Older than Time
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
older_than_time's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Thursday, February 14th, 2008 | | 9:23 pm |
| | Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 | | 6:34 pm |
| | Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 | | 9:47 pm |
| | Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 | | 1:53 pm |
| | Saturday, September 1st, 2007 | | 8:46 pm |
A Pair of Muppets?
I'd do a poll if I could be so bothered as to upgrade the account - leave your preference in comments so: Ernie & Bert or
Bert & Ernie | | Thursday, August 30th, 2007 | | 8:28 am |
| | Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 | | 6:18 pm |
First Strike! [Guerrilla Librarianship]
Made my first real foray into the world of Guerilla Librarianship on Saturday in Chapters upstairs.
Moved Tom Holland's Rubicon and Terry Jones' Crusades from Historical Fiction into History. Huzzah! | | Friday, August 10th, 2007 | | 9:15 pm |
| | 8:56 pm |
Mooch Ahoy!
I'm declaring BookMooching a success, having received two books in the post yesterday from 'moochees.
I'm not doing too badly out of it, having sent three abroad, mooched two from Ireland and four from foreign shores
| | Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 | | 8:12 pm |
| | 2:48 pm |
Guerrilla Librarianship
So, let's assume you spot a book in the wrong section in a bookshop
What usually happens? Well if you're really into the subject you might be personally/professionally insulted, but you might just sport a bemused grin (or even a superior smirk)
What are your real options though? You could
a. absolutely ignore the issue
b. bring it up to the staff and suggest it go elsewhere -> however you might bump into worker apathy (I didn't shelf that section/you're a nut for caring mister), or you might bump into worker pride (I shelved that, and I'm quite happy with my categorisation)
c. covertly reshelf the book where you think it should go (along with any other copies of the work)
There are a lot of Science/New Age/Religion crossovers, Historical Fiction/History is another one
See Biologists helping Bookstores for more
| | Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 | | 11:58 am |
Mooch!
Just starting BookMooching; have sent two books and mooched three.
Haven't received them yet, so it's early days, but so far I'm impressed with the concept although I think it could do with some streamlining on the user interface
Who knows, maybe I'll become a bookcrosser next... | | Thursday, May 17th, 2007 | | 1:25 pm |
Crazy RPG ideas Mk.I
I have three major writing projects for roleplaying games on my plate at the moment: 1. Write the 7th part of my multi-generational fantasy campaign (including full magic rules, as one of the players has decided to go down that route for the first time) 2. Start writing background and stories for our group's collaborative science fiction campaign (everyone writes, GMs and plays) 3. Write an Alias-style system with flashbacks as a major component for creating background/solving problems But here's another: I'll write a scenario using 4 themes/keywords from the first four people to write-in here; and then run the scenario for those people over the summer sometime Sign-up here with your theme/keyword/idea... | | Friday, May 11th, 2007 | | 9:04 am |
Crazy Wargame Ideas Mk.I
Once upon a time myself and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kindermord read a book http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=P3362~per=11 about the battle of Gettysburg. Quite handily it had a wargaming section with suggestions on how to handle the battle on the wargames table. The exact quote escapes me at the moment, but it began with something like:
"Only a complete and utter madman would attempt to wargame Gettysburg in its entirety."
Such a bald statement could not be left unchallenged!
So off we went, and wargamed Gettysburg in its entirety, at Gaelcon 2005. As the cherry on top of we ran it twice over the weekend.
(I think) We've built up a bit of a reputation on this front. We've run a gigantic game of Ogre - Operation Market Garden - covering most of southern Holland on an 18' by 4' table, we've run wargames campaigns and other big battles at conventions.
So what's next?
1. Run a multi-player wargames campaign, which would have multiple armies on each side, each with their own agenda/viewpoints, maybe all beholden to one political/military master, but with party/personal issues at stake. The Chickamauga-Chattanooga campaign of the American Civil War would be a good candidate. Maybe have a couple of players playing the political masters struggling with getting all their ducks in a row. Who wants to be Lincoln pulling his hair out?
2. Run a Napoleonic Wars battle in its entirety. Choose a small one and play with 2mm miniatures so that each figure on the wargames table represents one in the real battle and so that figure and ground-scales match
3. Run a WWI Aerial Campaign. Each player is a pilot in a squadron British or German
... | | Thursday, May 10th, 2007 | | 9:32 am |
Hokum
On occasion I rock... (even if all possible/plausible spellings of 'occasion' currently look wrong) Over on LibraryThing when tagging a couple of books I could come up with no better description of them than 'hokum' At the time no one else was using this as a tag, but now two other brave souls have joined me in condescension *grin* http://www.librarything.com/tag/Hokum | | Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 | | 8:31 am |
Meme questions from Xaosseed
1) You are very well read on Military History, what are your thoughts on two big nonmilitary 'is it really an issue' issues at present; Human-Induced Climate Change and Peak Oil? Human-Induced Climate Change
This is a toughie...
Is climate change significant: yes
Are human's affecting climate change: yes
Are human's significantly affecting climate change: ...probably
I don't think we have enough data on climate to know that significant parts of climate change aren't due to natural variables (there was a global warming period during the high middle ages)
What's going to happen? Well the problem is that while there may be a world community, there is no world polity, so that individual states aren't bound by general agreement on actions to be taken Peak Oil
Is this really an issue? I'm not sure. OK, so oil production is going to peak in 10-15 years. All the easy oil has been got, so oil companies are going to have to be smarter in extracting unconventional resources. I don't think the current oil price highs are due to production (supply) issues, they're due to stability concerns (demand) of buyers.
But also other companies are going to have to be smarter in how they use oil products, and in how they can develop alternatives. Aviation fuel is probably the area which alternative fuels can least replace, plastics another. 2) What was the first game you got that tipped you from 'kid who has some games' into 'gamer'
Getting Cyberpunk 2020 for my 16th birthday 3) What kind of lies have they been telling you about me?
That you were the best commander they ever had! 4) Have you ever been convinced, even for less than a second, that you've actually met/spoken with a historical figure you've been reading about?
Depends where you draw the line between history and contemporary events...but no, not really 5) Where will you be in the mid twenty-teens - say 2015?
Dublin. I'd give Galway an outside 5% chance [although by the contract the job could send me to a variety of places] | | Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 | | 9:59 pm |
| | 1:44 pm |
Meme Questions from Uber
1. I note from your flickr quite a few photos of food. Do you cook them yourself?
They are all mine. I planned to post the recipes on my LJ with photos attached, and maybe I'll get around to it yet. 2. Recommend me a recipe.
Yowza! Where to begin
Masala Lamb Chops, I'll edit this to include the full recipe tonight...
3. What are the main factors to consider in deciding scale for a model-based game?
a) Will the scale work with the game?
There's little point in trying to run a real-world battle with the larger scales (e.g. 25mm) Similarly running a cowboy skirmish in 6mm will look silly.
b) What's the budget?
To use extremly contrasting examples here, in 6mm you can put together a decent sized army for 30 quid. With GW that'll buy you a squad. We can probably tie in how much storage space you have available here as well.
C) Who will I be playing with?
If all your friends are playing in a certain scale, unless you're a model-scale evangelizer then that's probably what you're stuck with. 4. What would Alexei Uvarov make of the Putin Administration?
The trend of asset-striping, market manipulation, unpaid salaries and the destruction of life savings points towards the business elite's influence rather than any catering to the needs of the Russian people.
The melding of security services and political power fuels this self serving cycle... 5. What is your favourite website?
http://www.librarything.com/
This is the drill: leave a comment and I will ask you five questions, you answer them in your journal and make the same offer to your friends. | | Friday, May 4th, 2007 | | 12:33 pm |
| | Monday, April 30th, 2007 | | 4:32 pm |
Neat RPG Mechanics
Thinking about RPG Mechanics over the weekend (while struggling with an "authentic" medieval-style magic system that's playable (and that isn't ripped straight off Ars Magica)) 1. Legend of Five Rings: Roll Pool, Keep Some This is quite an elegant system, the ability to differentiate between characters who are very good at something and those who have the potential to be good at something. I know some people think that the difficulty of calculating odds is a disadvantage, but I see this kind of "I know I'm very good, but I just can't quantify the likelihood of success" as being a realistic way of managing characters' self-awareness. Not so sure about the open-endedness of the rolling though... 2. Call of Cthulhu: Sanity The fact that as your SAN gets lower and lower, it becomes harder and harder to keep a handle on reality is exceptionally frightening I think. [Of course this is quite different to the experience check system, which means that as you get better and better at something it becomes easier to succeed and earn a check, but more difficult to actually get better] 3. Deadlands: Cards I'm not entirely sure that this is a brilliant mechanic in and of itself, but it matches the feel of the setting so well I can hardly ignore it. How about you? |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
