damerell

AO3 filtering by tag

2025-04-14T13:34:49Z

This seems like the place to ask - archiveofourown users, if you have a preferred tool for blocking specific tags, what is it, please?

(I know not everyone posting AI slop is marking it as such, but it's a start...)

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I live!

2025-04-10T19:20:09Z

I have not read Dreamwidth for... some time, mostly because of the issue where you feel bad about not having done a thing so you don't want to think about it and don't do it (now return to feeling bad about not doing it) but circumstances make it easier today so, er, hello, and this is me avoiding a hundred non sequitur comments saying "oh good, you're not dead", it applies to anyone who's likely to read this, sort of thing.

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As for me, give me a fixed gear!

2023-03-30T12:48:21Z

For the last week I have been riding fixed gear. For maybe twenty years I have been toting around a frame with a metaphorical label "fixie?" attached to it, so go me, swift progress on that project.

So far, I've got from "how the hell do you get your left foot into the toeclip?" to being able to do it at slow speed (still not ideal). I have stopped muttering "do not coast" to myself all the time.

I have not actually had a prang, although I've had one pretty good go at it - a ped did the "will I cross, won't I cross" thing, I slowed to a crawl; with a freewheel you can coast right pedal down, out of the saddle, left foot free, stop any time you like; when it became clear I'd have to stop I was still in the saddle at an awkward point in the pedal cycle and nearly fell over sideways. I've also managed to unship both feet downhill once (there's not much you can do then except wait until you come to a halt and start over).

I have yet to master going around very tight corners or stopping with the pedals always in the right place.

The quote above is from the great Henri Desgrange in 1902; the full version is "I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer? We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear!". Amusingly, I am 47.

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Dice's dirty secret

2021-05-01T16:43:18Z

I have dice. I have dice in a multitude of shapes [1] and colours. But something that's been bothering me for a while [2] is... are they any good?

( I demand more randomness )

[1] Six.
[2] Thirty-five years.
[3] I have no idea if this would be obnoxious or helpful in practice but it seems worth giving it a go.

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A song pertaining to recent nautical events

2021-03-28T18:47:25Z

There once was a ship in a canal,
And the name of the ship was a bit banal.
The wind blew hard, her bow digged in,
Oh, my TEU, oh.

Soon may the JCB come,
To dig the clay that sticks like gum,
One day when the tugboat is done,
We'll take our leave and go.

She had not hit the bank before,
But fuses popped and round she wore,
The captain called all hands and swore,
"Oh balls we cannot go."

Soon may the JCB come (etc)

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Dreams

2021-01-18T11:01:17Z

I've been dreaming more recently. The usual round of anxiety dreams and vaguely plausible scenarios. This may not be a good sign, given the sleep/madness relationship.

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Port!

2021-01-08T23:12:30Z

I found http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=9349#9349 (only the first three comments are pertinent) and http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1207 (only the first two) interesting.

Eight port enthusiasts decanted a 45yo magnum of port five ways, from pouring it by eye until the sediment appears then filtering it to deliberately sloshing the sediment around then pouring it through a coffee filter. Vexingly, they didn't do the resulting drink test blind (although they did agree that "If any claim that any two can be distinguished, and that isn’t the general consensus, that person will be sent from the room and his/her glasses shuffled"), but it's still interesting to read that they felt that "the decanting method makes, at most, very little difference", even if you do something (the sloshing) which is supposedly a definite no-no.

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A brief history of dog cinema

2020-08-17T12:29:17Z

ceb and I watched Gance's magnificent 1927 silent _Napoleon_ over the weekend, and it struck me midway through that of course dog cinema is still in black and white. The big innovation in dog cinema was "smellies", with the tragic attendant discovery that some of the stars of the anosmic screen actually smelled of lavender or something equally insufficiently stinky. Before smellies, dog cinemas employed half a dozen specially trained farting dogs on highly specific diets who generated all the smells on demand; the steam-powered scratch-and-sniff smell roll organ was not a success.

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Boring AU

2020-08-05T18:05:59Z

I've come up with a silly idea; the "boring AU" fanfic.

I'll go first. In the first episode of Boring Cabin Pressure, there is a delay on arrival at Fitton, but since the aircraft is not unusually heavy with high fuel consumption and Martin's meticulous walkround meant the cargo hold heating was turned off, there is plenty of time to hold.

Martin has no reason to feel his authority is being undermined by Douglas's vast experience, but instead relishes the opportunity to learn from it and to make use of it - as in the next episode, where Douglas's tact and diplomacy deals with an angry smoker.

MJN continues to turn a modest profit and can easily afford insurance against things like bird strikes, not that they ever suffer so dramatic a problem.

The series ends with a heartwarming episode where a routine inspection of the wiring conduits reveals that Carolyn's ex-husband has hidden filthy magazines in them; everyone has a laugh at his expense.

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Welcome to the Blunderdome

2020-06-05T09:13:56Z

It struck me I should probably link my lockdown boardgame project here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2406498/welcome-blunderdome-tragedy-least-16-parts

Updated with fresh comedy deaths, er, when I feel like it. Sorry.

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It's about time for another plague limerick

2020-05-31T22:15:42Z

Our problems grow deeper and deeper,
Our lives are held cheaper and cheaper,
The ghastly shortcomings,
Of Johnson and Cummings,
Laid red carpet down for the Reaper.

I know, that's a bad rhyme, but Ozzy Osbourne could get away with it. (Yeah, I'm no Ozzy Osbourne).

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quarantine questions

2020-04-16T09:47:02Z

( 20 questions about the Masque of the Red Death )

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RPG mechanics (again)

2020-04-03T09:54:05Z

Today we have the Book of Vile Darkness, a D&D 3e splatbook about being evil (ostensibly mostly about detailing evil [1] so the players can smite it, but it's not clear that requires - say - price lists for evil spell components...)

Oh, yes, price lists for evil spell components. There's one of those. An example of an evil spell component is the heart of a chromatic dragon of at least 15 Hit Dice (which, to be fair, is not a lot as dragons go, but it is still a bona-fide dragon and not a tiny hatchling...)

One of those will set you back 6 gold pieces. Now, I hear you cry, you have no idea what 6 GP buys. It's not a lot; it would buy you three backpacks, for example, or a 3/5 share in a tent. No wonder evil is so ubiquitous when evil necessities come at such a whopping markdown!

Indeed, the expected treasure from the minimum acceptable 15 HD dragon is 3,400 GP (probably not just as a pile of cash). Who scores that hoard and then goes "Well, we'd better spend 15 minutes carving the heart out and then carry around a big lump of gory flesh, wouldn't want to miss out on that extra 6 gold"? I can only presume we're in MMO-land where when you kill a monster its one harvestable body part magically pops into your inventory to be sold with the rest of your vendor trash later.

(It's not a tiny sliver of dragon heart, either - but it's "dried and hardened into a gemstone-like object", at least, so the evil spellcaster doesn't have to tote around something leaky...)

A lot of the list is like this, too. A vrock feather ("only one usable per fiend", and a vrock is scarier than a 15 HD dragon) - 1 GP. Once you get down to bits of sentient humanoids (ugh), everything comes in at 0.1 GP or less. "Humanoid eye", 0.02 GP. In other words, if you sell one headsworth you can just afford a pint of ale.

[1] Evil mostly appears to be quite kinky with a lot of leather straps, like piercings and tattoos, and get its tits out at a rate which I rather thought D&D had mostly grown out of. But I digress.

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RPG mechanics again

2020-03-29T04:43:18Z

Not, alas, ancient (today we have the D&D 3rd Edition _Epic Level Handbook_) or related to encumbrance, but this struck me at the time so here it is.

The Epic Level Handbook is intended to extend 3rd Edition past the normal level cap of 20... well, indefinitely. The first chapter makes it pretty clear that epic [1] characters are not only the bee's knees and the dog's bollocks but, improbably, both at the same time. Names like Baba Yaga and Gandalf fall off the page. "Given time, they rival the powers of the gods", and indeed later on ascension to godhood is mentioned as a possible campaign goal.

There's an actually rather useful chapter about skills which emphasises the way epic characters can be supernaturally competent even without magic - example (high) difficulties are given for tasks like balancing on a cloud, squeezing through a space smaller than your head, or - a personal favourite - forging a document without having seen an example beforehand.

So far, so good. Now we come to a list of epic prestige classes. 3rd ed has prestige classes anyway; not classes you start with, like cleric or monster-whacker, but ones you qualify for by being special, like arcane archer or dwarven defender. The qualification criteria tend to be some mix of skills, alignment, being a dwarf, character factors not measured in game mechanics - but the epic prestige classes, of course, you just aren't allowed them at all unless you are over 20th level and hence as previously mentioned bestride the world like a colossus.

One of the epic prestige classes is the Union Sentinel, "a member of an elite police force that guards the demiplane-city of Union". They "patrol the city streets" and "are regular sights in Union, appearing in small units of two to five."

I don't know about you, but when I worked through the previous chapters, I did not expect one of the things epic-level characters to do to be "beat cop"; even given that the demiplane-city of Union is super-amazing, surely an epic character who wishes to defend justice can do it more effectively than pounding the pavement and, presumably, arguing the toss as to who gets to be the grizzled veteran in the squad today.

There's more of this stuff (in sharp contrast to, say, the divine emissary, who there's one of per god) - a legendary dreadnought might be employed by a prominent ruler or noble, "engaging in staged combats for money" (given that even a 21st-level character is expected to be worth about a million gold pieces, and presumably expects a worthwhile quid pro quo for each fight, what is this - professional wrestling for Croesus' court?)

I daresay Conan the Barbarian sometimes murders people for money, but can you imagine him collecting a wage packet afterwards? Elric of Melnibone clocking in late and being chewed out by his sergeant?

(Union is kind of silly; there's a 15th level fishmonger, raising the question of why he bothers selling fish, even given that he has a super-amazing interdimensional fish portal. I'm not making this up. There's a 10th-level innkeeper, too. The earlier chapters have a bunch of stuff about an epic campaign shouldn't be a regular campaign with bigger numbers which, apparently, the author of this chapter thought was complete rot.)

[1] as a side note, this book uses the word "epic" to mean "anything restricted to characters above level 20" and as a result I have now read the word so often it has lost all meaning.

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damerell @ 2020-03-19T13:06:00

2020-03-19T13:10:54Z

hairyears having invented the genre of COVID-19 limericks, I submit:

There is a disgusting disease,
Transmitted by coughing, not fleas.
If you see Farage,
Unleash a barrage,
Of sneeze after terrible sneeze.

(The scansion on this one seems to depend on how you pronounce Farage and barrage; you may prefer "If you should see Farage, Then unleash a barrage"."

The problem with COVID-19:
Its symptoms are not always seen.
So don't be a berk,
But stay home from work,
For Death lies in wait for the keen.

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Work canteen oddities, part two

2020-03-04T21:18:10Z

The other odd thing about the work canteen is wildly inconsistent portion sizes. Sometimes when I have eaten there it's been a normal sort of amount of food for midday lunch.

Other times... well, ceb and I went there for lunch when it was roast chicken, which turned out to mean "half a bird". Half a bird each, that is, and they didn't exactly stint on the Dauphinoise potatoes, either. Now, I cycle about 11 miles on workdays, so this was very welcome, but unexpected.

Maybe that was just an oddity? Nope; roast chicken again today, half a bird each, and the pork joint yesterday was a fair old chunk of a pig, too.

I wonder if lunch is sometimes hilariously small. I hope not.

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The mysterious curry society

2020-03-02T11:27:40Z

As some of you may know, in January I started a job at a bit of the University at Addenbrookes Hospital, which seemed a useful alternative to becoming destitute.

The building has seven floors, so you spend a lot of time in the lift. There's a canteen on the top floor, and every Friday afternoon, the next week's menu appears.

I notice something; every week [1], Thursday says - in red - "It's curry day again!!!". Now, the menu is pretty clipart-tastic, but even so this is starting to strike me as odd. ceb comes over for lunch one day, and we're riding up in the lift; ceb says "coo, they're keen on curry here", or words to that effect. Behind us, the Director - who I recognise but ceb doesn't - says "Oh, curry day's very important, you know."

Later that week, I just miss the lift doors, but overhear two people inside saying in tones of glee "curry day again!". I'm starting to wonder if there's some kind of secret society here.

[1] Almost every week. This week, and you will have to imagine the seven different exciting display fonts, it says "Curry Curry Curry Curry Curry Curry Curry !!"

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Atlas Shrugged

2020-03-01T14:05:29Z

I have just finished reading a detailed critique of Atlas Shrugged:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/series/atlas-shrugged/

... even the COBRA Commander dialogues at the end, although they drag a bit.

I'd recommend it (the critique, that is, although we are probably all old and wise enough to be able to read the book without being brainslugged) if you like that kind of thing.

What came as news to me was - I knew enough about the book to know that Rand's heroes are loathsome and amoral by conventional standards, but what I didn't appreciate was that _Rand's_ standards are wildly inconsistently applied; we're three chapters in when we're told approvingly "Desperate for funds, with the construction of [the protag's grandfather's] line suspended, he threw down three flights of stairs a distinguished gentleman who offered him a loan from the government."

They steal, they cheat, they bribe, they initiate force with gay abandon, they sometimes give their friends absurdly sweetheart deals, and of course they all end up at the end living in a collective society. Conversely, sometimes the villains' villainy is demonstrated by them squeezing the harshest possible deal out of the heroes... but isn't that what Randoid supermen [1] are supposed to do?

The second surprise was that although the book is taken by its advocates as outlining a realistic philosophy, a sensible way to act in the face of a scenario they believe is already happening, the plot does depend on someone inventing a perpetual motion machine and a cloaking device, and someone else finding a Garden of Eden with everything one might want in it.

The third thing that struck me is this: whenever anyone does anything nice, today's edgelords dismiss it as "virtue signalling", apparently because it is inconcievable to them that anyone might do something nice because they want to do something nice.

However, to Rand altruism is an ever-present danger. She felt about it much as Jack Chick felt about works salvation. The Randoid supermen are distinguished as supermen not least because they can resist the temptation of altruism, a gateway sin toleration of which will inevitably cause society's collapse into a communist dystopia.

[1] all of whom are white except one who's nominally Latino but explicitly described as being pretty darn white, and usually blonde and blue-eyed. As opposed to the villains who are all ugly and I'm pretty sure some of them are described as having especially big noses, by which I'm sure Rand might have meant literally anything.

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Escape rooms

2020-01-15T16:10:23Z

ceb and I are booking an escape room.

As you scroll down the webpage, you are offered:

THE LAB

THE AVIATOR'S STUDY

THE BANK JOB

PRISON BREAK

CORPORATE TRAINING EXERCISES

I thought we should do the fifth one, myself, where you have an hour to escape before Powerpoint slides turn your brain to jelly.

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Encumbrance in ancient RPGs (No. 2 in the series)

2019-12-03T01:23:13Z

Warhammer Fantasy Role Play (1986) is a game which is not D&D. It tries not to be D&D, and often succeeds, but it has the assumptions of D&D deeply baked into its worldview.

However, this is not a serious critique [1], it's just an analysis of carrying capacity. In WFRP, your carrying capacity (in arbitary units) is 100 times your Strength. Characters weigh 10 times their Toughness. Hence, since Strength and Toughness are measured on the same scale and more or less come out the same, you can carry ten naked people.

Dwarves' Toughness is on average higher than their Strength, but a dwarf can carry 200 times their Strength, so only about 18 naked dwarves. Or about 24 elves.

Item availability is also odd. We start with a reasonable scheme that describes item rarity and the odds of finding an item of a given rarity in a settlement of a certain size. So far, so good.

Leather boots are Common. The odds of being able to find a pair in Altdorf, the capital of the (thinly disguised Holy Roman) Empire are 4 in 5. But, you say, boots have to fit you? The odds of finding a pint of house wine in Altdorf are also 4 in 5. If you want a bottle of good wine in the single largest city in the game, the odds are only 55%. A dagger? Arrows? Clothes pegs? A saw? Why, they might be clean out of stock - at 80% each, the odds are that they _are_ out of one of those.

[1] although it doesn't have an index, fuck's sake, 1980s RPGs, what's with that?

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damerell @ 2019-11-22T23:54:00

2019-11-23T00:12:00Z

( Mention of bad sex in fiction )

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Gig lineup

2019-10-09T16:51:53Z

January Noon / The 31st of February / March Violets / April Weeps / The Brian May Band / Sixth June / Last July / August Burns Red / The September When / October Burns Black / The Early November / The Decemberists

That is all.

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damerell @ 2019-08-07T18:28:00

2019-08-07T18:14:13Z

ceb and I (and bjh21 WINODW) go every year to the Wave-Gotik-Treffen, a giant goth festival in Leipzig.

There's almost always a mostly-punk night at one of the dozen or so venues, and as long as we've been going, it's been on the final night of the festival. This is convenient because I tend to pick up comedy injuries in pits. [1]

Last time the lineup was Erik Cohen ("straight-up rock"), Banane Metalik (some very peculiar but good French horrorpunk), Fliehende Stürme (a not very good goth band inexplicably shoved into the middle of this lineup, but hence providing an opportunity for a bit of a sitdown and a drink), The Creepshow (a Canadian psychobilly band who are utterly brilliant), and The Adicts.

The Adicts are an ancient British punk band in the Clash mould (ie, actually good, unlike the Sex Pistols), but this kind of thing is a bit of a crapshoot; a lot of the time you get a band who were very good in the 80s, and they've slowed right down and become boring and pedestrian. Occasionally you're pleasantly surprised; Fuzzbox springs to mind, or the sadly brief revival of Die Laughing, a 90s goth outfit.

So, first question, will there be a pit for Banane Metalik? It's early, the place isn't that full, and it is extremely hot... but it turns out there will. Yay, shenanigans.

Somewhere around here C turns up. We're out on the balcony between bands; mysteriously, there is a large container full of inflatable balls - big ones, about the size of yoga balance balls, but of much lighter construction - like a ball pit for elephants.

Sitdown and drink had to Fliehende Stürme. I know there will be extensive shenanigans to the Creepshow, and I'm not disappointed; the vocalist, who is a tiny woman, does her usual stunt where she comes into the pit for a bit and is inexplicably not stomped flat.

I have been joking about the weather, to the effect that ideally there will be a torrential downpour just after the Creepshow's set to make me slightly less entirely covered in a wide assortment of sweat. To my surprise and delight, there was one, and I sat outside in the rain and cooled off.

So, The Adicts. Somehow I have managed to become convinced they _have_ become a bit boring and pedestrian, so I squdge back into the gig room without particularly high expectations. I'm also tired, like someone who's just spent most of 2 hours bouncing about and trying not to get squashed, and bruised, so perhaps I'll just...

... ah, it turns out The Adicts have not even remotely become boring and pedestrian, and the audience are also not inclined to be boring and pedestrian. Off we go again.

It also turns out they're going to play for about 90 minutes.

Finally, it turns out that what the inflatable balls are for is to release them, along with a load of balloons, into the pit with about 10 minutes to go. Hilarity ensues as everyone baps balls up into the air while trying not to get squashed, or grabs them and bashes and charges each other with them.

So, that was fun.

[1] I remember the first time we saw the Koffin Kats C saying to me afterwards "did you see that?" "What?", I said. It turned out the guitarist and double bassist had swapped instruments mid-song without a perceptible interruption; I could hear what was going on but was too busy to see it. (They're also a pyschobilly band, and very good; pyschobilly bands tend to go in for double basses, stunts, and being very good.)

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Complaint: Centenal Series, Malka Older (Hugos 2019)

2019-07-28T13:58:23Z

"Mishima activates her crowdcutter and it springs from its microcrimped home in the clasps on her dress, a transparent vinyl shell shaped like a shark fin that lets her scythe through the mass of people glomming toward the sign."

Dear author, you have just aimed for cool cyberpunk gadgetry, tripped over your own feet, and landed face-first in the cowpat of utter absurdity; and you have done it in the first chapter, which is not a good start.

What crowd lets you push through it because you're cosplaying as an icebreaker, rather than telling you to fuck off? The thing must have significant structural integrity, and it's not made of gizmodium, so she's been lugging around several kilos of spring-loaded vinyl (which must have to be properly anchored to her, so she's also in some sort of harness) on the off-chance that this specific problem arises, like James Bond if Q was precognitive [1]. Does her dress sometimes go BDOIOIOING unexpectedly? Is she some kind of Swiss Army Knife of unfolding vinyl devices, like a po-faced Inspector Gadget?

More seriously I've just given up on the book because - well, because _Too Like the Lightning_ reminded me that it is not worth finishing a book that makes me go "aaargh, shut up, author" every four pages. Here we are being beaten vigorously with the exposition stick at every opportunity; the author makes a particularly bold move in writing "the rush of exposition in the airport comes as a shock, especially on such little sleep" as a precursor to delivering the lump of exposition, not that it is greatly distinguished from the exposition that surrounds it. Come back, Becky Chambers' "describe the ships to me like I am a child", all is forgiven.

"JaBoDeTaBekBan, the urban conglomeration with Jakarta at its heart, has" a fucking implausible name, like I don't think anyone goes around gobbing up that mouthful on a regular basis, and that's about as far as I got.

As a result, my final objection might be wrong, because there may well be another lump of exposition coming, but it looks to me like the world is sorted into tens of thousands of, well, constituencies each of which elect a single political party on a FPTP basis, and there's a rich tapestry of dozens of political parties; now, one of the many odd things about FPTP is it tends to encourage political parties to agglomerate into vast blobs, so how's that work?

This was my first novel-length No Award this year.

[1] indeed, in IIRC Goldeneye Bond's car has a popup attachment for cutting cables strung across the road at a highly specific height, and sportingly the bad guys string a cable across the road at just that height.

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Three things

2019-06-27T14:28:49Z

I was given three things to write about.

Spider plants I am drawing a bit of a blank on. I own one plant, the daughter^n of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryophyllum_daigremontianum which I got when I was 13; I have kept it this long since they are almost impossible to kill.

I am perhaps being slightly unfair in not counting the mass of brambles etc in the front garden, which I was happy enough to count as mine while eating the crop of blackberries last year.

Mead is easy. When I was an undergraduate I'd buy cases of Moniack mead from Highland Wineries, which at the time was still in Moniack castle in Scotland and came in impressive octagonal bottles, then sell it on at enough of a markup to count 2 bottles as clear profit from each case. Dark mead is good for hangovers.

A friend of mine still has an octagonal bottle of the stuff which he doles out dribbles of, insisting the recipe has changed in the last 20 years and is not as good now. I dunno; I think his bottle tastes different because it _is_ 20 years old.

Tolkien you know about, but to introduce something personal, I've found the Peter Jackson films have shrunk on me; I was quite impressed with them at first but rewatching has made their flaws more and more apparent; both the extended editions and the utter travesty of the Hobbit have a lot more of the self-indulgent nonsense that mars the films, and once you notice it, you can't stop noticing it.

I did get through the Silmarillion once but nothing after that; as far as I can make out the later "Tolkien" is like a series of fishcakes with increasingly small amounts of JRRT fish and larger amounts of Christopher Tolkien potato. I know CT can't actually lack money but it sure feels as if he digs up more of his father's notes every time the gas bill is due.

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