Pathfinder's polymorph rules, presented in a usable format (2014/05/17)
Well, maybe not totally usable, but. Pathfinder’s various polymorph-type spells are all presented in a format where each spell past the first in a series gives additional powers, but then refers you to the previous spell. So they never give you the complete list of things you can get from them. In general, qualities are given only if the creature you assume the form of has those qualities. So, if you want scent, you have to assume a form that has scent and use a spell which lists scent as a quality it can grant.
[read more...]Stay classy, Google! (2013/11/18)
Well, too late for that.
[read more...]Starting spamd (and other related fun) using Server.app on OS X (2013/11/03)
Since my previous blog post on this topic was so useful to me, but slightly obsolete, I’m posting updates. I recently had occasion to rebuild my mail server, and decided to bite the bullet and go with Mavericks plus the new Server.app.
FF14: A Realm Reborn. Review/commentary (2013/09/24)
Overall summary: A fairly good game, with a mix of some really cool things and some spectacular stupidity. The things that are wrong, frequently it’s simply mind-numbing that anyone could possibly have thought this would be okay, or taken the extra time it would take to get them wrong. The things that are right are often quite good.
[read more...]A mismatch of visions (2013/08/08)
I’ve been, historically, a pretty big fan of Rift. I like the game. I like the developers. And throughout most of the last two and a half years, I have felt that the Rift team have earned a certain amount of trust. They make mistakes, but they fix them. In general.
[read more...] Come on, Gabe, you're better than that. (2013/06/20)
Penny Arcade’s Gabe is doing the “poke the trans people” thing again (too lazy to link, its on the twitters). Gabe, dude. Claiming that anyone with a vagina is necessarily a woman is sort of a dick move (sorry, couldn’t pass on that straight line). It’s not cool or edgy. It’s also not usefully true. And the thing is, I totally get the idea that it would be nice if the world were nice and simple and everything fit into easy categories. But the world isn’t all that simple, not everything fits into easy categories, and dismissing people as not existing is an oversimplification with a significant body count.
[read more...]Spare ideas (2013/06/08)
Was reading the Pathfinder (a tabletop RPG) book on game mastery, browsing their world-building stuff, came up with spare ideas.
[read more...]Getting hit on in MMOs (2013/06/03)
So, last night, there was hilarity. There was this guy, in Rift, who was… well. First off, I believe he was about 14. So he was being generically homophobic, as a lot of young teens are, and people were teasing him about it. And he responded, as 14-year-old boys often do, by trying to be abusive and sexually harass people with female names. Whereupon he asked Katrinka (aka me) to “show me your milkshake”.
[read more...]New personal best: 13 years. (2013/05/26)
So, you know that thing where people say they’ll get back to you, but they don’t? I had one of those pending from a programming conversation. I finally went back and tracked it down and sent a followup message. It’s been 13 years.
[read more...]The mirror test and cats (2013/05/03)
One of the standard tests for self-awareness is “the mirror test” – put dye on a creature in a place it can’t see but could see in a mirror, give it a mirror, see whether it investigates the dyed spot. Cats, in general, fail this.
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