To Honor the Fallen and Those Who Served

We have reached another Armistice Day (Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth, Veterans Day in the US), it seems odd to have it fall on a Sunday for some reason.

Originally created as a day to remember the end of the Great War, the Armistice that ended the war starting at 11:11am on 11 November, 1918, and those who served and died there.  Since then, it has been expanded to include the many others who have served and died for their country in honorable service through the years.

So let us honor the brave warriors that have guarded us -and still do- today.  However,  on today of all days we must not forget that war is a terrible thing.

Ada Lovelace Day 2012

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to raise awareness of the achievements and successes of women in technology and science.  This year it is today (16th October).

As is my want, I will be looking back at one of the early female scientists, Aglaonike of Thessaly who lived in the 2nd Century BCE naturally, we only have fragmentary information about her (which is true of all such people of that era).  Aglaonike was the first female astrologer in Ancient Greece and was able to predict Lunar eclipses, a Greek proverb makes reference to Aglaonike’s alleged boasting: “Yes, as the moon obeys Aglaonike” which indicate her confidence in her abilities.  Other female astrologers were inspired by Aglaonike becoming known as the “witches of Thessaly” and often regarded as sorcerers.  (You can learn a little more about her at Wikipedia.)

And, lastly, one would be remiss to not mention 2D Goggles where, in the universe next door, Ada Lovelace is a adventerous science heroine.

Notes: Picture from the Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain.

Playing In Other People’s Worlds – September Blog Carnival

This is part of the September Blog Carnival: Running Games In Established Settings kindly hosted by Dice Monkey.

Generally, I do not play in established settings, early experience with the Forgotten Realm left a bad taste in my mouth for such for D&Dish fantasy games and since then I have been fairly aggressive about building my own worlds and settings.  Same for superhero games, I love supers but the existing worlds (DC and Marvel) are so bogged down in their own convoluted histories that they are near unplayable for me.  I want a world that in mine and, because it is mine, I understand how it works.

Now, there are two exceptions to this, Legend of the Five Rings and Shadowrun, both of which I have run off and on since each of they released.  We will look at them in reverse order:

The Lupercalia Begins!

Welcome to another of the odd festival of Ancient Rome!  Today is the start of the Lupercalia, a purification ritual with very confusing origins.  (Purification was needed as February was considered ill-omened by the Romans.)

Palatine Hill

The ritual took place in a sacred cave, the Lupercal Cave, on Palatine Hill where two goats and a dog were sacrificed, to whom is still debated, but it was for purification and -as purification was linked to fertility- for fertility.  Two chosen boys, originally sons of the equestrian (aristocratic) order, who were marked on the forehead with the blood of the goats from the sword used to slain the sacrifice which was then wiped away with wool dipped in milk after which the boys must laugh(!).  The boys then took lashes made from the goat skin and run through the old boundaries of the city, dressed only in girdles of goatskin, striking people with the lashes.  Women would seek to be struck by these, offering their hands, as the touch of the lash was suppose to increase fertility, cure barrenness and ease the pains of childbirth.

Now, who exactly the sacrifices were to, where the ritual originated and many other details have been lost to the mists of time.  But a fascinating piece of history.

Notes: Photo by Rennett Stowe and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Game Theory – Moral Dilemmas: Arranged Marriages

I was watching the video of Emilie Autumn‘s Marry Me (mildly NSFW for language) and it brought this issue to mind as a possible source of conflict, challenge and adventure.

While marriage does not usually figure as one of the major themes of roleplaying games, it is an important facet of human life and culture and often a major component to the actions of people in a world.  As such, it deserves to be looked at as a source of both character development and adventure ideas.  First, we will look at arranged marriages.

Thank you, brave soldiers

We have reached another Armistice Day, Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth, Veterans Day here in the US.  Originally to commemorate the ending of the Great War, the Armistice that ended the war starting at 11:11am on 11 November, 1918, and those who served and died there.  Since then, it has been expanded to include the many others who have served and died for their country in honorable service through the years.

If you remember, pause for two minutes of silence to honor the brave soldiers that have guarded us -and still do- at 11:11am today.

However, do not let us forget that war is a tragic time.

Today is Inventors’ Day!

A day to celebrate those who invent, especially those who do not do so professionally.  This date (9th Nov) was chosen as it is the birthday of the actress Hedy Lamarr, who also was an amateur inventor and whose idea for frequency hoppinglater formed part of the foundation for modern

Hedy Lamarr

cell phone technology.

So, if you have a favorite amateur inventor or invention, share it!  Or a favorite invention in general!  Let us get inspiration and ideas out there for people to build off of.  More inventions are better!

For me, there is so much wonderful modern technology, I have trouble narrowing it down.  But computers have certainly made my life better.

There is an  official website for Inventors’ Day if you wish to learn more.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain.

Wandering the Web [13]

Well, it has been a while since a did one of these.  Following are a collection of articles and places that I found informative and inspiring hidden at various places in the web:

Ada Lovelace Day!

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to raise awareness of the achievements and successes of women in technology and science.  This year it is today (7th October) though last year it was on 24th March.

One of the fascinating women of the ancient world and foundation of science is Hypatia of Alexandria, who -sadly- we know very little about but who was very active in the scientific and philosophical community of her time.  Unfortunately, it was a very unsettled time and none of her works survive (a situation sadly common among early scientists).   But what we do know shows her as a very dedicated woman, highly focused on the life of mind.

The fictionalized version of her life as presented in the movie Agora is probably far from accurate,  it is a very pretty (if slightly depressing) film and Rachel Weisz does her best to bring Hypatia to life.

Also, it is always worth looking through the 2D Goggles to the universe next door where Ada Lovelace was a two-fisted science heroine.

Happy 45th STAR TREK!

A day late, I know.  But 8th September, 1966, say the first broadcast of STAR TREK, boldly going where no man had before on NBC.  It was one of the first successful SF series and the subject of the first fan-organized effort to save a show (which they did for a season).  For as long as I can remember, reruns of the original series of Star Trek have been on the air and that is how I first came to watch and love the show.

Gateway to Adventure

Like many geeks of my generation, Star Trek is one of the building blocks of our identity for good or ill, it was omnipresent and the foundation in many ways of modern fan culture (conventions, cosplay, slash fiction, those started with ST fandom).  So, I am just standing up and say, “I am fan of Star Trek, thanks for everything.”

Take a look at the original network “sell sheet” for Star Trek.  Some amazing Star Trek cookies.

And if this get you in the mood for playing some ST RPG, there are is a whole community of ST SIMMers (for simulation) out there such as Obsidian Fleet which do that very thing.

And Barking Alien has kind words for ST too (and was late like me too).

Update: Go read Tor’s 10 Underappreciated Aspects of Classic Star Trek.

Photo by donielle and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license. (CC BY-SA 2.0)