Sunday, October 30, 2011

We choose to go to the Moon

one half (variable)(variable) squared

I'm in a physics class right now. It seems like everything in physics involves the same formula:

1/2 * X * Y^2

that is, half the first variable, times the second variable squared. Here's a little contest: I'm going to list formulae that include this system, and let my readers figure them out!

1/2 MR^2
1/2 KX^2
1/2 AT^2
1/2 Iω ^2
1/2 αT^2
1/2 MV^2

PS. what is up with the math lettering system? Using X and Y as the most commonly used letters is insane. It's incredibly easy for an x to look like a y, and vice-versa. W stands for like three things, and so does T. It's like crazy people thought up the notation for physics stuff. Or maybe people with a truncated alphabet.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Age of Accountability

Most Christians think that death leads to one of two places: Heaven or Hell. They also believe that the only way to enter Heaven is to is to have faith in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth*. When people point out that this system is monstrously unfair, since many people are not exposed to the idea of Jesus, believers shrug their shoulders and say something about god being mysterious.

Oddly, confronted with an almost identical situation, many Christians reverse their position. When a child dies without having an opportunity to believe in Jesus, Christians invent the idea of an "Age of Accountability". If you don't reach the Age of Accountability before you die, then you're saved regardless of the state of your belief. There is literally no support in the Bible for this theory.

So what's the difference between damning people in distant countries and children that are only a few years old? The answer is obvious: People don't mind damning foreigners, but it makes them feel bad to think that their kids might go to Hell.

I personally like the Jehovah's Witnesses' take on the whole thing: they believe that everyone is simply dead and "asleep" until the coming of the "Kingdom of God". This has two plusses: it doesn't make god look like a complete jerk, and it's more supported by the bible than most interpretations.

*Both of these things are not very well supported by the actual bible. It's remarkable how many things in modern belief are based on incredibly vague or obtuse passages. Particularly the entire idea of The Antichrist being a person.

Friday, October 07, 2011

Why I Like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic


2. Songs

3. Character Based Humour
4. The protagonist is an intellectual, pretty rare for a kids' show.
5. I haven't seen any other shows for girls, but it's nice to see the way that many of the characters aren't crammed into "girly" roles.

NOTE: MLP is a good show, but it's not a great show. Watch The Wire, Community, Venture Bros, Archer, etc. before watching it. Someone compared it to junk food, and that's a pretty good analogy. It's just fun.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Secret Antagonistic PCs

I'm against Role-Players making and running characters that are designed to have goals that conflict with the ordinary goals of the party. This includes "moles" and "possessed" characters. My main concern is that it's done too often; I'd be more surprised if some players had a character without a complicated issue that never really comes up in the game but prevents them from really helping.

It makes "Character information" and "Player information" much more difficult to segregate, in most situations, a player that was concerned about it could just ask for clarification: "Did you say that in character?", but a PC with a secret agenda can't ask that because it would be very suspicious. The information problem runs the other way too, the secret actions will require additional adjudication by the GM, which will almost inevitably be noticed by the other PCs, unless they are completely oblivious. (This is why I have never detected a hostile PC ever)

There are a lot of things that go unspoken in an RPG, a player doesn't say that he turns on light switches, or goes to bed, or whether he locks each door he closes, or whether he checks his watches, or does regular virus checks on his computer, etc. But each of these actions, and endless more, could reveal or betray a PC that's acting against the interests of the party. The GM is forced to RP the PCs on behalf of the antagonistic PC, who ends up essentially acting against brain-dead players, no GM can imagine all the nonsensical things a party of PCs will do, and he has an obvious incentive to not catch the secret PC in action: that would end the entire plot line, and could easily lead to the death of a PC, or even the entire campaign. Thus, the players feel cheated that their "implied" actions didn't actually happen. The GM can't ask what sort of precautions are being taken because, again, this creates obvious problems with information between player and character.

Note, I don't mind if a character develops in such a way that they must oppose the actions of the party, I'm against a character designed with that in mind.