Copping To The Culture

There's been a lot of virtual ink spilled on the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by the Cambridge Police Department, and especially the subsequent media cold war between Professor Gates, the Cambridge Police, and even President Obama. A lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of race in an allegedly post-racial America, but that's not what I want to discuss (especially given that I'm on record as believing that Obama's election did not actually signal the advent of post-racial America).

What I want to discuss is something I feel was just as significant in the Gates issue, but is an aspect of American policing that simply doesn't get discussed, and I think can be thrown into relief most clearly by contrasting Mr. Gates's experience with the experience of a 24-year old man in my home state, shot dead earlier this week by a sherrif's deputy despite only being clad in a swimsuit with no obvious weapons at hand. The victim and the deputy were both white, as far as I can tell from reports, so race played no role in his death.

What I think did play a role in Tyler Heilman's death was a part of police culture; a part that's seeping its way into the larger popular culture as a result of the general reaction by current storytellers, whether for fiction or non-fiction, to attempt to avoid the demonization of authority -- specifically that of the military and police -- during the 1960's.

I personally have not had bad experiences with police. I've had some cops as family friends. When studying theater in Yuma, AZ, I volunteered to help the local police academy with their domestic violence training by acting as a scene re-enactor. I've had plenty of exposure to the positive side of police culture.

One of those things that is absolutely true of police culture (and to an extent, military culture), is that those who are in the culture see themselves as 'the good guys', and those who stand in their way or challenge them, by default, become 'the bad guys'. It's a fairly simplistic way of looking at the world, but in the sense that it helps promote camaraderie among officers, I can't say that it's innately a bad thing.

The problem comes in when the 'cops are good guys, others are bad guys' mentality begins to be more generally applied. A few examples:

- About the only truly bad experience I've had with police was once when I was working as a behind-the-wheel driver training instructor. High school students are required to have six hours of behind-the-wheel training before they can apply for their driver license, so it wasn't at all uncommon for me to be called to a house to pick up a high school kid. One time, though, I went to a house in north Minneapolis where no one answered the door, and as I was walking to find a pay phone to call my office (this was years before cell phones became common for 'average folks' to own), I was approached by a pair of Minneapolis's finest, cuffed, put into the back of the squad car, asked to tell my story, and warned sternly to think about my story because they were sure I was going to have to change it.

As it turned out, the girl who lived in the house had recently broken up with her abusive boyfriend, and without even looking out the window, had assumed that I was the boyfriend when I'd knocked to pick up the girl for her driver lesson. Once the confusion was cleared up (with plenty of apologies from the girl and her mother), the cops seemed willing to move me over from 'likely bad guy' to 'misunderstood good guy' status, and we all parted fairly amicably (though I still asked my office if I could take the rest of the day off after the stress of the encounter).

- A fictional example, yet still interesting:

A recent episode of "The Closer", a police procedural starring Kyra Sedgewick as a chief of homicide detectives, featured a situation where two cops were murdered by neo-Nazi skinhead bikers. Also dead at the scene was an 18-year old boy who might or might not have been part of the assassination plot.

The episode introduced us to Captain Sharon Raydor, played by Mary McDonnell (the same actress who portrayed President Laura Roslin on the recently concluded Battlestar Galactica TV series). Raydor is the head of the FID, whose responsibility it is to investigate incidents where police are alleged to have exceeded or abused their authority.

Raydor's interest is solely with the dead 18-year old, yet the episode and everyone in it treat Raydor's investigation as though it would impair Chief Johnson's own investigation of the cop-killers. At every point where there is conflict between Raydor and Johnson, Johnson 'wins', including getting Assistant Chief Pope (played by the outstanding J.K. Simmons) to order Raydor to take a back seat to Johnson's investigation, despite Raydor's team providing the information that allows the police to track down the car used in the shooting.

It turns out, of course, that Johnson is right all along -- the kid was actually an accomplice to the killing. Not only is Raydor not present when Asst Chief Pope lauds Johnson and her team for not only bringing justice, but easing the pain of the fallen officers' families, the final scene between Raydor and Johnson has Raydor brining a verbal knife to a gunfight, as Johnson argues that Raydor's unit's very existence is bad for cops by making them hesitate to defend themselves when needed, while Raydor's only response is to point out that, even with her unit, the city paid out $70 million in fines and was required to release hundreds of alleged criminals because of police abuses.

(Interestingly enough, though, Raydor's argument may be better than I gave it credit for -- she mentions the 'Rampart case', which I assumed was a made-up event, but was in fact a near-legendary police corruption case which inspired the TV series "The Shield". Still, for the purposes of this scenario, none of the officers involved possessed even a whiff of corruption, making the specific argument moot for the purpose of defending herself against the charge that Raydor herself was somehow complicit in the officers' deaths. At least the writers portrayed her as being in uniform to attend the funeral of the slain officers.)

So much for examples.

It's pretty easy to see how a group of officers, summoned to the scene of an alleged break-in, might find themselves unconsciously falling back on their shared 'what are you doing, we're the good guys' social construction of reality when confronted by a mouthy black man who claims he's simply standing in his own house.

It's a bit harder to understand how this might have contributed to the death of Tyler Heilman, though. Still, I'll point out the following:

- Kasota is not a very large community (population 680 according to the 2000 census)

- Heilman was well-known as a delinquent, with many juvenile and young-adult arrests for vandalism, assault, and underage drinking, making him likely to be well-known by the local community, especially the police

So Deputy Waldron knows Heilman is a 'bad guy'. Then, when Heilman's response to a traffic stop by an unmarked police car is to get out and grapple with Waldron, the situation escalates.

The part we'll probably never know is why Waldron, after Heilman noticed his badge and stopped fighting, came up shooting. It's hard to imagine that as a fully conscious decision, though, so unconscious influences such as culture might well have influenced his actions.

I don't think this culture is going away any time soon. It's been part of police culture for, well, probably as long as there have been police. And popular culture is adopting it, too, as I noted above: police procedurals are among the most popular of shows right now, from CSI to The Closer and all along the spectrum of the various flavors of Law & Order. The crazy thing? Those folks who take the time to look at the 'we're the good guys' culture know it's bullshit, from the sociologists who study how things like the Rampart case came to be, to folks like David Simon, who produced The Wire, probably my favorite cop show of all time. Here's how Simon himself put it in an interview for Slate magazine:

If I had to write a police procedural right now, I'd put a gun to my head. And I really have to say this, even Homicide was prisoner of the form. On shows where the arrest matters, where it's about good and evil, punishing crime, the poor and the rich, the suspect exists to exalt the good guys, to make the Sipowiczs and the Pembletons and the Joe Fridays that much more moral, that much more righteous, that much more intellectualized. It's to validate their point of view and the point of view of society. So you end up with the same stilted picture of the underclass. Either they're the salt of the earth looking for a break, and not at all responsible, or they're venal and evil and need to be punished. That's a good precedent for creating an alienated America

If Simon is right here, and I think he makes a good argument, then this tendency of cops and those who support them to see themselves as the 'good guys', and anybody who opposes or obstructs them as the 'bad guys', then this very attitude is part of the numerous stresses turning America into a divided, partisan, torn, and ultimately broken nation.

Is anybody going to cop to that, though?

ADDENDUM: Ask and ye shall receive, I suppose. "Jack Dunphy" is an LAPD officer who, in this National Review Online article, basically puts it as bluntly as I've seen it put: if the police have a reason to suspect you of wrongdoing, you're a 'bad guy' until you can demonstrate otherwise.

Oh, and remember that Rampart case we discussed above? Yeah, that was the LAPD involved in that. Surprised?

Explanation to the Solution to 'Blue Eyes'

Hidden in the xkcd.com domain is a logic puzzle called 'Blue Eyes'; I'll let you follow the link to read the actual puzzle.

Hidden in another location on xkcd.com is the solution to the puzzle; I'll let you follow the link to read that.

The problem is that Randall Munroe, the developer of this puzzle and solution, doesn't explain the answer quite as well as he might; he so much as admits that his explanations aren't as clear as they might be (though with Randall, it's possible this is deliberate, given the kind of humor he displays in the webcomic associated with the domain name).

Having recently puzzled through the thing myself, I'll endeavor to provide a scholarly recapitulation of the puzzle's underlying logic. (Note that, while the puzzle itself is copyrighted by Munroe, scholarly analysis of copyrighted texts is protected in the U.S. under copyright law, so I'm not worried about receiving a cease-and-desist order from a man in a black hat.)

(For those who might need it: SPOILER WARNING! I'm about to explain the solution to Munroe's puzzle in potentially excruciating detail, so don't say you weren't warned.)

There is an unstated presumption in the initial conditions of the puzzle: it's presumed that the Guru is telling the truth. Since this presumption is necessary for the puzzle to be solvable, it can probably remain unsaid, but I point it out to show that, as Munroe himself states, the answer to the puzzle is not to figure out that the question is a trick question. You really can deduce the given answer logically.

Munroe begins by demonstrating that for any number of people on the island, if they are all blue-eyed, then they'll all eventually realize this after a number of days have passed. My explanation of this proof:

Begin with the hypothetical that Munroe does: that there is only one person on the island. In this case, that person knows his eyes are blue, and thus leaves that very night.

If there are two people on the island, then presuming the Guru is telling the truth, there is either one blue-eyed person and one non-blue eyed person, or two blue-eyed people. If person #1 (he) looks at person #2 (she) and doesn't see blue eyes, then he knows his eyes are blue and he leaves that night; likewise if she looks at him and doesn't see blue eyes, she knows her eyes are blue and she leaves that night.

Here's the first key to understanding the puzzle: if he looks at her and sees blue eyes, but she doesn't leave on the first night, then he knows that she saw blue eyes and was expecting him to leave. She realizes the same thing, and thus they both realize they have blue eyes and leave together on the second night.

Move on to three people. If only one has blue eyes, we're back in the original situation; since we know that there's at least one blue-eyed person, if that person can't see another blue-eyed person, then he knows he has blue eyes and leaves the first night. If two of the three people have blue eyes, then two of the people will see one other blue-eyed person and find themselves in the same situation as the two blue-eyed people alone; if she doesn't leave the first night, then she sees a second blue-eyed person, but since he doesn't see a second blue-eyed person, he has to be that person. The same is true of his not leaving and what she can deduce from that.

This is actually the second key, but we'll come back to it.

If all three of the people (A, B, and C) are blue-eyed, then the situation goes like this: since I can already logically determine (from the argument above) that if I'm not blue-eyed, the blue-eyed people I see will leave when they realize they're all blue-eyed, if they don't leave on that day, then I'm also blue-eyed, and we all leave on the third day.

Thus, Munroe's explanation can be boiled down to a formula: if there are X people, all with blue eyes, they will realize it and leave on day X. It's an inductive proof, to a point, but inductive logic still qualifies as logic.

If you're scratching your head wondering how it is that the people who don't have blue eyes realize that they don't have blue eyes, well, now we get back to the second key: It doesn't matter how many people without blue eyes you put on the island.

Consider the situation where you have 101 people on the island, but only 1 has blue eyes. Since each non-blue eyed person can see one blue-eyed person, they don't know for sure that they don't yet have blue eyes. But the single blue-eyed person sees nobody else with blue eyes, realizes he's the only one with blue eyes, and departs on the first night. When he departs, everyone else realizes that they don't have blue eyes, because if any of them had, the guy wouldn't have known to leave. X is 1, and he leaves on Day 1.

The same is true for 100 non-blue-eyed people and two blue-eyed people. The two blue-eyed people will each expect the other to leave on day 1, but when they don't, they'll realize that they're both blue eyed and leave on day 2. Why? Because each of them can only see one other blue-eyed person, and if that person didn't leave on day 1, it can only mean that that person saw another blue-eyed person. X is 2, and they leave on Day 2.

The final thing you may be asking yourself is this: how do the non-blue-eyed people realize that they don't have blue eyes? Isn't it possible that one of them will believe that they do have blue eyes simply by mistake?

Actually, no, that will never happen. Let's use the original puzzle setup to explain why: 100 blue-eyed people and 100 brown-eyed people.

If you are blue-eyed, you'll see 99 other people with blue eyes. Based on the chain of logic listed above, you'll expect them all to leave on Day 99.

If you are brown-eyed, you'll see 100 other people with blue eyes. Again based on the chain of logic listed above, you'll expect them all to leave on Day 100.

If you see 99 blue-eyed people, but they don't all leave on Day 99, that means you also have blue eyes. Note that this is true for each of the 100 people with blue eyes -- none of them actually realizes that he or she has blue eyes until that day when the other blue-eyed people don't leave. You then know you have blue eyes and leave on Day 100, and everyone else who realized this with you leaves on Day 100 as well.

If you see 100 blue-eyed people, and they all leave on Day 100, then you realize you don't have blue eyes. If you did, they'd have all stayed and you'd have all realized you have blue eyes on Day 101.

Nobody on the island knows for certain whether or not they have blue eyes until the day they all leave together; remember, if any of them could have figured it out sooner, they'd have had to leave sooner -- the rules are that once you know your eye color, you have to leave.

Interestingly enough, and one reason it took me so long to get my head around the answer, is that the solution seems similar to what I call the False Execution Paradox:

You are convicted of a death sentence in an imaginary nation. Because of a quirk in the law of this nation, you cannot be legally executed unless the following conditions are met:

• You must be executed within one week of the sentence, and
• You cannot be executed if you know the day of your execution prior to noon on the day before your scheduled execution.

At first glance, the combination of conditions, specifically the second one, seems impossible to satisfy, because of the following logical argument. Say you're sentenced on a Sunday:

You cannot be executed on the following Sunday, because if they tell you prior to noon on Saturday that you'll be executed, they'll violate the second condition, but if they don't tell you before the end of the day on Friday, you'll know on Saturday morning that you're going to be executed on Sunday (it's the only day left) and thus violate the second condition.

By the same logic, once you know you can't be executed on Sunday, you also can't be executed on Saturday -- since you know you can't be executed on Sunday, if they don't tell you before noon on Thursday, you'll know then you'll be executed on Saturday, which again violates the second condition. But if they tell you Thursday that you'll be executed Saturday, that also violates the second condition.

You can work out a chain of logic that 'proves' that there is no day on which they can legally execute you, so you sit in your cell confident that you'll have to be released when, completely by surprise, they inform you on Tuesday afternoon that you'll be executed on Wednesday, fully satisfying both conditions and legally executing you. What went wrong?

I don't yet have an answer to that question, but I suspect that the distinction lies in the difference between the logically valid modus ponens logical argument structure:

If A then B.
A.
Therefore, B.

And the logically invalid argument known as 'denying the antecedent':

If A then B.
Not A.
Therefore, not B.

And, of course, it may not be a formal logic flaw at all; just an odd mapping error between natural language and the symbolism of formal logic.

Here's my problem: the False Execution puzzle depends on a chain of logic constructed arithmetically over a timespan, but it can be demonstrated that the logical chain constructed is invalid (or possibly valid but unsound) simply by proposing a valid execution scenario. Blue Eyes is also dependent on a logical chain constructed arithmetically over a timespan, but it is not nearly as obvious that a scenario can be constructed that proves that the logical chain is unsound. For small numbers of people, the chain can be shown to be perfectly valid and sound, and while there's no reason to suspect that the chain can't be extended indefinitely, the same would be thought to be true of the False Execution puzzle, until it's demonstrated how the chain can be broken.

If you think I'm a bit weird for staying up nights worrying over this stuff, then, well, you're right.

At the Dome

In the Metrodome after having recorded a spot for the KSTP 1500 post-game for Sunday. Paid $25 to sit in the "home run porch". I remember when it cost $6 and was called "lower-deck general admission".

Delmon Young is DHing tonight, so we'll see how it goes.

There's also a rock-music backed highlight reel to entertain the crowd before the game that makes me shake my head - MLB is not the NBA where something spectacular happens routinely because of all the great athletes on the field. In football, a great defensive play can mean the difference between winning and losing, while in baseball, there's still 25 or 26 more outs to get.

But of course, lying about their sport is nothing new for the Lords of Baseball.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Best thing I've read in some time

"If now is finally time to read 'Atlas Shrugged', then we are well and truly doomed. Somewhere beyond the grave, Milton Friedman is laughing his ass off."
- Andrew Leonard, Salon.com, "How the World Works"

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Three Faces of Resource Management

Continuing my conversion of the Age of Worms Adventure Path to 4th edition D&D, and received additional insights as to the structure of D&D's 'resource management' and why Mike Mearls's "Three Faces of Evil" is such a PC lawnmower.

If you ask the question, 'which of the twelve adventures in the Age of Worms Adventure Patch is the most deadly?', you might naively think that the answer would be the last -- it's the final adventure of the campaign, the party might well be breaking into epic levels, and the goal is to stop the apotheosis of a mad god of undead. Why wouldn't the designers pull out all the stops? If you go to the Paizo.com Age of Worms message boards looking to answer that question, though, you get a surprising and different answer -- the most lethal of the Age of Worms adventures is the second, Mike Mearls's "Three Faces of Evil", designed for 3rd-4th level characters.

The reason this is true has more to do with the concept of resource management than any specific flaw in the design of the adventure -- after all, each individual encounter's EL is appropriate for a party of 3rd-4th level characters, and until the very last encounter, no single monster is of overwhelming power. The reason the adventure as a whole, and the Temple of Hextor specifically (where our party had its TPK the one time I ran the 3.5 version of the Adventure Path) are so lethal has to do with design expecations about player resources, and the sometimes unconscious ways in which players have internalized those expectations. These expectations haven't changed from 3.5 to 4th edition D&D; if anything, the underlying principles were brought even closer to the surface in 4th edition, which is why modifying "The Three Faces of Evil" for a 4th edition setting is such a challenge.

Begin with the premise that D&D and similar RPGs are, in one perspective, exercises in resource management. The fundamental resource for characters in D&D are their hit points -- lose all your hit points, and your character perishes. 3.5 D&D sets up a multi-layered approach to hit point management, though:

1. Hit points (HP) are reduced via attacks (usually versus armor class) or enemy spells (usually mitigated by saving throws), and can be regained via rest, spell, or other magic.
2. The ways in which HP are regained are themselves resources, subject to different 'recharge cycles'. A cleric can cast a cure spell either in combat or after combat to immediately restore some HP; the cleric can only recover the spell after a certain amount of time has passed, however. Likewise, a healing potion will restore some HP, but the party must then either purchase or create a new potion to replace the one used.

The same basic structure exists in 4th edition, with 3.5 saving throws being replaced with 4.0 Non-Armor Defenses (so that all methods of reducing HP are now, in effect, attacks), and with the healing powers of the cleric in 3.5 being generally distributed to all the 'leader' role classes in 4.0 (ignoring for the moment the impact of the 4.0 'healing surge', which makes the process of HP management much more sophisticated).

Ultimately, every resource recovery mechanic eventually defaults to time -- you need the time in combat or out of combat to cast spells or use items, then the time to rest to regain spells or recharge or repurchase items. The biggest challenge to a party, then, is finding that time in a place where enemies aren't able to continue attacking their HP resources.

The wrinkle that 4th edition makes more obvious, though, is that the time component is divided into two different cycles -- a 'short rest' cycle whereby characters can regain some of their HP recovery resources, and an 'extended rest' cycle whereby characters can regain all of their recovery resources. Players in 4th edition internalize these cycles by checking their HP to see if they need to take short rests (i.e.: use their top-tier HP recovery resources), and also checking their healing surges to see if they need to take extended rests (i.e.: recover their HP recovery resources). A party at full HP but almost no healing surges won't want to continue adventuring, because they know that their HP resources aren't able to be recovered as efficiently, while a party at low HP but full on surges will take one (or more) short rests to use their surges to recover their HP and continue the adventure.

The problem with the Hextorian battle temple in "Three Faces of Evil", and to a lesser degree, every major adventure section in the adventure, is that the adventure prevents the players from being able to exercise that judgment. The Hextorian battle temple encounter begins, in effect, as soon as the players first enter the dungeon -- tiefling guards stand at the bottom of the elevator shaft where the party will appear, and one of them is directed by tactics to run to the door of the temple and deliberately trigger the temple's defenses. This creates a running series of battles where the party has almost no opportunity to stop and assess their resources between battles to determine when the optimal time to withdraw would be. The ideal execution of the strategy behind the Hextorian battle temple would be for the party to be drawn into the gladiatorial arena room (and locked into it) after having expended significant resources battling through cultists, guards, and a guardian beast on the way there; by the time the party has an opportunity to assess their need to rest, they no longer have the option to rest or withdraw from the encounter.

To a lesser extent, each of the three temples is organized this way, though the tactics given to the DM are not as overt as in the Hextorian battle temple. In addition, if the party slays each of the cult leaders (which most adventuring parties will do, given player tendencies to kill and loot their enemies), the final encounter with the Ebon Aspect occurs within the entrance to the complex, so that the party has no opporunity to withdraw to the safety of town prior to the climactic final battle. As such, the greatest challenge in converting "Three Faces" to 4th edition is not in finding appropriate monster stats, but in trying to find places within the adventure where the party is able to take short rests to recover their encounter powers despite not having 'cleared' the temple they're in.

(Keep in mind as well that, although we're only discussing the HP resource 'tree' here, a party's ability to deliver damage to and thus defeat opponents follows a similar resource management structure; thus, the longer a party goes between short rests, the less effective they become in defeating the opponents they face. Since the toughest opponents are usually at the end of these serial encounters, again, it's easy to see where the party is effectively stuck with few options for victory if they've used their larger powers too soon. So it's really a double-whammy -- less ability to withstand the enemy's attack, combined with a reduced ability to eliminate the enemy to stop the attacks.)

One thing I find ironic is that, as far as I can tell, Mike Mearls wrote this adventure as a freelancer for Paizo, then parlayed this (among other) adventure writing gigs into a full-time job at Wizards of the Coast. How is that ironic? Because the current edition Dungeon Master's Guide specifically warns you against designing adventures in the style of "Three Faces of Evil", so in effect Mearls was hired based on his experience in writing flawed (yet flavorful) adventures.

Why Linux on the Desktop is Still Not Ready for Prime Time

It's been a while since I lit into someone in the PC publishing world for vastly overstating the Linux case, and sure enough, waiting for me online this past Friday was an article from Keir Thomas, author of a number of several books about Ubuntu Linux, published in PC World and referenced on teh intarwebs by Yahoo Tech: Top 7 Reasons People Quit Linux.

It's useful to review this list, especially in the light of a release on the same day that Linux, as a cluster of related operating systems, just recently began accounting for more than one percent of identifiable internet traffic, accounting for just over one-tenth as much traffic as those using MacOS X, and about twice as much traffic as people surfing the web on their iPhones. It makes for a great example of a Linux enthusiast thinking he's making one point, while really making one entirely different.

Reason #1 in Mr. Thomas's essay is "Linux doesn't run a program I use." Mr. Thomas's response is, basically, "Sorry, can't help you."

As a Mac user, I do understand this response. After all, one of the big reasons my friends give me for not buying Mac hardware is that their favorite games don't run on Mac. Gaming is still a problem for Linux users as well, but the real issue Mr. Thomas was addressing is a lack of productivity apps, including most of the Adobe suite of products -- many people use Adobe Dreamweaver or Adobe Premiere or some similar product to earn their living, and as such, as much as they'd like to move to Linux, they can't, because they can't find an alternative to run on the OS.

(Oddly enough, Mr. Thomas is one of the few Linux advocates who admits that Adobe Photoshop is a program that can't be replaced on Linux -- not because there isn't any image-editing software for Linux (the open-source GIMP package is a decent image editor), but because most professional workflows have developed to involve various third-party plug-ins and add-ons to Photoshop, which the GIMP can't use. So kudos to Mr. Thomas for at least making that admission, which his more brain-dead cohorts still can't do.)

Macs are clearly ahead of Linux in this category: Apple has itself produced or purchased-and-extended several professional-grade apps for their MacOS X operating system (such as Aperture, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Studio), but also lower-impact consumer versions of those apps (iPhoto, iMovie/iDVD, and GarageBand).

The biggest benefit, though, has been from third-party developers who have helped fill in areas where the MacOS was traditionally weak, such as CAD software. Why can't third-party developers do this for Linux? Because as a general rule, people who don't pay for their operating system don't expect to have to pay for their applications, either -- thus there's little market in producing Linux-based applications except to places that have no choice but to pay, which means specific enterprise-tailored apps that become the property of the company that pays for them, not the people who develop them.

The very fact that Linux is open-source guarantees that it cannot compete with the resources available to a developer for a commercial operating system; thus, while point one is become less and less relevant for MacOS X every year, it will probably always be true of the Linux flavor-of-the-month.

Reason #2 in Mr. Thomas's essay is "I installed Linux but some element of my hardware didn't work!" His response is, in effect, "Then fix it."

As his example, he talked about a time when he installed Windows and not all of his devices were supported in the base install, so he hunted around and found the correct drivers and other bits of techie knowledge he needed to be able to get his system working. Which is great if you want to be a mechanic.

Linux fails on this account because very few vendors are selling hardware with Linux pre-installed, which is how most consumer users expect to deal with computers and operating systems these days. Only a true do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiast or somebody who really needs to build a machine on the cheap will take on the challenge of building a Linux PC from parts, purchasing their own case, motherboard, video card, etc., and then tinkering with the configuration settings in Linux until everything hums like a well-tuned engine.

There are some vendors who will sell Linux pre-installed on desktops and even laptops, but the cost savings of Linux doesn't seem all that significant. For example, Dell sells a version of their XPS laptop line (the XPS M1530n) with Ubuntu Linux 8 pre-installed for $974 after 'instant savings', but the version of that laptop with Windows pre-installed (the XPS M1530) is only $999 after a much smaller 'instant savings' -- prior to the discount, the Windows M1530 is $1108, while the Linux M1530n is $1194. The Linux laptop even ships with an older and slightly slower T5850 Intel Core Duo processor as compared with the Windows version's T6600 processor! The difference is that the Linux laptop also ships with a smaller but quicker hard drive (320 GB @ 7200 RPM vs 500 GB @ 5400 RPM); the distinction is one that most users probably won't ever notice (though the ones more likely to drop $1000 on a Linux laptop just might).

It may have made sense to buy your computer in parts and build it yourself in the 1980s, just as car enthusiasts were modding their vehicles throughout the 1950s, but today, most folks are buying commodity hardware, not building a precious asset. And for those who want what's effectively a new addition to the family, Apple makes the process that much more impressive with a combination of their high-end packaging and their in-store service and support through their retail outlets, a combination so effective that Microsoft is hoping to duplicate it with their own retail efforts.

Reason #3 is "I tried Linux but I had to type commands!" Mr. Thomas literally responds "OMG!" Then he asks, "Are you scared of the keyboard?"

I've already covered this point extensively, but I'll recap by saying, no, Mr. Thomas, I'm not scared of the keyboard, I just don't see why I need to learn UNIX to do a job that has nothing to do with knowing UNIX. Most people's biggest need in a computer is to have something that lets them do their work without getting in the way or putting up roadblocks to productivity, and MacOS X is the acknowledged king of this realm. (Hard-core Mac fans can argue that MacOS X isn't as user-friendly and efficient at the user level as MacOS 8 was back in the day, and I wouldn't argue with them all that much. Even so, MacOS X remains light-years ahead of both Windows and Linux in consistency and usability.)

Reason #4 I'll grant to Mr. Thomas -- "I did *this* and *this* happened. That doesn't happen on Windows!"

Part of the joy of MacOS X is that it doesn't behave like Windows, and I suspect that's part of what Linux fans like about Linux. We're all on the same page here.

Reason #5, however, is spot-on: "I posted a message on a forum, but Linux people were mean to me."

This, more than anything else, is a cultural problem. Mac users are often criticized as being 'elitist' and feeling as though we're better than other computer users, but the culture of Mac use is one where Mac users really enjoy their computers, like sharing information about them, and (in general) enthusiastically welcome new users into the Macintosh family.

Interestingly enough, the same is true to some extent in the Linux community -- but only if you're talking to someone face-to-face. In my experience, if you're on a Linux box and say, "Hmm, never seen that before," you'll have half a dozen other Linux users looking over your shoulder giving advice and making suggestions within five minutes. Go online, however, and Linux users tend to have chips the size of desktop computers on their shoulders -- some won't even bother to say hello unless you've demonstrated that you've read the man pages for the program you're having problems with, completely recited the hardware specs for your machine (and confirmed that they match a specific technology stack for your flavor of Linux), and invoked the spirit of Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman to intercede on your behalf. In other words, anonymous Linux users on the internet display precisely the kind of elitism and self-superiority that people are always accusing Mac users of.

To his credit, Mr. Thomas admits that not everyone online makes a good Linux advocate. Unfortunately, he fails to see how he failed to follow his own advice about being a good citizen with his "Just fix it yourself" and "Are you afraid of the keyboard" comments in his previous paragraphs.

The real biggie, though, is reason #6 - "I just don't like it." Mr. Thomas wishes more people would be honest that this is their reason for abandoning Linux rather than hiding behind one of the above excuses. Unfortunately, in characterizing the people who use this reason as "spooked...so much that they ran back to Windows," he misses the point -- it's OK to like your operating system. For the most part, Mac users can't shut up about how much they like their operating system, and love the hardware that it runs on, to the point where many Mac users I know have given their computers names, just as if they were members of the family.

And this, ultimately, is the biggest reason why Linux on the desktop isn't, and perhaps never will be, ready for prime-time: the presumption of Linux fans that it's up to the rest of the world to change to adapt to their favored OS rather than for that OS to make itself more acceptable, and even adorable, to the masses.

(For the record, reason #7, "I installed Linux and things went honey-nut-loops crazy," is dismissed by Mr. Thomas, and to my mind rightly so -- just because you have a bad experience with an OS or computer company (and I'm talking to you, Apple bashers on Consumerist.com) doesn't mean everybody does. In fact, if you consistently find yourself having problems with companies or people that others seem to get along with fine, there's a poster you should consider buying.)

An Honest Dow Jones News Item

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up just over a hundred and sixty-eight points, and we have no fucking idea why.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Mad Insights

I've begun the slow process of converting Paizo Publishing's "Age of Worms" Adventure path, originally published in issues #124-135 of Dungeon Magazine, into the new 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. As I've been doing so, though, I've discovered more than a few things about adventure design, as well as about general design tenets of both 3.5 and 4.0. And it's surprising what those things have to teach.

***Spoiler Alert -- Though if you haven't already played through the Age of Worms, the odds that you'll do so soon (other than in my own campaign) seems small, given that three of the twelve original issues of Dungeon are now out of print and can only be acquired in PDF format.***

The introductory adventure, 'The Whispering Cairn', takes place in a sleepy yet dirty (in more than one sense) town of Diamond Lake, and the intended motivation for the adventurers to take on the challenge of the cairn is to try to score a treasure large enough to buy their way out of town to someplace where life isn't so cheap. The designers did a solid job of presenting a classic low-level dungeon crawl with a few twists, and in such a way that players who mindlessly min-max their low-level characters are going to be in for a rude shock. (For instance, among players of 3.5-era wizards, the spells shocking grasp and magic missile are agreed to be more useful and powerful, and thus better options, than the spell burning hands. Yet, one very early encounter effectively punishes the party for containing a min-max wizard by throwing an acid beetle swarm -- a creature immune to weapon damage and most spell damage, but vulnerable to area effect spells like burning hands -- at the young turks.) In this sense, in that the adventure is designed to be a challenge for even experienced 3.5 players, the designers should be thanked and lauded.

In addition, the designers also don't skimp on the flavor in the first adventure (technically the first two, since both of the first two adventures take place primarily in and around Diamond Lake); Dungeon #124 not only contains the initial adventure, but also a sixteen page section detailing the town of Diamond Lake, and a web-enhancement (which at the time took some effort to get out the door) containing full stat-block writeups of all the major (and a good chunk of the minor) NPCs in the town. If you're looking for a place to begin campaigns with echoes of the classic D&D towns of the past such as the Village of Hommlet, you could do worse than to simply co-opt all the background material for Diamond Lake and drop it, whole cloth, into your own campaign world. Again, in an industry that seems to focus heavily on either flavor (setting) or crunch (rules) at the expense of the other, the impressive balance and extreme plentitude of crunchy flavor makes this an outstanding example of the 3.5 era low-level adventure.

Looked at through the eyes of a fourth-edition player/DM/developer, though, there are some problems, not just with the adventure, but with the overall design ethic of not just the campaign but the underlying game system.

Traditionally, 1st level D&D characters are extremely fragile, especially in any iteration of the rules that allows bonus damage on 'critical hits'. Because of this, most experienced D&D players and DMs tend to start their campaigns at 2nd or 3rd level, to ensure that the players have a bit of a buffer to tide over small swings in ill fortune. 'The Whispering Cairn' gives a good reason why: the very first encounter occurs between the party and a pack of three wolves, one of which is significantly tougher (in hit point terms) than the others. The party should win this fight, unless their luck abandons them entirely, but having defeated the wolves, chances are that the wizard has spent his only offensive spell (or only defensive spell), the cleric has used most if not all of his initial healing spells to bring the party's front-line combatants back to full health or close to it, and the party's 'resources' have been largely drained. Pretty much all they have left are the hit points on their backs, so the question is, press on, or head out to the hideout and rest up for another run tomorrow?

If they press on, they run smack-dab into the aforementioned encounter that punishes them for being min-maxers; while I haven't counted all the TPKs listed in the Paizo Age of Worms message boards, I suspect that this specific encounter is one of the more prevalent areas for TPKs (total party kills), in what is ostensibly the fourth room in the dungeon. Unfortunately, if the party goes timid, then the DM has the stick of a rival adventuring party in the area exploring another cairn that the PCs know is treasureless. The resulting tension is classic D&D 'do I push on and die or withdraw and lose' tension, but not everyone likes to play that way anymore.

That's a big reason why 4.0 characters start with significantly more hit points and other resources than starting characters in previous versions of the game -- to help avoid 'low level minefield syndrome', where you're afraid to step anywhere lest it turn out to be a hidden kobold who crits you with his shortsword and sends you to an early grave.

Another point, and this actually feeds into the first point above, is in the area of treasure distribution. Now, I don't want to give you the idea that treasure distribution is badly done in 3.5 terms in 'The Whispering Cairn'; the dungeon is a place where numerous runs have already been made, the 'low-hanging fruit' has already been plucked, and the party gains significant rewards for pushing through the toughest challenges. This absolutely adds a sense of verisimilitude to the experience of becoming a 'professional adventurer'; if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

In 4.0 terms, though, treasure is meant to be distributed somewhat more evenly -- not precisely one bundle of treasure for each encounter, but most encounters should result in some kind of reward for the party other than just the XP. Done properly, this can actually be of great benefit to the party. Let's use the aforementioned wolf encounter as an example:

The party fights the wolves in a 3.5 setting, defeats them, and claims the treasure of an elven-crafted piece of jewelry (again, excellent design from a 3.5-era perspective, since the party, if they took the trouble to make contact with the elven mine manager in town, can sell the jewelry there for a larger profit, rewarding the players for investing time in role-playing). But jewelry doesn't help them make their decision -- if anything, it pushes them to head back to town, sell the jewel for the cash to buy more supplies and press on the next day. (And, not coincidentally, start rumors about the town as to where these ragamuffin adventurers are finding this treasure, which can eventually leak back to the rival party's ears.)

In a 4.0 environment, the treasure is more likely to be a small number of coins plus a healing potion, which recommends to the party that they can in fact go on. (After all, in 3.5, they're probably planning to sell the jewelry to buy healing potions anyway.) Players spend more time in encounters, and less managing their character inventories, both of which are significant improvements for players who aren't already enamored of inventory management in their RPGs. While this means that the players' 'big' treasure encounters won't be quite as big in 4.0 as in 3.5, since some of the treasure that would have been in the 3.5 cha-ching horde is now littered amongst the rabble leading to the monster guarding the cha-ching horde, it also means that they're more likely to survive to that encounter, survive the actual encounter, and reach that encounter within a single game session rather than two or three -- another factor that aging gamers, who no longer have time to spend an entire weekend gorging on Mountain Dew, frozen pizza, and D&D, tend to appreciate.

Now it just so happens that this entry lets me bang on D&D 3.5 for a bit; I'm sure as I go I'll find things about D&D 4.0 to bang on as well. If you want an even more insightful tour of how Age of Worms helped bring out the worst in D&D 3.5, despite (or perhaps because of) their designers' best efforts, check out this ENWorld essay, "How Paizo made me hate 3e."

Forward Thinking

"I think we will look back in ten years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that which was true in the 1930's is true in 2010."

- Senator Byron Dorgan, November 1999, on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

New Ballpark Blues

There's a new Twins ballpark opening downtown, and the Twins are celebrating with a radio commercial set to the tune of 'Home on the Range' (though the celebration seems a bit premature to me, given that the club still has to sell tickets in the park they've allowed to become known as the cesspit of the American League).

In honor of the Twins sagacity in opening the new park, I've decided to write some alternate lyrics to their celebration song:

New ballpark downtown
Where Mauer and Morneau will play,
Where it's pleasant and dry, except in July,
And in August, and April, and May.

Hey, Consumerist!

You might want to actually do some research before spouting off about how Apple is adding 'DRM' to their new iPod Shuffle, especially when one of the critics you cite in your article recants his own position on the same day your essay is posted. If you're going off that half-cocked over something as petty as a controller chip on a pair of headphones, why should I believe anything you say about more important subjects?

Some Earmark Perspective

I understand that it's popular right now to criticize earmark spending as 'pork', even if you are a Congressperson who brags about bringing federal dollars home during your re-election campaign. Hypocrisy is nothing new in government, so I don't see much point In getting upset about it.

I'll just point out that getting bent out of shape over the earmarks in the just-passed budget is like being offended that a family of four earning $1400 per month (just under $17,000 per year) actually goes out to eat in a restaurant like Baker's Square once a month.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Watchmen: What Lies Beneath

I went to see the movie version of 'Watchmen' this weekend. I'd been looking forward to it ever since I first saw the first preview, and some of the critical reviews that came out over the past few days further whetted my appetite for what I thought would be an amazing movie experience.

When I walked out of the theater, though, I didn't find myself particularly overwhelmed.

When I walked out of the theater after seeing the first Spider-Man movie, I was jazzed -- director Sam Raimi and lead actor Toby Maguire had nailed the essences of both Spider-Man's character and his unique appeal to comic fans. When I walked out of the first Lord of the Rings movie, I was even more excited -- so much so that I couldn't restrain myself from going to pick up Tolkien's full series of books and reading them through to the end, just to find out what happened next. I went back and saw 'Return of the King' in the theater at least five different times, that's how excited I was about that movie.

I expected to have a similar reaction to 'Watchmen', but I didn't. In retrospect, I think I understand why, and at the same time begin to see why Alan Moore is so disparaging of the work derived from his own graphic novel.

(Warning: the rest of this essay will contain a number of SPOILERS, both from the movie and from the graphic novel -- if you're reading this and haven't seen one or read the other and still plan to, be warned.)

The movie started off on an extremely promising note -- an opening montage set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changin'" that catches up the audience with the major events of this alternate universe and gives them some background for the events that will follow. The montage was very well done and left as many questions as answers, with the unspoken idea that the movie would answer at least some of those unspoken questions.

As the movie went on, it became clear that the creators were hoping to capture the same sense of respect versus modification for the source material that the makers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy did with the works of JRR Tolkein; just as the LotR movies completely left out the character of Tom Bombadil (but slyly incorporated the scene where Bombadil saves the four hobbits from an animate tree as a scene for Treebeard to save Merry and Pippin), the makers of Watchmen left out the entire 'Tales of the Black Freighter' story-within-a-story, though they did have a couple of visual references to the characters who supplied the main tie between that story-within-a-story and the main story, a young black man reading a comic book while resting near the newsstand owner from which he had 'borrowed' the book. Of course, if you hadn't read the graphic novel, you had no idea of those characters' significance, and this wasn't the only moment in which this was true in the movie.

The best example I can give of a series of events that were meaningful for those who really knew the graphic novel versus those who'd never heard of it before seeing the movie was in the choice of music for the film. Each of the twelve 'issues' of the original DC Comics series had a title, and each title had a quotation at the end which helped explain the title within the context of the events of the issue. Some of these quotations were taking from songs, and it seemed like whenever possible, the filmmakers used those songs in the appropriate place in the movie. (Example: the issue where Nite Owl and Rorschach go to Antarctica to confront Ozymandias used a quote from Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower", and sure enough, the strains of Hendrix's tune played as Nite Owl tried to land Archie in the ice-strewn wasteland of Antarctica.

These call-outs (or perhaps they'd be better described as 'easter eggs') certainly helped make the movie more interesting for someone who'd already read the graphic novel. (Though I had a conversation with a fellow who obviously hadn't read the graphic novel, and was thus confused over the choice of Jimi Hendrix in what otherwise would be an obvious action sequence.) The easter eggs, though, didn't overcome what would prove to be the biggest problem with the movie -- one that's best described with a somewhat clichéd phrase: following the letter rather than the spirit of the source material.

The filmmakers took great pains to make certain that those who'd read the graphic novels would see many (if not all) of the moments they'd identify as key to the story -- Rorschach's investigation of the Comedian's apartment after the latter's death; Nite Owl's and Silk Spectre's fight with knot-top gang-bangers during Doctor Manhattan's press conference; Nite Owl being unable to 'get it up' in his own home when seduced by Silk Spectre, but having no problems later after a brief interlude of costumed heroism; Rorschach's time in prison; Doctor Manhattan's internal dialogue on Mars where his origin is revealed, and his subsequent discussion with Silk Spectre while flying above Mars on a grandiose clockwork crystal of Manhattan's own making; Ozymandias's apotheosis. Many of these moments, however, were robbed of a greater thematic impact because of other decisions made by the filmmakers to stick largely to all the details of the given plot. (Not that I can complain too much, given that even with the trimming of much of the thematic elements of the tale, the story still came in at nearly two hours and 45 minutes.)

Let me show you what I mean with most of these moments:

- The gang fight shows us not only that Silk Spectre and Nite Owl are, even after years of inactivity, still able to kick major ass, but also provides a hint of the eroticism that vigilantism means to both of these characters. This is a subject that becomes more obvious later, with the scene in Archie after rescuing the 'civilians' from the tenement fire.

Yet a key quote from the graphic novel, one given by Rorschach to his prison psychologist, is left out of the movie, and suggests that similar if not precisely the same motives drive all the Watchmen: "We do this not because it is permitted. We do it because we are compelled."

- This leads naturally to Rorschach's time in prison. In the graphic novel, the psychologist is a much more fully realized character in his own right -- he initially spends a lot of time trying to get to know Rorschach because he thinks it'll be a boon to his career if he makes a breakthrough and takes the notably sociopathic vigilante and manages to reform him. Instead, Rorschach's tale persuades the psychologist of the inherent bleakness of the human condition, which ultimately costs him his comfortable marriage as he interprets the compulsion he inherits from Rorschach through his own experience as a healer.

In the movie, though, he's a cipher at best, and a spear-carrier at worst; we learn nothing about his own backstory or character, and as such when we see him in New York at the moment of Ozymandias's apotheosis, there's no real impact associated with the knowledge. You have to have read the graphic novel to understand why his death (and those of the newsman and boy at the newsstand, for that matter) have any significance at all.

- This leads us to Ozy's apotheosis, and his master plan. Within the context of the film plot, it makes sense that, instead of a bizarre plot to convince the world of an imminent invasion of aliens from another dimension, instead Ozy takes a project that Doctor Manhattan was helping him with and uses it to convince the world that Doc has turned against humanity. Removing this from the film removes yet another subplot from the graphic novel, and also makes the absence of the Tales of the Black Freighter story make sense.

I have two problems, though, with the way the filmmakers handled this change in master plan. First, the original master plan from the graphic novel required only a single attack, on New York City, to unite the world -- and if you think that's overly optimistic, may I remind you of the initial response of the global powers to the attacks of 9/11, which suggests that Moore was fifteen years ahead of his time in predicting the global response to terror. The new plan required the fake Manhattan attacks to occur all around the world, because an attack by Manhattan on New York City could be interpreted as the good Doctor simply exacting his revenge on the nation that 'used' his services for so long. In addition, in the graphic novel, when Ozymandias proves to the other Watchmen that his plan has succeeded, there are news reports from all over the world announcing plans for peace and cooperation -- in the movie, there's nothing but Richard Nixon talking about the need for peace and security against this new 'evil', which again, if one remembers the neo-conservative response to 9/11, suggests that this 'utopia' that Oxymandias worked so hard and sacrificed so many to achieve could be undone by simple greed and ignorance on the part of government leaders. It's a far less satisfying apotheosis in the movie, because history has shown us that the plan, as presented, might not work as anticipated.

Which itself would be fine, if the second problem didn't exist. In the graphic novel, once Ozymandias has convinced the Watchmen of his triumph, he retires to his orrery to ponder his next move. He's visited by Doctor Manhattan, who explains that he's leaving this universe for one 'less complicated'. In a final admission that he's not as confident as he just portrayed himself to be, Ozy asks Jon if he did all right, if his plan will work out in the end. Manhattan replies, "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends," which leaves Ozy puzzled and disquieted. In the movie, the line is given by Silk Spectre to Nite Owl, and is even prefaced by the phrase, "I know what Jon would say..." The scene happens miles away and some unspecified time after the event, and isn't even completely in the context of Ozy's triumph, which robs the line of much of its symbolic and thematic punch.

Now none of this should be interpreted as me thinking that the Watchmen movie was bad -- I did enjoy it, and would certainly consider seeing it again. And it's very possible that, though I can imagine the movie being so much better than it was, that to get there the thing would have had to have been four hours long, or perhaps even split into two films, with no guarantee that enough people would be excited enough after the first movie to stick around for the second.

It's just that I found myself hoping for an experience like that of 'Return of the King', where I'd end up paying retail to see the thing four of five times in the theater because it affected me that much, and it surprised me that as I walked out of the theater, I didn't feel much affected at all.

The movie captured the letter of the graphic novel, but not its spirit.

Two of These Things...

Watching ESPN in the Ruby Tuesday bar after seeing 'Watchmen', when a commercial comes on for ESPN. That seems a bit odd in itself, though I suppose people like me, watching in a bar, might be persuaded to go home and order cable service, so we'll let that one slide.

The commercial's tag line is 'Follow your sport, which makes sense. Preceding the tagline, however, is a rolling list of items, including Mike Golic and Bill Simmons.

I'm sitting in my chair, wondering what the **** Bill Simmons and Mike Golic have to do with sports.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

My iPhone App list

A story came out some time ago that, when the app-using habits of iPhone users was studied, it turns out that most downloaded apps don't get used much: about 4 of 5 people who downloaded a free app never used it again after that first day, and nearly 2 in 3 who paid to download an app did the same.

My experience: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Here's the list of apps that have existed on my iPhone at one time or another, organized by usage pattern. Note, this does not include the apps that came with the iPhone, which can't be deleted (but can be moved to 'back pages' if you're not making regular use of them).

Not currently on the phone:

Diceshaker (free) - A cool-looking die roller app, I picked it up with the thought of using it to make my D&D die rolls electronically. It had two significant flaws: first, you could only roll one die with it. Second, the die you defined in the setup (you could define a die with any number of 'sides') would never actually roll its maximum value.

It did make for an interesting psychological experiment -- I was in my last days of playing D&D Minis when I grabbed the app, and asked a few opponents if they'd let me use the Diceshaker app instead of rolling a physical d20. Every one refused, and every one suggested that they'd be unable to tell if the program was 'honest'. I knew the program wasn't 'honest', but it was flawed in a way that would harm me (since I couldn't roll a 20, I'd never get a critical hit or automatic success). Still, nobody even considered that as an option.

Eventually replaced by Dicenomicon (see below).

GeoHash (free) - A free app inspired by this XKCD webcomic. The original app was updated after the algorithm chosen by the programmer couldn't handle the Dow falling below 10,000.

Downloaded because I thought it was cool. Removed to make space for apps I'd actually use. It might go back onto the phone, if I found someone like Randall Munroe to go on adventures with. (Though that's really just an excuse, honestly.)

MySpace Mobile (free) - Originally downloaded about the same time as Facebook (see below), because I knew people on both services. Now that everyone I knew on MySpace has migrated to Facebook, I don't bother keeping up with the MySpace part of the interwebs anymore.

Obama '08 (free) - Originally downloaded to piss off my right-wing gaming cohort Mark, this turned out to be an extremely well-done app, combining contact information, web-based data (position papers, mostly), and other features into a seamless whole (at least, as far as I explored it).

Removed after Obama won the election, because we live in a representative democracy, and the guys I voted for, who largely agree with my views on things, won.

Currently on phone - not used in months or not sure when last used:

Google Mobile App (free) - It's not that the Google Mobile App is a bad app; it's just that most of what I do with it is more easily accessed in other apps on the iPhone -- for instance, Mobile Safari has a Google search bar on the browser. Likewise, the Maps app has a search feature that doesn't require you to 'hitch' over from the Google Mobile App.

If I made more use of Google Apps, and specifically the Google Apps set up for the use of our local gaming group, I'd probably get more use out of the Google Mobile App. At the moment, though, it would be the next app to go if I had to make room.

SportsTap (free) - I used this app frequently during the 2008 baseball season to grab scores, check stat lines, and track the pennant chase between the Twins and White Sox. Since then, I haven't had much call to use it, since I'm not a huge Vikings or Timberwolves fan anymore. We'll see if the new baseball season causes me to increase my usage of the app again.

Remote (free) - This Apple app is still on the phone because of the potential of being able to use it to remotely control my MacBook or MacMini if needed. To this point, it hasn't really been needed.

eReader (free) - I like the idea of using my iPhone as an electronic book reader; this is one of three reading-type apps on the phone right now. I originally chose eReader because of its library of free public domain texts; I downloaded and read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'A Study in Scarlet', and haven't really used it since.

WarcraftStat (free) - An app to check the status of servers in World of Warcraft. Not really used much, because it's just as easy to check online when I'm actually at my computer and considering playing. It's still here, because I think of it as a matched set with the Warcraft Characters app, though as far as I can tell they were not coded by the same programmer.

Currently on phone - used within past month, but not regularly:

Warcraft Characters (free) - An iPhone interface to an online database that mirrors World of Warcraft character data. I haven't spent a lot of time in WoW of late, so this pair of apps (Characters and Stat) might go if I decide to give up my subscription again. (Why I feel the need to drop my subscription almost immediately after purchasing an update to the game client is a topic worthy of its own past, someday.)

Lightsaber Unleashed (free) - The first app I ever downloaded for the iPhone, back before LucasArts either purchased or claimed IP ownership of the app and re-vamped it as a tool to sell 'The Force Unleashed'. Still cool to swing the phone around and hear the lightsaber sounds, though.

Careerbuilder.com Jobs (free) - A great idea for an app, but the combination of a crappy job market coinciding with the recession, plus some significant limitations in the app (you can't simply browse job listings in your area - you're required to enter a keyword to search on if you want to search the job listings) have kept me looking for a replacement for some time. No luck yet.

Dicenomicon ($3.99) - A far superior dice rolling app to Diceshaker. Gives the ability to roll multiple dice, to group dice in multiple 'pools' (so you can roll all the dice you need to create a D&D character with one shake), and the ability to program specific types and numbers of dice to match just about any game system. The 'help' screens are incredibly helpful, especially the section for specific game systems which contains formulas for use with D&D, AD&D, Storyteller (Vampire and similar games), and the HERO system, plus others.

Absolutely worth the money in terms of functionality; only problem is, like Diceshaker above, most DM/GMs don't want you rolling electronic dice, assuming that you've skewed the program somehow to cheat. Ah, well, I guess it's only human nature.

Shakespeare (free) - This app is used infrequently only because, even with my theatrical background, I don't have the need to consult the complete works of William Shakespeare on a regular basis. Still very cool, though, especially the program icon.

Bonus points: With the addition of a Search feature, this app becomes a great companion for the Canadian television series 'Slings & Arrows'.

AP Mobile News (free) - This used to be an app I'd access multiple times per day, during the election season. As time has gone on, though, the people coding this app have seen fit to try to make it more 'bells and whistles-y', including (most depressingly) banner ads to help pay for the development cost. I loved this app when it was a simple, no-frills interface to the day's news; every update gets me closer and closer to trying to hunt up a new app to capture that old minimalist feeling.

Stanza (free) - Another e-reader application, this one came recommended along with a promotional set of e-book downloads, one of which was from a writer I knew and admired - Laurie Notaro. Since that first e-book, I haven't been motivated to go pay for another.

Currently on phone - being used regularly, but too new to tell if it'll last:

CBS TV.com (free) - Grabbed almost entirely based on the reports in the Mac press that the original Star Trek series could be accessed via the app. There are a few other CBS shows that I might follow (How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory) if I got into the habit, but since I'm long out of the habit of watching actual television, it's hard to tell how eager I'll be to consume it on (to borrow a phrase from Yahtzee Croshaw) 'teeny-weeny eyestrain-o-vision'.

iBlogger ($0.99) - I've made a couple of short posts to this blog from iBlogger, but I can already tell that my preferred long-winded style including the occasional hyperlink won't translate well from the iPhone's tiny keyboard. I now understand why Twitter clients for the iPhone are so popular.

The Weather Channel Weather App (free) - This one probably has the best chance to stick around -- the app is far more detailed than the included Weather app, and can provide much more in-depth information about upcoming weather conditions. It would be slightly more useful if I were still taking the bus to work, as it would help me to always have an umbrella handy for potential downpours. Even so, a very useful and information-dense app.

Currently on phone - used frequently:

Now Playing (free) - Originally called 'Box Office', but apparently that name is being used by someone with deeper pockets. The guys at AP could learn something about iPhone development from Cyrus, the developer of this app. New features are added, but they're generally either useful (ratings of movies taken from Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, links to trailers, links to movies and showtimes based on proximity to your current location or default location, ability to 'favorite' a movie for quick access to info on it) or can be turned off if desired (upcoming movie and DVD releases). I don't go to a lot of movies in the theater, but it's not an exaggeration to say that since I got Now Playing, I haven't seen a movie without checking it in this app first. I think that's pretty high praise for a free iPhone app.

Currently on phone - used multiple times per day

Facebook (free) - I don't need Facebook; I suspect most of us don't. But it's odd the way it helps me stay in at least nominal contact with folks I otherwise would go months or years without hearing from or about. It lets me keep up to date with major events in my friends' lives, and even lets me plan some events days before they happen. And it gives me the chance to try new things in the guise of trying to reconnect with old friends -- I went to a new-age health and wellness expo last weekend based on the Facebook invite of a woman I had a crush on in junior high. I'm not sure whether it's an advantage or a drawback that the iPhone app doesn't allow access to third-party Facebook apps (save in the sense that apps that put notifications on your Wall will show up in the app's notifications list); my gut feeling is that I'd rather the app be a no-frills gateway to my Facebook contacts and conversations (and it still needs a few tweaks to do that seamlessly), much like I want a news reader to give me news and not videos on 'hot philologists'.

I don't need Facebook, but my life would probably be duller without it.

--

So most of the apps I've ever downloaded end up in a virtual dustbin; that's not too surprising, I guess, given Sturgeon's Law. (Ninety percent of everything is crap.) Still, if one out of ten iPhone apps I try become apps I use regularly and get real value from, I have to consider that to be a really good ratio.

Note To Conservative Media Critics

There hasn't been a 'liberal media' in this country in over ten years.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

A Liveblogging Proposal

I understand why people who are 'liveblogging' (making short blog posts during an event) do so with the most recent posts on top -- it makes it easier for people following along to find the new stuff.

What I don't understand is why they leave it that way, which forces people stumbling onto your blog after the fact to read through the thing bottom to top to figure out what the heck is going on.

Be kind. Rewind your liveblog.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Test, testing, one, two

The inimitable Twins Geek referred to an iPhone blogging app in his latest post, so I picked up the app myself - here's the first effort.

How's it look?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Here Come the VIGs!

GenCon badge registration opened on Sunday, so today I wandered over to GenCon's new virtual registration digs and signed up. While I was doing so, I ran across something intersting: an offer to purchase a 'VIG' pass instead of the regular 4-day pass. The kicker: the VIG pass costs $500.

I was intrigued, and wanted to know more.

After finding the page that describes the VIG program, I decided to do a mental calculation to see if it were possible that the VIG pass would make any financial sense at $500. Here's what you get:

- A 4-day pass to GenCon.

Duh. If the VIG pass offered less access than the regular 4-day pass, nobody would even consider it.

Value: $68

- A specially-designed badge holder.

This is described as 'a mark of distinction', and to a degree it is. If you simply order the 4-day badge and have it mailed to you, you also receive a clear plastic card-holder and a thin rubber cord with which you can put the holder around your neck. (Here's a picture of the late Gary Gygax modeling the classic, no-frills GenCon badge holder.) There's nothing strictly wrong with the no-frills holder, but folks who attend GenCon regularly tend to eventually gravitate toward a more rugged, permanent type of holder which also contains storage space (basically an extra pocket, which is more useful than you might think). Since it's theoretically an item which the general populace won't have access to, I'll give it a small bump in value.

Value: $20

Sub-Total = $88

- 10 complimentary generic event tickets

If you've never been to GenCon, the entire process runs on tickets -- tickets are used to determine how many people will be allowed into a given event, and you need to pay to get the tickets. (Never having been an exhibitor or game master, I don't know how the money trickles back to the people running the event, if at all.) If, however, someone buys a ticket and doesn't show up for an event (which means there are no specific event tickets available), the game master for the event can allow you to join in if you have a sufficient number of 'generic' tickets to cover the event cost. Because of this, unless you already have your entire GenCon planned out in detail, it's generally a good thing to have generics on hand to facilitate spur-of-the-moment gaming opportunities. The downside is that you probably will have extra generic tickets in your pocket when the convention is over.

In 2007, generic tickets were $1.50 apiece, while in 2008 they cost $2 a pop. I'll assume the price of generics isn't going up again this year, though there's reasons to think that they might.

Value: $20

Sub-Total = $108

- VIG Mixer with Peter Adkison

Probably the least compelling bullet point for me on the list, though I can see possibly showing up if there's nothing else going on Thursday night; after all, there will be food.

Peter Adkison was one of the founders (probably the most significant founder) of Wizards of the Coast; Adkison left Wizards some time after the company was purchased by Hasbro and eventually bought the rights to GenCon, creating GenCon LLC to run the convention. For some, the opportunity would probably be huge: a chance to ask Adkison about what it was like to run Wizards, how GenCon LLC navigated bankruptcy (and recently emerged from it), to sign a treasured copy of "The Primal Order", WotC's first-ever product.

I'm on the fence. I will admit, though, that even though I'm not excited about the opportunity, the thing still has some financial value. Since you can purchase a 'guest ticket' for $35, I'll put the value of the free invite at that level as well. (And for that price, I hope the appetizers, at least, are complimentary.)

Value: $35

Sub-Total: $143

- VIG Lounge

Possessing a VIG badge gives you access to a private VIG lounge with a number of amenities:

• VIG Will-Call

Pick up your badge and show bag without having to wait in line with 500 other gamers. Though in all honesty, when I went to pick up my badge and bag on Wednesday night for the 2008 show, I didn't have to wait at all.

• VIG Event Registration

On the other hand, registering for events in a special line where no more than 100 people have access at any given time? Huge potential time-saver.

• VIG Coupon Book

The main show bag contains a coupon book with some money-savers for general convention-goers. In order to be a 'value-add', I'd have to imagine that the VIG book contains vendors who aren't in the main show book, and possibly also contains larger discounts from vendors who are in the main show book. Depending on who's in the book, this could be of tremendous monetary value, though I have to admit I can't remember actually using any of my regular show coupons in either of the two years I've attended.

• Complimentary beverages

Possibly the biggest item on this list. A 20-oz bottle of Coke from a vendor or machine in the Indianapolis Convention Center during GenCon is a $3 purchase. I could easily see myself saving nearly $100 just from the convenience of not having to buy Coke.

On the other hand, my gut tells me that the service will have some flaws (most likely issues with keeping beverages stocked); so I'm going to go with a very conservative monetary value here and hope that the organizers will dazzle me once I'm there.

• Free Wi-Fi

This is also a bigger deal than you might otherwise think. You can get Wi-Fi service within the convention center, but only by paying the local service provider's $10 a day fee (or spending nearly that amount for a month-long period of access you'll only use for four days). Given that I expect to get free Wi-Fi at whatever hotel I'm staying in, that means bringing the laptop will again be filled with win, and at significantly less expense than last year.

• Possible promotional items from exhibitors, etc.

The program page makes it very clear that swag is not guaranteed and will be based on availability, which means basically 'don't count on this'. On the other hand, I suck at bagging swag at conventions, so anything that creates the possibility for me to bring back cool stuff for the guys who couldn't go to the con is a plus. Not a huge plus, mind you, but a plus.

• Concierge Phone Service

Meh. I have an iPhone for this.

Value (mainly from Wi-Fi and beverage service): $100

Sub-Total: $243

- VIG Reserved Event Seating

We're moving heavily into the realm of VIG benefits where the value of the benefit is more along the lines of convenience or opportunity. Because of this, it won't always be easy to assign a precise dollar value to the benefit. (Technically the Adkison mixer also qualifies, but the guest ticket helps quantify a price in a way that other items farther down on this list aren't quantified.) Nevertheless, something difficult to quantify in money terms isn't necessarily valueless.

For instance, one of the guys I'll be going to GenCon with is a fan of Hickman's Killer Breakfast, an event sponsored by noted fantasy author and game designer Tracy Hickman. He generally shows up an hour or so before the event itself in order to ensure he gets a decent seat -- though there are only so many tickets sold, the seating is first-come, first-served, and the closer you are to the action, the better.

Well, VIG's will get reserved preferential seating, available up to 15 minutes before the start of the event. What's a half-hour or more of extra sleep, prep time, what-have-you worth?

On the other hand, say it's worth exactly $7 to you. That brings us only up to about half the cost of the VIG package in total value, unless some things on this list are far more awesome than I anticipate.

There are a few other advantages: the page describes VIG-exclusive events (not just the Adkison mixer) which might be worth checking out. Also, there's a special block of hotel accommodations that have been reserved specifically for VIG members, making it possible that signing up for the program will, for the first time, allow me to get a room within walking distance of the convention center. That's not an inconsiderable benefit.

Lastly, the most intriguing part of the program is the ability to purchase $100 VIG Companion badges. The main benefit of the Companion badge is access to the VIG Lounge, which we've already estimated as being about $100. Plus the Companion badge acts as a 4-day GenCon badge, which means the Companion badge might be the best value at the convention. (Conversely, it might mean that my estimation of the value of the Lounge is wildly overstated -- see my concerns over the beverage service, for starters.)

On the whole, I feel the VIG Badge is a worthy gamble, and have signed up for it to give it a whirl for at least this one year. More reports as events warrant.

Bookley - Year One

Almost exactly one year ago, I purchased my first-ever laptop computer: a MacBook Pro which I dubbed Bookley. I had been tempted to wait until the new product announcements at MacWorld Expo last year, in order to avoid buying a computer that would immediately be out-of-date, but desire overcame my caution and I ended up sauntering into the Apple Store in Southdale to make my purchase.

As it turned out, waiting wouldn't have made much difference -- the MacBook Pro line was announced for an update later in January, but only for a small increase in processor speed and a slightly larger hard drive. The 'Book I'd bought was hardly rendered obsolete by that refresh.

Now, after a year, if I had to describe my MacBook Pro experience in one word, that word would be 'convenient'. Though I could likely survive just fine without Bookley, he makes my life easier in a number of ways:

Work

I work for a company doing application support, and once every three to four weeks have to be the on-call person for emergency weekend or overnight calls. Once I was able to configure Bookley to use the company VPN to allow remote access to my work PC, I no longer had to worry that any call would require me to hop in the car and drive to work just to see what the problem was. In fact, the ability to remote into work was more convenient than just connections from home -- I was also able to connect from activities like the Tuesday night bridge group or the Friday gaming sessions without having to completely remove myself from the event. The money, time, and gas I've saved just in the last year is probably enough to justify Bookley's cost right off the top.

Of course, all good things must end -- our new corporate parent, in accordance with their network policies, is going to shut down remote access for all employees at our site, so the single biggest advantage of having Bookley is about to go out the window, for no fault of mine or my laptop's. C'est la vie.

Play

Bookley enhances my free time in a number of ways:

- My current desktop machine is a MacMini from a few years back, when it still ran the G4 processor. While this is good in a number of ways (it allows me to continue to use the backward-compatible OS 9 layer to run my really old Mac software), the bad part of using the Mini as my main machine is that many new games and other software programs are being released for Macs with higher end processors. (Civilization IV was one such title.) Bookley lets me run those programs.

- By setting up a partition on which to install Windows using Boot Camp, I can also participate in games with no Mac client. The main advantage this has been for me is in interacting with Wizards of the Coast's software development arm, who has tied themselves to Windows development as the smallest investment leading to the largest possible payoff. When I boot Bookley into Windows Vista, I can run Magic Online and the beta of the D&D 4.0 Character Creator with no problems. (I've also been playing City of Heroes on the Windows side, but with NCSoft's announcement of an upcoming Mac client, I'll be switching from PC to Mac for that game soon!)

- By using scanning and OCR software, I'm able to carry most of my D&D 3.5 reference books on Bookley's hard drive rather than in an arm-breaking pile of physical paper. This makes it a lot easier to find a relevent spell, rule, or other piece of gaming minutiae on demand in the middle of a fight at our Friday D&D sessions.

Bookley also helps me keep up with this blog, with the additional aid of the MarsEdit blogging package, a drop-dead worthwhile purchase if you plan to do any significant online writing. I use MarsEdit to connect both to this blog as well as put in my share of work on The AL Central Blog (though we'll see how that blog fares in the off-season).

I was even able to take Bookley on the road and make a few posts from far-away places, like GenCon 2008.

Not everything I've done with Bookley has been filled with win -- I got into the preview for MobileMe and discovered that I didn't use it nearly enough to justify the $100 per year price tag, for instance. On the whole, though, owning Bookley has been a great experience, and well worth the price.

Still, my resolution for 2009 is to do something so significant with Bookley that I'll feel compelled to finally set up some kind of backup regimen for him.