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"Clean Feed" Censorship, Gaming Updates (and theory), Other News
Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, is embarking on a mad venture to spend tens of millions of dollars to cripple Australian Internet speed and increase consumer costs through conducting deep packet inspection to filter out "objectionable material" from Australian homes. The filter will be mandatory; there is no opt-out; in other words, the State will determine what adults are allowed to see or read - I'm sure we feel a lot safer now. Electronic Frontiers Australia have put together an informative website and action plan. Parody and ridicule is a fair option in these circumstances. I have written a fairly blunt (and open) letter on the subject to the Senator.
Michael ran another excellent session of Middle Earth Role Playing on Friday night. On Sunday after I followed up with the final session of Dyksund Caverns for RuneQuest's Shadows on the Borderland (I must write a more comprehensive review), which involved negotiations with mad ghosts (with one possessing a PC), discovering that they trapped in the caverns and their supply team had been eaten by ogres, finding a magic crystal that was powering a dormant demigod, launching an attack on a homestead inhabited by said ogres and ogre children (nasty little buggers; rather like the Children of the Corn) and giving chase to a number who escaped into the wilderness (for future plot developments - bwahahaha!). A good roleplaying session involves all the players throughout the session, provides both motivations and conflict (internal and external) for all the characters and occurs within a plausible (albeit often exotic) setting with a consistent sense of narrative flow. Most of my gaming sessions manage to do this reasonable well; this one however worked extremely well. I have also been working an article "Improving Mongoose's RuneQuest" for The Grimoire, which is initially inspired by a thread I started on rpg.net with the title Armour in Mongoose RuneQuest Considered Harmful.
The new rodents have settled in and are proving themselves to be a source of great amusement with 'Trouble' proving to be most social. Most things workwise are just fine, although I'm having a small war getting the Shibboleth module for Drupal to play nice, and ditto for the source version of SciLab. On a health-related issue, I seem to have acquired (goodness knows how) a minor case of pyelonephritis, which I do not recommend to anyone; antibiotics have been prescribed and blood tests are pending.
Michael ran another excellent session of Middle Earth Role Playing on Friday night. On Sunday after I followed up with the final session of Dyksund Caverns for RuneQuest's Shadows on the Borderland (I must write a more comprehensive review), which involved negotiations with mad ghosts (with one possessing a PC), discovering that they trapped in the caverns and their supply team had been eaten by ogres, finding a magic crystal that was powering a dormant demigod, launching an attack on a homestead inhabited by said ogres and ogre children (nasty little buggers; rather like the Children of the Corn) and giving chase to a number who escaped into the wilderness (for future plot developments - bwahahaha!). A good roleplaying session involves all the players throughout the session, provides both motivations and conflict (internal and external) for all the characters and occurs within a plausible (albeit often exotic) setting with a consistent sense of narrative flow. Most of my gaming sessions manage to do this reasonable well; this one however worked extremely well. I have also been working an article "Improving Mongoose's RuneQuest" for The Grimoire, which is initially inspired by a thread I started on rpg.net with the title Armour in Mongoose RuneQuest Considered Harmful.
The new rodents have settled in and are proving themselves to be a source of great amusement with 'Trouble' proving to be most social. Most things workwise are just fine, although I'm having a small war getting the Shibboleth module for Drupal to play nice, and ditto for the source version of SciLab. On a health-related issue, I seem to have acquired (goodness knows how) a minor case of pyelonephritis, which I do not recommend to anyone; antibiotics have been prescribed and blood tests are pending.
no subject
That isn't to say that I don't also recognise the left/liberal/tolerant Australia, but like all countries there are many facets, and I saw one I dislike so much in England that it put me off Australia.
After all, this is the kind of nonsense that the Dail Mail in the UK might preach, before someone sensible slapped them down, possibly inside the same paper.
I do sometimes think that the older and more liberal I get that I'd be better off in Canada.. but hey.. I bet they have odd right wing moments too.
Tom
PS: Shadows in the Borderlands is, IMHO, one of the best set of gaming adventures since, well, the original Borderlands.. and probably better.
no subject
Sydney has quite a lot of racism for the reasons that Melbourne doesn't. For much of Melbourne (but certainly not all) different cultural groups mix quite freely in the various suburbs. That sort of intermingling reduces tensions.
But yes... There is a terrible wowser element in Australian politics. It is mocked, it is a minority, but dammit they keep getting politicians elected too.
PS: I actually think Shadows is better than Borderlands, although it doesn't quite have the same extensive background. I've been switching scenarios between the two for some months now and it's been working very well.