School Is Awesome.

Things I No Longer Claim To Understand/No Longer Believe In:

–Gravity
–Any other sort of action over distance besides electricity
–Heat
–Atomic theory
–Learning
–Language
–Virtue
–Weight
–Time
–Measurement in general
–The reason for the world’s existence if my religion happens to be wrong (which it isn’t)

Things I Now Know More About/How To Do Better Than You:

–Alchemy
–Geometry
–Ancient Greek
–Writing Gregorian chant
–Phlogiston
–Stones such as no two of today’s men could lift

School is awesome.

A History Lesson from Mr. Freedman

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/08/congress.economy/index.html?iref=mpstoryview if you don’t know.

Who is Mr. Freedman? Mr. Freedman was my high school US history teacher. I have a lot of memories of him, and one of the clearer ones is this:

We’re talking about FDR one day in class.  (That’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for the uninitiated.)  Mr. Freedman is describing FDR’s New Deal policies and views in regards to beating the Great Depression.  This was the way he summed it up: “We’ll try something, and if it doesn’t work — we’ll try something else!”

Very well.  Now is the time, I think, for something else.  For eight years we’ve had tax cuts as the answer to all humanity’s problems.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see much changing.  Now the GOP is calling the (admittedly hugely expensive) bailout measure a waste that will “lead to disaster,” according to CNN.  Why?  Because it doesn’t have enough tax cuts.  (Note if you haven’t been following: one-third of the bill is tax cuts.)  I could just reiterate that a tax cut doesn’t fix a road, but I’ve got something else to say tonight.

Sen. McCain’s comment on the situation, again according to CNN, ran thusly: “We’re going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country, by any measurement, and we’re going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it.”  Hey, guess what?  We already have amassed that debt, and I, the rest of my generation, and my kids are already going to have to pay for it.  And you know what?  I’m okay with investing another trillion in the future.  I can’t speak for the rest of my peers, but it seems to me that we don’t have much choice at this point.  Will I sacrifice 0.3% economic growth over ten years to reduce the unenployment rate by over 25%?  Hell yes I will.  I’m less concerned about a growing economy than making sure that people have jobs, so they can do things like buy food and learn to pay off debt.

Mr. Freedman, consider your lesson well-learned: I now believe it’s time to try something else.

Reversing Course On D&D 4th Edition

Now, let me make one thing clear: I still don’t like 3.5 very much either.  But I’m not as excited about 4E as I once was.  Here’s why.

I’ve been playing Star Wars SAGA for a good long while now.  Now, normally what I do is treat a game as a sort of “primary:” I play lots of games, but I focus most of my attention on one system or another.  I’ve had a few of these over the years, but only four for any significant length of time: D&D 3.5, D&D 4E, Shadowrun 4th, and Star Wars SAGA.  The merits of 3.5 have been discussed to death elsewhere, and honestly, if you’re reading this you probably have an opinion on it.  Suffice it to say that I don’t like it as much as any of the other above systems.  Also, Shadowrun is a very different style of game than the others; it’s not d20, and lends itself to a bit more of a “beer and pretzels” feel.  (Note: this is a very good thing, if ya ask me.)

So that just leaves SAGA and 4E.  Now, both games are d20 system games, both are by the same company, and both have similar mechanics — SAGA was actually a testing ground for a lot of the 4E mechanics.  (Compare 3.5–SAGA–4E skills, for instance.)  You’d think they run in the same way.  And, well, they sort of do.  But there’s a huge difference between them, and that’s the level system.

See, the thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth about 4E?  It’s not what a lot of people complain about.  I don’t think the classes are generic in terms of flavor; I don’t think that there aren’t enough options to play the character you want.  I don’t think that having the classes work off the same mechanics was a bad idea; as it happens, I still think it’s a good one.  No, what bothers me is this: there’s just not a huge difference between what a level 1 character does and what a level 30 character does.

Okay, WHAT?  That is a pretty hefty claim to make.  I mean, people are dealing tons more damage and attacking with a much higher to-hit, right?   Well… yeah.  And that’s really about it.  Because of the way the system works, you’ll only ever have four powers of each type.  And while you get new and exciting ones while leveling up, they’re basically just higher-level versions of the same thing.  Your character may be getting more objectively powerful, but to me it seems that he’s just running faster on a treadmill.

Add to this the fact that feats and class abilities have been de-emphasized in terms of power, and you get this system where you level up really fast and barely even notice.  It doesn’t help that since feats are so terrible, you’re either taking from an incredibly small set or picking stuff you’ll never, ever use.  The end result is that you just don’t notice the difference in your character’s abilities, and that’s (for me) one of the most fun parts of the game.

Note that there’s more to abilities than mechanics.  I work off the basic assumption that we’re all roleplaying because we want to play characters that can do stuff.  Maybe not awesomely, maybe not as well as other people in the setting, but you wanna be able to swing a sword, shoot a gun, cast a spell, or use the Force starting from day one.  And then, as your character becomes more experienced (and comes into more Experience), they start to be able to affect the world around them in different ways.  That’s what’s not reflected in 4E: your character, in a large way, never changes.  And compared to something like SAGA — where every single level offers new and exciting change — that’s just not very interesting to me.

So I’ve given up 4E for SAGA.  And I couldn’t be happier.

Obama and the OTHER FBI

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/05/obama.faith.based/index.html if you don’t know already.

It’s an interesting issue. We all know discrimination is bad, but at a certain level jobs require certain things.  You need a teaching credential to teach in public schools; you need to know how a computer works to head up an IT department.  But should religion be one of those requirements if the job in question is for a faith-based charity?

On the surface, I think they nailed it in ‘64: yes, a faith-based charitable organization is perfectly within its rights to only hire applicants of a matching faith.  I mean, nondiscrimination is one thing, but should churches be forced to hire Jewish ministers (or priests, if that’s your thing) because to do otherwise would be discriminatory?  Obviously not.  And I’m fine with faith-based charities doing likewise.

I do have a caveat to that, though: if CNN isn’t making up that stuff about organizations using that clause to discriminate against LGBTQ hirings, then a crackdown needs to go down and fast.  Religious hiring practices are one thing, but your religion being prejudicial isn’t an excuse to turn away members of your own faith and claim that they’re a different one.  You want fiath-based hiring practices, fine, but it’s not an excuse to be homophobic.

All that said, I actually think that there are more important discrimination practices than faith-based that need a long, hard look.  Ageism is one, as is cultural discrimination against certain names.  (Note that I’m not talking about LGBTQ discrimination as less important than these; it’s not.)

News Time, Children!

Okay, so enough with the Facebook statuses.  I’ve been frustrated with my inability to comment at length on news stories I like for a good long while now… but today, I remembered, “Oh, right, I have a blog.”

Anyhoo.

Today’s objection is to the GOP’s line-by-line analysis of “wasteful spending” in President Obama’s economic stimulus package.  The article’s there for you to read, and what’s nice is that it’s just the list.  So go read it; more after you do.

…Done?  Okay, who else thinks that the GOP is completely off their collective rocker?  Two can play at this line-by-line game; let’s go through it.

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

I’d like to take a closer look at this one.  Remember that this was the DoE of the previous administration.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

Help Hollywood make movies?  Historically, a good idea.  Even in the Great Depression, movies served as a popular form of entertainment and remained an economic player.  Also, big scenes always need extras — and extras = jobs.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

A needed measure, and arguably will have an economic impact.  It’s better than having millions of viewers not make the changeover and stop being a TV market.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

Arguable impact.  Manufacturing of these ships could create jobs or throw shipyards a bone, but I’m leery.

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

This?  This is exactly the kind of thing that SHOULD be in here.  Construction is one of the best ways of creating jobs, because it needs unskilled labor and lots of it.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

…Unless they’re including computer equipment in the cost of furniture, this may be a little excessive.  (If you’re asking why this should be in the bill at all, it’s because building an office without furniture would be kind of silly.)

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

Yay auto bailouts!  Yay alternative energy!  Actually, I’d like to see exactly what this means first.  If we’re talking cars they drive on their own time, probably not good.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD’s.

Okay, the Democrats have dropped this as a gesture of faith to the GOP.  And you know what?  That was boneheaded.  I quote an anonymous CNN Democratic source: “”It’s hard to explain when you’re in the midst of a crisis why these programs are important. When people are struggling and thinking about their jobs, it’s hard to make that connection.”  It’s important because you don’t want people dying or severely ill, obviously.  (You could also argue that this would allow the CDC to create jobs.)

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

Environmental initiative?  But hey, programs = jobs.  I approve.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

Define “for,” please, CNN.  Repairs make work, useless planning generally doesn’t.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

See above, though with a bit less skepticism.  I’m plenty okay with museums getting money.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

I’m back and forth on this one.  It’s not immediate and it may or may not create jobs, but I have this gut feeling that censuses are somehow important.

• $75 million for “smoking cessation activities.”

Same deal as the STD prevention: Democrats caved.  Boohiss.  Quitters need all the help they can get, and compared to the rest of this bill it’s not even a lot.

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

You know what’s good?  Internet access.  Sure it makes jobs (IT people, community instructors, and even just the construction work) but my main reason for liking this is my deep-seated belief in universal net access.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

May or may not be good.  I can’t find an analysis of their pay scale, so I can’t tell ya.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

This is less than 1/3,400th of the total money spent to fix a SERIOUS problem.  (I live in Santa Fe, I should know.)

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

Ditch-digging: another time-honored public works project that creates jobs all over the place.  Plus, we need it.  See: Katrina.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

See: above.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings.

Saves money in the long run, gives contractors jobs, etc.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

You know what?  My hometown (Magnolia, MA) doesn’t even HAVE a fire station any more.  Let’s not cut things that fix that little problem, okay?

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

Gee, I wonder what I have to say about this.  (Hint: my family lives in LA.)

•$1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs.

Hey, you know what sucks?  Looking for a job as a teen.  We need to create teen jobs as much as adult ones — maybe even more so, as employers will almost always take an adult over a teen.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

Renovations.  Contractors.  Jobs.  We’ve been through this.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

Define “for.”

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

Construction.  Jobs.

• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Okay, this is literally making… well, not jobs, but really, what else do you call them?

• $5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

Pays for itself in the long run, is a TINY sum of this package, and will probably give some contractor a job.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

Okay, for this I have to talk about WHY the GOP wants to cut this stuff: they want more tax cuts.  They’re proposed their own version of a stimulus package, which is more than half tax cuts.  But I think that Rep. Frank of Massachusetts said it best: “I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation. The fact is, we need a mix.”

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

Uhm.  This one… well, Id like to see how prevalent a problem it is and how exactly this will help first.

• $75 million to construct a “security training” facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

Construction.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

IT work, and Lord knows the government needs some better computers.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

Stimulates car rental services, which sounds like an industry that won’t be having a ton of fun right now.

So there you have it.  Feel free to argue, as always.

Present Tense Writing

An interesting phenomena in recent fiction is the tendancy of writers to write in the present tense.  (“The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” sparked this thought, though there are many others — “A Great and Terrible Beauty,” etc.)  I’m not going to pretend that I know whether or not this directly makes a book better or worse, only having read two books that use it.  And, frankly, having read “Beauty” is probably a bit of a stretch; I didn’t make it that far at all.  I’ll just say that I like it in some cases and not in others.  (And that I look forward to the day a book is written entirely in the future tense.  Hm… an interesting challenge for NaNoWriMo ‘08.)

Now, the present tense at the physical game table has been around from the beginning.  It’s encouraged by the environment: when you’re explaining what your character’s doing, you tend to explain it as if they were doing it right now — IE, in the present tense.  But this is different in play-by-post campaign.  Players write in a more literary style, and a post could easily be either in the past tense or the present.  (I have found, personally, that the longer a post is, the better it looks in past tense.)  However, most players choose to write in the present tense; indeed, many PbP sites encourage or even require it.

The sites with those policies explain them by saying that the present tense makes one player’s action easier for another to invalidate and doesn’t assume success.  (The idea being that it’s not okay for me to say to you, “I stabbed your character and he fell over, dead;” I should instead write “I attempt to stab your character.”  The rules for how this kind of thing is resolved are archaic, complex, and entirely beyond my capacity to explain in my current “splitting-headache” state.)  However, that reasoning is pretty flimsy to me: I could just as easily say “I attempted to stab you” as “I attempt to stab you.”  I understant the reasoning as to why a tense is established — after going through a game or two where someone was using a different tense than everyone else, I’ll establish one too if I feel the need.  But why present instead of past?

I suspect that the reason’s cultural.  (It’d be no fun if it wasn’t.)  We live in an age of accessibility — please stay; unlike most people who use that phrase, I’m not going to actively persecute the modern era.  In times past, we listened to records of what people did: for example, as most RPGers know, the earliest stories were epics and myths of time immemorial.  These were of course written in the past tense; they were stories of our ancestors and had happened long ago.  In the modern era, however, the emphasis is on what people are doing: TV news gives us up-to-the-minute information, and YouTube covers whatever it missed.  And, when it’s time to title a news story or a YouTube clip, the modern man chooses the present tense to cover these current events.  It’s only logical to conclude that today’s culture influences (there, I did it) how we write for our play-by-post games.

But then, I play Fourth Edition.  I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me in the least.