Courtesy of the Onion:

San Francisco Historians Condemn 1906 Earthquake Deniers

I can seriously see those people holding conferences, right along side the evolution deniers, the young-earth creationists, the 9-11 conspiracy buffs, holocaust deniers, the vaccination opponents, the "HIV doesn't cause AIDS" nuts...and in the background the UFO freaks are going "Dudes, we were here a LONG time before you all!"

It's more than a little depressing, really.

While the Breeds of Mankind section was large enough, I'm not happy about the slow progress I'm making on this project; I really need to pick up the pace.  So upcoming in the next couple weeks  (hopefully before the convention) I'm hoping to get done:

•  
• General description of the major cultural groupings of the setting
• General descriptions of the three major Daemon empires; the major political players of the setting.
• Thumbnail descriptions of what's know about the major vanished cultures
• Some important bioengineered plants and animals of the setting
• A quick meditation on resources and how people get by.
• Some designers thoughts, primarily on answering the "But what will the characters DO!?" question.

And after that, I think it will be getting to the point where I can start putting things up on a wiki.  This will be interesting, because I've never done a wiki before.  At that point, any advice I can get on making a wiki will be very valuable.

As a public service, here's a couple of links that I want to share, for the reader's benefit.


FDA Recall: Peanut Butter Products Contaminated with Salmonella. This is a nasty one, because the factory new the products were contaminated. So, it's a long list.


USGS: San Jose Area Earthquake LIquidation Hazard Maps. It's worth having a look at these if you're in the area, to check out what the danger of ground liquidation in an earthquake may be, and takeprecautions accordingly. There's also maps for alameda county and the general bay area.


Aardvarchaeology: How to be polite to your Chinese stepmother. Especially important if you happen to be Swedish archeology blogger, because you'll definitely need the goodwill.

Many thanks to the International Society of Supervillains, who waded through a number of popular comics, in order to bring you this:

Single-Sentence Synopses of Popular Comics

Now gentle readers you can talk knowledgeably about many major "required reading" comics, without actually having to go through the pain of actually reading them! Isn't this helpful?

This is really why I keep reading Metafilter, for things like this.

Click the button, and win a velociraptor...maybe. 

Maybe it's because it's a Monday morning, but this game has amazing replay value for me right now.  I am all too willing to keep clicking that damn button.

And see?  I won!

While searching some old Usenet threads, I found this post I remembered from the from the old days, which gave an example of a game where the GM absolutely would not let the characters off the leash.  It's stuck in my mind as a textbook definition of a railroaded game.

Courtesy of Michael Richter and rec.games.frp.misc: No winning, no detours, no escape, not even through death.

It was in Wikipedia, therefore I KNOW it's true!

And here's some other amazing but true (because it's on Wikipedia) articles!

Remember kids, you can trust Wikipedia for all your research needs! 

I've decided that after today, my best career choice is to be an internet pundit. I'm doing this not because I particularly like internet screeds, but because after trying out the new experimental HTML internetpundit markup tags, I've found it's so easy there's no reason not to be an intent pundit.

I'll show you how easy it is! First I have to decide how long I want my screed to be. For my example,I'll just do a paragraph, but the tags can encompass screeds up to 1 million characters long. I select a blank space as large as I want, and put the tags around it, like so:

[internetpundit]







[/internetpundit]


Then when I post, the HTML internet pundit system converts the spaces into prose, using a program similar to the Postmodern Essay Generator, like so:


[internetpundit]The scandal surrounding embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is simply another example of the dire straits the Obama presidency is in. Looking back at the last 38 days since the election, an observer has to ask: just what have they managed to accomplish? Has Obama managed to get us out of Iraq? Has he defeated the terrorists? Of course not. Nor has he managed to deal with Russia and China, or solved the problem of global warming and weaning us off of imported oil. He hasn't even gotten his health care reforms passed. The promises and hope that the Obama administration came in with have remained unfulfilled dreams, so, with less than two months to go before the inauguration, it's fair to say that historians can already categorize this as a failed administration.[/internetpundit]

Voila!  One essay on a random topic!   Admittedly one can't choose one's subject to pontificate on, but the very randomness of the rants helps match the freewheeling writing style of your average internet pundit, where a post on international politics can be right next to an account of fixing linguine from grandma's old recipe.  Though it's still in beta testing, I'm very excited about the electronic frontiers this new sytem offers; when it goes fully online, anybody can be an internet pundit, regardless of coherent thought or writing ability.  Just like today.

Some cynical person just told baronlaw that one of our cherished childhood icons doesn't exist. so, in the spirit of the season, I present a little editorial to raise the spirits.



Dear Editor—

I am on Livejournal. Some of my little friends say there is no Magnum P.I.. Papa says, “If you see it in roseembolism’s blog, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Magnum P.I.?
baronlaw


Baronlaw, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Baronlaw, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Baronlaw, there is a Magnum P.I.. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Magnum P.I.! It would be as dreary as if there were no Baronlaws. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Magnum P.I.! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the bbeaches on Hawaii to catch Magnum P.I., but even if you did not see Magnum P.I. coming out of the surf, what would that prove? Nobody sees Magnum P.I., but that is no sign that there is no Magnum P.I.. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Baronlaw, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Magnum P.I.! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Baronlaw, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of livejournal.

...unfortunately.