Computing, Socialising, RPG Review 18

[tcpip]

First two days of the past week were spent teaching HPC and Linux to various graduates and post-docs. These courses are always quite exhausting to conduct, but the feedback and demand is always good, so we've moved to a bimonthly schedule. Preparations for the New Zealand tour in a week's time (MC-ing at Multicore World, speaking at a University of Otago). This Tuesday will meet with Greg Wilson, author of Beautiful Code. Apropos all this, I have written down some brief thoughts about listening and meeting Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Yesterday consisted on another excellent day of Cheese Quest with ser_pounce and hathhalla, which included Bleu de Bresse, Roquefort, Boursin, and to be very plain, Jarslberg (I brought a goat ricotta which, whilst not part of the sketch, with nevertheless quite nice). Afterwards played Sunda to Sahul, Timeline, Guillotine, and a couple of rounds of Munchkin. Afterwards went to dinner with doomydoombear, whom we haven't seen for forever and a day, so that was absolutely delightful.

The eighteenth issue of RPG Review has been released, a special edition on the Cthulhu mythos. I think I contributed just under half the content this time, which is a horrible situation to be in for the editor of a fanzine (although not uncommon). The issue includes system reviews (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Cthulhu D20), setting reviews (Dark Ages, Dreamlands, Delta Green, Cthulhupunk), alternate settings (Metropolis), designer's notes for EPOCH, and excellent investigative theory article, movie reviews etc. I've also released that most of the major contributors are on livejournal, but in honour of the semi-anonymous system I won't mention them "by name". My editorial engages in a little bit of pop psychoanalysis, suggesting that perhaps Lovecraft's monsters were, in part, a project of his own racism.

Comments

[mellotron_breakfast]

The Modern Library Classics edition (I think) of At the Mountains of Madness included a China Mieville essay which seemed to agree with your editorial.

[tcpip]

Really? I must hunt that down. I have quite some respect for China Mieville, so if we're thinking on the same wavelength I'm in good company.

[lederhosen]

See also Nnedi Okorafor's comments on winning a bust of HPL as the trophy for a World Fantasy Award.

[tcpip]

Nicely done.

That poem in particular that was that I was referring to.

[lederhosen]

Have you ever read Medusa's Coil? Might be relevant to your essay.

[music-girl.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting though.
-Kris/Sissy

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

True enough and thank you; it is interesting - and the follow on discussion on my dreamwidth account on Lovecraft has been even more so!

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

*friendly wave from Minneapolis, Minnesota (US) to you* I love it that you are still teaching, and writing, and gaming - Awesome!! Best wishes for a beautiful day, tcpip :D

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly, castleclear. Always a pleasure for you - and even if my subject areas having changed over the years, I think the content has!

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Lev! tho i'm sorry to say i dont precisely understand what you're saying to me in this comment, simply that both subject matters as well as content for what you teach has evolved and changed thru the years - at least that's my inference (correct or erroneous). Hope you had a (or are having) a beautiful weekend. It's still Sunday morning for another hour or 2 here in Minneapolis. If you pray, please add a prayer for the U.S. eastern seaboard, which is getting pounded by water again. *insert here the correct witty saying in French to describe climate change and global warming* maybe it's just C'est la Vie. Hope you have a good upcoming work week. Hugs from 1/2 a world away to you and yours.
john

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

i dont precisely understand what you're saying to me

Oh, I'm not saying it to you as such. More thinking out loud to myself about what seems to me to be the oft-repetitive subjects that I discuss (even with my polymathic tendencies).

Maybe I need to take up scuba-diving, bungy-jumping, or lead-lighting for a new topic :)

I have an interesting prayer story... a friend of mine in Queensland is a "Christian Unitarian", of course, not distantly related to our ilk at all and a regular attendee of a UU fellowship etc. Anyway, as life is, he developed a cancer. So he visited his local church, an Armenian one and asked if they would pray for him. They said "We'll think about it"!

So he visited his UU fellowship and said "Look, I know that most of you don't believe in this, but I have cancer, do you mind praying for me?"

So they did. And the cancer went in remission!

We joked about it at the last ANZUUA conference, the mental image of God sitting at a desk with all these telephones from the various denominations, ringing like crazy as various requests come in, and many of them quite trivial. Over on one side is a dusty old phone entitled "Unitarian-Universalists", thank hasn't rung for years. When the light flashes up, God thinks "I haven't heard from them for a while, better see what it is..."

So on that note, my non-believing prayers for the U.S. eastern seaboard :)

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Thank you very VERY much for your unbelieving prayers, sir! I was taught to believe that when we pray we're asking the Higher Power(s) for things and/or just talking to them but that when we meditate we are listening. LOL, i like that image of the dusty old phone (i imagine it as being hard, black, plastic with cords, nothin' wireless or high-tech about it, sitting off on some small wooden table - and curiously in my imagination the table is dusted and clean, it's just the phone that's been neglected.) Re: the Armenian church congregation who said they'd think about it - well i guess that's fair - one has to know what one should wish for (e.g. my initial distaste and aversion for a television advertising commercial with paid actors dressed as Buddhist monks "praying" for a full-screen color TV. Note: i don't object to Buddhists or others doing this but I felt mightily culturally offended at this representation of Buddhists and Buddhism. I know the Catholics would have a fit had they been portrayed this way for crass commercialism. Thank goddess, the Wiccans and pagans don't get offended by Halloween images and how they're routinely portrayed. It seems to me i saw a news post recently on Yahoo about a person (female of course, tho at the time I wasn't sure) who got Burned Alive in New Guinea merely for suspicion of witchcraft - sheesh! they couldn't test her for it? I mean just how much does a duck weigh? Shades of Monty Python & the holy Holy Grail!

Back on topic, oh kewl! You were just thinking aloud in print. No prob, I do that a fair bit myself. ;-)

I'm glad you're well, my friend.

P.S. a polymathic tendency sounds wonderful! LOL, I'd rather doubted peer-reviewed Wikipedia would have a clue what that is but found this instead: http://polymathictendencies.wordpress.com/ LMAO!!!!!!

You go, TCPIP! Go, good team, go! (hope you get that gaming reference)

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

I suddenly feel peckish. In particular, for cheese.
Luckily, I have some Maasdam in the fridge.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

A very fine cheese is Maasdam, and often under-rated. Compares quite well with its associates, Jarlsberg and Emmental which made it into the famous skit.