Gates-gate

So I was talking with one of my twitter friends about the Gates thing in Cambridge. Y'know, the Harvard prof that got arrested in his own home. Some people think its racial profiling. But really, if you mouth off to a cop, you deserve to get your ass arrested. Hell, I would expect to get arrested if I started shouting at a cop. Part of the reason is my parents taught me that the best way to avoid trouble with the cops was to be straight "Yes sir. No Sir. Right away officer. Whatever you say officer." You be polite, and do as the cop says, and you'll be a helluva lot better off. Getting pissed and mouthing off is a sure ticket to central booking.

Don't get me wrong, if cops were called to my home, and were questioning me, I'd be upset, too. But mouthing off at the cop is the wrong way to deal with it. Mouthing off, demanding the cop's name and badge number, telling them you're a big man, and you're going to complain, that's just plain stupid.

If you think the cop is doing something wrong, the best way to deal with things is to be polite, and respectful, and go along with what they want. That's the best way to get them to go without further incident. If you want to make a complaint, don't go angrily demanding their name and badge number, simply ask for a copy of the incident report. The report will have the name of the officer, as well as his badge, and you'll be able to file a complaint in short order, and avoid seeing the inside of a cell block at the same time.

I think the most telling piece of this story is that a black officer on the Cambridge police force who was on the scene also said that if he'd gotten to the Professor's home first, he'd have done the same thign as the white officer.

Did racial profiling happen on the part of the officers? Maybe, maybe not. But there was almost certainly some profiling going on on Gates's part. Racism and racial profiling works both ways.

What to do with Gay Marriage, or my take on CA Prop 8

For those of you who don't know, California Proposition 8 was a ballot initiative put forward a while back that specifically makes marriage between a man and a woman. Obviously, this caused something of a stir, and opponents of the measure are currently taking Prop 8 through the court system to challenge it.

Both sides are fighting the wrong battle.

The gay marriage debate has been raging for over twenty years now, and it has made only minor steps towards being resolved. The reason for this is simple. There are two institutions of marriage in this country, a religious institution, set forward in sacraments of the various religious creeds Americans follow, and a legal institution, set forward in laws that vary from state to state, and provide certain rights and privileges to those married under it. Religious people want to keep their sacraments pure, while gay people want the rights provided to them by a legal marriage. But since both institutions have the same name, the religious people don't want gay marriage, and the gay people demand it.

There is a simple way to deal with this issue, that most people on both sides would likely find acceptable. Get rid of the legal institution of marriage. Take all marriages, be they a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or any combination or group that you can think of and make them civil unions.

Now before you jump on my back, think about it for a second. Even in the case of a marriage between a man and a woman, getting married in a church doesn't mean anything in the eyes of the law, unless you get a piece of paper from the state that says you are legally married. All I'm suggesting is changing the letterhead at the top of that piece of paper, and making the legal institution we've known for centuries Civil Unions, rather than Marriages, and opening it up to all couples or arrangements.

Those currently married under the law would not see any change in their legal standing. All that would change is that people not currently able to marry under the law would be able to get the same rights and privileges as those married under the law. That includes health benefits, visitation rights, and other such things that gay couples do not have now. All these civil unions would be equal, conveying the same rights and privileges. This eliminates the problems of discriminating against people based on sexual orientation in regards to the rights couples have, which will make gays and other such couples happy.

This plan will also keep the majority of the religious types happy, because their sacraments will be safe, and beyond the reach of legal assault. Since churches decide who they will allow to be married under their sacraments, marriage will be safe. If two women find a church that will marry them, that's fine, but since that would be that church's take on their own sacraments, that is hardly an assault by the gay rights groups on the sacraments of marriage, is it?

Under this plan, everyone wins. What's the problem with that?

LEARN TO DRIVE!

For those of you who don't know it, Georgia has some of the best highways in the South. Georgia also has some of the worst damn drivers you'll ever see. And the majority of those bad drivers are in a place called Savannah.

Seriously, Savannah people can't drive for shit. Doesn't help any that when the tourists come around, they can't drive, either. I literally sat in stop and go traffic on US 80, because at two points you have to do that increadibly difficult feat of driving called merging. Yes, merging.

My question is, how do these idiots even get their licenses? Did you not take basic driving skill tests? LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE, DUMBASSES!

Shadowrunning

So as some of you know, I enjoy playing different RPGs. One in particular is a game called Shadowrun, 4th Edition (SR4).

One of the things I love about SR4 is that no matter how bad-ass you are, there's a very real chance that you can get your ass handed to you by someone who's never held a gun before. That's because skills and abilities in Shadowrun aren't like in other games, such as Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).

In D&D, whether in 3.5 edition or the new 4th edition, you have a set number that reflects your level of competency in that skill. To use it, you roll a d20 (a twenty-sided die, for the nongamers out there) and add your skill rating to what you roll. After a point, this means you can literally 'autosucceed' on some actions, since if you need to get a 15 to perform it, and you have a 14 in the skill, you're going to make it even if you roll a 1.

That's not how things work in SR4. You will never touch a d20 in SR4. Instead, you have a whole pile of d6s. When you use a skill in SR4, you take a number of d6s make up your dice pool. This pool is determined by the skill you're using, your abilities, and any other modifiers that add or subtract to your dice pool. When you roll your dice, count up the number of 5s and 6s you roll. These are your successes. You compare these successes against the target threshold, or against the number of successes your opponent gets on their roll. It is possible for you to roll a whole handful of dice, and still come up empty against someone only rolling three dice.

Moreover, in SR4, you have 'glitches'. Like the Critical Failures of some older systems, a glitch means Bad Things(tm) are gonna happen. You get a glitch when half the dice you roll come up as 1s. It is possible to succeed in using the skill, but still glitch. So you might climb over the fence easy enough, but you get caught on the way down, and leave your pants behind. If you glitch, and get no successes, however, its called a Critical Glitch. This is when REALLY Bad Things(tm) happen. That grenade you were throwing at the bad guys? Yeah, the fuse was a bit shorter than it was supposed to be, so it went off in your hand.

Being good at a skill doesn't mean you can cakewalk through things. It simply means you're less likely to fail. SR4 is one of my favorite systems because it is so much fun to tempt the cruel whims of fate.

Webcomics

You ever look at your daily newspaper, turn to the funnies page, and then sigh, because out of the whole page, there are only three or four comics you actually care about? I know I did.

Of course, then I discovered webcomics. These are exactly like you'd think. Comics, made for the web. Now you can still find your classic newspaper comics out there on the web. Two of my faves are definitely Dilbert/ and Doonesbury.

But if you venture past the realms of your basic newspaper comics transferred to a new medium, use caution. This is the internet, afterall, and not everything out there is safe for younger viewers. Or work. Seriously, some comics out there are as bad as 4chan. (If you don't know what 4chan is, consider yourself lucky. There are some things you just can't unsee. *shudder*)

Anyways, there are plenty of comics out there that are definitely worth a look. I'll go through some that are, for the most part, work safe, if not entirely kid safe.

8-Bit Theater - 8BT is a Sprite comic, based (loosely) on the original Final Fantasy game. Sprite Comics take characters from popular video games (such as Final Fantasy, Megaman, or Street Fighter) and use them to tell their own story. 8BT follows Black Mage, Fighter, Thief, and Red Mage as they journey around the world, trying to fulfill quests, and leaving devestation in their wake. It'll take you a while to go through the entire archive (its 1146 pages and counting), but it is WELL worth the time. The art and storytelling have both progressed amazingly from the first few strips.

Questionable Content - It starts off with an indie music geek and his AnthroPC. Then you meet his friends, and then more friends, and hijinx ensue! Seriously, though, if you like indie music, robots, coffeeshop humor, or just general sassyness, with a side of actual plot, then check this out!

Least I Could Do - Take one incredibly self-centered guy who makes a hobby out of banging as many women as he can, toss in a group of friends who are all a bit crazy in their own way, and you know you're in for a good time. Trust me, this comic is hella funny. And the art's gone leaps and bounds above where it used to be.

Looking For Group - Set in a fantasy world not unlike those in World of Warcraft, LFG follows Cael'anon Vatay, a noble elf in a world where the rest of his kind are irredeemably evil, and his friends as they journey to escape the people who want them dead. The story has grown a lot since its opening, but there are very few pages that don't offer at least a bit of a laugh.

If I was an evil overlord...

... I would follow this list here: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

Seriously, as a gamer, it is a good thing I am a player, and not a DM. When I make villains, I tend to make them very, very nasty.

But perhaps it is this gaming side of my life that has left me somewhat callous towards the real evil overlords in life. Early on in the #iranelection craziness that happened on Twitter, I saw one tweet from a protester in Iran, asking if this day could get any worse, as people were getting beaten with clubs in the streets. My first thought was immediately, yes, it could get a lot worse.

Maybe its the fact that I'm a gamer, or maybe its because my dad is a history teacher, and taught me some of the things that people have done to eachother in war, but I can come up with a lot worse ways that the days following the election could have gone. Here's a hint, more than a few of them involve machine guns, instead of batons.

Is what happened to the protesters horrible? Of course. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But it is by no means the worst that could have happened.

I just pray that I never have to see the scenes my imagination can cook up unfold in real life.