gamer pig test blog

Click on the title and check out the map . There was a discussion in the SJ games forum thread about cultural familiarity and I found this very interesting. Interestingly the Phils is a country that has 3 major cultures. Makes sense if you ask me, I even put my 2cents in the thread. Disclaimer . Of course one should not brazenly take generalization of the Map too literally, there are fine little differences but the alignments and commonalities are best represented by the generalizing colors.

Thanks to PZ pharyngula blog for this funny tidbit.

I ran traveller last night and it turned out unexpectedly well. I normally take hours to prepare a game but I resisted the temptation to over prepare and followed through with my own style where I don't know how the adventure will go, but will try to find excuses for the PCs to do what they are good at and in the imagining and role-playing every scenario discover a down and simple murphies that can be found in the situation. It was so unprepared I didn't really have an excuse or a background story thought up. I started using character names in the Vorkosigan Saga and various attempts of random names making sure that there is no pattern. (Like when there was an almost all Jon or J name for a bunch of npcs, there must have been anchoring names affecting my judgement). Anyway the cast was fairly simple. A Ship Owner is John Daniel Doe , retired Captain with Mash for brains and a sadistic streak is played by William Shatner. Imagine a Denny Krane with unkempt and marked officer uni...

Fortress of Ironwill is a Psychic Discipline in the old AD&D dark sun. It seems that If I have a hard time being diplomatic in the SJgames forums what more if If I get involved with hate mail . If work is not developing some of my organizational and analytical skills- my blogging and forum discussions are doing the job quite fine. Especially the diplomatic part where I'm so indirect that i re-read my post and double take at the "f*ck" what do I mean. All I can shed is a mere smirk and a mental "haha" at such evolution. I WAS participating in a discussion in this blog s. discussion on Rizal and which lead to Philippines as a whole. Of course I try to be methodically logical about it but of course we know very well that all of us are predictably irrational. I find censorship of my comment to be a sign that I'm not an environment where truth is valued so I might as well leave. Why? Surprisingly I've been censored when I cited that his claim to a relat...

Thinking about Making an Airsoft blog. I've been checking out the airsoft mags and talking to my wife about it, and the Economic truth of the matter is that only the most OVERpriced stores can afford to put money in advertising. I'm for more power to consumer (also a bored) kind of guy, and making an Airsoft blog about all the little things I'm learning will be much more useful than the Paid-for-bias of a magazine. My target audience are Newbies (Since I will point out the CHEAPEST places in the Metro away to force the other stores to reconsider their price structuring) and Gamers in general. Those magazines are for the Airsofters with money to burn, my blog is primarily for El-cheapo (like me).

This news tidbit has added to the "critical mass" lead me to my recent speculation . Population, Race, Economics and Problem Solving . Since Japan has always been nonvocal about their anti-immigration stance leaving discussion quietly dead, it is quite interesting how the tables are going to turn in the next few years. I can understand and sometimes sympathize the threat of "invasion" of one's home as their culture is displaced by the more populous immigrants who take their own culture with them. Japan is a ancestor worshiping culture, and the past holds a very severe grip on their psychology allowing them to quickly sacrifice everything and their identity for the best interests of their hive. I've gotten the Idea from traveller and slowly I'm seeing the pattern in my readings. Specifically concerning an age where Natural or Manufactured Resources and Technology doesnt become the primary armies in the battle field of economics instead the primary focus i...

An on going talk about what is normal in GURPS terms. Even lay people can understand or see the point of views of the forum contributers concerning topics such as: Expected Social Responsibilities, Social Duties and Obligations, Belief Structure and Religion, etc. etc. It is a bit subtle and insidious if you know me, because I don't know if I'm trolling or I'm being trolled or I'm trying to Preach or I'm trying to enlighten. I guess its a gray mix of all of the above. Its a topic that is very uncomfortable to talk about and especially when discussion is to inivite DOUBT!. Fortunately challenging pre-existing notions IS my core belief structure. It is interesting to note as a secularist and to other secularists, you will notice a thread that talks about morality based powers ...ehrmmm. If life was only as simple as black and white there would be no room for gray matter (the other gray meat if you catch my drift).

I was prepared to lose $30 to the Philippine customs red tape and corruption. Then I realized the complexities of the problem as time moved on. The emotional toll was something I underestimated. I failed to realize that as I waited for the package, my anticipation reshaped my value of the product. I'm not just losing $30, I'm losing $30 x opportunity cost of doing something else about it. Controlling impulses to take the matter into my own hands and fix it is in self a depressing element. Then there is the resources it would take to collect my package, opportunity cost = [Day's Pay + [emotional turmoil = ((philippine corruption + the countries sad state of affairs) x the is no hope for change)] + Daily Cost of Living + Transportation] x risk of getting into an accident. Holly shit I they're shaking me down = to the whole cost (Including Fee)... Alleged Customs Breakdown Total Cost = VAT (Variable Cost) + Custom Duties (Variable Cost) + Impo...

Philippine Customs. The Philippine postal service has been constantly ridiculed because of the epidemic corruption and inefficiency. These days large companies that provide basic services that have sensitive information use their own "mail" service. The Postal Service, despite how vital its role for commerce and creating job opportunities is one that has one of the least credibility and thus, no one uses them to conduct serious commerce dependent deliveries. Today, i've just learned my G3 magazines is stuck at customs and I've heard the Horror stories of the processing OVER charge beyond the 10% customs and 12% vat to a bunch of miscelenous fees that go up to 50%! My luck with government services is terrible. I almost always get the most corrupt or the most incompetent people and I'm too impotent to do anything about it. All I can do is just have to throw money at the problem (sigh). People who talk about justice and rights, (like myself) have a lot to learn abou...

Miles Vorkosigan and Tyrion Lannister . hehehe, one of my favorite small people. These two guys have a lot in common: they are both considered gross deformations by their society and go through many challenges with more problems than regular people of even their given station/opportunites. Going through the web, I'm surprised not to find more discussion and comparissons about the two characters. How to Organize Intelligences: First off, there will be no Intelligence Stat. I won't even split it to several stats as Arson pointed out. What I had in mind was listing all the skills people are conditioned, instilled, practiced and educated on to the character sheet, hopefully using backgrounds to fill in minor details through some basic assumptin the background may provide. Then focusing in giving these skills, under their skill description, descriptive tags like: emotional or empathic (I haven't thought of the best tags for it). The Idea is not to outright define a Character...

Simulating Intelligence in RPGS. Study of the human mind has advanced so much that the idea of Intelligence as a Single attribute is becoming quite obsolete and also absurd. Role-playing and Fiction barely catch up to these latest developments since it is still in its infancy and there is a growing sense of a "barrier" for how much people are willing to accept the recently gleaned understanding over the human mind contrary to their own experience. Considering this and looking forward I've come to the conclusion to eliminate Intelligence as a basic attribute all together in the Situational Awareness Exercise System (or Open-source Role-plaing Game System: ORGS) that I'm developing. Instead I will use the most detectable and observable aspect of intelligence to determine have a general sense: Skills. Conditioning, Memorization, and Intrinsic Understanding of Fundamental Elements make up the multi-faceted human mind. We have emotional-int, problem-solving, self-awarenes...

Rather off topic, but ... [quote] I'm someone who wasted more than 5 years of my life figuring it out. I'm in my 30s, married, in management training hoping to be an entrepreneur. Gaming is a big chunk of me, and I have learn my real world skills from it. I don't get to game much anymore, but in a way you could say I game constantly. The game is real life now and like RPGs you only lose if you don't play and enjoy it. [/quote] It seems we have a fair amount in common, because I have been through the same sort of experiences. I was away from gaming for about 15 years, taking care of those other important aspects of life before I got the chance to start playing regularly again. During that time I didn't stop thinking about games, or wanting to play, or wanting to write my own, but the time wasn't right for that. So hang in there, the time will come when you can turn some of your attention back to your favorite hobbies. Dan Thanks Dan, I'd like to mention that ...

Marikorea . yes its Mari-Korea. It has nothing to do with koreans. It has more to do with the Marine Reactive Comand Battalion??? or something that sound like that... not really sure. I was able to get a kill (YEAY! 4 confirmed kills-confirmed means the person admited), but only because the guy was cheating so bad. I was basically lying prone in the grass, the guy basically walked over me, not seeing me- So i shot his leg. He didn't react so I had to called out to him- "Sir Nabaril na kita Po!" (Sir I shot you already) the guy was surpised to see me, appologized while deftly giving away my position and I just waited for them to localize me when they would be spraying BBs in my general area. Thats life. A lot of people were witness to what happened and when i related my story to fill in all the other details the didn't catch- it basically slammed the credibility of the group we were playing with. Unlike the other group- we were mixed up and didn't know each other...

the one on the top is talking about what Discov. Institue's censorship. The one on the bottom one that I've uploaded into blogger is the said video. It may be deceptive to think that this is a small matter but misinformation grows like a virus. Sanitation and Vigilance is important to prevent its spread. I don't think my country is ever going to be ready for this kind of debate but one can only hope. My grandfather would have been both proud and disgusted. Proud that I take science as seriously as he did, which was very odd for a man of his generation and era, but disgusted at the secularist point of view I have because of the same virtues he taught me. Life tends to throw the sh*t with the candy. edit: got this from pharyngula . spirituality in secularism. there seems to be a assumption that secularism doesn't provide the hope, comfort and insight that religion "offered". I'm sure that many people on the fence about their religion think that and it is on...

My gaming perspective . Its really no contest so why do I feel like I lost? Well, particularly it is my own gaming perspective that has grown up parallel to my view of real life. The question poised was basically about "balance". The OP posted how can social disadvantages or advantages be balanced when a situation changes their value. My answer to the matter is that what he's sees is his own point of view of balance and many situations do not fall within a human comprehension of balance. I've come from his point of view before, thinking that everything has to have a point value. The wrong assumptions with that point of view, as I grew to learn, was that nothing is static and everything is dynamic. In a gaming point of view a character is measured in points. More points equates to more power/influence over the world. Everyone tends to be made up of varying level of points and the assumption is that points increase as one get more experienced or has done more. First, le...

symptoms . when it first appeared it lasted 7 days. Around after the first 5 days it got really big, 2 days later it shrank and disappeared. Then the second week it appeared again, lasting around 5 days, take a while to grow then take shorter to disappear. Then these past few weeks, it grows in a couple of hours and disappears as quickly as it comes. Today it got really big and the skin around my head felt a bit tight. It moves around, from one corner of my forehead to the other corner. At one point it was exactly in the center. Its been with me for around 2 months (6-7 weeks?)/ description . doctors best describe it as a fatty deposit from their tactile examination. The only doc, before just coming from emergency station of Cardinal Santos in GH, was my Gamer friend Doc. He recomended me to a general surgeon. The General Surgeon said its nothing and adviced against acting on it. So bottom line, I have a "harmless" but cosmetically inconvenient condition that no doctor have a...

Fitting a round peg in a square hole is what happens in ID (aka Intelligent Design) argument, In RPGs there is the matter of people wanting more fantasy out of history. It really strikes a cord with me when I hear people trying to find more "fantasy" in historical data. One particular thing that has been annoying me is how people could be asking for more historical data only to "break" them and rework them. If you want more fantasy, just make up more fantasy! Construction in Low-Tech eras were never a particularly specialized task. When 90% of the population are farmers who are rather self sufficient, people forget to understand that any other profession is actually rare and is a luxury afforded by only the upper class. Construction, particularly is a task undertaken by lords and wealthy land owners. A tower, a wall, a wooden bridge, a mill... etc. these things have to be important enough that a lord will allocate the tribute of labor the common folk have due to hi...

sick- not slugishly sick but unable to breathe deeply without the gurgling sound of phlegm in my chest and a rich bubbly cough. at the mega mall clinic right now waiting for the nurse to put me through the ropes. books. trying to find a place where I can purchase audio books of ashes of victory honerverse. I don't have sufficient anti boredom supplies. looking for an author that writes about management leadership and working with murphies - which is why I like weber's honerverse. parents. talk to dad, will try to talk to mom about borrowing her card (and of course) paying her back for some stuff like for gametheory video and a gift for my bros. game. setting up for a traveller game. using it as a way to exercise problem solving and thinking of murphies with players. I plan to cement my management and entrepreneurship learnings in such a game by posing 'by the book' problems into rpg adventure and strategy scenarios. i've already fixed up some of the prep- start wit...

To all those Filipinos who are out there go to http://www.rhbill.com / to sign the bill petition. know the bill and sign it the bill petition. For those on the fence, read the bill and read the comments. For those against it, try to see the other side of the matter and talk about it with someone who understands the bill. HOUSE BILL NO. 5043 AN ACT PROVIDING FOR A NATIONAL POLICY ON REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD AND POPULATION DEVELOPMENT, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled : SECTION 1. Short Title . - This Act shall be known as the “ Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008 “. SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy . - The State upholds and promotes responsible parenthood, informed choice, birth spacing and respect for life in conformity with internationally recognized human rights standards. The State shall uphold the right of the people, particularly women and thei...

you do not say you will stamp out corruption, because We've all heard that and that is a lie, and corruption cannot be uprooted without personal cost like what happened to Lt. Senior Grade Nancy Gandian. First. Explain that there is should be an study concerning where there is corruption (graft, mis-allocation of funds, conficting interests, rigged biddings etc...), inefficiency and corruption that came about the government inefficiency. To generalize it simply is just playing to the crowd and grants no credibility. Second. In efficiency can be remedied and once this action takes into effect, the repercussions are a lower tolerance of corruption as well as eliminating corruption that stem from inefficiency (red tape). Efficiency creates a structure by which creates a greater circumstance of liability and responsibility and thus begin the slow but steady progress towards remedying corruptions. You cannot just remove corruption just because you say so, you affect change that will re...

Can't we just Play Traveller na lang? This discussion is too complicated for me now . I'm not equipped to proceed without hurting feelings. His expectations are not matching my limitations - I can't do magic . Had a long convesation about introducing magic in my already successful (considering my objectives) game. It should suffice to say that the replies were several pages long and I've decided that this conversation is too complicated it would be easier to just run Traveller ala Fire Fly. But the twist is a bunch of entrepreneurs and a way for me to exercise my entrepreneurship theories and practice my trouble-making and shooting skills (murphy-ing).

Facism , simply put, is the control over the personal choices and life of individuals. You begin that by removing the right to free speach. I can't believe it, who the F*ck wrote this bill? Even other Goverments don't have their right to reply extend to the Press or Anyone in General. Why is this bill being entertained, we already have severe corruption and transparency issues and we have this to boot. F*Ck that. "House committee on public information Manila 6th district Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. on Monday delivered his sponsorship speech for House Bill 3306," I bet this guy must be a politicos dog or a a really dirty politician to want to cover his a$$ with this bill. There is no international precedent that makes sense for this bill, why the F*ck are we even having this discussion. http://newsbreak.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6178&Itemid=88889051 basically, If this bill will be finalized, I guess I will have to move to another count...

Abortion . I'm particularly neutral about abortion. I've grown up with the arguments against it, but I've only recently learned the arguments for it later in life. This latest abortion-related incident kinda highlights the stark contrast of those against it and further fuels introspection to why are we against it. I know there are many medical reasons why an abortion may be necessary. Having understood the historical death rate of pregnancy which anyone can can see in literature (where it is typical they throw the life of the mother away and motherless character growing up). I'm disinclined to view the anti-abortion as an absolute. If I had to choose between my wife and the baby, the baby is just a clump of cells compared to my wife. I'm sorry If I may sound a bit detached or immoral, but a unformed mind and soul cannot compare to the mother who is better equipped than me in raising such a child. Given my view of abortion when it comes to my situation, the man who ...