Bob Hayes Online

No, really. They’re getting bored in orbit.

It’s starting with the paper airplanes. It’ll progress to pennies, then bricks. Eventually it won’t be safe to go outside for fear some thrill-seeking Asian cosmonaut is going to go Thor’s Hammer on your ass.

At least, according to a fascinating map showing the United States, and the country which each state’s GDP (roughly) equates to. Where do you live?

(H/T Marginal Revolution.)

This is really cool. Got an airplane factory you need hidden? I’m up for it!

And these are some of the coolest.

(H/T Marginal Revolution.)

I use CoffeeCup Software’s HTML editor for web development projects, and have for several years. There are probably more powerful suites out there, but CC is effective and sufficient for my needs - although I would weep tears of joy if they would implement genuine one-button publishing. I recently found that there’s an upgrade to the editor, which I am entitled to download - but I couldn’t find my password or username. My usual defaults didn’t work, so I contacted customer service.

Enter Hope D., help desk specialist. Hope asked me for other email addresses that my account could be under. Nothing. She asked me for my name so she could look it up that way. Nothing. Finally she asked for any old addresses, so that she could look me up from that. Jackpot - she found my account, sent my username and password, and got me taken care of. Elapsed time, about 30 minutes of e-mail exchanges.

Now, did Hope cure cancer here? No. But she did solve my problem, without making me go through any idiot steps or bozo procedures from the manual. She just found my information, which is what I needed, and she did it fast and efficient. What’s more, she did this in an area that isn’t likely to bring in a sale - they’ve already got my money. Anybody can give you great service when they expect a check. When a company gives service after you’ve paid, they’re thinking long-term, and that means they’re worth the time.

Here’s to you, Hope. Thanks.

This is a laser cutter. Goodbye, Mr. Bond.

(Hat tip: Evangelical Outpost.)

If you’ve noticed, most posts these days have a timestamp of 8 AM. The reason for that is simple - I don’t have time to blog every day, and I found in previous blog efforts of mine that the mental energy - “gotta write a post for today to keep things fresh” - is often not there, even if the time is. But I DO find myself finding lots of little items that would make great mini-posts, even when I don’t have time to blog them on the actual day.

Enter WordPress’ ability to future-date posts, which then don’t appear on the site until the timestamp is reached. I can write a mini-post (or even a substantial one, like “yesterday’s” D&D post) whenever the urge strikes or time allows, and slot it in, one a day, for a future date. If I do ten in one day, I don’t have one awesome day and then a huge blank expanse; I have ten posts in a row, covering a week and a half. Currently, I’m a week ahead in blogging, and can relax without worrying about whether the site will update. Barring someone dying in the interim between me writing about them (and with my luck, excoriating them for some horrid crime or flaw), it’s a great system. I do timely things when they’re timely, and evergreens otherwise.

(Is this how Glenn does it?)

The fine blog Evangelical Outpost makes it even better, because HE waits until Sunday for all his little-gem posts - he does one big roundup every Sunday night with 33 great items. In theory, by pirating and linking to a mere 25% of his choices, I could do an entirely daily blog with nothing but EO links, in a matter of minutes each week.

Not that I plan to do that. But I do plan to link to a lot of his posts, because they’re good posts about things I wouldn’t find on my own. And I thought I’d explain to you why you see so many EO links every once in a while (hint: because I’ve just jacked a bunch of his stuff), and explain to him why he sees the occasional trackback flurry.

My stepkids were here visiting over the Christmas break, and we took the opportunity to play some D&D with them. Some notes on the experience.

Son A is 12, daughter J is 11. Neighbor boy X is friends with A and J (mostly A) and has been over most days during their visit. Before Christmas, A and I headed to the game store to find some kind of intro-level game that the kids could enjoy; I was hoping for “Dungeon” or some other intro delver.

Instead, we found the Dungeons and Dragons “basic game” - a boxed set with (extremely) abbreviated rules, several nice solid mapboards, a sheet of punchout counters of doors, treasure chests, treasure items, etc., six polyhedral dice (d4 through d20), and a nice selection of painted plastic miniatures, including one quite impressive blue dragon figurine. It was only $25 so we bought it. More extensive reviews can be read at the Geek, but short review: it’s good value for the money and is a decent way to start non-gamers in D&D without having to hassle through all the complexities of 3.5. The adventures included are short but enough to get characters into 2nd level; anyone who starts to have a good time, however, is likely to want to move to the real game, which I recommend.

We did that, after playing through about half of the included adventures in a couple of enjoyable session; the kids were ready for the real deal and I decided they could handle the complexities if I made some executive decisions for them. (Mainly, picking spells, skills and feats for kids who didn’t have the four hours to read through the PHB.) A rolled up a nice human barbarian with lucky stats and an unspellable name (hey - if you can’t read it anyway, what difference does it make?). J rolled a sneaky and skilled elven rogue, while X created an elven mage. That concluded our first session, as is pretty typical for new D&D players; “now we’re ready to play, and it’s time for bed.”

Today we managed to finish character creation and to move on to the actual adventure. J decided she would rather watch TV with Mom on her last night here, so A and X ventured boldly forth into the unknown without any healing, sneakiness, or trap detection. After spending a cold night in an alley shivering and fending off attacks from roving kobold bands, our adventurers decided that finding paying work would put an end to THAT character-building exercise, and found a job with the local weapons merchant. A rust monster had discovered his out-of-town junk metal warehouse, and was eating him out of his inventory. More experienced adventurers had refused the job, fearing for their equipment; A and X strode boldly into action with fearlessness born of complete and utter ignorance.

After discovering the warehouse door was both wooden and securely barred, our heroes realized (successful INT checks) that the rust monster must be getting into the building from some other entrance. A little searching revealed a gap in the stone walls that the creature had widened, and X managed to wriggle through and (unmolested by the rust monster inside, who cared little for the crossbow points that were X’s only metal) unbar the door from inside, allowing A to enter. Unfortunately for A, his shiny new great-axe WAS of considerable interest, and the rust monster leapt to the attack.

Long story short: acid orbs do a little bit of damage to rust monsters, while sleep spells are completely ineffective. (Five hit dice FTW!) Rust monsters with poor attack rolls do a bad job of de-metallicizing heroes, but full-damage hits from perhaps incautious barbarians do a pretty good job of negating themselves. (The look on my son’s face as I described his greataxe dissolving into corruption and dust was worth the two hour character creation process, right there.) However, a well-timed rage (”You melted my axe! And my dagger!”) and a base strength of 17 brought A’s punch attack to a fairly impressive 1d3+5, which turned out to be enough to send Mrs. Rust Monster to an untimely end. Her egg sac followed soon thereafter, and XP and crummy treasure (but good stuff for firsties) were soon distributed to all and sundry.

Some observations, in no particular order:

• Rust monsters are good opponents for low level parties. The harm they can cause is mostly restricted to equipment, which is all non-magical to begin with; they only have a 1d3 bite and that only with a full attack. So nobody dies - but people are worried for their gear, even wizards who only have some crossbow bolts. This creates enough tension, especially for kids, without having to fiddle dice rolls or weight encounters. Plus, at CR3, rust monsters provide nice XP for the newbies.
• New people are reluctant to play healers, but quickly recognize their importance after a stupid kobold hits them with a stupid spear for 5 points of damage. Luckily, it was the barbarian with 13 hit points and not the wizard with 5.
• Tormenting players with information that their skills could have been useful, except for an environmental condition or a situational problem, is fun for the DM, and also gets the players thinking about what they could do in other circumstances. (”The gloom of the warehouse would be ideally suited for your darkvision, if only there wasn’t just enough sunlight to make it completely ineffective.”)
• DMs should remember that kobolds are weak and puny but to small groups of first-level characters, more than one or two can pose a deadly risk. Spears do 1d6-1, even in the hands of a kobold, and they can use sling three times a round for a theoretical 3d3.  OUCH, said the character with an AC of 12 and 5 hit points. Or would have if his sleep spell hadn’t taken them out in the nick of time.
• Want to explain attacks of opportunity to a newbie in a way that short-circuits fourteen pages of badly-written rules and Bog only knows how many dropped-in references scattered through the other books? Easy: “If you do something stupid while someone can hit you, they will get a chance to hit you.” A and X had no difficulty whatsoever understanding and interpreting this rule through two combats.

Alas, A and J now return to their full-time home, but they will return this summer, and I suspect that the epic quest to rid the friendly town of Hillsboro of beasties and monsters will continue. With any luck, I’ve managed to create two or three new gamers. Now I can die, without reducing the net potential geekery level of the universe. I am content.

A remarkable treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. Miraculous if it pans out.

Home, say common-sense archaeologists. I always kind of wondered.