of loss to your own side, devastating potential. (For those wondering as to where in Ed's mad view of the world the next major US entanglements are going to be - my current prediction meter points to the following - Middle East but that is an easy guess, Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico.  Trace the investments and remaining undeveloped or underutilized resources and Africa is a comparative paradise economically - cheap labor, natural resources, poor infrastructure which can be greatly improved with minimal work.  Politically though unstable and fractious, which is the sort of problem the use of armed force can do wonders to stabilize when used properly.  The Caribbean and Mexico - cheap manufacturing paradises with low transportation cost issues, and many of these nations are not able to protect themselves from US meddling.  As a human it makes me sad to think of my nation-state engaging in such games but thinking from a strategic level I see those as the arenas in which the US will be, in the next two decades, pulled into conflicts it was not anticipating.) (Comment on this)
10:26 am	I love it when the "experts" of years past are wrong So today while looking over my Yahoo news feed what do I see but an article posted showing how the cost of manufacturing in China is on the rise, due to labor pressures and the (currently) free floating nature of the Yuan.  Now manufacturers are considering their options - move to other areas in Southeast Asia where labor prices are low but there is a loss of efficiency due to the less built up manufacturing base, move to inland China where the problem of labor agitation and increasing wages will eventually follow, or return production to the US with its higher labor prices but high efficiency of production.  Why I'm feeling a personally happy belly rub as a human is because I've argued, for years, both here and in conversations with a raft of people that eventually economics would see a flow of manufacturing jobs moving around the world and potentially returning to the US.  On a simple level - if the US has surplus labor on its market the cost of that labor will gradually erode, barring external forces artificially propping those labor costs up, till it reaches a level competitive with other labor markets.  The key factor is the efficiency of the labor hour used, if a US worker costs more per hour but their productive efforts due to infrastructure, efficiency of manufacture, and lower transportation costs ends up with a competitive price per widget to foreign manufacture, then you'll have US factories producing widgets. Now one can argue the point of if long-term this shift in labor focus is beneficial to the US or in a world of shifting value on national outlooks for economic production that this sort of transition is useful, arguments I understand.  For me what this means is that there will be, over the next decade, an increase in employment opportunities for those individuals who for whatever reason do not have the education, inclination, or ability for certain fields to get jobs that are more economically productive then lower-end service jobs but do not require the same high investment in training as jobs in highly skilled fields.  More simply - manufacturing jobs that don't pay to middle class standards, but pay to upper working class or lower middle class.  (The erosion of organized labors position in the US since the 1970s contributed to the decline of manufacturing jobs equaling a road to middle class or upper middle class status however the protections for worker safety are still in place and as long as those remain I can make a personal if uneasy peace with the downward shift in earning potential.) Why I am amused by this is I remember, only a few years ago, the voices of experts predicting on the news that the shift of manufacturing to Asia was permanent, unchanging, a fact of the world that was as unalterable as gravity.  Manufacturing had fled to Asia and was never going to return to the US, big box stores that sold at the cheapest prices would dominate retail, and these two forces were the future.  Which at the time I chaffed at and scoffed at - history gives us a guide to the future but no solid answers but it does have one lesson that it teaches over and over again - that which is constructed by humanity is malleable.  Political and economic institutions are most definitely malleable. What I am wondering personally now is the debt held by China, I am betting it will be converted, gradually, over the next decade or two into investment capital and pumped back into the United States either directly or indirectly.  (The debts are owed in dollars, dollars are usable for US goods and services, and good for investing in the US.)  But ownership of these investments will rest in China, leading to an even closer linking between our two nations in the future, a joint prosperity partnership where neither nation will fully control its destiny.  (Like it is now but with a different shape, more a productive partnership potentially.)  I wonder, if my thoughts are right, how the American people will react to the idea that their destiny would be one conjoined with China. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
9:56 am	Origins 2010 So it is an overdue post to say the least but in late June Gabe and I rolled down to Columbus Ohio to attend Origins 2010 - it is the first time I've been back to Origins in many long years.  I ended up playing train games the whole time, Gabe did...everything as far as I can tell, she amassed a huge collection of ribbons, tokens, and events.  We both had a fabulous time though - after I got over my annoyance at getting my ass handed to me in 18xx games and actually got down to learning what was going on - it was a pretty good experience.  It certainly enhanced my interest in playing more 18xx games, I've worked on an arrangement with a good friend to start playing semi-regularly on Saturdays during the day.  I look forward to returning to Origins 2011 to try my hand again at the lovely contest of wills that is 18xx play - that and also try my hand at it during UCON 2010. My experience playing games at Origins 2010 lead to a lot of thinking about board game design (as well as acquiring a couple of new shiny board games) and one of the interesting questions that came to mind was about the nature of the board games I design.  I usually go for board games that are highly abstract or themed lightly - things such as "Space Colonizing Games" or "Space Federation Building Games" and always for multiple player games (I have a mild thing about two player games, I like to play them, I don't like to design them, it seems almost cheating to make a game for just two people, the mechanics are not so interesting design wise.)  But one thing I have avoided over the years is also one of the most logical things for me to pursue - historical or historical light games. Call it an odd bit of humility but, despite my historical training and development, my love of history, my continual efforts to study history, and the fact that odds are about even if I'm reading something, watching something, or curious about something it involves history in almost any period - I don't consider myself a historian.  High personal doubt - I don't have the PhD, I'm not paid to work on history professionally, I'm only absorbing secondary or tertiary sources of history, not primary source work - plus concerns that how can I have expertise in a field like history as compared to giants that I've worked with and known who teach history professionally. Which has translated into my avoiding claiming the title of historian and also - avoiding any efforts to generate historically themed games.  That and also a sharp aversion to games based around hundreds of little chits in which people carefully read thick rule guides and argue about the impact of weather on paratrooper deployment in a forest environment. But - last night in talking with Gabe I decided I can grasp the nettle and try my hand at a historically themed game, either modeling something interesting historically or modeling something as a "might have been" in history.  I know a great deal about 1920s and 1930s history and I've got a couple of interesting ideas I can play with.  (For those wondering I might even consider trying my hand someday at a Turtledove line of work and writing alternate history novels.  Fear the sexy goodness.) One game that has inspired me conceptually is this one, Land of the Free, which is a more tactical and strategic game then I'd do but I like the theme of 1930s politics in the US and building up a minor political party.  (Don't worry, I'll spare you the ideas, that is what emails to myself are for and word documents.)  Let us just say my version would have cute little cubes rather then chits.  (Although I do like elements of his map for design purposes.) I've also got an idea for another 1930s themed game - an alternate history bit of fun - the Business Plot of 1933 - I couldn't help but wonder what if this had happened and the game centered around the players serving as the governors of influential states/blocks of states.  Would you comply with the new governments initiatives, resist them, call up the state militia, attempt to raise your own effort to restore FDR to power? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
3:53 pm	The Munich Accord So first off a new Dungeon Monkey post is up, I've decided to make the bi-weekly update now the official update for as long as I keep adding to the blog.  So far only one question to Dungeon Monkey received but it gives me a gaming outlet and also provides me with a chance to amuse myself as well so it has a fun value.  I need to do some work with Fist Of History still, I'm thinking a couple of book reviews in the next few days. Some fun articles today: I enjoyed reading about the unhappiness of an escaped convict (parole jumper) who was put back into prison to finish out his life sentence, I understand his feeling of unhappiness on being put back into prison but he also still owes a debt to society and was found and caught.  As well Obama's pledge to pump federal funding into restoring lands in the Gulf of Mexico is interesting as well, I wonder how long that will actually last over the next few months. An odd thought that I had last night was inspired by reflecting on the Munich Agreement of 1938, in which France and Great Britain assented to chunks of Czechoslovakia being given to Germany to address Germany's territorial claims to the Sudetenland Germans living under Czech political control.  I was wondering how that intersected, if at all, with the policy of the British government to contain Communism in Europe, Chamberlain detested Communism and was highly focused on both maintaining its containment and also on avoiding direct links between Great Britain and the USSR.  Interesting enough there was talk of a military alliance in 1939 between the two and I've heard that the USSR offered military assistance in the event of a war with Germany over Czechoslovakia, but the French and British were highly reluctant to enter into a treaty.  My wonder is - was this part of an effort to bolster Germany as a counterweight to Communism?  Was the treaty with Poland that came after Munich a treaty to protect it from Germany and the USSR, an effort to have it act as a buffer between both? One of the tricks I'm still figuring out for myself is why Chamberlain did what he did in 1938. (2 Comments |Comment on this)